Posted on 12/27/2002 2:16:03 PM PST by ultima ratio
Tridentine Mass, Eucharistic Ministers by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.
The spirit of innovation of the past forty years has dulled the sensibilities of many churchmen to the seriousness and gravity of their almost routine ruptures with tradition. If it is pointed out to them that some innovation would obviously have been detested by the entire assembly of saints, they either do not care (an attitude that at one time would have been unthinkable for a Catholic) or they actually claim that we have made "progress" since their time. Such is the level of our spiritual idiocy that an age as spiritually and aesthetically impoverished as our own can describe itself as "progress," and interpret the saints' presumed displeasure at our novelties as a sign of their backwardness rather than of our immaturity.
As a convert, I have always found the use of "Eucharistic ministers" one of the most disturbing of the postconciliar innovations. I wondered: if Catholics really believe what they say about the Holy Eucharist, and if they really believe what they say about the holy priesthood, why on earth undermine both by the introduction of laymen into so sacred an area of the Church's life - and one into which laymen had never asked or desired admission? After all, St. Thomas Aquinas made an explicit connection between the ordination of the priest and his distribution of Holy Communion, and Pope John Paul II once pointed out the relationship between the consecration of the priest's hands and his inestimable privilege of distributing consecrated Hosts to the faithful.
None of this seems to matter to the innovators, whose ideological point isn't exactly subtle: the introduction of Eucharistic ministers clearly and obviously denigrates the office of the sacramental priesthood in the name of an egalitarianism utterly foreign to Catholic tradition (though, not coincidentally, quite welcome to the world). The implicit premise is that we must be conformed to the world: since the age we live in is one that emphasizes "equality," and since the privileges of the priesthood therefore seem incongruous and intolerable to the opinion makers of our time, the demands of the age rather than those of immemorial tradition must be satisfied.
In at least one case, Eucharistic ministers are apparently being foisted on an indult Mass community - that is, people who attend the Church's traditional Latin Mass. Of course, people who attend that Mass do so precisely in order to avoid the casual familiarity in the presence of the sacred that the use of Eucharistic ministers so plainly reflects. In a world that believes that nothing is immune to change, that the family itself is subject to redefinition according to human whim, they appreciate the fact that the piety and reverence of the traditional Latin Mass, in its beauty and stately reserve, and in its reservation of sacred tasks to the priest alone, reminds us that some things really are not to be touched by man. What message do our society and our children need more than this?
The great King Philip II of Spain, upon eyeing a young toddler attempting to scale the Communion rail, explained to the young child, "Only the priests may go there." Today, a generation with more misplaced self-confidence than spiritual maturity laughs at the beautiful and solemn piety of our forebears, who would never have dreamed of encroaching on the terrain of the holy priesthood and demystifying and rendering profane the site of the most beautiful and majestic thing on earth.
Good Catholic parents must therefore work against the pressures of the media, of the entertainment industry, and of the overall Zeitgeist to impart to their children the idea that some things are sacred, an idea that is best expressed through action and gesture. Holy Communion, they tell their children, by imparting to us a share in the divine life, is God's greatest gift to us on earth. Holy Communion, moreover, contains the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of our Lord Himself. The only rational and spiritually mature response to such a gift, therefore, must be great reverence, and it is this message to children that the presence of Eucharistic ministers, non-ordained members of the faithful, consistently undermines. Since, moreover, the priest's exclusive custodianship of the Eucharist has traditionally been one of the aspects of the priesthood that has so fascinated and enticed boys from a young age about that sacred office, the use of Eucharistic ministers can only detract from the mystery of the priesthood that young boys find so compelling. (Why make all the sacrifices associated with the life of the priest if Mrs. Jones can feed the flock just as well as you can?)
It is this spiritual sickness that besets us on all sides, and which is practically institutionalized throughout American parish life, that people who attend the traditional Latin Mass are attempting to avoid. They make great sacrifices to attend these Masses, often driving hours each way or even relocating elsewhere in the country where the old Mass is more easily accessible. Bishops and pastors who go out of their way to demonstrate their "pastoral understanding" toward divorced and remarried Catholics, dissenting Catholics, feminist Catholics - the list gets much worse - have nothing but contempt for those Catholics who are simply trying to live the Faith as their fathers and grandfathers did, and who in their own way are trying to resist the surrounding culture's fixation with desacralization and the profane that bishops and pastors should themselves be resisting rather than indulging.
That Catholics should have to contend with their own pastors in such a struggle is bizarre and demoralizing enough, but that they should have to do so in the context of the traditional Mass is inexcusable. Such profanation shows utter disregard for the sensibilities of those present and gives scandal to the children. There is more than a touch of fanaticism in those who, while acquiescing in or positively encouraging such spectacles as charismatic hysteria, the alleged "cathedral" in Los Angeles, and interfaith liturgical dance, only grudgingly allow the traditional Mass of their own Church - and even then have to impose on its hapless faithful one of the most impious and destructive innovations since Vatican II, one which obviously violates the entire ethos of the old rite and the traditional view of the priesthood - that is, the only one the saints would have recognized. Can't these poor folks simply be left alone?
Ecclesia Dei gave The Indult to end the schism but is was given with the expressed condition that those attached to it would cease atacking the Missa Normativa and the Second Vatican Council.
They are slowly stangling themsleves with ceaseless attacks against Divinely-Constituted authority. They are disobeying the spirit and the letter of the Ecclesia Dei law. That is not surprising. They are spiritually and intellectually protestants and they are dooming what they claim to love...Go figure.
What is pathetic is that those who claim to love the 1962 Roman Missal encourage their mouthpieces in their sucidial actions. That illustrates the schismatic mindeset that suffuses the Indult crowd. The next Pope is likely to rescind the Indult given their enmity to authority<>
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.