Mario, Thank you and God bless you. This is very well said. I find that the article is not constructive at all, plain and simple. I also question the author's irreverence to both Pope Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict. Thankfully, the author refers to them as popes but he does not use any of their titles when writing about them. For me, this is a very bad sign and I will be adding Peter Kwasniewski to my daily prayers. Safe in the Barque of Saint Peter and Safe in the Hearts of Jesus and Mary!
Truth!often priests of the LM urge their congregations to resist pride and aggressive argument. The lack of charity in some is troubling. On the other hand I had those tendencies myself when I returned to traditional Catholicism. I was angry more than anything. God has since taught me a different way. I see both sides and I sympathize with both traditional and conservative but I think of myself as plain old Catholic—as I knew it growing up and as it was for millennia. Not one faction of another. Just Catholic.
One must make a distinction between the author's biases, perhaps fomented out of pious frustration, and the irrefutable truths he expresses. I pray to Popes John Paul II and John XXIII every day and consider both are saints. However, one must not idolise them as being creatures who made no mistakes. They were both faced with problems of unimaginable magnitude and couldn't themselves avoid having being infected, no matter their good intentions, by the spirit of their age. I think they accomplished heroic things, for imperfect human beings. I consider they both did their best, which was not inconsiderable, and that if Vatican II had been conducted according to Pope John's wishes, things might have worked out better than they would have been if nothing had been done. That is not the way things worked out, the modernists seemed to gain a death-grip on proceedings and it would be very difficult to deny now that events have worked out worse than would have been the case without a Council. Surely, to live as a pre-1962 Catholic is not a non-viable means to salvation? We know that Revelation died with the last Apostle, that Truth cannot change? Surely, this Council is the most over-rated event in Church History? Let us follow Pope Emeritus Benedict's lead and restore what was before-it was good then, it cannot fail to be, now. What is our alternative? A Church where the present sin-ud, directed by boy-lusters in bishops's outfits will make a sacrament of sodomy? This has been the almost inevitable slippery slope since '62, a slow-motion car-crash and we are about to hit the wall.
There comes a time when only a sledgehammer will do. Good Cardinal Burke and his associates got nowhere with the Dubia. It took getting Himself murdered for God to make an impact 2,000 years ago. If we don't stop prissying about, the Minor Chastisement will hit, and that'll be the only thing minor about it. Let's start with the sledgehammer of prayer: Thy will be done Give us this day our daily Bread Deliver us from evil. Come Lord Jesus.
This is an important point and you have succeeded in one sentence where perhaps my verbose ramblings failed I think much of what the author says points in the right direction (not all of what he said). But his personality interfered with the message. In times of confusion in the Church many saints have told us to flee to Tradition rather than inhale a false novelty. That is why I hold to things like the Latin Mass. I know that the Church was right in 1960 and went off the rails somewhere afterwards. So I stick with the immutable truths as they have always been taught and am wary of these new teachings. It doesn't mean that everything that came out of the Church after Vatican II should go in the dumpster. It just means we need to be cautious of innovation.
We still have the Mass and Sacraments. Most of us here, to my knowledge, are leery of innovations. There are many, but we can steer clear of them. I believe we are being led by the Blessed Mother and the Lord Himself. The gates of hell shall not prevail against this Church.
I can't thank you enough for recommending those homilies. I have spent all evening listening to them, and they have given me much to think about. His homily on Confession is inspired.
I think what I try to express is that it has taken me decades to finally reach a peaceful acceptance of what has happened to my beloved Church. God is fixing it. Key words here: peaceful and God is fixing it.
I don't believe that Mass must be celebrated in Latin for it to be holy or acceptable to God. I like hearing the word of God in a language I understand. Many people don't own a Bible, never mind read it, so Sunday Mass is the only time they are exposed to Scripture readings. What could be wrong with people hearing the inspired word of God in their own language before the priest delivers his homily on it? Granted, there are more obvious abuses since the Mass was changed but I believe that most of them crept in through a poor explanation of the laity's role - a kind of fudging of the lines between what is proper to the priest and the laity's participation. I get the impression that some of the "Spirit of Vatican 11" enthusiasts decided they had been given the go-ahead to "develop" the "royal priesthood", bringing a whole new meaning to con-celebration and making the entire congregation de-facto ordained and authorised to act in persona Christi at the Consecration. For all I know, that could have been the real intention of the Vatican 11 changes. For example, some people seem to think that they are participating more fully when they say with the priest "Through Him, with Him, in Him" (I think that's called the great doxology). That practice seems to have died out in most churches where I go to Mass. I've only come across it lately in a Capuchin church. Others seem to think that holding their hands out like the priest, palms turned upwards, makes the Our Father more meaningful. Maybe it does. Again, I don't know. It comes across as affectatious but that could be me being judgmental. I think that much of the nonsense would be eliminated if the priest weren't facing the people because that brings out the inner actor in some priests. They probably feel obliged to make the Mass more relevant rather than offering the Sacrifice as they were ordained to do and leaving the Holy Spirit to work in the hearts of the faithful. It also seems to have given laity the impression that the more they have to say and do, the better they are assisting at Mass.
No verbose ramblings with you. You have perfectly expressed the simple truth that there is much in Vatican II that deserves to be retained. I think what we might be seeing is an idolatry of a council. Some high in the Church appear to give Vatican II a higher status than Christ. This is not only clearly absurd, but seems to me a very extreme form of the kind of humanly self-dependant pelagianism of which PF is constantly warning us.
Strip down the NO to the absolute spartan minimum, shoot anybody that tries to shake hands or encourage pop-hymns, ban extra-ordinary eucharistic ministers and "altar girls", kneel for communion on the tongue, use the Roman canon, and have the priest face God for the Consecration and it can't get much better than that.
Dolours, I am grieved at times when a priest commits illicit acts during Holy Mass (such as going all over the Church during the Sign of Peace); but due to poor instruction or actual encouragement from clergy, the laity can commit illicit acts too. Two that come to mind:1) the holding of hands during the Pater Noster, and 2) under the reception of both species, a parishioner will take the Sacred Host and dip it in the Precious Blood before consuming it. The second is called intinction and is properly reserved for the Clergy to provide on solemn liturgies. Self-intinction would occasionally occur at my parish before our current pastor arrived. I consider that a serious infraction! Some parishioners (often couples) still hold hands at Holy Mass during the Our Father. The Novus Ordo has no allowance for either. Safe in the Barque of Peter!
Exactly. And I suspect that more than a few parish priests would be happy not to be burdened with looking for volunteers for every new "ministry" introduced in the spirit of Vatican 11. In some parishes it would be better if the priest were to do the Scripture readings but not in others, especially when the priest's first language is not English and he has a strong accent. I've been asked once or twice to do the reading at a Mass I attend. While I would never refuse such a request, my tone of voice and diction are not the best and I know that God would be far better served by the priest who can do it better. I'm not bothered about altar girls. I do think it strange that we have so many more altar servers now than pre-Vatican 11 when the altar boys were required to respond in Latin on behalf of the laity and to assist at the distribution of Communion. I hope I'm not coming across as belittling those who do volunteer because I have great admiration for people who give a commitment to serve. I admire anyone who guarantees to be available at a given time, week in, week out. From what I see in my own parish, only in the extremely rare case have I had the impression that the motivation is anything other than to glorify God and strengthen the parish. EMHC's in our parish do more than give Holy Communion at Mass. They are the people who bring Communion to the sick, the housebound and the elderly in nursing homes. Sometimes they are like a substitute for absent relatives. I discovered that when visiting elderly relatives in nursing homes. Some elderly residents get no weekly visitors other than the EMHC.
It is similar for deacons, Dolours. Priests and ministers are simply too infrequently available for dying residents at nursing homes. I've been bedside for 2 dying non-Catholics and 1 dying Catholic, including families, in the last 2 weeks! I give from my heart (including Holy Communion), but no Anointing of the Sick! And this past Tuesday a family refused my presence! I've had that happen at the hospital; this was the first time at a nursing home. That growing lack of faith is appalling! Lord have mercy!
