T
Timothysis
Guest
You posted conjectures and opinions, not facts.I posted the facts, easily verifiable even by those who don’t agree with them.
Did you do the same?
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D
Deum_quaerens
Guest
In Pope St Pius X’s time, one was already permitted to receive Communion more regularly than at Easter; the holy Pope simply wished to vanquish the last remnants of Jansenistic devotion. Thomas à Kempis recommends frequent Communion in Imitation of Christ, as does St Francis de Sales in Introduction to the Devout Life, encouraging the pious soul to receive Communion daily, if the confessor allows for it.
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
- Fasting from midnight was a hardship at the later Masses. Seems to me that a fair number of people received Holy Communion at the 8am Mass, but that reception dropped off at the later Masses, particularly in summer when the temperatures were really high. I can recall the ushers setting out folding chairs at the doors of the church to accommodate all the people who would faint/pass out during Mass.
- Some people may have not been “favorably disposed” for receiving Holy Communion. [Perhaps they were practicing birth control.]
- Some people believed that they had to receive the Sacrament of Penance prior to EACH time that they received Holy Communion. On Saturdays there were REALLY LONG LINES for Confession. EVERY Saturday.
- Nowadays, the ushers practically force the people out of the pews and into regimented lines for Holy Communion. In the old days, you just went up in no particular order. Certainly NOT regimented row by row. Typically, you had small children and infants with you and one adult with stay with the kids while the other parent went up to Communion. When the first parent returned, then the other parent would go up.
- Some people nowadays may not want to be embarrassed by being singled out, if they do not receive. AND SO, they may skip Mass entirely to avoid sacrilege.
Seems to me that there was a totally different approach to Mass in those days. A LOT of people had Latin-English missals that they had bought. And they used them to follow along. People knew the Latin responses and made an effort to actively participate.
[Yes, there were a lot of people who prayed the Rosary during Mass. ] But Mass seemed to be a real community affair. The priest did not process up the aisle. He entered simply from the side door … the sacristy. There was a lot of work for the altar boys to do.
People tended to dress up [wearing their Sunday best ] for Mass on Sunday.
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
Here is something I posted the other day on another thread, but it is relevant:
One of the “problems” with the way the Mass is “conducted” since Vatican II, is that nowadays EVERYONE goes to receive Holy Communion. It used to be that many people did not. For a variety of reasons. I can’t judge anyone. But is very surprising nowadays when someone does not receive. It used to be that maybe only half received. And they went up all out of order which made it very unnoticeable if you didn’t go up to receive.
I do know that if for some reason I did not receive [such as having just eaten] everyone looked “funny” at me.
A humorous story: I had gone to Mass on Saturday evening because on Sunday I was scheduled to attend a seminar in another city. Well, on Sunday I drove to the other city. There was NO traffic, made great time, got a wonderful parking place and I was way early for the seminar. Walked around. Found a diner open and had a huge breakfast. Walked around some more and found a Catholic church, went in to pray. It was right before the Consecration. So I very quietly slipped into a pew at the back of the church, half hiding behind a column, just to be able to pray quietly. A couple of minutes later, everyone trooped down to the sanctuary for Holy Communion … and they all glared at me!! [What’s wrong with that guy!!!] I felt like standing up and loudly saying “I just ate.” What made it more difficult for me is that the ushers were prying people out of the pews to go to receive. And I wasn’t going!
Maybe the insistence of the ushers that everyone had to receive Holy Communion is one reason why Mass attendance has dropped off so precipitiously. Many people may not be in the state of Grace, but respect the Holy Eucharist too much to commit a sacrilege. So rather than be humiliated in public, they just stay home or make some excuse for not attending Mass.
in the “old days” Masses were every hour on the hour on Sunday. There were a LOT of Masses and they were crowded.
Then, Mass attendance began to drop off, and to “fill up” the churches [or to give the appearance of having full churches], the diocesan authorities began to spread out the Masses … the Masses got longer and there was more space between them … allegedly to allow for better traffic congestion management in the parking lots.
But the total numbers did not betray the fact that the full churches were for appearances … and that total Sunday Mass attendance was down.
Seems to me also that back then, there were many more conversions from other religions to Catholicism than now. Then we got the formal RCIA program and we began to trumpet the numbers, but it seems to me the total numbers of new entrants into the Church were smaller than before RCIA. I don’t have any statistics; probably you would have to travel to the dusty archives of a diocesan basement to find out the old data on conversions and on Mass attendance.
I complained more than once to my pastor that they didn’t teach the truths of the Church during their homilies. The shocking answer I got (from a very reputable pastor) was that they were not ALLOWED to TEACH; they were only permitted to PREACH.
One of my friends at work got into a bull session about religion. He was SHOCKED that one of the Hindu fellows from India knew far more about Catholicism than he, a life-time Catholic did. The Hindu fellow said that in India they studied religion and knew all that stuff. My Catholic friend said that Catholics “learn Catholicism by osmosis.”
So, in my opinion, Catholics in general prior to Vatican II were better educated and more knowledgeable about the Church than later Catholics, were more pious in their faith and practiced it more reverently … and that is why they received Holy Communion less frequently. They felt less worthy.
One of the “problems” with the way the Mass is “conducted” since Vatican II, is that nowadays EVERYONE goes to receive Holy Communion. It used to be that many people did not. For a variety of reasons. I can’t judge anyone. But is very surprising nowadays when someone does not receive. It used to be that maybe only half received. And they went up all out of order which made it very unnoticeable if you didn’t go up to receive.
I do know that if for some reason I did not receive [such as having just eaten] everyone looked “funny” at me.
A humorous story: I had gone to Mass on Saturday evening because on Sunday I was scheduled to attend a seminar in another city. Well, on Sunday I drove to the other city. There was NO traffic, made great time, got a wonderful parking place and I was way early for the seminar. Walked around. Found a diner open and had a huge breakfast. Walked around some more and found a Catholic church, went in to pray. It was right before the Consecration. So I very quietly slipped into a pew at the back of the church, half hiding behind a column, just to be able to pray quietly. A couple of minutes later, everyone trooped down to the sanctuary for Holy Communion … and they all glared at me!! [What’s wrong with that guy!!!] I felt like standing up and loudly saying “I just ate.” What made it more difficult for me is that the ushers were prying people out of the pews to go to receive. And I wasn’t going!
Maybe the insistence of the ushers that everyone had to receive Holy Communion is one reason why Mass attendance has dropped off so precipitiously. Many people may not be in the state of Grace, but respect the Holy Eucharist too much to commit a sacrilege. So rather than be humiliated in public, they just stay home or make some excuse for not attending Mass.
in the “old days” Masses were every hour on the hour on Sunday. There were a LOT of Masses and they were crowded.
Then, Mass attendance began to drop off, and to “fill up” the churches [or to give the appearance of having full churches], the diocesan authorities began to spread out the Masses … the Masses got longer and there was more space between them … allegedly to allow for better traffic congestion management in the parking lots.
But the total numbers did not betray the fact that the full churches were for appearances … and that total Sunday Mass attendance was down.
Seems to me also that back then, there were many more conversions from other religions to Catholicism than now. Then we got the formal RCIA program and we began to trumpet the numbers, but it seems to me the total numbers of new entrants into the Church were smaller than before RCIA. I don’t have any statistics; probably you would have to travel to the dusty archives of a diocesan basement to find out the old data on conversions and on Mass attendance.
I complained more than once to my pastor that they didn’t teach the truths of the Church during their homilies. The shocking answer I got (from a very reputable pastor) was that they were not ALLOWED to TEACH; they were only permitted to PREACH.
One of my friends at work got into a bull session about religion. He was SHOCKED that one of the Hindu fellows from India knew far more about Catholicism than he, a life-time Catholic did. The Hindu fellow said that in India they studied religion and knew all that stuff. My Catholic friend said that Catholics “learn Catholicism by osmosis.”
So, in my opinion, Catholics in general prior to Vatican II were better educated and more knowledgeable about the Church than later Catholics, were more pious in their faith and practiced it more reverently … and that is why they received Holy Communion less frequently. They felt less worthy.
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
There were other “reforms” that may have driven people away and created less of a sense of awe and mystery. With the loss of reverence, loss of awe and loss of mystery, more people received Holy Communion. Although I wonder because we don’t have good data on Mass attendance “before and after” … perhaps the total number of people receiving Holy Communion may be less today. Because the total Mass attendance is much less.
The “abolition” of “no meat on Friday”.
The abolition of the words “mortal sin”. When you committed a MORTAL sin, you knew you had done something really wrong. But the wording got watered down after Vatican II to the less imposing sounding words like “serious sin” and “grave sin”.
At the same time as Vatican II, there was a political movement within the Church … things such as Liberation Theology, which was basically Marxism … and people got confused because Marxist vocabulary got mixed up with Catholic vocabulary.
Then there was the ecumenical movement. The Catholics moved toward the other religions, but the other religions didn’t move toward the Catholics. And again people got confused.
A reduction of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament … reception of Holy Communion on the hand … prior to that time, laypeople were not permitted to TOUCH the Consecrated Host. The altar boys held a gold plated paten under the chin of the person receiving Holy Communion.
There was a tremendous reverence for the Eucharist. But people were confused by the changes and rather than profane the Sacrament, they stayed away. Previously they did what they could in terms of observing the Sabbath, but now, in confusion they turned away.
There were stories of priests saying Mass using paper cups instead of gold vessels. Another reduction in reverence.
Older priests have told me that as young priests their primary duty was to clean the altar cloths and make sure that all drops of Precious Blood that may have spilled were removed with great reverence. That level of reverence is gone. The Holy Father is making some efforts to get it back by requiring, for example, the Celebrant to purify the sacred vessels (the chalices and ciboria) instead of allowing lay people to do that.
All of the “changes” and the mingling of politics with church teachings caused great confusion among both laity and clergy. And the decline in attendance at Mass and the increase in reception of Holy Communion resulted.
You can read books like “Goodbye Good Men” and learn about the role of gatekeepers that kept orthodox conservative men out of seminaries. The “confusion” that came out of that resulted in some priests spreading non-orthodox or warped teaching of Catholicism. And what they taught resulted in more people who stopped coming to Mass and more people who were not in the state of Grace receiving Holy Communion.
One senior priest complained to me that in the old days, on Holy Days of Obligation the churches were packed. But, again, the loss of reverence seemed to make Holy Days of Obligation more “optional”.
The “abolition” of “no meat on Friday”.
The abolition of the words “mortal sin”. When you committed a MORTAL sin, you knew you had done something really wrong. But the wording got watered down after Vatican II to the less imposing sounding words like “serious sin” and “grave sin”.
At the same time as Vatican II, there was a political movement within the Church … things such as Liberation Theology, which was basically Marxism … and people got confused because Marxist vocabulary got mixed up with Catholic vocabulary.
Then there was the ecumenical movement. The Catholics moved toward the other religions, but the other religions didn’t move toward the Catholics. And again people got confused.
A reduction of reverence for the Blessed Sacrament … reception of Holy Communion on the hand … prior to that time, laypeople were not permitted to TOUCH the Consecrated Host. The altar boys held a gold plated paten under the chin of the person receiving Holy Communion.
There was a tremendous reverence for the Eucharist. But people were confused by the changes and rather than profane the Sacrament, they stayed away. Previously they did what they could in terms of observing the Sabbath, but now, in confusion they turned away.
There were stories of priests saying Mass using paper cups instead of gold vessels. Another reduction in reverence.
Older priests have told me that as young priests their primary duty was to clean the altar cloths and make sure that all drops of Precious Blood that may have spilled were removed with great reverence. That level of reverence is gone. The Holy Father is making some efforts to get it back by requiring, for example, the Celebrant to purify the sacred vessels (the chalices and ciboria) instead of allowing lay people to do that.
All of the “changes” and the mingling of politics with church teachings caused great confusion among both laity and clergy. And the decline in attendance at Mass and the increase in reception of Holy Communion resulted.
You can read books like “Goodbye Good Men” and learn about the role of gatekeepers that kept orthodox conservative men out of seminaries. The “confusion” that came out of that resulted in some priests spreading non-orthodox or warped teaching of Catholicism. And what they taught resulted in more people who stopped coming to Mass and more people who were not in the state of Grace receiving Holy Communion.
One senior priest complained to me that in the old days, on Holy Days of Obligation the churches were packed. But, again, the loss of reverence seemed to make Holy Days of Obligation more “optional”.
A
Al_Masetti
Guest
One of my friends left the Catholic Church because he wanted a church that was more biblical. I asked him where he thought the text of the Mass came from and he said he assumed the priest made it up. He had NO IDEA that at least 80% of the words in the Mass are biblical. AND he went to Catholic schools up through university.
So lack of knowledge is a serious issue.
I once asked a priest, because I was interested in details, when exactly during the Consecration did the Consecration actually take place. I wasn’t pinning him down to the exact word … He said he had no idea. He was not even able to discuss it. We were just having a casual chat. I wasn’t putting him in a pressure situation in front of glaring lights and in front of an audience.
Once upon a time, people knew where this text came from : “Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the words and I shall be healed.”
They used to know that the text came from “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only speak the words and my servant shall be healed” [Matthew 8:8] and that became, in the Mass … “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only speak the words and my soul shall be healed.” And then it got changed and became unrecognizable.
People used to know all that.
There have been debates on the actual translation of the text of the Mass from Latin to English and some of the debates have been extremely heated over the work of committees such as ICEL (did I get the name right?)
One of my priest friends said that when the church got rid of focusing on teaching children the details of Catholicism with the promise, never kept, of expanding adult education, that’s when the Church went off the track. Because education of children creates an upward spiral with progressively better understanding and more sophisticated teaching.
All of this created confusion and reduced reverence. People understood less and received Holy Communion more.
So lack of knowledge is a serious issue.
I once asked a priest, because I was interested in details, when exactly during the Consecration did the Consecration actually take place. I wasn’t pinning him down to the exact word … He said he had no idea. He was not even able to discuss it. We were just having a casual chat. I wasn’t putting him in a pressure situation in front of glaring lights and in front of an audience.
Once upon a time, people knew where this text came from : “Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the words and I shall be healed.”
They used to know that the text came from “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only speak the words and my servant shall be healed” [Matthew 8:8] and that became, in the Mass … “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only speak the words and my soul shall be healed.” And then it got changed and became unrecognizable.
People used to know all that.
There have been debates on the actual translation of the text of the Mass from Latin to English and some of the debates have been extremely heated over the work of committees such as ICEL (did I get the name right?)
One of my priest friends said that when the church got rid of focusing on teaching children the details of Catholicism with the promise, never kept, of expanding adult education, that’s when the Church went off the track. Because education of children creates an upward spiral with progressively better understanding and more sophisticated teaching.
All of this created confusion and reduced reverence. People understood less and received Holy Communion more.
M
Malkin71
Guest
You are 100000% correct!
M
Malkin71
Guest
What is scary is that the children those who are being instructed are not being correctly instructed.
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palmas85
Guest
No young friend, that is exactly what you did by implying, incorrectly I might add, that receiving one time per year was standard or the norm in the years prior to Vatican II. And I will tell you to your face it was pure conjecture and nothing more than opinion on your part part to say so.
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I_Believe
Guest
Interesting angle. Thanks
I
I_Believe
Guest
Thank you Al, for sharing your thoughts and recollections. Good stuff
I
I_Believe
Guest
palmas, Malkin, thank you as well for chiming in
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Timothysis
Guest
Uh, ok.
P
palmas85
Guest
Yeah, OK
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Timothysis
Guest
Actually, sir, it was the First Vatican Council that suggested the practice of frequent reception of the Eucharist. I never insinuated that once a year was the “standard or the norm in the years prior to Vatican II,” unless you consider ancient times, the middle ages and all but the last 100 years to be the “years prior to Vatican II.”
Incidentally, your little tough man threats don’t work very well through cyberspace, either.
P
palmas85
Guest
Little tough man threats?
What threats? Point them out please. I would love to see them.Your statement concerning Pope Pious X verbatim
And yet, urging the frequent reception of communion **while the standard had been receiving once a year **can be seen as a “liberal” change, since it did not maintain the status quo. Odd, isn’t it?
I do believe that Pius X reigned prior to Vatican II.
As to your statement about the 1st Vatican Council being the first to encourage frequent communion, do you really want to stand with that statement?
I mean do you really? Not a real good idea. Do you always post things without researching them first? Thats not a real good idea either.
R
redrosetea
Guest
I haven’t read all of the posts so I don’t know if this was brought up…We used to have to fast from midnight until we received the host
A lot of people might not have been able to do this because they get sick if they don’t eat
Diabetics for one, have to be very careful to eat at regular times…some people get awful headaches and feel sick if they go for say 11 or 12 hrs without eating or drinking…some had to take medicine and it might have made them sick to do it on an empty stomach
It is a very long time for a young child to have to go without food
I was glad when they said we only have to refrain for an hour before communion
A lot of people might not have been able to do this because they get sick if they don’t eat
Diabetics for one, have to be very careful to eat at regular times…some people get awful headaches and feel sick if they go for say 11 or 12 hrs without eating or drinking…some had to take medicine and it might have made them sick to do it on an empty stomach
It is a very long time for a young child to have to go without food
I was glad when they said we only have to refrain for an hour before communion
M
maryjk
Guest
I just wish that they would have adult education classes. And not during CCD classes. Many of the people that are interested in learning, are also teachers.One of my friends left the Catholic Church because he wanted a church that was more biblical. I asked him where he thought the text of the Mass came from and he said he assumed the priest made it up. He had NO IDEA that at least 80% of the words in the Mass are biblical. AND he went to Catholic schools up through university.
So lack of knowledge is a serious issue.
I once asked a priest, because I was interested in details, when exactly during the Consecration did the Consecration actually take place. I wasn’t pinning him down to the exact word … He said he had no idea. He was not even able to discuss it. We were just having a casual chat. I wasn’t putting him in a pressure situation in front of glaring lights and in front of an audience.
Some of us still teach this in CCD class.
Once upon a time, people knew where this text came from : “Lord I am not worthy to receive you, but only say the words and I shall be healed.”
They used to know that the text came from “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only speak the words and my servant shall be healed” [Matthew 8:8] and that became, in the Mass … “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof, but only speak the words and my soul shall be healed.” And then it got changed and became unrecognizable.
We teach this too.
People used to know all that.
There have been debates on the actual translation of the text of the Mass from Latin to English and some of the debates have been extremely heated over the work of committees such as ICEL (did I get the name right?)
One of my priest friends said that when the church got rid of focusing on teaching children the details of Catholicism with the promise, never kept, of expanding adult education, that’s when the Church went off the track. Because education of children creates an upward spiral with progressively better understanding and more sophisticated teaching.
All of this created confusion and reduced reverence. People understood less and received Holy Communion more.
H
Holland
Guest
Yes, I do remember those days. My siblings and I would get up on Easter Sunday morning and find our Easter baskets filled with candy. All we could do was stare at them and drool till we came home from Mass.
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