Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

Skip to comments.

The Latin Rite Mass: Should It Be More Lutheran Or Eastern Orthodox In Appearance?
Southern Orders ^ | May 31, 2014 | Fr. Allan J. McDonald

Posted on 05/31/2014 10:12:38 AM PDT by NYer

This liturgy of the Latin Rite:


Resembles better this liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church:

While this liturgy of the Latin Rite:


resembles better these Protestant liturgies:

The Catholic Church sees as its ecumenical priority the healing of the Great Schism that led to the Churches of the East separating from the rule of the Bishop of Rome in 1054. Pope Benedict and now Pope Francis have ramped up that desired unity. A major breakthrough was announced yesterday.

This is from the Huffington Post:

Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Barthlomew I prayed together in Jerusalem at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in a beautiful act of unity.

Now, they're taking a further step to heal the centuries-old schism between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches by holding a gathering together to commemorate the Council of Nicaea, which took place in 325. Seventeen centuries later, Francis and Bartholomew will come together in 2025 to celebrate the historic meeting, reports Vatican Insider.

"We agreed to leave as a legacy to ourselves and our successors a gathering in Nicaea in 2025, to celebrate together, after 17 centuries, the first truly ecumenical synod, where the Creed was first promulgated," Bartholomew told Asia News.

My comments:

One of the criticisms of the Second Vatican Council is that it made the Catholic liturgy more Protestant looking (and this led to erroneous theologies about the Eucharist that are more Protestant, which have since been repudiated by interpreting the Council through the lens of continuity rather than rupture).

However, what most Catholics don't realize is that our liturgical reforms spurred Protestant denominations, especially Lutherans and Anglicans to make their liturgy more like the Liturgy that Pope Paul VI reformed. Thus we think that the Catholic Liturgy is more Protestant looking when in fact the Protestant liturgy became more Catholic looking in the post-Vatican II sense after Vatican II.

But for the most part ecumenism with Protestant denominations is dead in the water except for tea and crumpets ecumenism and our ability to work together at soup kitchens and centers that help the homeless. Most historic Protestant denominations continue to move into a post-Christian stance with their theologies and this has created even more division that will be difficult to overcome. Non-liturgical evangelical Protestants tend to be more "Catholic" in their moral teachings than most mainline Protestant denominations, but they are far from us liturgically.

However, we are much, much closer to the Eastern Orthodox Churches in terms of actual Faith and Morals. The Orthodox celebrate all seven sacraments validly. They have valid Holy Orders and their Bishops are validly ordained and successors to the apostles. Their moral and ethical teachings are the same as ours although presented in a different pastoral way.

However, since Vatican II, the Latin Rite Church has drifted away from the cultural style of the liturgy that both the east and the west adopted in the immediate centuries following the conversion of Constantine. While the trajectory of liturgical and spiritual theologies diverged in valid ways, the liturgies had the same sort of ethos although differing in style of music and ceremony. Both developed very early in the post-Constantine era a sort of universal language for the liturgy. In the east it was Greek in the west a combination of Greek and Latin.  Both developed chant as the music of the liturgy although with different styles. And both adopted ad orientem. The west developed kneeling for receiving Holy Communion and a more developed theology of the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament which actually led to kneeling while the east insisted on standing for Holy Communion and Holy Communion under both kinds for both clergy and laity. They do not have adoration of the Blessed Sacrament as the Church of the west does, but their adoration developed toward the use of icons and in a much more dogmatic way than Catholic veneration of images.

Without loosing each others authentic spiritualities and theologies that have developed over the centuries, how could the Church of Rome resemble the Church of the East in better ways liturgically?

Well, Pope Benedict in his great wisdom did so by freeing the so-called Mass of Trent from the shackles of a museum piece in allowing it to be celebrated more widely. The missal of 1962 has more in common with the East than the Missal of Pope Paul VI in 1970.

So for now, we do have a liturgy in the 1962 missal and liturgical tradition that is more eastern in ethos. And of course we have the Eastern Rite Churches in union with the Pope whose liturgy and spirituality is identical to the Eastern Orthodox. Thus the 1962 missal heals the chasm created by the 1970's missal within those already united to the Pope.

The 1970 missal is more Protestant and allows orthodox mainline Protestants who desire to keep their Protestant style of liturgy, their own valid historical patrimony when they join the Catholic Church as a group. Currently we have the Anglican Ordinariate that has done this. But we could have a Lutheran Ordinariate and also a Presbyterian one. Who knows.

The real work lies in making the 1970 missal resemble the 1962 missal in style of celebration. This means the on-going recovery of the chant modes that are historically available to us in the Latin Rite, and a rich variety, as well as a recovery of ad orientem.

The other is the removal of the clericalization of the laity during the celebration of the liturgy and more use of deacons and sub deacons. Doing this will emphasize the proper and sublime role of the laity as laity during Mass and from their pews in the nave. In the Post-Vatican II era with the clericalizaiton of the laity with liturgical ministries, especially that of Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, the laity have come to believe that actual participation in the Mass means doing a formal ministry such as reader or distributing Holy Communion rather than doing their normal parts during the Mass that actually belong to the laity, thus promoting a egalitarian participation in the Mass with the laity rather than separating some laity form others liturgically.  

For example, there is a mentality that at children's Masses, especially our school Masses, we need hoards of children doing all kinds of things, from reading the petitions and scriptures to bringing up the gifts to get as many of them actually involved in the Mass when in fact, we shouldn't focus on these things at all but elevate what all the kids are doing and to do it properly from the pews during Mass--don't create an elite group of laity for the ministries of the Mass that rightly belong to the clergy!

Sub deacons could be designated as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion and trained and certified by the bishop for this ministry, not only liturgically but also to the sick and home-bound. We already have this with the official ministry of acolyte but few bishops invite lay men to this official ministry and still use it only as a stepping stone for ordination either to the diaconate or priesthood. What a pity!

Shouldn't, though, the two liturgies of the one Latin Rite resemble each other better and be like this?

The 1962 Missal Mass:

The 1970 Missal Mass:

I report; you decide!


TOPICS: Catholic; History; Worship
KEYWORDS:
Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-72 last
To: NYer

I’m too excited about this development to focus on this right now. But I’m always for a reverent liturgy, and there’s nothing about Eastern Rite and Orthodox liturgies that I don’t like. 8-)


61 posted on 06/01/2014 4:51:10 AM PDT by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 1 | View Replies]

To: metmom
Getting all set for a one world religion, I see.

John 17:21

That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent.

Come on home.
62 posted on 06/01/2014 4:52:49 AM PDT by St_Thomas_Aquinas ( Isaiah 22:22, Matthew 16:19, Revelation 3:7)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar
And look at those Protestant congregations that have joined the Catholic Church as a group as rejecting “post-Christian stance.”


.... I want you to read the following snippet from one couple’s journey out of Catholicism and into the LDS Church,
and then listen to what I have to say about reversing the tide of the millions of faithful flowing away from the Catholic Church.
 
http://www.austincnm.com/index.php/2013/03/why-good-catholics-are-becoming-mormon/

63 posted on 06/01/2014 5:12:42 AM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 29 | View Replies]

To: Elsie; GreyFriar; St_Thomas_Aquinas
Dear friends, nothing in the linked article makes any sense.

We asked ourselves what type of home we wanted and came to the quick conclusion that the Torgesens’ home was what we desired for our family.

Conclusion: Switch to the LDS Church and *presto*, their home will be like the Torgensens' home.

Marilyn in the above story was a former Franciscan nun and a certified Catholic youth director for the Diocese of Galveston-Houston.

Conclusion: She was ignorant of her Catholic faith.

What a load of nonsense! Catholics who attend mass, hear and experience scripture as part of the liturgy. The problem is that they want to be spoon fed their faith, without investing any effort. When one of our more senior parishioners commented last year that he does not read the Bible and was ignorant of scripture, I devoted 3 months time to running a series of articles in the parish bulletin, on the history of the Bible, how it was compiled, the authors, a synopsis of the books, how the bible came to be printed, and popular stories from the Bible. The senior parishioner attends mass weekly and takes home the bulletin. At the conclusion of the series, I asked him if he had learned anything from it. He confessed that he had not read any of it!!

I'm not buying the Marilyn story. If she was willing to invest the effort in learning about the LDS church, she would soon discover its man made origins.

PS - just switched to Google Chrome and it is embedding links into this text. Do not click on those links! Not yet sure how to turn off this nasty feature.

64 posted on 06/01/2014 5:41:39 AM PDT by NYer ("You are a puff of smoke that appears briefly and then disappears." James 4:14)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 63 | View Replies]

To: ebb tide

“Why do you post links to protestant articles and books?”

To show your comment - “Absolutely, pure unadulterated 100% B.S.” - to be erroneous.

Now, let’s hope YOU can answer a simple question:

Did I or did I NOT quote any “protestant threads”? And yes, I noticed you have now started saying “articles” instead of “threads”. Did I quote ANYTHING PROTESTANT AT ALL TO YOU?


65 posted on 06/01/2014 6:54:29 AM PDT by vladimir998 (Anti-Catholics lie. They have to.)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 50 | View Replies]

To: metmom
....."Getting all set for a one world religion, I see".... Well, after all the RCC is a Historical Political Power above and over it's religious history so of course the NWO will work closely with the Pope and his administration to bring collective unity among those closest to it's doctrines.

The NWO cannot bring the masses forward and under it's Control without also bringing a large religious element. The RCC is an easy co-operative touch since it's Worldwide. And since the membership generally abide by whatever the Pope and his Administration determines....they've already been "softened-up" to accept this false unity.

We're also aware the many mainline denominations have been softening up their membership to a collective false unity of the faiths, though some will not come directly under the authority of the RCC they will 'partner' with the collective representation under this false unity....which all will be directly under the Authority of NWO.

1Cr 10:21....." Ye cannot drink the cup of the Lord, and the cup of devils: ye cannot be partakers of the Lord's table, and of the table of devils."

Remember this?


66 posted on 06/01/2014 10:18:51 AM PDT by caww
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 10 | View Replies]

To: St_Thomas_Aquinas

The only home I’m heading to is the one in heave that Jesus is preparing for me.


67 posted on 06/01/2014 10:44:46 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: Salvation; Religion Moderator

Ask the RM yourself if you think that’s wrong.


68 posted on 06/01/2014 10:46:20 AM PDT by metmom (...fixing our eyes on Jesus, the Author and Perfecter of our faith....)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 21 | View Replies]

To: Elsie

Are there Protestant denominations moving into the Mormon church?


69 posted on 06/01/2014 11:02:56 AM PDT by GreyFriar (Spearhead - 3rd Armored Division 75-78 & 83-87)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 63 | View Replies]

To: St_Thomas_Aquinas

This is HOME?

It looks NOTHING like it did when I left it.

Who did the decorating??


70 posted on 06/01/2014 1:34:21 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 62 | View Replies]

To: NYer; teppe; caww; Godzilla; reaganaut
If she was willing to invest the effort in learning about the LDS church, she would soon discover its man made origins.

Speaking of INVESTING; it appears that MORMONs don't care about what kinds of DISEASES it might import into their flagship marketing corporation: Marriott Hotels.





Mormon-owned Marriott supports repeal of anti-gay DOMA

americablog.com/.../mormon-marriott-doma-gay-marriage....
Jan 28, 2013 - Mormon-owned Marriott is supporting the repeal of the anti-gay DOMA ... Mexico Supreme Court seeking recognition of out-of-state same-sex ...

 

Los Angeles Airport Marriott Sauna - CruisingGays

www.cruisinggays.com/los.../22901-los-angeles-airport-marriott-sauna/
Los Angeles Airport Marriott Sauna at 5855 West Century Boulevard, 1-310-641-5700 Visit CruisingGays for hookup, photos and a map of Bathhouses Saunas ...
 
 
 

71 posted on 06/01/2014 1:41:39 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 64 | View Replies]

To: GreyFriar

Not that I know of.

Mormonism is bleeding members severely in the USA.

Overseas folks (non-English speakers) do not have the advantage to find out so much about the MEAT of Mormonism found on the web.

Those folks are still sucking at the teat of the Mormon Milk Machine.


72 posted on 06/01/2014 1:44:44 PM PDT by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going...)
[ Post Reply | Private Reply | To 69 | View Replies]


Navigation: use the links below to view more comments.
first previous 1-2021-4041-6061-72 last

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.

Free Republic
Browse · Search
Religion
Topics · Post Article

FreeRepublic, LLC, PO BOX 9771, FRESNO, CA 93794
FreeRepublic.com is powered by software copyright 2000-2008 John Robinson