Tuesday, March 14, 2017

On the Extraordinary Form (and its Poor Cousin)

One graf from this First Things essay jumps out.

...there exists a close connection between orthodoxy and an appreciation of style.

The vast majority of the faithful have in the meantime never known anything else but the revised Mass in its countless manifestations. They have lost any sense of the spiritual wealth of the Church and in many cases simply are not capable of following the old rite. They should not be criticized on account of this. The Tridentine Mass demands a lifetime of education, and the post-conciliar age is characterized, among other things, by the widespread abandonment of religious instruction. The Catholic religion with its high number of believers has actually become the most unknown religion in the world, especially to its own adherents. While there are many Catholics who feel repelled and offended by the superficiality of the new rite as it is frequently celebrated today, by the odious music, the puritanical kitsch, the trivialization of dogma, and the profane character of new church buildings, the gap that has opened up in the forty years between the traditional rite and the new Mass is very deep, often unbridgeable. The challenge becomes more difficult because one of the peculiarities of the old rite is that it makes itself accessible only slowly—unless the uninitiated newcomer to this ancient pattern of worship is a religious genius. One has never “learned everything there is to learn” about the Roman Rite, because in its very origin and essence this enduring and truly extraordinary form is hermetic, presupposing arcane discipline and rigorous initiation....

I will add that the same is true of Gregorian Chant, in spades.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

and there are those who prefer to buy furniture ans household items in antique stores

Dad29 said...

Good to know irrelevancy is still hot with some people

Anonymous said...


Hopefully this is relevant.
I looked up "cult precedes culture"
and google was not helpful.
Then I went to new advent and looked up "cult precedes culture"
and I found this piece by Charles Chaput


https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2015/03/of-human-dignity

T.S. Eliot liked to argue that “no culture has appeared or developed except together with a religion.”
Nor can a culture survive or develop for long without one.

"Cult" as in Mohmadism or Christianity is the base that a culture is built on, that is why it proceed it.

-Mississippi


Dad29 said...

Dead-on, friend.

That's why there is no such thing as "moderate" Mohammedanism. There are non-practicing Muslims, just as there are 'non-practicing' Catholics and Jews. But the faith does not change.

And the more you know about the Cult of Mohamet, the more you understand the culture of Mohammedans.