Unlike the FabricatedFollies which the LiturgyWonks foisted on unsuspecting Catholics during the 1970's, the historical facts support traditional practices (surprise!!)
A couple of new examples:
[An] article by Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Karaganda, Kazakhstan, originally printed in L'Osservatore Romano, examines the historical record of Catholic practice, concluding that the early Church quickly developed the practice in which lay people Communion on the tongue while kneeling....
Kneeling to receive Communion was also a pattern established early in Church history, Bishop Schneider reports
Over the last several years, other FabricatedFollies had been exploded, such as the "ordained"-Deaconess Folly, and the "homosexual Marriage" Folly.
One might expect that before another 10 years passes, it will be determined that the Revolutionaries simply lied, wholesale, about everything.
Want a few more? Here's a portion of an essay by Fr. Stravinskas which should be enlightening:
One of the first myths foisted on the laity is that Vatican II taught that Christ is as present in the liturgical assembly as he is in the eucharistic species. Here’s what the Council Fathers really said:
"To accomplish so great a work, Christ is always present in his Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass, not only in the person of his minister, ‘the same now offering, through the ministry of priests, who formerly offered himself on the cross,’ but especially under the eucharistic species" (SC 7)
See anything about "the assembly" in there? I didn't think so.
And, of course, we all know that the reforms of Vatican II did away with the Latin Mass. Strangely enough, nobody informed the bishops: "The use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites" (36). And some priests will be amazed to learn that "in accordance with the centuries-old tradition of the Latin rite, the Latin language is to be retained by clerics in the divine office" (101).
From Avery Cardinal Dulles in 2003:
Vatican II is frequently praised or blamed for having authorized the translation of the Latin liturgy into the vernacular. But the matter is not so simple. In Sacrosactum Concilium, its “Constitution on the Liturgy” (1963), the council declared: “The use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rite, except where a particular law might indicate otherwise” (SC, No 36, Paragraph 1).
The following grafs from SC allow for somewhat limited translations to the vulgar--that's all. No wholesale dump of Latin is specified, nor authorized, by Vatican II.
HT: Leonardi
But why should we let a little thing like a close reading of the Council documents get in the way of our bliss? Try to relax a little. After all, We are Church, and Jesus lives in Us. Don't you think it's way past time to move beyond the rigid concepts of authority and dogma to more enlightened notions? Latin's a dead language, and a patriarchal system that puts guys wearing medieval costumes in a "sanctuary" simply doesn't speak to the needs of the 21st century. I don't remember Jesus wearing "vestments" or swinging pots of incense around. My guess is that he didn't even know what a pipe organ was, and could have cared less about yet-to-be-invented polyphony. My guess? The Last Supper was a bit grittier, a bit more real than all that. Isn't it time to throw off the straight-jacket of tradition that binds us to outdated notions of...
ReplyDelete[Ok. I have a confession to make: I was cutting my toenails and talking on the phone with a friend when I wrote the above. It's incredibly easy. I could pump out crap like that by the hour and never have to exert one nano-erg of intellectual energy. Seriously! AND my guess is that it takes even less brain power to listen to stuff like this. Which is why I think the Church is in so much trouble: we've all become so lazy that we're willing to accept nonsense as serious thought. And we're either too slothful or too ill-equipped to subject what's floated by us to some seriously critical thinking. After all, reading Strvinskas or Dulles would mean that I'd have to take my mind away from the Jerry Springer Show for a couple minutes...]
«Waiting for "Jack" to comment to prove my point...»
Well put, Aquinas!
ReplyDeleteActually I blame Muzak for a lot of it! We can't abide silence any more. We must have noise, movement, people doing things, clapping, giving hugs, ministering and what not.
With Latin and the 'Old Mass' silence was built-in - not the 'manufactured silence' we get at NO Masses today. You had to think, reflect, follow your Missal - heck, even pray!
And as for reading??? Well that requires quiet, calm and thought - things in short supply in today's world...