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I can sympathize with you. I was a little older, but not much, when the changes went into effect, and I am still stunned at how rapidly everything happened and how many things simply collapsed overnight because their structure was taken away.

I think a lot of people collapsed, too, and I suspect that priests were especially hard hit. I remember living in a parish in San Francisco where one year we had three decent priests in the parish, and the next year we had one alcoholic pastor who never left his room, one probably gay young assistant who used to smoke dope in front of the church with the local teenagers, and a slightly older assistant who was carrying on a very public affair with a woman he had met when he was saying her husband's funeral mass. The three decent priests had morphed into something nearly unrecognizeable.

I think the changes in the Mass were responsible for it all. Not the changes in the form alone, but the changes in its significance, whether this was made explicit or not. Suddenly, the priest was not a priest, offering sacrifice; he was simply the guy chairing the meeting. I think it really must have been like having one's entire world swept away, not by persecution and outside forces, but seemingly by the very Church that built that world. The only thing that amazes me is that any faithful priests managed to survive.

Suddenly, the priest was not a priest, offering sacrifice; he was simply the guy chairing the meeting.

That's a good analogy. The mystique was gone; in fact, as someone posted last week, it was replaced by a team of lay people. Vatican II cannot be undone; Vatican III must be held at bay for now.

We still recall the glory of the church at that time. Once our generation passes away, who will take up the gauntlet?

Tonight, our parish priests will "christen" the newly expanded parking lot with ... kickball! They want to commune with the parishioners. Back in my childhood, the growth of a community would have been celebrated with Mass and Benediction, followed by a Eucharistic Procession.

I never thought I would ever pine for the return of those days. Despite no air conditioning in the church, incense wafting skyward, bells ringing, and stomachs grumbling, large crowds always turned out for mass.