The ESSENCE of the Mass is the changing of the bread and wine into the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus. That has not changed.
The essence of humanity is change. It always has been. Generations are not static. Not much IS static in this life.
God's love for us in unchanging and we Catholics are MOST privileged to have His Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity to consume at Mass. Everything else is bells and whistles.
Well said.
You have an extremely utilitarian and shallow view of what liturgy is. The Mass is not some industrial laboratory for manufacturing consecrated Hosts on demand—a workshop where beauty, decorum, prayerful contemplation are mere frills—”bells and whistles.”
You seem to think that any hideous, raucous hootenanny is just fine, as long as the consecrated Hosts get manufactured and passed out.
Everything else is bells and whistles.
Human nature is not able to understand the sacred mystery without the appropriate asethetics. Lex orendi lex credendi.
The "essence" has changed; otherwise priest wouldn't be sitting on their rumps while lay people man-handle the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Christ like crackers and distribute them from plastic draft beer cups to people in the paw and on the hoof. All respect for the Body of Christ is lost in most New Masses.
Pope's World Yute Day in Rio
You've been posting essentially cookie cutter copies of that deranged and non-Catholic POV for some time now.
The essence of humanity is change. It always has been. Generations are not static. Not much IS static in this life.
You haven't figured out that progressivist comments, whether in the religious or political forums, don't fit here.
Well the Catholic Mass has been a lot more static from 1570 to 1969 than the Novus Ordo mutation from 1969 to present.
Did you know the original Novus Ordo Masses were still said in Latin, Holy Communion was distributed at an altar rail to kneeling people on their tongues, altar girls were forbidden, "extraordinary" eucharistic monsters were non-existent.
But like a virus, the novus has mutated into what it is today.
“Everything else is bells and whistles.”
I’m afraid that I must disagree most strongly.
How can I begin to describe the contribution “bells and whistles” have made to the salvation of souls? To the conversion of entire peoples, for that matter?
Music, art, and poetry are powerful. God often uses them to move hard hearts and exalt the hearts of the faithful. (When I say “poetry,” I mean prayers such as the Anima Christi and the Salve Regina, in the original Latin.) Sacred music, sacred art, and incense can help a person prepare for prayer.
Catholicism that scorns “bells and whistles” is halfway down the aisle to Protestantism.
So do you approve of gay marriages?