Please read this comment on the blog Catholic Commentary. Joe has some important things to say and we should give them some serious thought. Pope Benedict has NOT said that the Extraordinary Rite is the only answer to our liturgical problems. Those who think he has have had one eye closed and had their hand over the other. The Latin Mass Society promotes the 1962 Rite. I have no objection to that - the LMS exists partly for that reason. I joined it because it provides necessary resources and training for priests and laity. The Association for Latin Liturgy (does it still exist) promoted the Missa Normativa in Latin (I was also a member of that). I did not join the group that was founded to work for a better English translation, but I tried to keep up with it. I also tried to follow the writings of the present Pope and for some years have had a keen interest in the Eastern Rites. I am now waiting to see what the Ordinariates come up with.I celebrate the 1962 Rite in my parish. Only a few (very few) are interested although there are signs that interest is growing. I am greatly privileged to be able to celebrate it, but I am conscious that it is NOT the answer to our problems and cannot provide us with everything that we need in the future. Some readers of this blog will disagree with me, and that's fine - we ought to be able to discuss these things. That is why I do not want to see Catholic Commentary fade away.
I am pleased you posted this Father. I'm sad but not totally surprised that 'Catholic Commentary might disappear.' There are those in our church today who shamefully attack anyone who does not fully embrace the EF. They will drive you off their bloggs and tear your character to shreds, justified by their so called loyalty to The Magesterium.
ReplyDeleteThis obsession with the EF has caused a divide in our church, it will get wider, we will lose good souls. Where is the love and the charity that Christ instilled in us?
The Canon I look after began his priestly life as a Cistercian in Nunraw. He remained there for 15 years and left to become a Secular Priest, as many did due to the changes in monastic life that ensued with the onset of VAT II.
In the monastery The Mass he offered daily was of course in Latin as was the Divine Office.
Years later The Bishop asked if he would offer the EF in his parish. This he did, none of our parishioners were interested. Pitifully few from the diocese attended.
Canon discovered that the people who came were in fact those who would travel miles to attend an EF ignoring the OF completely.
I shall pray that Catholic Commentary has a change of heart. More than anything, we need charity and a balanced view otherwise the Catholic bloggspere could become a very dark place indeed.
I am not "attached" to the Extraordinary Form but I believe its promotion has an important role to play in improving the celebration of the Ordinary Form. I recall reading some time back that by far the greatest number of complaints received in Rome regarding the current liturgy were from people who simply wanted priests to stick to the authorised texts. In other words they appear to have been upset by "creative" and personalising approaches. From this perspective it seems clear that the Extraordinary Form with its rubrical precision could provide a powerful example of reverent prayerful liturgy.
ReplyDeleteThank you father. I sometimes go to the Latin Mass in Halifax but would be interested to know when you celebrate it. I think there are a few more in the area also. I am presently reading Thomas Merton's Elected Silence, it was published in1949 and 1961 so it is interesting to read how he, a convert, found the pre-Vatican 2 situation. I am also now on another book about Vat 11, the Rhine flows into the Tiber.Slowly I am getting to understand what it was all about, as before I just thought it was Pope John who presided,and changed the Latin and stopped nuns wearing habits! when he died soon after it commenced, and it was Pope Paul who I knew nothing at all about. I look forward to attending one of the Latin masses, though my weekend is usually taken up with child-minding--I do take my grandaughter to church despite her mum not being to keen on our Church, but maybe a Latin Mass might be too strange for her--or not? I understand the main Latin prayers, and have my own little pre-Vat 11 prayerbook, by using this at the "normal" modern mass it is easy to see where it was chopped up and changed!
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Neither Thomas Merton or Cardinal Newman seem to have been "put off" by the Latin Rite, and neither was I for what that counts--in fact, looking back to the 1960s, I lost interest, after my initial visits to Holy Spirit, then the domain of Father McGettigan-- in the Catholic church because it seemed no improvement on the Anglican church into which I had been baptised.The Anglican church also, forgive me for saying so, made an absolute pig's ear of their translations from the Book of Common Prayer!
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Yes, Barbara, I agree with you about the Anglican attempts at modernization, but I don't think you could call them "translations". Series 2 and 3 were poor, but series 3 was closer to the RC Mass if I remember correctly. As for being "put off" the Latin, I honestly don't think anything like that would have entered their heads. Merton was of a different mind-set altogether at that time, and Newman - despite his misgivings about the RC Church - was searching for and then following the Truth.
ReplyDeleteThank you father. It did not enter my head either pre Vatican 11, I liked the Mass it as it was, but neither Cardinal Newman or Thomas Merton had any choice at the time, but as far as I know did not find the way the Mass was celebrated any problem. I was shocked to read that Father Merton died quite young in the 1960s but don't know what he thought of the changes --he was electrocuted in the bath!From what I can gather however the present day Mass isn't simply a translation, there are lots of things chopped out which should be integral, whatever the language.
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I have sent this elsewhere because it illustrates the effect of "trad.on trad." bickering on the general public's perception of Catholicism.
ReplyDeleteMy Church seems to be bending over backwards to accommodate the needs of the people for different approaches to worship but still the nit-picking. I think you may have found a sort of compromise by the sound of it. So embarrassing to read this:-
"Can't you guys find somewhere else to talk about your fancy dress parties and not within the pages of a national newspaper?
The issues of reverence, good language, good music and orthodox homilies - as well as a few other things - are very important, but when such things as contemptuous language, bad manners, insults and personal attacks are allowed in pursuit of what some see as genuine Catholicism then we are in trouble. I have said something similar before in reference to blogging, but it is even more important when discussing the Liturgy. Our Lord surely does not want this.
ReplyDeleteWould you be in a position to bring your knowledge of such matters to comment on the recent occurrences in the US discussed in A Reluctant Sinner blog, either directly or here.
ReplyDeleteThank you.
There are those in our church today who shamefully attack anyone who does not fully embrace the EF. They will drive you off their bloggs and tear your character to shreds, justified by their so called loyalty to The Magesterium.
ReplyDeletePeople who have been attached to traditional mass have been vilified for the best part of 50 years by clergy and prelates. For years, to even have an affection for the traditional rite, was akin to a mortal sin. Seminarians who even expressed an interest in this rite, have had their formation quashed by the chancery. The knife cuts both ways.
This obsession with the EF has caused a divide in our church, it will get wider, we will lose good souls. Where is the love and the charity that Christ instilled in us?
The only thing that has divided our church is the liturgical reform in the first place. Catholics before Vatican II, could go anyway in the world to mass and hear it in one language. Now, we have to endure a "babel" on tongues. Hardly a great display of unity is it? And while we're talking of charity, where was the charity for those Catholics who had their faith called into question in the 70s and 80s by their parish priests, when they maintained that the Tridentine mass was never abrogated?
Seems like the housekeeper has double standards.
"People who have been attached to traditional mass have been vilified for the best part of 50 years by clergy and prelates. For years, to even have an affection for the traditional rite, was akin to a mortal sin. Seminarians who even expressed an interest in this rite, have had their formation quashed by the chancery. The knife cuts both ways".
ReplyDeleteThere is a lot of truth in this comment, and I have been guilty, in the past, of not showing proper respect to those attached to the Tridentine Mass, as we called it. This is partly because I was taught some wrong things in the seminary and was ignorant of the truth about liturgical reform. I had to read Card. Ratzinger's books and Fr. Gamber before I understood what had happened. But, as they say, "two wrings do not make a right!" and it is sad to see now some of those adopting the EF (perhaps coming to it only in recent times - and this includes some converts to Rome from the last 20years or so) behaving in ways and using language that tends to divide people even more. We have all made mistakes, but we must move on and not get stuck in the old arguments of the past. Those who have only recently begun to be "traditionalist" and think they have a duty to upset people need to reflect on what they are doing.
Two "WRONGS" - PARDON MY SLIP!
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