We Grew up with It

[brotherhrolf]

Great posts, ojtm. I guess I forget my Anthropology 101 in that I look at things with my own enthocentrism firmly in place. I’m sure my fellow “y’at”, Palmas, would agree with me that New Orleans was not a hot bed of liberal values in 1967. And while the two of you were serving our country in Vietnam (and thank you for your service, gentlemen), I was still in college at LSUNO where war protests were unknown even when the rich kids from Loyola and Tulane marched to our campus to try to get us involved.

I didn’t recognize just how much things had changed until I came off of active duty in 1974 and returned to a campus with bra-less females in tee shirts and tight jeans. Not exactly your mother and sister or my mother and sister in dresses with white gloves and Audrey Hepburn hats. We all still “dressed” to go to class in 1971.

My “potato chip” comment was in response to this kid who used to walk up and just “palm” the Holy Eucharist into his mouth one handed. Until the choir loft was rebuilt in our cathedral in 1992, the choir faced the congregation on one side of the altar. I saw way too much including those who tried to pocket the Holy Eucharist and walk out with it.

BTW, my cathedral parish takes our RCIA folks during mystagogia down to New Orleans for a Solemn High Mass at St. Patrick’s and then to the Bl. Fr. Seelos’ Center.

I guess south Louisiana was just a cultural bywater back then. I grew up with all the chants and all the Great Sequences and don’t even need to look at the music to sing them. I’m not the only one in my cathedral choir. There are a whole bunch of us aged baby boomers from south Louisiana with the same experience. So, while chant may have fallen out of disuse elsewhere, I grew up with it.

The issue is that there are cathedral choristers and cathedral parishoners who would love to have sung High Mass but we know the bishop would be vexed. We’re the folks who didn’t protest back in the 70s - really. When the diocesan chancellor publishes a scathing editiorial in the diocesan newspaper and says unequivocably “Nobody wants to go back to Mass in Latin” should I have just written him and said Father you are mistaken? With that kind of vociferous response should I not take into account what it would do to our rector?

In 20 years of singing in the choir, I’ve had numerous tourists and visitors come up to me after Mass and I say I haven’t heard music like that in years.

I use the example of my oldest son (28). He grew up hearing chant and sacred polyphony and chants the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei during Lent. He took it upon himself to learn the Pater Noster; chanted it to me; and floored me. He is no different from many other young people on these forums. Let’s give things a chance.

 

[otjm]

Great posts, ojtm. I guess I forget my Anthropology 101 in that I look at things with my own enthocentrism firmly in place.

I am not mad at anyone; I am not trying to pick a fight with anyone. I don’t have a dog in the fight. I just try to act as an independent observer, and comment on what I observe, and occasionally try to brign some light to subjects.

I understan your loss and I can hear (well, ok, read) your pain, and in no way do I intend to make light of it, or say “get over it” or say that your feelings or desires are wrong. Mostly I am just sitting and watching things play out.

We all have our point of view, and having one is not wrong; however, sometimes we all get a bit myopic, me included. Sometimes looking from a different perspective may not change our opinions, but it may widen our views.

I’m sure my fellow “y’at”, Palmas, would agree with me that New Orleans was not a hot bed of liberal values in 1967. And while the two of you were serving our country in Vietnam (and thank you for your service, gentlemen), I was still in college at LSUNO where war protests were unknown even when the rich kids from Loyola and Tulane marched to our campus to try to get us involved.

I didn’t recognize just how much things had changed until I came off of active duty in 1974 and returned to a campus with bra-less females in tee shirts and tight jeans. Not exactly your mother and sister or my mother and sister in dresses with white gloves and Audrey Hepburn hats. We all still “dressed” to go to class in 1971.

There might have been a whole lot going on, on the West Coast; but it didn’t include Portland. I graduated from college in 1968 from U of P, and we had one guy we called the campus hippie (he really didn’t qualify); his hair touched his collar - like the Beatles in 1963-64, and he protested one time with a minor showing of support with the sign “Kill a Commie for Christ”. The ROTC basically just ignored it. After all, it was just “Larry”.

My “potato chip” comment was in response to this kid who used to walk up and just “palm” the Holy Eucharist into his mouth one handed. Until the choir loft was rebuilt in our cathedral in 1992, the choir faced the congregation on one side of the altar. I saw way too much including those who tried to pocket the Holy Eucharist and walk out with it.

maybe you just have more "interesting’ folks down there. I simply have not seen muhc beyond one incidient. As to “palming”; some do that, surprisingly, out of reverence, as they won’t pick it up with their fingers; although usually it is done with one hand in the palm of the other and both go to the face.

Explanation noted.

BTW, my cathedral parish takes our RCIA folks during mystagogia down to New Orleans for a Solemn High Mass at St. Patrick’s and then to the Bl. Fr. Seelos’ Center.

I also take them to the Maronite rite and teh Byzantine rite, to experience the fuller Church.

I guess south Louisiana was just a cultural bywater back then. I grew up with all the chants and all the Great Sequences and don’t even need to look at the music to sing them. I’m not the only one in my cathedral choir. There are a whole bunch of us aged baby boomers from south Louisiana with the same experience. So, while chant may have fallen out of disuse elsewhere, I grew up with it.

The issue is that there are cathedral choristers and cathedral parishoners who would love to have sung High Mass but we know the bishop would be vexed. We’re the folks who didn’t protest back in the 70s - really. When the diocesan chancellor publishes a scathing editiorial in the diocesan newspaper and says unequivocably “Nobody wants to go back to Mass in Latin” should I have just written him and said Father you are mistaken? With that kind of vociferous response should I not take into account what it would do to our rector?

In 20 years of singing in the choir, I’ve had numerous tourists and visitors come up to me after Mass and I say I haven’t heard music like that in years.

I use the example of my oldest son (28). He grew up hearing chant and sacred polyphony and chants the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei during Lent. He took it upon himself to learn the Pater Noster; chanted it to me; and floored me. He is no different from many other young people on these forums. Let’s give things a chance.

Sounds fine by me. I would not want them to lose their enthusiasm for the EF; but some of them need to get off their high horse about the rest of the Church. They who want justice need to do justice; they who want mercy need to do mercy.

 

[fulbert4605]

You know, about a month ago I went to confession. Afterwards I entered the the little room in the back of the Church where they placed the Tabernacle to pray. As I began to pray the folk band was ‘warming up’ for Mass. The music over the loudspeaker in the room was so loud I could not consentrate and had to leave.

If you can’t pray in Church, when and where are you then going to pray?

 

[giuseppeTO]

For all you folks for whom the First Sunday of Advent, 1969 was liberating…more power to you. But, I saw my mother and my neighbors marginalized. The WWII generation. They, more than I, had their world dumped upside down. My mother and my neighbors used to attend the main 10 am Mass on Sundays. Until the a’strummin’ and a’grinnin’ folks got a hold of the Mass and turned “Come Holy Ghost” into “Bridge over Troubled Waters”.

Then they went to 8am Mass because there was no singing. And then when the a’strummin’ and a’grinnin’ folks started at the 8am Mass, they started going to the 4 pm Mass on Saturday.

CB Catholic - please forgive my rhetoric. My statements were merely rhetorical for the most part. I freely admit that I like the TLM. I have no problem with Latin. I also drive 25 miles one way to attend a reverent NO/OF cathedral and have done so for the last 26 years. I shouldn’t have to do that.

My local geographic parish (five miles away from me) is pretty much indistinguishable from the mega Baptist church and the mega non-denominational church when it comes to music and liturgical practices. I am not a Protestant. I don’t see why I should have to abandon my pre Vatican II upbringing.

I grew up with the TLM. Hindsight is always 20/20. What was done in the “spirit of Vatican II” is not what HMC intended.

How did you feel immediately subsequent to that when you were told:

1. St. Christopher’s feast day was no longer being celebrated.
2. The Blessed Sacrament that only the consecrated fingers of the priest could touch without sacrilege for the last millenia and a half, - well, now pretty much anyone can handle and carry it. By the way, we’re even gonna put it in your hand!
3. All that abstaining from meat on Fridays, you don’t have to do that anymore.
4. Instead of kneeling to receive the Blessed Sacrament, now you have to stand.
5. Instead of monthly enrollment in the brown scapular, the priest will now only do it upon personal request.

All this came about in the course of 4 months. I felt as if the bedrock I knew as the Church was more like sandstone.

 

[Layman]

I don’t go to Novus Ordo masses very often but I saw a kid show his mother the Host in their pew, once.

In the same church I stumbled into a baptism where there were about eight laypeople side-by-side in the sanctuary. I don’t know why. The priest read out the rite using a form of words, I think from outside the sanctuary(?), which did not mention Satan.

An elderly woman came down towards me and said “Look at them, it’s disgusting, isn’t it?” She was referring to the mini-skirts one on two of the young ladies, in the sanctuary.

I’ve read they’ve even modified the Rite of Exorcism. Without consulting any exorcists. Fortunately, they’re still allowed to use the old one.

I suspect this sort of thing will die off naturally, especially now the TLM is liberated, but it will take a long time and there will be weeping before it does.

Of course, there’s alway the chance of a glorious, speedy counter-reformation instigated from On-High

 

[mkingdomlvr]

How did you feel immediately subsequent to that when you were told:

1. St. Christopher’s feast day was no longer being celebrated.
2. The Blessed Sacrament that only the consecrated fingers of the priest could touch without sacrilege for the last millenia and a half, - well, now pretty much anyone can handle and carry it. By the way, we’re even gonna put it in your hand!
3. All that abstaining from meat on Fridays, you don’t have to do that anymore.
4. Instead of kneeling to receive the Blessed Sacrament, now you have to stand.
5. Instead of monthly enrollment in the brown scapular, the priest will now only do it upon personal request.

All this came about in the course of 4 months. I felt as if the bedrock I knew as the Church was more like sandstone.

I still remember my great grandmother saying that the Pope could risk his soul if he wanted, but our family was not going to give up meatless Fridays!!!

To a teenager, it felt like I had lost my foundation. If the Church that had been solid and unchanging for my entire life could suddenly change SO much, how could I rely upon it anymore? It led me to a long period of searching that still isn’t really over.

 

[brotherhrolf]

How did you feel immediately subsequent to that when you were told:

1. St. Christopher’s feast day was no longer being celebrated.
2. The Blessed Sacrament that only the consecrated fingers of the priest could touch without sacrilege for the last millenia and a half, - well, now pretty much anyone can handle and carry it. By the way, we’re even gonna put it in your hand!
3. All that abstaining from meat on Fridays, you don’t have to do that anymore.
4. Instead of kneeling to receive the Blessed Sacrament, now you have to stand.
5. Instead of monthly enrollment in the brown scapular, the priest will now only do it upon personal request.

All this came about in the course of 4 months. I felt as if the bedrock I knew as the Church was more like sandstone.

1. About the same way I felt when they said St. Patrick did not exist.
2. I have not ever received in the hand all these 40+ years. Just too deeply ingrained in me for the reason you stated.
3. Very mixed feelings on that. Abstaining from meat on Fridays was never a sacrifice here in south Louisiana. Because of that, we were always encouraged to pray extra or to engage in spiritual reading or to perform a corporal work of mercy.
4. This is miss more than passion.
5. Yep. Or enrollment in the Confraternity of the Sacred Heart or the Apostleship of Prayer.

 

[brotherhrolf]

If you can’t pray in Church, when and where are you then going to pray?

Would kneeling in Church and trying to examine one’s conscience in preparation for going to Confession with the folk band blasting away in practice next to the sanctuary and two of the greeters loudly discussing the efficacy of Prepartion H qualify? That actually happened to me.

What ever happened to Habakkuk 2: 20?

But the LORD is in his holy temple; silence before him, all the earth!

Can you imagine going to the Sistine Chapel and having the above scenario take place? Forty plus years ago it would have never happened in any Church. Of course, then too, forty years ago we didn’t have to wait until thirty minutes before the Vigil Mass on Saturday to go to Confession or fifteen minutes before the 6pm evening Mass on Wednesdays.

Are we all supposed to be mystics of HMC and transcend the bounds of way too much mortal noise and way too much inappropriate conversations from those who are supposed to represent HMC? Pardon me for my human failings but I certainly could not examine my conscience under those circumstances.

Instead of asking us why we cannot pray in Church, perhaps all of us would be better served to ask the question why we no longer feel that Habakkuk was correct?

 

[Jacafamala]

Would kneeling in Church and trying to examine one’s conscience in preparation for going to Confession with the folk band blasting away in practice next to the sanctuary and two of the greeters loudly discussing the efficacy of Prepartion H qualify? That actually happened to me.

What ever happened to Habakkuk 2: 20?

Can you imagine going to the Sistine Chapel and having the above scenario take place? Forty plus years ago it would have never happened in any Church. Of course, then too, forty years ago we didn’t have to wait until thirty minutes before the Vigil Mass on Saturday to go to Confession or fifteen minutes before the 6pm evening Mass on Wednesdays.

Are we all supposed to be mystics of HMC and transcend the bounds of way too much mortal noise and way too much inappropriate conversations from those who are supposed to represent HMC? Pardon me for my human failings but I certainly could not examine my conscience under those circumstances.

Instead of asking us why we cannot pray in Church, perhaps all of us would be better served to ask the question why we no longer feel that Habakkuk was correct?

Rolf, just go to the Latin Mass down the street, so what if it’s a Low Mass??? At least you’d get more of what you really want. For crying out loud!!! You’re driving me crazy!!!
:whacky::whacky::whacky::whacky:

 

[brotherhrolf]

Rolf, just go to the Latin Mass down the street, so what if it’s a Low Mass??? At least you’d get more of what you really want. For crying out loud!!! You’re driving me crazy!!!
:whacky::whacky::whacky::whacky:

I took the time and spent about six hours reflecting about your concern. I grew up singing chant. I was a member of my Catholic boy’s high school choir when sacred polyphony got wiped out for Simon and Garfunckle. I’ve sung chant and sacred polyphony (both in English and in Latin) in my cathedral choir for 20 years.

My cathedral parish celebrated its 200th anniversary and had the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyon, France as well as the Archbishop of Salamanca, Spain in attendance. The Cardinal departed from the script and gave the Apostolic Blessing in Latin. All of us old codgers in the choir responded in Latin but the lack of response from the assembled clergy was deafining. That one event was why my cathedral choir can now chant and sing in Latin.

I grew up singing the Missa Cantata. I’ve sung in a cathedral choir for 20 years. I like to sing. I know, love, and appreciate our Catholic musical heritage which goes back over 1500 years. We have a cathedral choir which has a whole bunch of old fogey members like myself. We have been singing chant and sacred motets for years.

In the final analysis, our local indult Mass reflects the 6am Mass during the summer when I was a kid. I served that 6am Low Mass but the normal Mass I attended with my family and served was the 10:30 Missa Cantata with choir.

We have the choir. There are enough of us old guys hanging around who could serve if need be. Why is a once a month Missa Cantata at a cathedral parish so shocking?

 

[Jacafamala]

I took the time and spent about six hours reflecting about your concern. I grew up singing chant. I was a member of my Catholic boy’s high school choir when sacred polyphony got wiped out for Simon and Garfunckle. I’ve sung chant and sacred polyphony (both in English and in Latin) in my cathedral choir for 20 years.

My cathedral parish celebrated its 200th anniversary and had the Cardinal Archbishop of Lyon, France as well as the Archbishop of Salamanca, Spain in attendance. The Cardinal departed from the script and gave the Apostolic Blessing in Latin. All of us old codgers in the choir responded in Latin but the lack of response from the assembled clergy was deafining. That one event was why my cathedral choir can now chant and sing in Latin.

I grew up singing the Missa Cantata. I’ve sung in a cathedral choir for 20 years. I like to sing. I know, love, and appreciate our Catholic musical heritage which goes back over 1500 years. We have a cathedral choir which has a whole bunch of old fogey members like myself. We have been singing chant and sacred motets for years.

In the final analysis, our local indult Mass reflects the 6am Mass during the summer when I was a kid. I served that 6am Low Mass but the normal Mass I attended with my family and served was the 10:30 Missa Cantata with choir.

We have the choir. There are enough of us old guys hanging around who could serve if need be. Why is a once a month Missa Cantata at a cathedral parish so shocking?

Well I still say the Low Mass is a viable option. But ok I hear you. Why not a Missa Cantata indeed? It shouldn’t be so shocking. Sooooooooo, how about getting your old fogie buddies together and send a letter to your Bishop requesting the Latin Mass at the Cathedral. And not just any old Mass, you want the deluxe. The creme de la creme. With incense and three candles on either side. A sung one. Orville did it, you can do it, too. You’re not that old. Older than me (hehehehe), but you’re not feeble yet are you? You’re just the right age to get this sort of thing underway. Life’s too short. You need to do it now.