Alexandria (VA) Church Filled for First Latin Mass

From the Latin Mass Society of England and Wales (Indult)
http://www.latin-mass-society.org/2004/fabrication.htm

Return to the roots?

Starting with the first argument, let me quote the words of J.A. Jungmann, who is acknowledged to have been one of the foremost liturgical scholars of the twentieth century. In his magnum opus, The Mass of the Roman Rite, Fr Jungmann has this to say: “The beginnings of the Latin Mass in Rome are wrapped in almost total darkness. The oldest documents to register such a Mass are nearly all the work of diligent Frankish scribes of the eighth and ninth centuries, and even with all the apparatus of literary criticism and textual analysis, we can hardly reconstruct any records back beyond the sixth century, certainly not beyond the fifth. For the most part whatever is here transmitted as the permanent text – especially the canon, but likewise the major portion of the variable prayers of the celebrant, and the readings – is almost identical with present-day usage”. Fr Jungmann wrote this in 1948, and by “present-day usage” he meant of course what we know as the old Roman (or Tridentine) rite. No documents have come to light since 1948 which in any way alter or modify this statement. In other words, the Roman liturgy of the first few centuries is almost totally unknown to us, and the earliest Roman Mass liturgy of which we do have any detailed knowledge is in every important respect identical to that in use before the Second Vatican Council. So much for the Novus Ordo being “a welcome return to the roots of the liturgy”!

Old and new are the same?

There are two important considerations driving the second of these two arguments, both derived from principles laid down in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy. In this document the Council Fathers say that “Holy Mother Church holds all legitimately recognised rites in equal right and honour, and… she wishes them to be kept and fostered unreservedly for the future.” (CSL para. 4). If the old Roman rite and the Novus Ordo are two separate rites, then this statement clearly applies to both of them, and the suppression of the old rite must therefore be contrary to the wishes of the Council Fathers. In order to justify their desire to deprive traditionalists of access to their preferred rite, therefore, the modernists are compelled to argue that they are not two different rites, but an older and a newer version of the same. Secondly, we also read in the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy that “Innovations should not be made unless when a real and definite advantage will accrue to the Church and when due care has been taken to ensure that the new forms shall, as it were, grow out organically from those already existing” (CSL para. 23). Clearly, what the Council Fathers had in mind was a conservative reform of the old rite, not its abolition and replacement with a completely new rite, and in order to demonstrate that the liturgical reform which followed the Council was not in conflict with their intentions, it is necessary for its apologists to argue that the Novus Ordo is not in fact a new rite at all.

Traditionalists can, of course, simply point to the words of Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos, who, in the course of his homily at the celebration of the traditional Mass in St Mary Major’s basilica on 24 May 2003, quoted paragraph four of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy and applied it specifically to the old rite, stating that, The ancient Roman rite therefore retains in the Church its right of citizenship in the bosom of the multiplicity of Catholic rites both western and oriental”. No doubt modernists will argue that Cardinal Castrillon Hoyos has got it all wrong, and, like Mgr Boylan in his letter mentioned above, that the Council Fathers were thinking principally of the rites of the Oriental churches, not of the Roman rite. But this is to put words into their mouths, words which are simply not there in the Constitution. And if there is any doubt as to how we should interpret their actual words, we must surely abide by the principle of “in dubiis libertas”. (“Where there is doubt, there is freedom”).

The new rite analysed

If the Novus Ordo, therefore, is neither a return to the Eucharistic liturgy of the early Church, nor a reformed version of the old Roman rite, what exactly is it? The answer, as I hope to demonstrate in the remainder of this article, is that it is a hotchpotch of elements, some completely novel, and others culled from a variety of rites, both Roman and non-Roman, because they happened to appeal to the post-conciliar liturgical reformers. Not only were a large number of novelties introduced by them into the liturgy, but many genuinely ancient survivals were suppressed. Let us therefore undertake a brief review of some of the principal features of the Novus Ordo:

The Penitential Rite. The classical Roman Mass liturgy does not include a penitential rite and never has done. What then, we might ask, of the so-called prayers at the foot of the altar? The answer is that they are not part of the Mass liturgy, which begins with the Introit. They originated in prayers said privately by the ministers in the sacristy, and only at a later stage of development were they transferred to the foot of the altar. At a High Mass or Missa Cantata they are recited sotto voce by the ministers while the choir sings the Introit; they are inaudible to the congregation, and are meant to be. The penitential rite which has been incorporated into the Novus Ordo is a complete innovation without precedent in the Roman Mass liturgy.

The Kyrie. This was never part of any penitential rite, but formed the introduction to a litany (as it continues to this day at the Easter Vigil). A litany is still sung at this point in the Eastern rites, but in the Roman rite it died out, for various reasons, at an early date, leaving only the Kyrie. In the Novus Ordo it is, quite incorrectly, tacked on to the new penitential rite.

The Collect. The collects of the 1962 missal come for the most part from three early sacramentaries (the Leonine, the Gelasian and the Gregorian), dating from the sixth and seventh centuries, though of course later ones composed for feasts which did not exist when these sacramentaries were compiled are also found. Many of these early collects have either been dropped altogether from the new missal of Pope Paul VI or, where they have been retained, have been rewritten to reflect the theological opinions and didactic preoccupations of the post-conciliar reformers (any reader interested in following this up is referred to a paper by Professor L. Bianchi in the Proceedings of the Fifth International Colloquium of CIEL).

The Readings. As in the case of the Collects, most of the readings in the 1962 missal are identical to those found in the earliest known lectionaries, except of course in the case of feasts which have been added to the calendar at a later date. The new lectionary, however, introduced a three year cycle of readings, a novelty wholly unprecedented in the history of the Roman rite. Few of the ancient readings survive on the days for which they were originally appointed. The addition of another reading as well as the Epistle on Sundays and solemnities is a genuine return to an ancient practice, which died out at a very early date. However, where the reformers came across instances where more than one pre-Gospel reading had survived on weekdays, for example on Ember days and certain weekdays in Lent, they actually suppressed them! Only on Good Friday was the original pattern retained, and even here different readings have been substituted for the ancient ones.

The Creed. This is a late addition to the Roman rite. Although found earlier in the Gallican liturgy, it was not adopted into the Roman rite until the year 1014. It certainly qualifies as a “medieval accretion”. The post-conciliar reformers retained it.

The Bidding Prayers. This is a genuine return to the ancient practice of the Roman rite, which had survived only on Good Friday. The primitive pattern, which readers familiar with the pre-1970 Holy Week liturgy will remember, was for the intention of each prayer to be announced, after which the congregation would be invited to kneel for a brief silent prayer, and finally the petition would be summarised in a collect. This primitive pattern was suppressed by the reformers.

The Offertory. It was the custom in the earliest times for a psalm to be sung during the presentation of the offerings, and a relic of this remains in the 1962 missal in the shape of the offertory verse, sung by the choir. The reformers abolished it, thus removing the last vestige of the ancient practice. The offertory prayers which followed, recited silently by the priest, have a complicated history but were in the main fairly late medieval additions to the liturgy. The reformers duly abolished them, but the prayers which they inserted to replace them, although based on ancient Jewish blessings, have never formed part of any Mass liturgy, in either the East or the West, and are entirely modern innovations.

The Eucharistic Prayer (Canon of the Mass). The core of the Roman Canon is certainly not later than about AD 365, and the intercessions were added during the following century. Here, if anywhere, you would have thought that reformers intent on a return to the roots of the liturgy would have left well alone. Not a bit of it. The only reason why the Roman Canon has survived comparatively intact is because the reformers fell out amongst themselves over the extent to which it should be rewritten. The matter was referred to Pope Paul VI, who decided that it should not be altered. The so-called “memorial acclamation of the people” is, however, wholly foreign to Rome; its source appears to have been certain Eastern rites.

Of the remaining Eucharistic prayers, the second contains an anamnesis and some thematic material from a third century prayer (the anaphora of Hippolytus), and the fourth (in itself, it has to be said, a fine prayer) is an adaptation of the Eucharistic prayer from the ancient Egyptian Liturgy of St Basil. The others are all purely modern compositions. It should, however, be noted that, since they all contain both the words of consecration and an epiklesis, there can be no doubt that, provided that there is no defect of intention on the part of the celebrant and that, in a vernacular Mass, the translation is accurate, they are valid consecratory prayers.

The Pater Noster. As St Gregory tells us in one of his letters, the primitive practice was for this to be said by the priest alone. Not long after St Gregory’s time we find the first reference to the custom of the congregation joining in the final petition (“Sed libera nos a malo”). The practice of the congregation joining in the recitation of the entire prayer is a twentieth century innovation.

The Embolism. The prayer which follows the Pater Noster in the 1962 missal is an ancient one, going back certainly to before the time of St Gregory. Again, you would have thought that the reformers would have wanted to retain it. Once again, you would be wrong. They did not like the ancient Embolism at all. Its request for the intercession of the saints came, in their view, too soon after a similar request in the Canon, and two such requests were in their eyes one too many. The fact that neither St Gregory the Great nor St Pius V thought so did not impress Bugnini and his colleagues in the slightest, so they cut it out.

The Sign of Peace. This was originally exchanged between the ministers in the sanctuary, between the laymen standing to one side of the nave and between the laywomen standing to the other. It was not exchanged between these groups. Nor was it a handshake but a formal kiss or bow. It was omitted on Maundy Thursday (because the many references in the liturgy to Judas’ kiss of betrayal made it inappropriate on that day) and at Requiem Masses. The current practice of shaking hands on every occasion with everyone within reach is unknown in any liturgy before 1970.

The Oratio super Populum. This was a sort of second Postcommunion prayer, which in the earliest times was said on every day in the year. By the time of the Council of Trent it survived only on the weekdays of Lent. Instead of restoring the earlier practice, the reformers abolished it on the weekdays of Lent also.

Fabricated liturgy

I conclude with the words of Cardinal Ratzinger on the Novus Ordo: “After the Council… in place of the liturgy as the fruit of organic development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it, as in a manufacturing process, with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product”. I hope this necessarily brief overview will help readers to appreciate the truth of Cardinal Ratzinger’s comments.

[Taken from the Latin Mass Society's May 2004 Newsletter.]

The prayers of the Old Rite have a theological depth to them that the New Rite simply lacks in my opinion.

In that regard, you are absolutely correct. However, the Traditional Latin Mass, despite its great reverence, is still bereft of Eastern theology. As Fr. Anthony Salim notes in his book: Captivated by Your Teaching

"Understanding the truths of the Faith may take different paths. In the Western Tradition of the Church, since the Middle Ages, one well known path of doing theology has been summarized in the phrase "faith seeking understanding." This approach has merit in that it begins with the acceptance of faith. However, its end-point, if too exaggerated, can leave one primarily a rational point of view.

Eastern Tradition, on the other hand, recognizes that all reality is enveloped in a sense of Mystery. Some things may never be figured out. I cannot always control my environment, my faith journey, my life; perhaps the essence of faith lies in the trusting obedience I should have when I approach the greatest Mystery of all: our loving God. "

This is what is lacking in the western tradition of the church.

Did you attend a predominately Irish parish by any chance?

Not that I am aware of. This was a new parish that sprang up along with the post war housing in a section of Queens, NY. The school was brand spanking new. In fact, enrollment for First Grade was insufficient so they extended the birthday cutoff from December 31 to March 31. I skipped Kindergarten and entered First Grade at age 5. As a result of that decision, at graduation from Catholic HS, I was the youngest member of the class.

To appreciate life back then, you would have to have lived it. When we relocated further east to Long Island, our parish just happened to be a 'shrine' to St. Anthony. (Keep in mind that back then, you attended the parish in whose jurisdiction you were physically located). Tour buses would converge in front of the 'shrine' church each Sunday. On entering the church, we were expected to pay 'admission' AND participate in the envelope system. It was hot, cramped, crowded and the priest here also mumbled the Latin liturgy. When my mother balked at having to pay 'admission', she was rebuffed and advised that this was the parish policy.

It's easy for someone enamored with or theologically drawn to the Traditional Latin Mass to imagine the past through rose colored glasses. Nothing could be farther from the truth. The pastor at the first parish was often half drunk when saying the Mass. Catholics attended out of coercion; not choice.

Everyone was quiet for a change.

Awesome! As Fr. Pacwa commented last night, there is a tendency in our modern culture to bring the outside into the church. It is in the 'quiet' that we actually 'hear' our Lord speak.

In fact, Father once said in a homily that one person once told him "Well, if you're going to say the old Mass, then say it the way it's supposed to said: 15 minutes and out".

I rest my case. If anything, it is comforting to know that, at least for now, the re-introduction of the TLM is being observed with proper reverence and respect. It is because of the above commentary, that it should never become the norm.

I am so enthralled with the Maronite Divine Liturgy that I wonder why catholics are not beating down the doors to get into this tiny parish church. The obvious answer is that they are comfortable where they are and have no intentions of leaving.

We can all offer up a 'sales pitch' in support of our favorite liturgy but it must be embraced in order to have the same effect. One of the most awesome aspects of the One, Holy, Catholic Church, is its diversity. With 22 different traditions and 8 liturgies, surely all of us can find the reverence we seek.

Excerpted from "Reflections on the Liturgy" a talk held at the canonically recognized Fontgombault Abbey.

http://www.unavoce.org/articles/2001/reflections_on_liturgical_reform.html

The secularization of the liturgy

The Mass, which is the sacred action par excellence, has always been regulated by a rite, which is to say, its ordo, according to the words of Saint Augustine: "totum agendi ordinem, quem universa per orbem servat Ecclesia." With the liturgical reform, the essence of the Sacrament which remains valid and retains its efficacy, did not change, but, according to the expression of Cardinal Ratzinger, a new rite was "fabricated" ex novo.

The rite, of which the classic definition goes back to Servio (Mos institutus religiosis caeremoniis consecratus), is not in fact the sacred action but the norm which guides the unfolding of this action. It can be defined as the whole of the formulas and practical norms which must be observed in order to accomplish a specific liturgical function, even if the term sometimes has a broader meaning and designates a family of rites (Roman, Greek, Ambrosian). It is for that reason that if the sacraments, in their essence, are immutable, the rites themselves can vary according to peoples and times.

In theory, the Novus Ordo of Paul VI established a collection of norms and prayers which regulated the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in place of the ancient Roman rite; in fact, the liturgical praxis revealed that one found oneself with a new protean rite. In the course of the reform a whole series of novelties and variations were progressively introduced, a certain number of which were foreseen neither by the Council nor by the constitution Missale Romanum of Paul VI.

The quid novum would not know how to limit itself to the substitution of the vulgar languages for Latin. It consists equally in the will to conceive the altar as a "table," in order to underline the aspect of the banquet in place of the sacrifice; in the celebratio versus populum, substituted for versus Deum, with, as a consequence, the abandonment of the celebration toward the East, which is to say toward Christ symbolized by the rising sun; in the absence of silence and of recollection during the ceremony and in the theatricality of the celebration accompanied often by songs which tend to desacralize a Mass in which the priest is often reduced to the role of "president of the assembly"; in the hypertrophy of the liturgy of the Word in comparison to the Eucharistic liturgy; in the "sign" of peace which replaces the genuflections of the priest and the faithful, as a symbolic action of the passage in the liturgical action from the vertical dimension to the horizontal; in Holy Communion received by the faithful standing and in the hand; in the access of women to the altar; in concelebration, tending to the "collectivization" of the rite. It consists above all and finally in the change and substitution of the prayers of the Offertory and of the Canon. The elimination in particular of the words Mysterium Fidei from the Eucharistic formula, can be considered, as Cardinal Stickler observed, as a symbol of the demythification and so the humanization of the central core of Holy Mass.

The main theme of these innovations can be expressed in the thesis according to which if we want to render faith in Christ accessible to the man of today, we must live and present this faith to the interior of contemporary thinking and mentality. The traditional liturgy, by its incapacity to adapt itself to the contemporary mentality, distances man from God and renders itself guilty of the loss of God in our society. The reform proposed to adapt the Rite, break down the essence of the Sacrament, in order to permit the Christian community this "participation in the sacred" which cannot be grasped through the traditional liturgy.

Thanks to the principle of participatio actuosa, the entire community becomes subject and bearer of the liturgical action. "The phrase 'active participation,' apparently so modest, complete and conscious, is an indication of an unlooked-for background," observes Fr. Angelus Häussling, in stressing the connection between the participatio actuosa of the liturgical reform and that which, in the school of Karl Rahner, has been called the "anthropological turn" (anthropologische Wende) of theology.

It does not seem excessive to affirm that the participatio actuosa of the community appears to be the ultimate criterion of the liturgical reform from the perspective of a radical secularization of the liturgy. Such a secularization consists of the extinction of the Sacrifice, the sacred action par excellence, which will be replaced by the profane action of the community that glories in itself, or, according to the words of Urs von Balthasar, aims to respond to the praise of the Grace of God with a "counter-glory" purely human.

It is not truly the priest, in persona Christi, that is to say God Himself, who acts, but the community of the faithful, in persona hominis, in order to represent the exigencies of this modern world which a disciple of Rahner defines "as holy and sanctified in its profane state, that is to say holy under the form of anonymity." Opposed to a "divine, sacred, and plurisecular Word" which has as a consequence "a liturgy regarded as sacred and separated from life," is a Word of God which "is not pure revelation, but also action: it realizes that which it manifests"; it is "the absolute self-realization of the Church."

The distinction, proposed by Rahner, between the "secularization" which must be positively admitted as an inevitable phenomenon, and the anti-Christian "secularism," which would only be a form deviating from secularization, is captious. In fact, the word secularization, while having a number of different senses, is commonly understood to be the same as secularism, as an irreversible process of "mundanization" of a reality which is progressively liberated from all its transcendent and metaphysical aspects.

This secularization presents itself in fact not only as a de facto acceptance of the continuing secularization of the present-day world, but also as the idea of a process that is irreversible, and, insofar as it is irreversible, true. This secularization is "true" because the truth is in every way immanent in history; the sacred is "false" because of its illusion of transcending history and of affirming a qualitative distinction between the faith and the world, between transcendent and transcendental. Faith in the power of history thus takes the place of faith in Providence and in the power of God. This philosophy of history is founded on the myth, proper to illuminism, of the world become "adult" which must liberate itself from the values of the past, recovering from the childhood of humanity, in order to attain to a level of life entirely rational. Such a vision has found a rigorous expression in Protestant thought, especially in the thesis of Bonhoeffer on the so-called "maturity of the world." (Mündigkeit der Welt), a maturity which one attains with the elimination of the sacred from life, in all its dimensions. This maturity has been carried to its ultimate coherence by Gramscian Marxism, which represented the development in the twentieth century of the philosophy of the Enlightenment and secularism's point of arrival as radical immanentism. Progressive theology, especially after the Council, wanted to replace traditional philosophy with "modern" philosophy, in subordinating itself inevitably to Marxism. The latter represented for Catholic progressivism the first philosophy that had succeeded in transporting its criterion of truth into praxis and which, in the success of this praxis, seemed to demonstrate the truth of its thought.

The affinity between the theological vision of Tyrrell, founded on the primacy of lex orandi over lex credendi, and the concept of the "self-realization" of the Church in the pastoral and in the liturgy of Karl Rahner, has been remarked. However, the authorities of the first modernism were developed by progressive theology from within the perspective of thought which is no longer simply positivist but Marxist, a perspective of thought that puts the finishing touches to a process judged necessary, which sinks its roots into the philosophy of the Enlightenment and into Protestantism, and further still, into the intellectual movement that put an end to medieval society. "The philosophy of praxis," according to Gransci, "is the crowning achievement of all this movement of intellectual and moral reform; ... it corresponds to the link Protestant + French Revolution."

The philosophy of Gramscian praxis, retranscribed theologically, leads to the necessity of a new praxis orandi. The liturgical reform presents itself then as the Word of the new theology which takes flesh, that is to say praxis, in "self-realizing" the Church by the new secularized liturgy.

"I am so enthralled with the Maronite Divine Liturgy that I wonder why catholics are not beating down the doors to get into this tiny parish church."

I would say the same thing about my parish and the Byzantine rite liturgy.

Folks, you'll just have to excuse me, but I just can't work up the energy to get into a heated debate over which Catholic liturgies are more or less preferable (or pious) when I go by hundreds of people each day who have no faith and little hope.

I'm going to speculate for a moment here. I'm willing to bet that the vast majority of the folks who are posting on this thread are people who have had some sort of faith throughout their lives. Most if not all were Baptized as children, and had at least some sort of religious education.

I come from a different experience. I grew up with no faith. My religious education, if you can call it such, was courtesy of CBS, NBC, and ABC. The fact that I came into the Catholic church in the first place is something of a miracle. If anyone ever discussed the basic aspects of the Catholic faith with me, I sure don't remember it. And I never, ever had the experience of meeting a Catholic evangelist. I met lots of Mormon evangelists, though.

So I look back, and I have to wonder: so where *were* all those would-be Catholic evangelists that I never had the privilege of meeting? There were plenty of Catholic churches in the area where I grew up.

You think that perhaps they were too busy debating the relative merits of the Novus Ordo or Tridentine Latin Mass to be bothered with evangelizing the hoi poloi such as myself?

Did you attend a predominately Irish parish by any chance?

As you may know, the Cathlolic hierarcy in the United States up until the 1960s were heavily Irish, and this had a major influence. Though there were many ethnic parishes, those that weren't heavily one ethnicity were probably heavily influenced in any case by this Irish legacy.

The Irish had strong Jansenist streaks, which is evident using the Fr. Leonard Feeney example as a case study.

The Jansenists also were strongly iconoclastic, dour and rigid. When the English prevented the establishment of Catholic seminaries in Ireland, the Irish sent many of their young men to France to study.

Even after Jansenism faded, its legacies remained in the culture of Irish Catholicism.

When Vatican II hit, it was a bit like opening a soda bottle after it has just been shaken. It went from one extreme to the other.

The Irish bishops are also a major reason why much of the American Orthodox Church exists today. They just couldn't fathom a form of Catholicism different than their own that had married priests. Archbishop John Ireland comes to mind.

For the Irish, like the Greeks in the East, Catholicism became a way to distinguish themselves from the Protestant English who they hated.

This is not exactly related to the liturgy and the Irish, but it gets my point across about the Jansenist legalism that became part of Irish Catholicism and later American Catholicism.

Regarding the sex scandal:
" As former priest and retired psychology professor, Eugene Kennedy, stated: ‘It tends to make people feel they live in bodies that are going to betray them, and sexuality is some kind of evil that has possessed them.’ A number of researchers have pointed to a Jansenist austere form of piety and rigorously puritanical morality introduced through the Irish Catholic Church. As Professor William Johnston has reported: ‘Young Irishmen came to these [French Jansenist] seminaries to be trained as priests, because the English forbade the teaching of Catholicism in Ireland. These Irish priests carried Jansenist practices back to Ireland and from there to the United States and Australia’"
http://www.ccgm.org.au/Articles/ARTICLE-0044.htm

The Mass can be offered on the hood of a jeep on a battlefield, or a rock in the wilderness, or ...

Lack of altar rails should be the least of impediments.

I'm just the opposite, Robby. As I understand it, our Liturgies used to regularly feature congregational singing. That used to be the tradition. Of course the church can change traditon at any time, even totally discarding it if'n it wants.

BTW, I always find your posts interesting

Wow. Thanks NY'er. That was samshing. I too had similar experences. In fact, I quit the Indult because I tired of how the sermon was politicized by the priest who, nearly always, castigated the shallow faith of the N.O. crowd while praising "our" (indult attendees) spirituality.

Fortunately, I moved to another Diocese where my Pastor is incomparable. He is charasmatic (in the best sense of the word) and he regularly packs the church. Many who come to Mass come solely to hear him preach. I have never heard anybody even come close to displaying such a facile and incredibly deep knowledge of Scripture.

He never prepares a sermon. "I just listen to the readings and then the Holy Spirit speaks through me." He will preach for 15-20 minutes and there will not be a single ah or um. There will be incredible spiritual insights given and he regularly moves us to tears and laughter and, often, spontaneous applause erupts when he finishes.

While I am not a fan of the music there (I am slowly working on that) I do desire that as a congregation we sing more than we now do.

Our Parish is HUGE. We prolly have 2000 (More? I 'm bad at estimating) at Mass with many blacks, hispanics, vietnamese etc and Fr, has converted literally hundreds including a Muslim family of nine and four Jewish families.

Boy do I ever identify with your beautiful description of the DL of the Maronites. I have been to several and I fell in love with their Liturgy and the Lebanese community. They truly knew the Liturgy and I had no sense the Liturgy was for them a routinized process. Far from it...

Anyways, thanks for the beautiful post and defense.

I came from a medium sized town that had a large number of Catholics. Our church was regularly packed. However, once the kids left high school, they left the town and the Faith. Virtually none of my old friends go to Mass. The same goes for other members of my family. Out of six kids, me and my sister are the only ones still active Catholics.

The Faith for many of us, as you so well noted, was legalistic and formulaic. There was no personal relationship with Jesus. We were never taught it. It was never spoken about. We were taught to be good Catholics, not Disciples of Jesus. We did memorize large parts of the Bible. We memorized our Catchisms etc. But, becoming a Disciple of Jesus? Didn't happen.

All I know is that in my current Parish the Faith is alive and the nature of the congregations' personal relationship with Jesus is expressed in innumerable ministries. These folks, a multi-racial, multi-ethnic group, really do love each other and work together to assist the poor in our area and all, in one way or the other, support our Pstor's Mission to Honduras. It is interesting to note that the many protestant converts bring with them a deep personal relationship with Jesus. They make a great contribution to the Body of Christ.

LOL. Amen, brother. We are regularly reminded by our Pastor of our duty to evangelize others. I regularly do it at work, when appropriate. For me it was weird at first but it has now become old hat - talking about Jesus and the Liturgy has become almost as easy as speaking about the relative merits of the Raiders recent draft picks.

Wow NYer! Your recollections are mine as well. You articulate the past perfectly. I will have to find, along with Ventana, a Maronite service to try. If you are so inspired, perhaps we will share in that same inspiration. God bless. V's wife.

This is a good point. However, I must tell you I do some sort of evangelizing. Perhaps I am doing it incorrectly, but there is such uniform hostility to the Catholic Church, that I always encounter a rather ugly vehemance, even from fellow Christians. I have often listened patiently to an evangelical, and with reverence, but I have not found, and this is true even amongst Catholics, patience for the ancient faith as it actually is. Lapsed Catholics are impatient with no married priests, no women priests, no divorce, priest scandals (which disturb, rightly, one and all) and protestants of the mainstream order thing Catholics are troglodytes while Evangelicals don't "get" the Eucharist or our relationship with Mary, but, to my experience, are not as patient in kind as Catholics might be to them. And this is borne out even within FR.

Perhaps the church needs to conduct official classes in effective Evangelization. I don't think it is enough to say "just talk about your faith" there has to be an effective strategy to employ. For modern man, marketing savvy has to be employed I suspect. V's wife.

"Perhaps the church needs to conduct official classes in effective Evangelization. I don't think it is enough to say "just talk about your faith" there has to be an effective strategy to employ. For modern man, marketing savvy has to be employed I suspect."

Heck, I'd be happy if we just evangelized, period. And it doesn't necessarily have to be the banging on doors sort.

A Marian procession works. Standing outside an IVF clinic with Icons and Candles works. Writing letters to the editor works. Simply bearing witness works wonders.

Everyone is different and what is an effective evangelization tool for reaching out to one person will be different than for the next. I do agree that we need to have some training, but more than aything I'd simply like to see a push toward evangelization.

The great irony in my own personal case is that all the horrible things said about Catholicism is what what ultimately lead me to the church.

As if you hadn't guessed, I'm something of a contrarian thinker. When people say horrible things, it just piques my curiosity about their underlying agenda. It also makes me want to find out what the other side has to say.

One good way to evangelize, believe it or not, is to teach a Religious Ed class with a truly orthodox slant. Believe it or not, most kids enrolled are not Catholic, in spite of what they think :) V's wife.

"One good way to evangelize, believe it or not, is to teach a Religious Ed class with a truly orthodox slant."

I believe it. And it's an interesting idea. Thanks for posting it.

I hope lack of altar rails is not an impediment, since there are hardly any left in the country!