Posted on 10/28/2024 6:11:13 PM PDT by ebb tide
A retired priest, Rev. Gerald Bednar, in the Diocese of Cleveland -- the former vice rector of the seminary there -- had a letter to the editor published in the Wall Street Journal, taking an opportunity to oppose reciting the Saint Michael prayer after Mass, which is done at nearly all traditional Latin Low Masses, as well as a growing number of novus ordo liturgies in conservative parishes.
Father Bednar's letter from a few days ago follows. So does one, published in today's paper, from His Excellency Thomas John Paprocki, bishop of the Diocese of Springfield, Illinois.
Our thanks to Bishop Paprocki for a succinct response and defense.
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Wall Street Journal; October 22, 2024
St. Michael Is Out of Place At the End of Catholic Mass
In “Donald Trump Has a Prayer” (Houses of Worship, Oct. 11), Raymond J. de Souza notes the resurgence of reciting the St. Michael prayer after Mass. The Holy See suppressed this practice in 1964 because the prayer interferes with the integrity of the Mass. It ends the liturgy with a private devotion, a petition to a saint, while all of the petitions were concluded much earlier in the liturgy and addressed to God the Father. The end of Mass sends participants out on a positive mission, bidding them to expand God’s Kingdom through evangelization.
St. Michael is known as the captain of the guardian angels and we should, by all means, ask for his help. But believers should accept the Lord’s presence in the Eucharist as their primary protection against the wickedness and snares of the devil—and respond to his call to enhance God’s Kingdom, where the devil has no influence.
Rev. Gerald J. Bednar
***
Wall Street Journal; October 28, 2024
St. Michael Disrupts Only the Devil, Not the Liturgy
Rev. Gerald J. Bednar is simply wrong to suggest that reciting the prayer to St. Michael is “out of place at the end of Catholic Mass” (Letters, Oct. 22). He mistakenly says that it “ends the liturgy with a private devotion.” The liturgy ends when the celebrant says, “Go forth, the Mass is ended,” and the people reply, “Thanks be to God.” The prayer, then, is recited after Mass, which the priest and people are free to do. It isn’t a private devotion when prayed publicly.
The end of Mass sends participants out on a positive mission, and while Rev. Bednar is correct in saying that the devil has no influence in God’s Kingdom, we aren’t there yet. Doing so together doesn’t hurt, and we pray it will help to invoke the intercession of St. Michael to defend us in our spiritual battles.
Bishop Thomas John Paprocki
Ping
At the behest of our Pastor, our parish says the St. Michael the Archangel prayer after every Mass. I say it every night with my usual bedtime prayers. I also say it during the day when I have a situation that I think about, where I think it could help. That prayer helps me. Every day. It is very powerful.
I live in a city with 3 catholic churches. One church is ‘traditional’, one is more ‘modern’, and one is on the university campus. Only the one on the university campus ends mass with the Prayer to St Michael the Archangel.
VC II concluded a year later, in 1965. Connect the dots.
Interesting how you don’t capitalize “Catholic” or “Mass”.
sorry mother superior, no slight intended.
Weekday masses at our parish include the St Michael prayer. Our pastor leaves and then the lay people say it. The young associate from Africa, however, says it with the congregation before he leaves.
I understand from Relevant Radio that the pastor has it right, because it really is optional and people need to feel they can go ahead and leave if they like because mass is really over.
But on weekdays, the congregation is more likely to want to stay anyway so the associate’s habit is not really inconveniencing anyone.
My Catholic Life! devotional thread
Traditionally, the St Michael Prayer is prayed, together with the priest on his knees before the altar, after all Low Masses. It is not prayed after High Masses.
I don’t consider Relevant Radio to be relevant to me.
N.B. The Last Gospel, also prayed after Mass, was also eliminated in 1964.
P.S. I've never felt inconvenienced by praying after Mass, whether it be the St. Michael Prayer or Benediction.
I use Smartphone touchscreen exclusively and utilize punctuation and case extensively.
I agree but I have become so accustomed to phones (various cheap Androids) that it feels positively weird to sit down with an actual keyboard and monitor. Like being in an IMAX theater or something. My home desktop is banished as a security camera server now and the chair in front of it is accumulating dust.
I LOVE my 43” screen and full sized clicky non-membrane keyboard. I love being able to back up and entire terabyte to a flash drive without slowing down anything else. The phone is great when I am out and about, but my first IT love is a full tower computer with terabytes of storage, 32 GB of RAM memory, and a good Blu-Ray/DVD/CD burner.
I am actually putting together a gaming system mainly for flight simulators so will have to get used to the big screen again. Accidentally ordered RAM for it twice so it will have 64GB Of DDR4.
I pray for the sad priest. Saint Michael, protect him from harm. Padre Pio, cheer him up you secretly hikarious guy! And take St Theres with you, crack that man up!!!!
All in the name and honor of Jesus Christ!
Absolutely. Who would want that prayer suppressed? Only the devil and his minions. Bugnini was back in Rome at this point, creating his counterfeit liturgy.
The Jesuit-educated activist attorney-priest Bednar also hates the Gospel of John, kneeling for Communion, the Eucharistic revival. . .but he loves Amoris Laetitia, Islam, and speaking to homosexual-friendly denominations like the Painesville, OH First Congregational United Church of Christ.
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