Thursday 11 July 2013

Three Barriers to the Latin Mass

An interesting short video suggesting that there are three reasons why some people are unhappy attending the Extraordinary Form. I wonder how true it is. As a priest, I would add a fourth reason that may be connected with why some priests are not happy with it. It is that, unfortunately, SOME priests who celebrate this form of the Mass regularly also become wrapped up in certain forms of dress and become a little too concerned about either the rubrics or the vestments etc. There is, sadly, a kind of preciousness, if I can put it that way and, even worse, a sense that they are almost a race apart. I'm sure that this is not the case in reality but that is how it looks. Perhaps this will change. I hope so. (I celebrate the Extraordinary Form twice a month and I love it!)    

2 comments:

  1. Aestheticism happens in the ordinary form too! Otherwise, I agree with you and much of the video. I would attend the EF, which I find more conducive to prayer, if it were not for what I perceive to be a conscious effort to recreate the imagined ethos and aesthetic of 1958, or 1789. There appears to be a conscious effort to ignore the positive insights of the Liturgical Movement of the early twentieth century. I long for the EF to be normalised, but I just can’t see that happening anytime soon.

    What I really can't understand is the current enthusiasm for disseminating images on the internet, especially of EF liturgies, for aesthetic "edification". In the past there was surely more respect for the bridal chamber. Older priests in my diocese recall that photography was expressly forbidden at their ordinations.

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  2. The most common complaint I have heard is about the shameful waste of money on all the new vestments

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