What could women do prior to Vatican II in the Tridentine Mass?

[HelenRose]

Abortion is the single most important issue facing women today.

I am tried of of women bewailing “rights” and “choices” . I have far more respect for women who will discuss “duty” and “responsibility”

We do not often get to choose what our duties and responsibilities are. They are given to us by God. We can choose to reject these duties and responsibilities and to be honest, it is our legal “right” to do so.

P.S.

A thread concerning the “rights” or lack of “rights” for women to participate at Mass, open up the discussion of the “rights” and “choices” of all responsibilities that involve women.

 

[LemonAndLime]

Abortion is the single most important issue facing women today.

I am tried of of women bewailing “rights” and “choices” . I have far more respect for women who will discuss “duty” and “responsibility”

We do not often get to choose what our duties and responsibilities are. They are given to us by God. We can choose to reject these duties and responsibilities and to be honest, it is our legal “right” to do so.

P.S.

A thread concerning the “rights” or lack of “rights” for women to participate at Mass, open up the discussion of the “rights” and “choices” of all responsibilities that involve women.

No, I think you are just… venting some pent-up issues you have with other women.

So, what are my duties and responsibilties?

And who are you arguing against here? There are plenty of abortion threads for you to discuss this on.

 

[Padraig1972]

You can still be an altar server at the Traditional Mass. However you are not supposed to distribute Holy Communion. Thats all…

I know that. Well, i thought you meant something else. Apologies again.

 

[HelenRose]

No, I think you are just… venting some pent-up issues you have with other women.

So, what are my duties and responsibilties?

And who are you arguing against here? There are plenty of abortion threads for you to discuss this on.

Perhaps you are right.

 

[Rome_Always]

I am also a young woman age 29. Growing up, I was always taught that women are not to be priests. My dad and myself teach 5th grade catechism at our parish church and when discussing vocations, got the same question that many kids ask, “Why can’t women be priests?” This year, I think the Holy Spirit must have inspired us to answer this question. It would be hard for women to be priests because of the responsibility of taking care of their families. Priests often have to leave in the middle of the night to go answer sick calls and to give Last Rites to someone who may be dying so this is why it would be hard for priests to get married. This is what we told them among other things I don’t remember because it just flowed. Also, I do not like the idea about girl altar servers either. However, maybe it will foster a vocation to the religious life somehow. I dunno. I’m a traditionlist I guess because that is how I was raised. You also wore skirts/dresses every Sunday. Pants/Slacks were not the norm and a slip under these as well! We always wore our Sunday Best and attended church even if we were sick. I don’t think I ever missed a mass because I wasn’t dying on my deathbed. How things have changed!

 

[LemonAndLime]

I am also a young woman age 29. Growing up, I was always taught that women are not to be priests. My dad and myself teach 5th grade catechism at our parish church and when discussing vocations, got the same question that many kids ask, “Why can’t women be priests?” This year, I think the Holy Spirit must have inspired us to answer this question. It would be hard for women to be priests because of the responsibility of taking care of their families. Priests often have to leave in the middle of the night to go answer sick calls and to give Last Rites to someone who may be dying so this is why it would be hard for priests to get married. This is what we told them among other things I don’t remember because it just flowed. Also, I do not like the idea about girl altar servers either. However, maybe it will foster a vocation to the religious life somehow. I dunno. I’m a traditionlist I guess because that is how I was raised. You also wore skirts/dresses every Sunday. Pants/Slacks were not the norm and a slip under these as well! We always wore our Sunday Best and attended church even if we were sick. I don’t think I ever missed a mass because I wasn’t dying on my deathbed. How things have changed!

That is not the reasoning behind why women can’t be Priests. Remember that Priests cannot marry, that is the reasoning behind that. The “having to be their for families” argument can apply equally to men.

The reason women cannot be Priests is because of the apostalic succession, and the process of consecreating the Eucharist - a woman cannot “be” Christ at the altar, as Christ was a man.

 

[Little_One0307]

They did what St Paul instructed. Women is to remain quiet in teh Church. If they have a question let them ask the husbands. They are to dress modestly and and have their heads covered. Many seem to think that God has changed His mind over the years. Many are measuring their worthiness as to what they are allowed to do in the Sanctuary. Disobedience comes from the enemy of God and not from God Himself. we have lost this sense of disobedience instead many of us decided it best to fight for our rights without any concern for what God has established from the beginning.

I don’t take Eucharist from a women’s hand, only from a priest. I will not support their disobedience to God.

I noticed in your religion it state OHCAC, what does that mean?

God bless.

 

[Little_One0307]

Well in the PC world that we live in they see the letters NO Mass and assume that those saying it are in essence saying that there is no mass. They object to Novus Ordo because the official name is the Ordinary Form. They see using the term Novus Ordo as somehow demeaning the Mass by implying that it is a new creation rather than a continuation of the old.

I use NO or Novus Ordo becuase that is the name of the rite. I will never use Ordinary Form, becuase when NO came out, it was extraordinary and not ordinary. Just my two cents on it.

I don’t like the term ordinary for Novus Ordo Masses.

God bless.

 

[Little_One0307]

The distinction was between the laity and clerics, not between laymen and laywomen. The singing was not part of the mass only a parallel action, so layman and laywoman alike could sing.

In cloisters where man could not enter women served at the altar, although the advisory rule was that they just can recite the answers from a distance Especially if the priest was old, someone had to move the book to the other side, and someone had to help the plate for the distribution of the Eucharist. In that good old time people dis not valued the rules above the reality.

Do you know if they actually did the readings in the cloister? I was discussing this with a friend and this came up. Thanks for answering this.

God bless.

 

[Little_One0307]

There are many well-trained lay spiritual directors. They can be a lot more helpful than priests who have little or no trainig and don’t want to be there. A lot of priests will tell you they feel totally unqualified to provide counseling in some situations.

I don’t expect to change your mind. I’ve just been in a situation to see the effects of the small number of priests over the past few years, and I am expressing reality as I see it.

Hecares,

I must say I would far rather a priest as my spiritual director. There’s just something about in persona Christi that no matter how well trained a lay person is, there is no substitution for this. I have to respectfully disagree.

I always counsel people to seek after priests for spirtual direction.

God bless.

 

[Little_One0307]

Thanks guys for posting. Many interesting things have come up becuase of the thread. I was pretty amazed at seeing 5 pages when I came back later this evening.

God bless.

 

[paperwight66]

I use NO or Novus Ordo becuase that is the name of the rite. I will never use Ordinary Form, becuase when NO came out, it was extraordinary and not ordinary. Just my two cents on it.

I don’t like the term ordinary for Novus Ordo Masses.

God bless.

You do realise that the Pope now uses the terms Ordinary Form (OF) and Extraodinary Form (EF) don’t you?

 

[Khalid]

They did what St Paul instructed. Women is to remain quiet in teh Church. If they have a question let them ask the husbands. They are to dress modestly and and have their heads covered. Many seem to think that God has changed His mind over the years. Many are measuring their worthiness as to what they are allowed to do in the Sanctuary. Disobedience comes from the enemy of God and not from God Himself. we have lost this sense of disobedience instead many of us decided it best to fight for our rights without any concern for what God has established from the beginning.

I don’t take Eucharist from a women’s hand, only from a priest. I will not support their disobedience to God.

It’s ironic that that entire post will seem so backwards and misogynistic to many liberals today, but it is gospel truth (literally scriptural truth, since it’s in the Epistles). Any way it is translated, any context one attempts to put it in, it is the same thing: whether it is women “assuming” (NAB, NJB) or “usurping” (KJV, RSV) authority, the message is still the same.

 

[Khalid]

Many of us object to ANYONE, male or female distributing Holy Communion other than Priests or Deacons…

Many of us were taught that the Priest was special in that he and he alone could confect the Eucharist and thus was in a more advanced position spiritually than we were. We were not equal. Many of us object to Communion in the hand for essentially for the same reason. We do not feel worthy to hold the Body of Christ in our hands. Only the hands of a Priest and Deacon are considered worthy to handle the Eucharist.

I would add “transitional deacon” as a qualifier, not “permanent deacon”, or, alternately, “celibate clergy”.

Beyond that, agreed.

 

[Khalid]

Are you saying this women’s fault? Yes women have abortions, but I think the problem is part of a wider picture.

I think its natural for young people to seek love and partnership. What’s the concern here?

The last time I checked, men couldn’t have abortions. It’s “natural” for young people to seek “love and partnership”? Have you even known any “young people”? What age group are you talking about - if you mean “illicit lust and sex” or “love and marriage”, I agree, but “love and partnership”? No way! Partnership doesn’t imply marriage - it actually implies the opposite in the English vernacular I am accustomed to.

If you speak of abortion without condemning it and believe it’s “natural” for young people to lust and fornicate - a result of original sin that has corrupted the sexual instinct - without condemning such unholy and sinful fornication - what was your purpose in becoming a Catholic? Please don’t take it as an ad hom, but as an actual question. These - the sanctity of life and of marriage - are two of the strongest and most emphasised moral teachings of the Magisterium, and the Catholic life is based on morality, and confessing and repenting from immorality - not sanctioning it because “it’s natural” or because you disagree with the teaching on morality (viz relativism).

 

[mini_me640]

The last time I checked, men couldn’t have abortions. It’s “natural” for young people to seek “love and partnership”? Have you even known any “young people”? What age group are you talking about - if you mean “illicit lust and sex” or “love and marriage”, I agree, but “love and partnership”? No way! Partnership doesn’t imply marriage - it actually implies the opposite in the English vernacular I am accustomed to.

If you speak of abortion without condemning it and believe it’s “natural” for young people to lust and fornicate - a result of original sin that has corrupted the sexual instinct - without condemning such unholy and sinful fornication - what was your purpose in becoming a Catholic? Please don’t take it as an ad hom, but as an actual question. These - the sanctity of life and of marriage - are two of the strongest and most emphasised moral teachings of the Magisterium, and the Catholic life is based on morality, and confessing and repenting from immorality - not sanctioning it because “it’s natural” or because you disagree with the teaching on morality (viz relativism).

I don’t know how you took any of this from Lemon and Lime’s post

She was saying abortion is a societal problem, not just the individual woman’s problem. She did not say anything approving of fornication.

 

[Phemie]

Maybe they did it in the first century, I don’t know, but the thought of ANYONE other than a priest or transitional deacon distributing communion didn’t occur until well after Vatican II. It wasn’t until most, if not almost everyone, started receiving (at least in the English Masses) and the number of priests declining that they realized they thought they needed to speed things up a little. Just saying.

Speeding things up was not the primary reason for Paul VI to promulgate
"Immensae Caritatis"
As it’s indicated in the document:

The new conditions of the present seem to demand that, without prejudice to the supreme reverence due to so great a sacrament, access to communion be made easier, so that by sharing more fully in the effects of the sacrifice of the Mass, the faithful may more willingly and intensely give themselves to God and to the good of the Church and of all humanity.
The first measures to be taken are meant to prevent reception of communion from becoming either impossible or difficult because there are not enough ministers.
(…)
I. Special Ministers Of The Eucharist (note the difference between what they were called in the original translation of the document and what is now required by Redemptionis Sacramentum)
There are several situations in which a shortage of ministers of communion has been pointed out:
—within Mass because of a great crowd of people or some disability of the celebrant;
—outside Mass when distance makes it difficult to bring communion, especially as viaticum to the sick in danger of death; or when the sheer number of sick people, especially in hospitals or similar institutions, requires several ministers.

     In order, then, that the faithful who are in the state of grace and         rightly and devoutly wish to share in the sacred meal may not be         deprived of this sacramental aid and solace, Pope Paul VI has decided it         opportune to authorize special ministers who will be empowered to give         communion to themselves and others of the faithful, under the exact and         specified conditions here listed.

The ‘specified conditions’ had nothing to do with making sure Communion took 5 minutes rather than 10 minutes.

Also, that same document specified who should be asked to be ‘special minister’ and this is what it said

I. Local Ordinaries possess the faculty enabling them to permit fit persons, each chosen by name as a special minister, in a given instance or for a set period or even permanently, to give communion to themselves and others of the faithful and to carry it to the sick residing at home. (…)

IV. The fit person referred to in nos. I and II will be designated according to the order of this listing (which may be changed at the prudent discretion of the local Ordinary): reader, major seminarian, man religious, woman religious, catechist, one of the faithful—a man or a woman.

 

[Benay]

I was a practicing Catholic in the “olden days” before Vatican II. What women could and could not do during Mass was:

1. Women were not allowed beyond the altar rails during Mass except when they were married at which time they could carry their wedding bouguet (sp) to Mary’s side altar. We always had 3 altars in a parish church: the main altar, and two side altars one was usually devoted to Our Lady the other to either another saint or to Our Lord (each parish was different).
2. Women were allowed past the altar rails only to clean, put fresh flowers on the altar (we had an Altar Society for women whose job was to keep the altar ready for Mass) and to keep the linens clean. Women were not allowed to wash the corporal and other linens which might have been touched by the consecrated wine or bread. Only the priest could do the initial wash of these altar cloths. Then women were allowed to finish washing and ironing. In some parishes, these jobs were carried out by whatever order of Nuns staffed the Parish elementary school.
3. Women could not touch the host with their hands at any time. They were allowed only to receive on the tongue. This was true of all laity. Men and women alike.
4. We did not have ordained Deacons at any parish I attended. Mass was served by Altar Boys only. All responses were, of course, in Latin and said only by the altar boys.
5. We had mixed gender choirs for High Mass.
6. Women were not ushers for the collection.
7. At the Catholic women’s college I attended, the Nuns and college women in attendance at daily morning Mass gave the Latin responses in place of the (usually) absent altar boy. The priest generally took care of himself by moving the Missal from side to side on the altar. Usually the Nun Sacristan had placed the wine, wafers, bowl, towel and water on the altar to the side so the Priest (the schoool chaplain) could have the offertory items and lavabo available to him – essentially removing the necessity for anyone (as only women were present) to go get them. (They would have had to go inside the altar rails.) On Sundays or Holy days of obligation, the visiting Priest always brought along his own server who made all the responses, moved the Missal, and brought the wafers, wine, water bowl and towel to the altar. Since this was a “private” Mass, there was no “collection.” If it was a High Mass, the choir was composed of only the college women who also served as the choir for a nearby parish.

The laity - me and my family along with the rest of the crowd – either read from the Roman Missal which had the Latin on one page and the English translation on the facing page (not many people usually), said the Rosary (mostly women) or just watched the Mass.

If there were no altar boy, a man would usually assist at Mass. Since many Sunday Masses (especially high Mass) were served by 2 to 4 altar boys, there was rarely a time when a Parish Mass was unattended.

I am embarrassed to say I did not attend daily Mass, other than at College, except for Parish retreats when attendance was high and similar to Sunday low Mass, I cannot say what might have happened at daily Mass.

This is, to the best of my recall, what women could do prior to Vatican II in the Tridentene Mass.

 

[LemonAndLime]

The last time I checked, men couldn’t have abortions. It’s “natural” for young people to seek “love and partnership”? Have you even known any “young people”? What age group are you talking about - if you mean “illicit lust and sex” or “love and marriage”, I agree, but “love and partnership”? No way! Partnership doesn’t imply marriage - it actually implies the opposite in the English vernacular I am accustomed to.

I’m a young person I would say, I’m 20 so I know quite a few of them too. When I was 16 I wanted a boyfriend, I didn’t want to get married, same for when I was 18. What’s wrong with that? I used the term partner to save me having to say boyfriend/girlfriend. I have never been single for longer than 3 months since I was 15 years old, and I only had sexual intercourse when I was 19/20, which was the same story for the rest of my non-religious, ordinary teen/early 20s peer group/friends.

If you speak of abortion without condemning it and believe it’s “natural” for young people to lust and fornicate - a result of original sin that has corrupted the sexual instinct - without condemning such unholy and sinful fornication - what was your purpose in becoming a Catholic?

Right, first of all, do not put words in my mouth. Did I say I thought it was natural for young people to “lust and fornicate”? Did I? No, I said “LOVE AND PARTNERSHIP”. Holding hands, going on dates to the cinema, going to the prom. That’s how I define love and partnership for mid-teens/early 20s - e.g. young people.

Secondly, you are now assuming that I agree with abortion because I failed to say it was evil and wrong in the same sentence that I mentioned it. Do we really have to say it every time we mention the word abortion? This thread isn’t even about it!

And then, you manage to really insult me by saying “why then did you become a Catholic” implying that I shouldn’t have, based on absolutely nothing but a false summary in which you put words into my mouth. I would like an apology.

Please don’t take it as an ad hom, but as an actual question. These - the sanctity of life and of marriage - are two of the strongest and most emphasised moral teachings of the Magisterium, and the Catholic life is based on morality, and confessing and repenting from immorality - not sanctioning it because “it’s natural” or because you disagree with the teaching on morality (viz relativism).

And now you accuse me of disagreeing with teaching! Based on what?!?!

 

[Little_One0307]

You do realise that the Pope now uses the terms Ordinary Form (OF) and Extraodinary Form (EF) don’t you?

I do, I am also aware that is has been referred to as Novus Ordo and the Tridentine Mass by other popes too. Last time I checked this was not a matter to be held or practiced defintively by all Catholics. When it does I’ll go ahead and restrict it to OF and EF.