I see this sometimes here on these boards. I live in one of the largest cities in Canada, and there’s only one or two parishes here that have something like this. Actually, I think only one. Yet with the amount of times I see people post stuff like you just did, you would almost think that over 50% of the Ordinary Form Masses are filled with such things.
I mean, seriously. How many parishes have mimes and moshpits? Even the uber liberal/heretic Church here doesn’t do either of those. People mention “clown Masses” often enough that you’d think it happens weekly during Ordinary Time. I don’t mean to discount when terrible things happen at parishes, but I question how widespread some of this stuff is in comparison to the amount of times people talk about it.
Having come from Protestantism, and having seen how things can devolve with an absolute quickness, and having seen for myself abuses of the Mass with the music, jokes, etc… I’m not just regurgitating.
What’s worse, is that the OF Masses I have been to aren’t necessarily all that overt in terms of abuse. But understanding what the Mass IS and ISN’T, you can certainly see them.
Again, I’m not faulting the form, but I am faulting the ignorance with which people abuse the form.
The following, taken from
this PDF from
this website:
3.** Moreover, the wondrous mystery of the Lord’s real presence under the eucharistic species, reaffirmed by the Second Vatican Council6 and other documents of the Church’s Magisterium7 in the same sense and with the same words that the Council of Trent had proposed as a matter of faith,8 is proclaimed in the celebration of Mass not only by means of the very words of consecration, by which Christ becomes present through transubstantiation, but also by that interior disposition and outward expression of supreme reverence and adoration in which the Eucharistic Liturgy is carried out**. For the same reason the Christian people is drawn on Holy Thursday of the Lord’s Supper, and on the solemnity of the Most Holy Body and Blood of
Christ, to venerate this wonderful Sacrament by a special form of adoration.
I’ve yet to see the disposition, relayed here in text, in full form amongst parishioners or even myself at the OF. Again, NOT a dig on the OF or faithful congregants. I see multiple breaks in focus, mindless, automaton-like repetition (which apparently was shaken up by the New Roman Missal), etc.
What I see, through what appears to be laziness on the part of the parishioners at multiple OF Masses I’ve gone to, is the slippery slope made worse by everyone squirting soap everywhere so to speak.
The Mass, if properly understood, is just not approached with reverence, at least locally. It is my sincere hope that perhaps people would read these things and say, “nope, not in my parish”. I’d be ecstatic. But, unfortunately, these things persist in written form because they persist in actual form.
I can tell you this: If I, as a searching Protestant, walked into, unknowingly, a “youth” Mass or anything not explicitly and outwardly Catholic, even from the perspective of an ignorant Protestant (and I was one, so I can say that, right?), then I would have thought: “Well, why on earth do I need to become Catholic? Worship is the same.”
Is that really want the Church wants? Is that REALLY what the spirit of Vatican II was? Is that really what’s going to save souls?
If it is, then why on Earth don’t we all just do what we want?
On Earth, as it is in Heaven, right? Just do what we want?
If so, I have a great 5-point plan to sell you, here’s the founder’s outline:
13 …I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God, I will sit in the mountain of the covenant, in the sides of the north. 14 I will ascend above the height of the clouds, I will be like the most High.
