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About 10% mourn the loss of the Traditional Latin Mass immensely. They get teary eyed when they talk about it. They spontaneously break into snippets of the Latin they recall off the top of their heads.
And they look over their shoulders. They are paranoid. They have been conditioned by subtle persecution to NEVER discuss this subject. they’ve been conditioned to never bring it up with their priests, and definitely never with a bishop or cardinal. If the subject was ever broached, they were bullied and mocked into silence for 40 years now.
But guess what?
The supply of old Latin-English missal donations have dried up. Those who thought to dig them up, now say, “I’m going to keep it. I can’t give it away. I know there’s a chance now that some day I’ll get to use it again.”
The people were browbeaten into silence on this issue, but now that there is a glimmer of hope, they are asking, yearning, and learning to speak up again. Yes, the Cardinals, bishops and priests can “honestly” claim there is no demand. They succeeded in forcing the desire for it to be silenced for a long time.
But now the Pope himself told them its OK. Glares and mockery from local priests and hierarchs will no longer succeed in suppressing this yearning and longing for sacred, holy, Latin liturgies.
It will take a little while, but this is a tidal wave that will build and never be turned back.
WOW!! You are one hundred percent correct, here. I have tried for the past 40 years to accept & even champion the Novus Ordo Mass & it’s theology which asked us (in the
Spirit of Vatican II)…to view the Mass as a communal meal, to accept the blending of the laity & the clergy which, in my area, means 8 EEM’s to serve 300 communicants. I have watched as adults with small children attended Mass in jeans, cuttoff shorts, etc., held my tongue & tried to echo the sentiment of the “new church” with the words, “At least they’re here”.
And yes, we older Catholics (I’m 66 yrs. old) have been made to feel ashamed of our innermost thoughts, emotions & practices. It was inferred by priests (& sometimes even spoken aloud by the laity) that saying the rosary is silly & SO old-fashioned, devotion to the saints is heretical, confession in an actual confessional…a sign that one is a coward who cannot lay his/her sins out there for all to see.
I’ve sat through “Liturgical dance Masses”. I’ve received “communal absolution”. I’ve watched EEM’s bouncing in & out of pews during Mass & I’ve seen them juxtaposition themseves so that their’s would be the prime spot on the altar. I’ve watched thrice married Catholics receive the Eucharist every Sunday with their latest husbands & I’ve seen the female invasion of the sanctuary. I’ve listened to the news which broadcast the fact that John Kerry, as pro-abortion as he is, received the Eucharist last Sunday.
It wasn’t until the sexual abuse crisis, that I began delving into the actual documents of VaT. II & found that many Catholics feel as I do & have been suffering as I have over the abuses within the Mass & the things they’ve been trying to accept over the past 40 yrs. (BTW., at our Latin Mass…more than half who participate are under 40 with small children>)
Bless you Doctor for serving the people like myself who have been torn between the love of their Church & the “theology” of Roger Mahoney for so long. BTW., denying your own innermost turth for so long has consequences. I got to the point where I suffered anxiety attacks during Mass & had to take medication with me. I’m ashamed of the fact, still there it is. Perhaps, if I’d had a Catholic doctor, like yourself, I could have spoken my thoughts aloud & that wouldn’t have happened.
Thank be to God & Pope Benedict, I can now attend the TLM., kneel to receive Our Lord & experience a peace & transcendence within the Liturgy that lifts me above the mundane & the nitty-gritty of everyday life. I can say the rosary before Mass with the congregation & participate in the Sacrament of Reconciliation in an actual confessional…among MANY other things.