Posted on 09/20/2004 9:11:36 PM PDT by Jeff Chandler
Life Teen Liturgy Experiences Changes
By Claudia I. Provencio The Catholic Sun
MESA — In “joyful obedience” to the Church, Life Teen officials say they will cease the ministry’s longtime trademark of gathering teens arm-in-arm around the altar during the Eucharistic Prayer.
The practice that has been a staple at Life Teen Masses nationwide for nearly two decades will cease Oct. 1 in compliance with the revised General Instruction of the Roman Missal.
The youth ministry will also refrain from using the phrase, “The Mass never ends, it must be lived” at the conclusion of the liturgy.
In a recent letter to U.S. bishops, priests and diocesan youth offices, Life Teen founder Msgr. Dale Fushek asked member parishes to joyfully comply with the directives in a “spirit of obedience.”
“Our understanding is that the sanctuary space around the altar is to remain separated from the rest of the assembly,” said Phil Baniewicz, president of Life Teen International.
The modifications are designed to enhance liturgical uniformity, he said.
In a video sent to 920 parishes in the United States and 50 abroad, Msgr. James Moroney, executive director of the U.S. bishops’ Committee on Liturgy, said, “Life Teen is like a precious gem in the Church’s crown.
“But gems and jewels sometimes need to get polished and even have their settings rearranged,” he said.
At Life Teen’s request, Msgr. Moroney and Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation of Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments in Rome, provided direction prompting the liturgical changes.
Hector Cervantes, a core member for 18 months at the Life Teen hub, St. Timothy Parish in Mesa, said the cessation of gathering at the altar helps people focus more on the Mass and on the Eucharist.
Prior to the implementation of the changes at the Mesa parish Sept. 5, he said core members were “constantly having to make sure the kids behaved and didn’t talk” during the Eucharistic Prayer.
However, the 23-year-old, who has attended St. Timothy’s for “as long as I can remember,” said the modifications will take a little getting used to. “But change is always good,” he added. “So we are just welcoming it.”
Bri Morsa, a Life Teen core member at St. Gabriel the Archangel, said she heard no complaints from teens when the Cave Creek parish implemented the changes Sept. 5.
“The flow of the Mass hasn’t changed. The teens have responded in obedience,” Morsa said. “The change doesn’t affect them because that’s not what they’re about. What I see in the teens is that no matter what goes on, they are there for the presence of the Lord.”
Old habits may die hard, she said, but the modifications to the Life Teen liturgy didn’t prevent people from concluding the Mass with a “prayerful heart and a joyful voice.”
She's one of those "we will resist you to your face" writers at The Remnant.
Nobody but the Grunerites are losing sleep over the Consecration of Russia.
...except probably the parents of all those little kids murdered in "peaceful" Russia a couple of weeks ago.
Blame radical Islamists for that, not John Paul II.
Some people seem to think that merely saying a prayer is going to move hearts and minds. To move hearts and minds, you have to move hearts and minds.
I have never heard a man of the cloth dismiss prayer as a solution. That's a new one for AmChurch.
I am amazed at how an article describing a positive change brought about in a sensitive manner by Bishop Olmstead has turned into a flame war!
From your link:
"But no, says Fr. Mauer, this is not the case at all, since conversion is no longer the primary mission of the missionaries. “John Paul II has told all missionaries going to Russia that we are forbidden to proselytize the Orthodox Christians,” he states complacently.
"This stands in direct opposition to the age-old Catholic teaching where the Church instructed her sons and daughters to fight against “the perfidy of heretics and schismatics.” Until Vatican II, the goal of missions was to convert heretics, schismatics, Jews, and pagans from the errors they professed in order to bring them into the bosom of the Church. After Vatican II, missions came to signify a movement of the Church of openness toward heretics, schismatics, Jews and pagans – without seeking their conversion (4). As Fr. Mauer states, proselytism is banned by the Pope himself. In the spirit of the “new evangelization,” the Church must adapt to others. Fr. Mauer’s words are an alarming indication of just how deeply the new progressivist doctrine has been imbedded in good-willed but misguided missionaries."
"I would imagine that every one of those early Masses was beautiful, sacred and pleasing to God. I don't see how they wouldn't have been as true as any that followed."
Humans are not perfect. We approach God's will with a greater or lesser degree of success.
It seems to me that centuries of guidance by the Spiritum Sanctum would help us approach it with a greater degree of success; that is, that we'd be doing better after the guidance than we were before the guidance.
Or is the guidance of the Spiritum Sanctum without effect and futile?
"But why would it be a bad thing?"
I explained that in my previous note. Let me try an analogy.
Suppose you hired somebody to train as a cook. You started them with boiling eggs, and gradually brought them along. After five years you were getting to the difficult things, the bearnaise sauce, the choron, cheesecakes eight inches tall, beef Wellington...and suddenly your cook said, "Hey, canned pork and beans is better than all this stuff. I ain't gonna cook no more souffles, no more oysters Rockefeller, no more angels on horseback, no more lobster thermidor...I'm going back to my roots, back to where I started, back to where I was before you started teaching me. From now on, it's pork and beans, and nothing but pork and beans, and I'm not gonna let anybody else cook any of that stuff, either."
Going back to 155 is an insult to the Spiritum Sanctum, in the same way that the hypothetical cook above insulted his teacher.
You might not starve on a steady diet of canned pork and beans, but there's better food out there.
That's exactly what sinkspur said.
"I am amazed at how an article describing a positive change brought about in a sensitive manner by Bishop Olmstead has turned into a flame war!"
Who has flamed whom?
If someone said to me that some people seem to think that merely saying a prayer is going to move hearts and minds, but that to move hearts and minds, you have to move hearts and minds, I would take the plain meaning of his words to be that prayer is without effect, and only human effort can avail.
Last time I checked the Our Father was a prayer. Ever think that God's will is that you pray to Him? Where were you people catechized.
By itself, prayer is not the only solution to conversion. One must work at changing hearts and minds.
Dude, that was all before we had On Eagles Wings.
You need to lighten up. You act like eternal souls are at stake.
Pray like a saint, work like a dog.
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