Worried about Lifeteen coming to our Parish

[lovemyboys]

What if someone thinks that going to a Clown Mass brings them closer to Christ, is that cool? Or a Mass with scantily clad women dancing, is that cool? Or some other abomination…is that cool?

This is an illogical and irrational comparison.

 

[michaeldaniels]

You know…you are right…things are so much better since 1962…Mass attendance is at an all time high, confession lines are so long it is hard to get into to make a confession, abuses have plummeted, vocations are at an all time high…no Church endorsed (whether overtly or covertly) heresies exist, and some of the most beautiful architecture I have ever laid eyes on has been erected in the last 20-30 years…the catechesis of Catholics is the best it has ever been sarcasm intended

Life Teen is just a small symptom of the overall problem…There should only be one Mass, whether it is OF or EF…I don’t care, but the format needs to be universal for each one…these kids today do not need to be catered to…They need to be taught their faith, with the most important emphasis being on the Eucharist and The Holy Sacrifice of The Mass…if they truly learn that, then guitars and all those other annoyances want bring them to Mass…it will be their desire to Commune with God and receive him in the Most Blessed Sacrament. The generation coming up today, in my opinion, is almost a lost cause…they are very selfish, hedonistic, lack morals, etc…and instead of telling them how its going to be and making them conform to the standards…we pander to them and allow them new forms of The Mass which are not a celebration of God…it is a celebration of themselves and their interest…it is shameful

 

[Melchior_1]

michaeldaniels,

I teach the faith to these kids every week. Just last week I taught our two Candidates about the Most Holy Sacrament of the Alter. In a couple of weeks I will be giving a talk on “Freedom Through Commitment”, which is a heavy topic. We teach them about rubrics, about liturgy, about Tradition, about tradition, about Scripture, about apologetics, about the Ignatius discernment process, about Lectio Divina, about Marian devotions, about novenas, about the Corporal Works of Mercy, about the Justification of Salvation through Faith and Works, about the Mass and the Eucharist being the Summit of our faith, about Reconciliation, about several other things. All while giving them fellowship and community in a Catholic setting that they do not get anywhere else.

What does your study group teach, if you have one? And does it provide you with solid Catholic fellowship?

What’s shameful is your attitude towards youth. You wonder why they can be so disaffected, when adults are saying they are lost. You know what? You can give up on this “lost generation”. You go ahead and do that.

In the spirit of the Apostles, I’ll keep on fighting for them, for the Church, and for our Lord Jesus Christ. People wonder why for seven years I’ve been involved with Life Teen and helping kids come back to the Church, to love the Eucharist and the Sacraments. You’ve just added one more reason to the list; adults who consider youth lost causes. Well good sir, don’t ask Saint Jude to pray for us. Because they aren’t lost causes. Ask Saint Aloysius Gonzaga to pray for us, and ask our Mother to aid us as well.

 

[dzheremi]

I don’t know that I’ve ever been to a Life Teen service. Are they advertised as such beforehand? Because I went to Mass plenty of times at the local Newman center over the last year and a half, and there was a lot of modernism and awfulness there, reminding me of a lot of the criticisms in this thread.

Anyway, I’m reading a lot of positive comments in this thread about the reverent character of an LT mass, or how this would have been just thing to bring you back if you fell away from the church as a teenager in times past before there was an LT mass. What I don’t see in any of them is any sort of concrete reason or justification for having a separate mass for young people in the first place. I highly suspect that’s because there isn’t one. It shouldn’t happen. Plain and simple.

 

[michaeldaniels]

I think those are some great topics to teach the kids about…and I applaud you for doing it…but what is the connection to The Mass? Isn’t it still possible to teach them those things and still have them go to a regular Mass??? Or are the two mutually exclusive? Life-Teen is a protestantized version of The Mass…the only thing that really separates the two is The Consecration of The Most Blessed Sacrament… What do you do to prepare these teens to move into adulthood and start going to regular Masses? They aren’t teens forever…inevitably, they will start having to go to a regular Mass…so who is to say that when they are too old to go to the “fun and sociable” mass, that they won’t abandon the Church all together? Why was this not even an issue in 1940 when the Churches were packed? There was no Life-Teen then and kids of all ages still went, every week

michaeldaniels,

I teach the faith to these kids every week. Just last week I taught our two Candidates about the Most Holy Sacrament of the Alter. In a couple of weeks I will be giving a talk on “Freedom Through Commitment”, which is a heavy topic. We teach them about rubrics, about liturgy, about Tradition, about tradition, about Scripture, about apologetics, about the Ignatius discernment process, about Lectio Divina, about Marian devotions, about novenas, about the Corporal Works of Mercy, about the Justification of Salvation through Faith and Works, about the Mass and the Eucharist being the Summit of our faith, about Reconciliation, about several other things. All while giving them fellowship and community in a Catholic setting that they do not get anywhere else.

What does your study group teach, if you have one? And does it provide you with solid Catholic fellowship?

What’s shameful is your attitude towards youth. You wonder why they can be so disaffected, when adults are saying they are lost. You know what? You can give up on this “lost generation”. You go ahead and do that.

In the spirit of the Apostles, I’ll keep on fighting for them, for the Church, and for our Lord Jesus Christ. People wonder why for seven years I’ve been involved with Life Teen and helping kids come back to the Church, to love the Eucharist and the Sacraments. You’ve just added one more reason to the list; adults who consider youth lost causes. Well good sir, don’t ask Saint Jude to pray for us. Because they aren’t lost causes. Ask Saint Aloysius Gonzaga to pray for us, and ask our Mother to aid us as well.

 

[benedictgal]

What a beautiful post. You celebrate the Eucharist. So I don’t understand the problem traditionalists have. They don’t have to attend LT if they don’t want but should praise God LT brings people closer to Christ. A total no brainer to me. God bless you!

However, what you fail to understand, as I read your post, is that there are anamolies in this particular liturgy. The music is an issue, as it LT uses a genre that is heavily laced with Protestant Praise and Worship, a style that is incompatible with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The instruments used are electric guitars, drum kits and electric bass guitar, instruments commonly and primarily associated with secular music, something that Musicam Sacram specifically cautions against doing.

Furthermore, despite the fact that the CDWDS issued warnings about introducing innovations into the Mass, some of these have crept into the liturgy anyway. One glaring example came from another thread where Bob Hurd, a songwriter for OCP, supported introducing elements into the Mass such as kneeling for the penitential rite and “liturgical dance” that have no basis in the Church’s liturgical Tradition and violate the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy.

 

[benedictgal]

Thank you!

I don’t understand all of these sweeping judgments of LT masses. It’s really sad that people are so judgmental. I’m sure there are some LT masses that are pretty bad, but for people to claim they are ALL bad-- that’s nuts.

However, what I think that you may not quite understand is that LT does take liberties with the Mass. The genre of music used is incompatible with the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. It’s as though the folks who began this movement never bothered to read the authoritative documents of the Church regarding liturgy and decided to cobble things up for themselves. As far as I am concerned, the movement lost credibility when the founder left the Church and started his own Protestant ecclesial community, using the LT model.

 

[Melchior_1]

The instruments used are electric guitars, drum kits and electric bass guitar, instruments commonly and primarily associated with secular music, something that Musicam Sacram specifically cautions against doing.

Cautions, but does not outright prohibit if I’m not mistaken. And you’d think that if they were outright prohibitted that the kabosh would have been put on;

• The Friars of the Renewal.
• The Companions of the Cross.
• Catholic Christian Outreach.
• NET Ministries.
• Life Teen.
• Steubinville Conferences.
• World Youth Day.

Furthermore, despite the fact that the CDWDS issued warnings about introducing innovations into the Mass, some of these have crept into the liturgy anyway. One glaring example came from another thread where Bob Hurd, a songwriter for OCP, supported introducing elements into the Mass such as kneeling for the penitential rite and “liturgical dance” that have no basis in the Church’s liturgical Tradition and violate the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy.

I think that some (not saying you) are lumping Life Teen in general in that catagory with Bob Hurd. I’d like to meet Bob Hurd and inform him to please stop; he’s making us look bad. All the things we do at our Life Teen Mass are approved by the Bishop, we had the Papal Nuncio over as well. Anything not done correctly we change to match the wishes of our chief shephard.

 

[Melchior_1]

As far as I am concerned, the movement lost credibility when the founder left the Church and started his own Protestant ecclesial community, using the LT model.

Third time I’ve seen you reference this. We’ve had several leaders in the Church fall away from the Faith later in their lives. Do we disown what they have done?

We’re taking what he made and making it work within the Catholic Church. I fail to see how this is a bad thingm aking things compatible withthe Catholic Faith and the Mass.

 

[benedictgal]

Cautions, but does not outright prohibit if I’m not mistaken. And you’d think that if they were outright prohibitted that the kabosh would have been put on;

• The Friars of the Renewal.
• The Companions of the Cross.
• Catholic Christian Outreach.
• NET Ministries.
• Life Teen.
• Steubinville Conferences.
• World Youth Day.

I think that some (not saying you) are lumping Life Teen in general in that catagory with Bob Hurd. I’d like to meet Bob Hurd and inform him to please stop; he’s making us look bad. All the things we do at our Life Teen Mass are approved by the Bishop, we had the Papal Nuncio over as well. Anything not done correctly we change to match the wishes of our chief shephard.

But, this goes beyond the competency of the Apostolic Nuncio, as any liturgical changes must first be brought to the CDWDS. The problem is that you seem to ignore the fact that the Fathers of the 2005 Synod on the Eucharist found the music used at Youth Masses to be problematic. This was because of the particular genre involved. Evidently, Pope Benedict XVI also found these problematic as well since the Australian WYD Mass had a different tone to it than the previous ones.

 

[benedictgal]

Third time I’ve seen you reference this. We’ve had several leaders in the Church fall away from the Faith later in their lives. Do we disown what they have done?

We’re taking what he made and making it work within the Catholic Church. I fail to see how this is a bad thingm aking things compatible withthe Catholic Faith and the Mass.

Actually, have you read Redemptionis Sacramentum? Please note what the document states:

[11.] The Mystery of the Eucharist “is too great for anyone to permit himself to treat it according to his own whim, so that its sacredness and its universal ordering would be obscured”.27 On the contrary, anyone who acts thus by giving free rein to his own inclinations, even if he is a Priest, injures the substantial unity of the Roman Rite, which ought to be vigorously preserved,28 and becomes responsible for actions that are in no way consistent with the hunger and thirst for the living God that is experienced by the people today. Nor do such actions serve authentic pastoral care or proper liturgical renewal; instead, they deprive Christ’s faithful of their patrimony and their heritage. For arbitrary actions are not conducive to true renewal,29 but are detrimental to the right of Christ’s faithful to a liturgical celebration that is an expression of the Church’s life in accordance with her tradition and discipline. In the end, they introduce elements of distortion and disharmony into the very celebration of the Eucharist, which is oriented in its own lofty way and by its very nature to signifying and wondrously bringing about the communion of divine life and the unity of the People of God.30 The result is uncertainty in matters of doctrine, perplexity and scandal on the part of the People of God, and, almost as a necessary consequence, vigorous opposition, all of which greatly confuse and sadden many of Christ’s faithful in this age of ours when Christian life is often particularly difficult on account of the inroads of “secularization” as well.31

[12.] On the contrary, it is the right of all of Christ’s faithful that the Liturgy, and in particular the celebration of Holy Mass, should truly be as the Church wishes, according to her stipulations as prescribed in the liturgical books and in the other laws and norms. Likewise, the Catholic people have the right that the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass should be celebrated for them in an integral manner, according to the entire doctrine of the Church’s Magisterium. Finally, it is the Catholic community’s right that the celebration of the Most Holy Eucharist should be carried out for it in such a manner that it truly stands out as a sacrament of unity, to the exclusion of all blemishes and actions that might engender divisions and factions in the Church.32

The youth have just as much a right to a properly celebrated Mass as the rest of the faithful. Unfortunately, the music and the innovations that LifeTeen introduces are a rupture, as I see it, with the continuity of the Church’s liturgy.

Now, the Neocatechumenal Movement voiced the same opinion as what you are voicing. They thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to do with the Mass. However, Pope Benedict XVI told them that they were mistaken and made them correct their errors. The Mass is not the personal property of any one movement. It is the Church’s public prayer and should be respected as that.

 

[CMatt25]

I’ve seen lots, actually. How could you judge the specific Lifeteen Mass I attend without knowing anything about it? We have a great priest and there is absolutely no “dumbing down” whatsoever. The only thing that is different about it is heartfelt music and standing room only. Many seniors make a point to come to this Mass because it’s wonderful. Your judgment is pretty offensive.

All ages attending with standing room only for Christ! :clapping:

 

[michaeldaniels]

Im sorry…but I still fail to see what is wrong with The Mass…and when I say, The Mass, I am referring to The Mass that the majority of Catholics attend on a weekly basis…there must be something inherently wrong with it, if people think it needs to be changed or jazzed up

All ages attending with standing room only for Christ! :clapping:

 

[Melchior_1]

Now, the Neocatechumenal Movement voiced the same opinion as what you are voicing. They thought that they had the right to do whatever they wanted to do with the Mass. However, Pope Benedict XVI told them that they were mistaken and made them correct their errors.

Which is why permission has been granted for Life Teen to do the Mass in the fashion that they do. Once again, if it was as big of a deal as you say, you would think that in 2004 they’d shut it down totally instead of saying “stop doing these certain things”. Life Teen corrected the errors that were brought to their attention, in accordance with what they were told by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Once again, our Bishop fully supports the Life Teen program. He also supports the other organizations and movements I mentioned in a previous post. Organizations and orders which, correct me if I am wrong, you would also be disapproving of.

 

[Melchior_1]

Im sorry…but I still fail to see what is wrong with The Mass…and when I say, The Mass, I am referring to The Mass that the majority of Catholics attend on a weekly basis…there must be something inherently wrong with it, if people think it needs to be changed or jazzed up

Like switching over to the vernacular, right?

 

[CMatt25]

You know…you are right…things are so much better since 1962…Mass attendance is at an all time high, confession lines are so long it is hard to get into to make a confession, abuses have plummeted, vocations are at an all time high…no Church endorsed (whether overtly or covertly) heresies exist, and some of the most beautiful architecture I have ever laid eyes on has been erected in the last 20-30 years…the catechesis of Catholics is the best it has ever been sarcasm intended

Life Teen is just a small symptom of the overall problem…There should only be one Mass, whether it is OF or EF…I don’t care, but the format needs to be universal for each one…these kids today do not need to be catered to…They need to be taught their faith, with the most important emphasis being on the Eucharist and The Holy Sacrifice of The Mass…if they truly learn that, then guitars and all those other annoyances want bring them to Mass…it will be their desire to Commune with God and receive him in the Most Blessed Sacrament. The generation coming up today, in my opinion, is almost a lost cause…they are very selfish, hedonistic, lack morals, etc…and instead of telling them how its going to be and making them conform to the standards…we pander to them and allow them new forms of The Mass which are not a celebration of God…it is a celebration of themselves and their interest…it is shameful

I wonder what attendance will be if we go back to Latin only? I actually get more out of Mass than back in the day when I was a kid listening to a language foreign to me. And I am not a teen. Far from it. But I actually find guitar music less of an annoyance than an organ can be sometimes. What someone gets out of Mass depends on a variety of factors. Of course Mass is centered around the Eucharist. That’s why there is nothing wrong with it. But music is part of it too. So is the homily. I would rather attend a Mass where I am inspired by a good homily and music rather than a boring homily and not so great of music. And I’ve heard some uninspiring homilies, organists and choirs in my day. I just don’t understand why it’s such a big deal. You can attend a Latin Mass if you want. Someone else the Mass in English or Spanish or whatever other language the Mass may be offered in at a parish. My local parish does English, Spanish, and Vietnamese. And someone else can attend a LT Mass. All celebrate the Eucharist. All The Mass.

 

[benedictgal]

Like switching over to the vernacular, right?

Again, I think that you are using the strawman approach. This is usually happens, with all due respect, when a person cannot cite the authoritative documents of the Church to make his point.

 

[benedictgal]

I wonder what attendance will be if we go back to Latin only? I actually get more out of Mass than back in the day when I was a kid listening to a language foreign to me. And I am not a teen. Far from it. But I actually find guitar music less of an annoyance than an organ can be sometimes. What someone gets out of Mass depends on a variety of factors. Of course Mass is centered around the Eucahrist. But music is part of it too. So is the homily. I would rather attend a Mass where I am inspired by a good homily and music rather than a boring homily and not so great of music. And I’ve heard some uninspiring homilies, organists and choirs in my day.

But, again, the Mass is not about the homily, as you, yourself, pointed out. However, the Church has her standards, something that the proponents of the movement tend to forget. When we are not exposing the youth to these standards, they will grow up thinking that there is not more to the Mass than what they have experienced and will go elsewhere. When the entertainment factor is gone, then there is nothing left because they were not grounded into something firm and enduring in the first place.

 

[benedictgal]

Which is why permission has been granted for Life Teen to do the Mass in the fashion that they do. Once again, if it was as big of a deal as you say, you would think that in 2004 they’d shut it down totally instead of saying “stop doing these certain things”. Life Teen corrected the errors that were brought to their attention, in accordance with what they were told by the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops.

Once again, our Bishop fully supports the Life Teen program. He also supports the other organizations and movements I mentioned in a previous post. Organizations and orders which, correct me if I am wrong, you would also be disapproving of.

The movement may have fruits, but, when they start inseting their idiosyncracies into the Mass, that is a whole other story. The Holy Father lauded the Neocatechumenal Way for their outreach, but, he was sharply critical of the manner in which they were treating the Mass. What the movements need to do is to leave the Mass alone and safeguard the integrity of the liturgy. Save the P&W music for outside of the Mass and give the youth some substance.

 

[Melchior_1]

Again, I think that you are using the strawman approach. This is usually happens, with all due respect, when a person cannot cite the authoritative documents of the Church to make his point.

With all due respect, not every comment that disagrees with yours is a strawman argument. My question is valid because he said “if people think it needs to be changed” which back then people DID think we needed to switch away from Latin, yet many say that was a good thing.

Once again, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops gave Life Teen a list of items that needed to be changed; they got changed. I know this because I was there at the time. Life Teen acted in accordance to Bishops, who likely reported their findings to the Vatican. Once again, if there was a huge issue about it they would have scrapped it totally.

EDIT: Come up to where I am and see for yourself the kind of substance we offer. You will find we offer the steak moreso than the sizzle.

Oh, and you still haven’t addressed the different organizations and orders I listed and whether you support them or not. One of those orders, the Companions, received their Apostolic Society designation a couple of years ago.