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To: Aloysius
That's the problem. Attentive children will hear and see a lot more than "may the Lord accept the SACRIFICE at your hands..." . Attentive children will see priests who don't genuflect. Attentive children will see a slew of lay people on the altar handling the Real Presence as if they are poker chips. Attentive children will hear the horrible, banal music that, by itself, could drive people from the Church. Attentive children will see imodestly dressed people who talk, chew gum and hold hands during the Mass.

That's the problem with the "Latin Mass" types. You overstretch your arguments. If you were content to list these abuses of the NO Mass and demand that they be corrected, then we would be on the same side. And I agree with you that the NO Mass, on paper and in reality, shows less physical respect for the Real Presence.

But you have to go further, with the ridiculous arguments that the "Altar" (though called an altar) is not an altar. And that the sacrificial nature of the Mass (though referred to as a sacrifice) is missing. These arguments are silly.

Everything you listed is an abuse, not a condition of the NO Mass. Priests are supposed to genuflect. They do at my Church. Extraordinary ministers are used all the time. The hippie music is awful.

But not all NO parishes are like that, and until you realize that the NO does not have to be what you have seen, and that people are capable of recognizing a prayer to God, regarless of the way the priest is standing, you shoot yourself in the foot.

Give me some credit for understanding what is going on, and I will give you some likewise.

Spare us the boilerplate "it's a table, not an altar" stuff.

SD

12 posted on 04/07/2003 12:16:41 PM PDT by SoothingDave
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To: SoothingDave; Aloysius
Everything you listed is an abuse, not a condition of the NO Mass.

Children also hear "When we eat this Bread and drink this cup, we proclaim..."

You and I know that our Lord also spoke of "Bread", and that to the properly catechized there's no scandal with respect to a potential contradiction of the Real Presence. But children -- and a great many others -- hear only "bread" and "cup". Moreover, to "proclaim" is not the point of the Eucharist. Its importance as an act of witness by the congregation is perhaps the least important thing about the Blessed Sacrament. To explain the point of the Eucharist as proclamation is to suggest that Eucharist is something commemoratiive and symbolic, done by the people and receiving its meaning and validity from us.

Even those who should know better can be affected subliminally by gratuitous imprecision in speech. It undermines a wholehearted appreciation of the Real Presence and muddies critical distinctions between Catholics and other Christian communions -- deliberately, some would say.

30 posted on 04/07/2003 1:25:47 PM PDT by Romulus
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