Posted on 08/01/2007 11:19:04 AM PDT by Salvation
5.56mm
Very well said! Even in Vatican II — nothing about holding hands.
Followed by the “Lift up your hearts” Freethrow.
Did you link it at the Swine Flu thread?
Thanks for the ping!
Regarding your comment on the holding of hands, I agree 100%.
I go to early mass on Sunday’s where I can often sit by myself in a pew, or at least at the far end from the other person there. That way I don’t have to ignore the people who want to hold hands.
I have been placed in the position where I have to hold hands, and I do not like it. It distracts from the prayer totally.
Not being a Catholic, I don’t hold to Catholic doctrine. However, I am shocked at some of these practices. There are Catholics who don’t believe Jesus is present in the Eucharist? Amazing.
Holy Communion goes to non-believers without any scrutiny? Wow.
Dancing in the service? Unbelievable.
I would think a pure worship service done by the book would be very welcome and well attended.
I wish you guys luck getting things back in order. It sounds like you have your work cut out for you. Blessings to you my Catholic brothers and sisters.
I've got a worse one than that. I'm an interpreter for the deaf at Mass. Unfortunately in the Parish where I interpret, everyone holds hands during the "Our Father." My deaf congregants want to sign the Lord's Prayer with me. However, on occasion some hearing parishoners actually go and try to grab their hands, even though up to this point they've clearly identified themselves as deaf by signing things like the Responsorial Psalm, the Penitential Rite, etc.
So not only are the hearing congregants doing something un-liturgical, they are impeding the worship of someone else.
I just fold my hands, look down, close my eyes and say the Our Father.
I always do greet the people around me after that. People just don’t realize that it is a liturgical abuse!
Can’t remember. I’ll go back and look.
LOL
Yes, I did link it there.
That is how it is in our parish, it used to be before the Mass began but I guess the latecomers were missing the announcements.
First, you'd need a priest-astronaut, of course, and as far as I know there are no ordained priests in the NASA astronaut program (although several NASA astronauts went on to become Protestant and Evangelical ministers after leaving the space agency).
Given a priest in space, the next thing you'd need would be bread for Hosts (which would be no problem -- they're lightweight, dry, and flat) and wine for the Chalice (which is just wine prior to Consecration, and could be packaged as any other beverage). Once consecrated, however, serving It in an open Chalice wouldn't work, though, due to the lack of gravity. Our astro-priest would probably have to seek an indult to serve the Most Precious Blood from a pouch, a syringe, or something like a juice box.
And what would he wear? Liturgical vestments would almost certainly be too bulky for use in space. Perhaps the Vatican would allow priests in space to get by with just the stole or maybe a lightweight cassock or something.
Incense and candles would be right out, of course; open flame is verboten aboard a spacecraft for obvious reasons. Besides, candles won't burn in zero-G. (Really. Look it up.)
My guess is that the Vatican will treat astronauts in space in a way similar to the way it treats Catholics who cannot attend mass due to illness: it will have the Lord brought to them. Instead of having a mass in space during a long Mars mission, for example, a bishop will entrust one of the Catholic astronauts with a supply of Hosts in a pyx (a consecrated container) and commission him to conduct a eucharistic service. Since each consecrated Host contains the full Substance of the Lord, no wine will be needed for full Communion. While in deep space, the Catholic astronauts can simply gather in any convenient compartment, say the Our Father, exchange a sign of peace, receive the Lord's Body from the lay leader (the astronaut with the Hosts), ask for God's blessing, and they're done. Robert D. Cabana, a four-time Shuttle astronaut and the director of NASA’s Stennis Space Center, conducted a Eucharistic service like this on one of his Shuttle missions.
To my mind, the real problem for Catholic astronauts away from Earth on long missions will not be Communion, but Confession. Suppose an astronaut at a Mars base commits a mortal sin. If no priest is part of the crew, to whom can he or she confess? Confession via radio would be invalid (confessions must be made face to face) and impossible to keep private anyway. My guess is that prior to launch a bishop would grant the Catholic astronauts a general absolution similar to that given to sailors during combat, but this is only a guess.
Later, when permanent, continuously inhabited Moon and Mars bases are constructed, I'd expect that NASA (or whomever's running them) to assign staff chaplains there to care for the astronauts' religious needs. This is more or less the way such things are managed at the various Antarctic bases today, and it seems to work well.
BTT
BTT
I can name at least five astronauts from the Apollo and Shuttle programs who I know are/were Catholic (one died in the Columbia explosion). It’s dealt with. One of them is an old friend from another time and talk about unshakable faith. This isn’t really a worry.
Truth be told, it's a lot better now than it used to be. And this is normal, to an extent, for the aftermath of a council. In the history of the Church, after every council there's about 50 years of chaos, confusion and putting things back together. We're in year 44/45 or so. The Church is eternal and this too shall pass.
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