Study Text of new Missal for you to download
A big HT to Marco for this one: The "Ordo Missae White Book" (Study Text) from the USCCB. We can hardly wait for the real thing!
posted by Schütz @ 4:25 pm
39 Comments
Sentire cum Ecclesia
To think with the Church.... In "the Spirit of Benny 16". Catholic Theology, Ecumenism, Interfaith relations, History, Liturgy, Philosophy and whatever topics are hot in the ecclesiastical world! Please comment - with gentleness and reverence! Our motto on this blog is: "Maior autem his est spes"
Wednesday, August 06, 2008
Name: Schütz
Home: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Peccator Inter Peccatores et Insanus Inter Insanos
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39 Comments:
Oh my goodness, this is wonderful! So many of the texts have similarity with what I grew up on. Especially the Gloria. It will be so edifying to see reverence and dignity restored to the language of the Mass.
Now, when the Divine Office is also similarly restored there will truly be an organic link between the Mass and the Divine Office, which can only be to the good!
Yes, I too find the translation of the Mass extremely pleasing, a very faithful rendering of the Latin. It will be nice to hear Mass in English in the manner originally intended - that is, truly conveying the sense of the original text. (What a scandal that it's taken so long!) But for now, Deo gratias.
The Roman Church had the "real thing" and dumped it.
The only thing worse than the current translations of the novus ordo is better translations of the novus ordo, and the only thing worse than that is the novus ordo itself, in Latin.
A hideous, vicious impostor, denying the theology of the Mass the Roman Rite was written at Trent to insure for all time against both the abuses the Reformers rightly protested and the errors they wrongly proclaimed, and for a truly believing Catholic a sin in which to participate.
A 1960s hodgepodge for a 1960s religion. Irrelevant to either and both the historic church (mendaciously now allowed as the "extraordinary" rite for the cranks who want it as long as they accept its denial as valid and "ordinary") and the 21st Century.
A miserable, filthy, wretched business.
A propos of things Latin, how is is that more than a year after the release of Summorum Pontificum, the Archdioceses around Australia have done NOTHING in relation to its implementation and promtion?
Oh, I don't know about "nothing". Several archbishops have publically celebrated the Extraordinary Form since SP was released. And SP set up the conditions by which the Confraternity of St Peter priests in Melbourne were incardinated as diocesan priests with special responsibility for promoting the EF. So not "nothing".
And, PE, I guess you are a great admirer of the solid evangelical doctrine in the Tridentine mass?
Weeell, PE, one could always get "smacked in the face" ala Water's Edge in Texas: :) :)
Mark Schaefer & Patrick Miller - Speakers
Try to keep up as this dynamic pastoring duo of Water's Edge Lutheran Church in Frisco, Texas, jumps through scripture with more enthusiam and energy than anyone you've ever seen. Get ready to get smacked in the face with Jesus-centered biblical teaching that just might change your life forever.
. . . .
And, PE, I guess you are a great admirer of the solid evangelical doctrine in the Tridentine mass?
David, good point. As far as I'm concerned, with the new translations the Roman Church still has the "real thing". I'm delighted.
David,
Seriously, PE's bitter and rude attack on the Mass ought be deleted: it's unworthy of him and of your patience.
What nonsense to say that the Novus Ordo somehow denies the doctrine of Trent, when any fool can see that the Roman Canon, amended in a few places that are clearly nonessential, is still retained, and so ipso facto expresses the same sacrifice!
There is a world of difference between an arguably less overtly sacrificial text, still retaining essentials - think of Eucharistic Prayer IV, "we offer you his body and blood, the acceptable sacrifice that brings salvation to the whole world", how on earth can that be said not to even more forthrightly proclaim the Eucharistic Sacrifice? - and some miserable truncation of the Anaphora, in avowed denial and detestation of the Church's ageold prayer expressing the Sacrifice, to the Verba alone, as the devilduped Luther produced...
I have been reading "Heaven on Earth, The Gifts of Christ in the Divine Service" by Arthur Just. It should be read by every Lutheran who seeks to understand the historic catholic liturgy.
When I was growing up Lutheran I was taught that Luther sought to bring the worship of the medieval church back to the forms of the fourth-fifth centuries (affirmed by Just). Yet when the Catholic Church initiated its own reforms to clear out some of the old medieval accretions PE says it erred.
Just's views on receiving Holy Communion from a common cup rather than individual glasses, in the hand and through continuous procession rather than kneeling individually at the altar (which he states was a fairly recent development coming out of Lutheran pietism), and the use of the three-year lectionary also support the Catholic position. Notwithstanding those factors he does, of course, retain his Lutheran perspective on other issues that continue to diverge in Lutheran/Catholic belief and practice.
Very interesting.
It won't make PE happy but historic Lutheran liturgy has far more in common with its Roman roots (and Just does affirm that Lutheran worship finds its origin in the Roman Rite) than some LCMS "Ablaze" congregations have with Confessional ones.
Anyone who thinks the hacked to pieces remains of the Roman Canon in the novus ordo is the Roman Canon amended in a few places that are non essential hasn't the slightest idea what the Roman Canon is all about.
It would be an utter surprise to all but a conciliar "Catholic" to think the Roman church's liturgical development and Luther's reforms have the same aim, therefore the comparison is ludicrous.
But illustrates the point exactly. To the Catholic, those are not "mediaeval accretions"; particularly the Tridentine Rite is precisely written so that the intent of the church will be stated (matter and form not at issue), so those things swept aside by "emendation" or outright omission commit a greater violence to the Roman Mass than any Reformer even dreamt of. The anti-Catholic nature of the novus ordo is so lyingly conveyed that this complete standing of the Mass on its head is denied to exist at all -- you have fallen for the lie, hook, line, and sinker, but precisely as fashioned by the authors of the lie, my teachers.
And that's the whole thing, having seen it ringside from Day One: the new Mass is exactly that, a new mass, not the same mass developed ot revised, but a new mass, so completely at odds with what the Roman Mass embodied that it reveals itself for the damnable demonic dung it is, which invalidates it entirely, and so completely that for such an abomination to have defeated the Roman Mass invalidates the Roman Mass too, which if it were what it said it was could not have fallen victim to such a whoreson parody.
What Ablaze has to do with this defies any reasoned effort to ascertain. And where was it ever in question that Rome's abusive "developments" and Lutheran reform share the same base. That was our whole point, for Judas with an eggroll's sake. (Had chinese for lunch, use chopsticks too instead of a metal shovel like a damned round eye even though I am one, but I digress, God bless me sideways.)
You have no god but Rome, and as long as this is the case, you will believe anything Rome says, elevating it above the Fathers, Scripture, Jesus and God Almighty Himself, believing in these only insofar as the god Rome says so. Save yourself from the lying foul minions of Hell who will kill you. Nothing is too low for these mitred monsters. These men will kill you!!
And the contempt they have for you and the utter disregard they have for their own monstrous rites is nowhere better shown than it taking forty odd years to even passably translate texts not beyond my third year Latin class.
What utter lying dogs from hell.
Sorry, that's unfair to dogs. Maybe even to hell.
Mr Shutz: I maintain that "nothing has been done in relation to implementation and promotion".
What does the incardination mean practically? Has it lead to the Extraordinary form being celebrated in more parishes? With more people having access to it?
In Melbourne's own cathedral, it still isn't offered. How can that be?
If there are plans for these things, then surely they should be communicated.
Where else is the Traditional form being celebrated, other than Cranbourne and Mentone?
In how many parishes was the Motu Proprio has actually mentioned at Sunday Mass and people invited to ask for the Extraordinary Form to be celebrated?
Wherease overseas new parishes have been set up and bishops have issued statements about the implementation of the document and where those who want the Mass can access it at central or multiple locations, we here hear nothing. Indeed, ACBC welcomed it by the Brisbane people saying "no one really wants it". Their strategy is to say the minimum, tell no one about it, and when someone asks say "well, no one wants it, so there's no real demand for us to respond to".
Ain't that the truth?
Perhaps you shoudl consider the alternative possiblity that, contrary to what you may wish to be the case, it could actually be true that there is very little demand for it.
Anon: I grant it's a possibility. Except that the evidence suggests otherwise.
At the risk of coming over the conspiracy theorist, I'd suggest that at least one motivating factor is that this has very little to do with what the Holy Father wants for the good of the Church. There is little promotion of the Traditional Mass because this does not suit the liturgical establishment. The reasons are manifold, but I guess you can work that out for yourself.
We know what happens the TLM is made available in central locations and ordinary times and people are told about it. Shock horror: PEOPLE GO.
It's what they are doing, and is what's happening the world over. Right now. But not in Australia.
The sacred art of Gregorian chant is a "nice" illustration: CDs of Gregorian Chant top the charts. The Pop Charts, mind (eg the monks of Heileigenkreutz). But you don't hear it in any church I know of, except in the Cathedrals ocassionally and where there is a TLM.
Are our eyes really open, or do we just see what we want to?
My point, PE, was that at at some Lutheran congregations (including in the LCMS) I'm not sure that I receive the Sacrament in an atmosphere where the Real Presence is not firmly proclaimed. Nor would I accept consecration by a "lay" minister.The inroads of American evangelical praxis have done their damage.
I never have those doubts at a Catholic parish.
As for the rest of your opinions, you're entitled. Though I disagree with them, of course.
I still find PE's comments abysmal and inappropriate.
The ridiculous claim that the Roman Canon is somehow changed in essentials is nuts.
The changes: "eumdem" deleted in a few places (it had only been added as a hypercorrection in the 1474 Curial Missal); St Joseph inserted into the list of saints (hardly earthshattering); "quod pro vobis tradetur" (used in all other valid Rites) added to the words of consecration of the host; "mysterium fidei" moved to after the consecration of the chalice, and "hæc quotiescumque feceritis, in mei memoriam facietis" (not part of the formula) changed to "hoc facite in meam commemorationem" (a verbal modification toward the New Testament originals of the Verba), which was added to the words of consecration of the chalice; and from memory, that's all.
I defy PE to shew, without ranting and raving, that these changes amount to standing the Roman Canon on its head. I daresay he cannot and will not, and will indulge in yet more bizarre and selfcomposed slang, the meaning of which most readers will despair of guessing at.
I utterly reject his thesis that the changes in the Mass invalidated it, and therefore suppposedly proved the falsity of all Roman pretensions, since on his thesis the infallibility and indefectibility of the Church would have been contradicted, and therefore Rome revealed as a false church.
Christine, as a Catholic your statement makes no sense whatever -- a Catholic can be quite sure he is not receiving the Real Presence at any Lutheran service even if the Real Presence is proclaimed through Bose speakers, because the ministers have no orders to do it.
And as a Catholic you should have no doubt whatever at any Catholic parish that you are receiving the Real Presence, no matter how fringy the service, the sermon, the music or anything else, because the objective reality of valid orders is there.
Once again, in post conciliar "Catholicism", the surface is Catholic but the substance is not but thoroughly un-Catholic.
Joshua, unlike a defence of the post conciliar Roman Canon parody, the manifest ways in which it, the other new "eucharistic prayers", and the novus ordo itself are anti-Catholic to the core cannot be reduced to a paragraph in a combox.
For which reason I have linked to concise yet lengthier studies of these matters on my blog, to which another has been added since I last said that here.
Anonymous I, you are quite on to something. Unfortunately, so is Anonymous II -- namely, the game plan of the liturgical revolutionaries, among whom I lived and moved and had my being during the pogroms which brought the novus ordo about, which is, in a couple of generations, the connexion of the faithful with the real liturgy having been broken, the deed will be done, the new order will become the ordinary order, and the old can now be safely hidden in plain sight, whatever it draws being no challenge to the establishment.
The dark side of lex orandi, lex credendi.
The final phrase of the penultimate paragraph should be cleaned up a little: ... at whose meaning most readers will despair of guessing.
Catholic can be quite sure he is not receiving the Real Presence at any Lutheran service even if the Real Presence is proclaimed through Bose speakers, because the ministers have no orders to do it.
Quite right, I reread what I posted and I should have said IF I were to receive at a Lutheran parish -- which I don't. There is decidedly a difference in how our respective bodies view Holy Orders. I don't go up for Communion at my Lutheran sister's parish nor does she receive at my Catholic one. I didn't do too good of a job in trying to state (it's Friday, gimme a break will ya!) that when I was growing up every Lutheran congregation proclaimed the Real Presence without hesitation. At that time I had no reason to doubt it because I didn't question the way the ministry was ordered in Lutheran churches. Now, with the encroachment of the evangelical culture into some Lutheran parishes the importance and historic meaning of Holy Communion is being very much subdued.
At any rate, I have no doubts about the validity of the Sacrament I receive at Catholic Eucharists. None at all. It IS an objective reality available to all Catholics.
That is the historic Catholic position, and it has not changed.
NOW you sound like a Roman -- forget the power of God's word to do what it says, forget the sureness of Scripture, forget the preaching of the Word, forget everything but all that really matters -- Rome, Rome, Rome.
That is the historic Catholic position and it has not changed, so despite the Protestant style services it now offers as a ruse, and in complete falseness to Roman Catholicism, it's still the same god, itself and nothing else but insofar as it finds itself there.
I sound like a Roman? Thanks! I take that as a very postive affirmation!
Where on earth does Rome deny the power of God's word to do what it says? Roman teaching on the Real Presence has never changed, unlike in much of the Reformed world. And you know very well that it is based solidly on Scripture.
I WAS Protestant for many years. I know the difference. The Mass is the Mass. A Protestant worship service is a Protestant worship service.
I don't need your version of what the Church "was" and "should" be. I'll define that for myself, thank you very much.
No-one said it wasn't based on Scripture.
According to Rome, though, it only does what the Lord says it does when Rome says it does it. That's the point. Rome, first, last, and always, before everything and anything -- god.
Catholics used to joke right after the Council that a lot of time and paper could have been saved by just promulgating three words, Luther Was Right, and going home.
How true. Now you get the double illusion that you are no longer Protestant as a side effect of the illusion you are Roman. The reality is, as my convert dad used to say, is another Protestant church but with a pope. Then again he converted in 1941.
Still these "Catholic" blogs are helpful, especially the ones by converts, re-inforcing powerfully that the post conciliar church is nothing, nothing like the Catholic church except in real estate, period costumes, titles, and lots and lots of money.
A pathetic, miserable sham.
BTW a Catholic does not define for himself what the church was, is, or should or will be. But then again, there is no surprise in post-conciliarism not sounding like Catholicism.
What's pathetic and miserable are ranting and raving bitter ex-Catholics.
PE. you're no better than an ex-nun, because you're consumed with anger and imagined self-victimhood.
I think for your own good you need to learn to moderate your comments and learn what good manners are - for instance, not to always talk about yourself and your pains and your moodiness.
Of course. Rome can do no wrong ever, being god, so anyone who says anything against Rome must, having by definition nothing to say, be only speaking out of their own set of problems, poor bleeders.
There can be no moderation in the face of the preposterous lie that is the Roman Catholic Church. It has delivered a message other than what was delivered, and what it itself once delivered (so sorry to happen to be an eye witness to that) so let it be anathema.
Joshua, you are soooooo right. Ex-Catholics really are the worst. They ooze their sense of betrayal from every pore.
Yet he just can't resist beating the same poor tired old horse to death.
Sad, really. I know an ex-Catholic who was "evangelized" by a Pentecostal woman. Her whole life now appears to revolve around demonstrating her "superior" knowledge of the Bible to every Catholic she knows. She's tried it on me several times but she hasn't gotten very far. When an ex-Catholic turned Pentecostal tries to explain to ME what the Reformation was all about, I' ready, let me tell ya!
Yet, I am wondering where PE will go if the LCMS implodes, which is a very real possibility. Kieschnick is really quite right, it isn't your "grandfather's church".
Always the same, which makes it rather amusing to be criticised for being the same.
There is no more poor tired horse in the world than the idea that conciliar Catholicism and Roman Catholicism are the same thing.
What is sad is the unquestioned and unquestionable a priori that keeps anything and everything from being examined -- Rome is not wrong because Rome cannot be wrong, therefore anyone who says Rome is wrong has nothing to say.
Always the god Rome. There was no betrayal, you only thought so, it's all you and we know that because Rome is never wrong. It's the same because Rome says it's the same, on and on, cue the dead horse for more beating.
So with a completely straight face it can hand what was taught to me as the Catholic faith back to me as my own opinion.
Yeah right, it was all in my head, I was just imagining all that, came up with it all myself.
That's what you do in totalitarian dictatorships like the RCC, if they say you saw black, then you say you saw black.
Still, it moves, as another person recently exonerated after centuries from the ranks of cranks once said.
Don't worry about your relatives and luggage, they'll be waiting for you at the end of the train ride.
Right.
If the LCMS implodes, or explodes, so be it. LCMS is "our beloved synod" but it is not the one, holy, catholic and apostolic church. Christ has seen that through the Babylonian Captivity to the Roman Empire and Holy Roman Empire, and he will see it through Jerry Kieschnick and company too, LCMS or no LCMS.
What utter lying dogs from hell.
Sorry, that's unfair to dogs. Maybe even to hell.
I do believe that is exactly what Our Lord meant when he was saying "do not judge."
(No, not claiming to be a perfect observer of this command myself).
Scriptural enough for ya?
God bless me sideways.
I'm not in a good mood about all this Catholic stuff.
Went on the website of the TV station in the town where I grew up to see if there was a story about my (Catholic) high school's 40 year reunion (class of '68, that's me).
There wasn't, but it seems my old parish now makes quite the local splash with its annual block party, followed the link to its own site no less, and found a great parish event open to the public, rock concerts and all, and of course no mention of Jesus whatever.
Followed the link to the parish itself, which I heard a few years ago completely redid the church, as if the hacking to pieces when I was there wasn't enough, now they redid the bleeder from stem to stern, absolutely unrecognisable as a Catholic place of worship from what I was taught, pre Revolution.
Read the Vision Statement which guided the whole sorry affair. Couldn't even fault it as being a capitulation to secular marketing tactics, as the whole thing was prepared in concert with the official diocesan liturgist (not a priest, of course, a nun). And of course not a word about Jesus or the Bible, all "decrees of Vatican II" and nothing before.
Like a Tridentine Mass tucked away the first Sunday of the month at 1600 makes the slightest difference.
A church hacked to pieces from what it was to serve a faith hacked to pieces from what it was. I'm sorry I saw it. I won't visit it again. I can handle it being what it is. There's other cults out there when a lot of money too. But for Christ's sake don't even bother to tell me this is Roman Catholicism.
Super flumina Babylonis ...
As you well know, PE, abuse takes not away the use; as is obvious, there has been a tidal wave of doctrinal and practical disobedience in the Church, but just because few heed the Deposit of Faith doesn't mean it is invalidated.
And why can't you learn manners and write in a polite and measured style? It drives me mad having to read it, quite frankly, and surely you could TRY.
No one likes listening to whingeing whiners.
I'm not in a good mood about all this Catholic stuff.
The thing is, PE -- you aren't Catholic anymore. None of this should bother you in the slightest.
It's very telling that you can't seem to just walk away from it all. You've stated your positions very clearly hear numerous times. You are entitled to them.
We are entitled to disagree with them.
It seems to me that you need to focus all that energy on helping to steer the good ship Missouri back on course.
very clearly hear -- er, "here".
Yesterday at Mass in the Cathedral, I thought to myself:
"This is so true, so Christian, so real. I wish PE could be sitting here along side me and sharing this moment instead of sitting at his computer griping."
There you have it -- something done with reference throughout to the decrees of Vatican II, in co-operation with the diocese and its liturgist -- this is abuse and part of a tidal wave of doctrinal and practical disobedience?
Anything and everything to preserve the god Rome. Can you not see that?
Guess bloody what? Not everyone's waking thoughts and actions revolve around the god Rome. I did not set out to see what had become of the parish in which I grew up, was taught the Catholic faith, served for years at its worship, graduated from its schools, etc. I set out to see if the local news carried a story about my 40th high school reunion, and there it was about the recent block party. I did not set out to find an Australian Catholic blog and raise hell. I encountered its author on a Lutheran blog, chiming in with support, actually, for a distinction I had drawn in a point about Catholic theology, and as I generally do, linked to the commenter's blog to see who this person is -- and found it was a Lutheran pastor who converted, and came to make the point that while I can understand, though not agree with, a conversion to Catholicism, this isn't Catholicism at all.
And the result is absolutely predicatable and typical. While claiming their new religion is still the same thing, what I was taught by the Catholic Church as the Catholic Faith is now my opinion, my interpretation, my ideas, God bless me, gadzookers, here it comes -- the Church is my idea!! (extra credit if you get the reference) -- and arguing for the Catholic Faith is whining and griping since it is no longer what the god Rome peddles to the destruction of souls.
Nothing could more amply demonstrate the unrecognised hostility toward the Catholic Faith. All the while calling itself Catholic.
David, I am sure we would pass many pleasant moments as friends. But not at "Mass" in the Cathedral, unless someone died, got married, or baptised, the only times I intentionally involve myself in "Catholic" goings on. Because there or anywhere the novus ordo is said, it is strange fire before the Lord, false, unChristian, and an illusion. And a Tridentine Mass under the Motu means nothing -- hell, Beethoven could be heard under the Nazis too.
So I leave you to the grace of God. Hopefully at some point you will have ears for something other than the god Rome, because that god is false even to itself.
I still find PE's problem incomprehensible.
Under any reasonable theory, Protestant or Catholic, Mass old and new is a true celebration of the Lord's Supper (and of His Sacrifice in Catholic eyes) since it contains the Words He spoke over bread and wine. I assume that those who say Mass is blasphemous mean that, if all the references to sacrifice were omitted, and reference to more than their own acceptable level of reality of the Presence were suitably toned down, they would accept the core of it, since it would then resemble whatever version of Protestant Communion service their own theology agrees with.
I get PE's theory - that the changes in the Mass somehow invalidated the Tridentine theories of it being a Sacrifice, etc., and that this self-contradiction disproves all Rome's claims, revealing it to be a false Church, and hence an idol - but I don't find it persuasive.
Quite simply, whenever I have read people arguing that the new Mass is invalid, their arguments to my mind fail, usually because of laughably simplistic errors (for instance, they argue as if 1950's style Low Mass were the only valid form of the Liturgy, disregarding all other valid Eastern and Western Rites and their forms down the ages). For this reason, people who try and argue thus - quoting the Ottaviani intervention and the other usual suspects - miss the point entirely: the Novus Ordo certainly still expresses the Catholic Faith in the Sacrament, that it is a Sacrifice and a Real Presence, as a most cursory attention to the actual texts reveals. Whether it is not nearly as reverent and explicit in its manifestation of this as the older Roman Rite down to 1962 (as I for one would privately hold) is another question entirely. People somehow confuse change for better or worse with validity versus invalidity - a category error.
The same goes for claims that the Church no longer teaches what it used to, and therefore is guilty of self-contradiction, which would shew it to be a false church and an idol.
These claims don't stand up - even though obviously many many Catholics believe all manner of nonsense, the official teachings of the Church remain the same. There are two sorts of Catholics: bad and good; the bad especially today are ostentatious in their perversion of the Faith and their disparagement of it and those adhering to it, but their scorn disproves not one dogma.
Mad folk who attempt to find heresy in the Catechism, JPII, Benedict XVI etc. ad nauseam are just that - mad.
If one is filled with illwill, one soon lapses into paranoia and persecution mania, accompanied by bitterness, spite and anger (as various members of the SSPX unfortunately manifest, and as PE seems to also demonstrate).
I hope that PE will accept that I bear him no ill-will, despite my perhaps overzealous and imperfect comments, and know that he likewise is motivated by the charitable intention to deliver dupes from their errors. Oremus pro invicem! We must believe that God will in His Providence enlighten those in darkness, for "He wills all to be saved and come to knowledge of the truth". Magna est veritas et prævalebit.
Here's a little snippet by Msgr. Owen Campion reflecting on Vatican II:
"I was studying for the priesthood when the Liturgical Movement was in full bloom.
I spent the first years of my priesthood trying to tell people what was happening in the Church immediately after the Council and, critically, why it was happening.
Pope Paul VI's changes of the liturgy, of course reflecting the council, were not based in the least upon the wish to invent or to start anything new. Rather, the idea was to return to the most ancient practices of formal Catholic worship (emphasis mine). Thus came the vernacular and so many of the other changes that Catholics who were alive and observing 40 years ago will remember.
It was no sinister plot to deny or downplay any doctrine. And let me set the record straight -- it was no concession to Protestants. Utterly none of the discussions in the council, nor anything said among authorities or scholars prior to Pope Paul VI's changes, mentioned anything about copying or appealing to Protestants."
I mentioned earlier that I have been reading Arthur Just's book on Christian worship, particularly in its Lutheran forms. Just very clearly delineates the abberations that crept in during the Middle ages and how Lutheran worship looks back to the 4th-5th centuries. And yet when the Catholic Church attempted to do the same she is decried as being heretical and worse.
PE won't agree, of course, but here you have it from a clergyman who also lived through those years.
A while ago I received the "introductory" packet that the SSPX sends out to anyone who requests it. Now mind you, I have great respect for Archbishop Marcel LeFebvre. His integrity and love of the historic liturgy are beyond question but I simply don't agree with him that the Mass is now a mere Protestant "meal". The sacrificial texts of the Eucharistic canon are still clearly in place and we continue to join our spiritual sacrifice to that of Christ present on the altar.
But then, that's part of the problem, I think, that PE doesn't get about those of us who came into the Church post-Vatican II. We see continuity where he sees an utter repudiation of what went before and we don't need to "unlearn" the past.
Joshua and Christine: well put.
Although, perhaps we need to state more clearly:
1. official doctrine on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass has not changed with or after Vatican II.
2. the Novus Ordo of course is valid
3. the texts of the Novus Ordo of course express the doctrine of the Sacrifice of the Mass
However, many other points including the following points must also be given due weight because they make it APPEAR as though the church has changed her teaching:
1. that in so many (most?) churches, the liturgical action is celebrated AS THOUGH IT WAS a protestant communal meal where the doctrine of sacrifice and the Real Presence is so down played
2. item 1 is buttressed by the usual suspects: the absence of properly liturgical music, chant and hymnody that is firmly rooted in the Tradition of the Church; vestments and furnishings that are from the Beauty that Pope Benedict says is necessary for us to perceive in order to touch the divine; the fluffy mealy mouthed sermons that eschew anything amounting to clear teaching and doctrine (I can't remember when I last heard a clear sermon on the Real Presence)
3. A hierarchy in various parts of Australia that variously (a) perpetuates what appears to be non-Catholic; or (b) will celebrate what is by and large Catholic liturgy in her Cathedral churches, but only to a point, namely without fully embracing the richness of her Tradition; (c) will do (b), but will under virtually no circumstances require any of her parish churches or priests to do the same.
For all the "official" doctrine, teaching, orthodoxy and orthopraxis, what most people get in the 'burbs is a waterd-down version that may as well be something else. And that "something else" more closely approximates something protestant than it does Catholicism.
celeb
2. nevertheless, some of the sub-diarty
same goes for claims that the Church no longer teaches what it used to, and therefore is guilty of self-contradiction, which would shew it to be a false church and an idol.
These claims don't stand up - even though obviously many many Catholics believe all manner of nonsense, the official teachings of the Church remain the same. There are two sorts of Catholics: bad and good; the bad especially today are ostentatious in their perversion of the Faith and their disparagement of it and those adhering to it, but their scorn disproves not one dogma.
I fully agree: people are being given stones, not bread.
The state of the Church is a scandal in the truest sense to those inside AND outside.
"We walk by faith and not by sight
No gracious words we hear..."
Joshua
The issue I have is what do we do about it? And I mean, besides prayer, which we do anyway. What actions do we take?
Well, I attend the EF whenever possible, and find there good orthodox preaching, likeminded Catholics, and a chance to help out through serving and singing the chant.
When I can't get to the EF on weekdays, I go to certain OF Masses that I find OK, because they are done more or less correctly.
In other words, I have found a niche. I cordially wish well all those attempting to raise standards, and to work toward a Reform of the Reform, but having the chance to mainly attend the TLM, that's what I in all honesty find better.
Joshua: I think this is pretty much what we all do, we look for the places that assist us most, and that often is the TLM.
Therefore, we return to my first post. If this is of such use to som many of us, and we wish others will find it helpful, or we wish to extend its use and availability so that it is more easily accessed, then how do we push the Ecclesial authorities to do that which they do not want to?
And fix the way the Novus Ordo is celebrated too?
Unfortunately, as good as some of the priests and bishops are personally, the bishops are not willing to insist on higher standards for fear of revolt. And many continue to suffer as a result.
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