New rules for taking communion issued

Chicago Sun-Times ^ | July 17, 2003 | CATHLEEN FALSANI

[al_c]

and telling them not to talk in church before Mass, as if they were children.

When they act like children, they need to be treated like children.

[Telit Likitis]

Ah so... I see the blank space left by my ad blocker.
I'll have to let my imagination smile for me.

-Telit

[Desdemona]

You probably mean "here I am lord" "on eagles wings" "one bread one body" and all of the other Marty Haugen crappy songs?

Umm, Marty Haugan didn't write any of those. Here I Am Lord, I'm not sure, but "On Eagles Wings" is Michael Joncas and "ONe Bread, One Body" is John Foley, S.J. And in "On Eagles Wings", it's not the lyrics, it's the music. Those lyrics are largely biblical quotes.

Marty Haugen gives us stuff like, "Eye Has Not Seen" and "Blest Are They" and "SHephard Me O God" and the amazingly hard to make beautiful Mass of Creation. For that alone he should be banned.

[al_c]

The pastor feels the position of his chair is more important.

More important than the tabernacle? Time to find a new parish.

[Loyalist]

PING

[Desdemona]

Reverence towards the Eucharist is non-existent in some parishes and certainly with many Catholics.

This is certainly true. Perpetual Eucharistic Adoration might help that.

At our Cathedral there is a chapel of the Blessed Sacrament. Before and after Mass there are always people there praying and visitors just think nothing of walking in and snapping flash photographs, posed pictures, whatever. They even talk in there. And most of these people are Catholics there for Mass.

[k omalley]

The only changes I have noticed lately are that the priests are wearing more traditional vestments and some of the rubrics seem more traditional yet vaguely familiar. We even had Consecration bells one Sunday. A trial balloon perhaps?
As far as the other GIRM changes go, our priest hasn't been able to get the people to conform to the last changes from several years ago. I'm sure he just dreads telling us that we have to change again.

[NYer]

The biggest things I've noticed are the EMs no longer fill the cups prior to distribution

Oh no ... is this one more abuse I now have to address with the pastor? Were the rules changed?

In our parish, one of the EMs fills the two cups. However, they drink from the chalice and the priest then hands them the filled cup. Not okay?

[sinkspur]

In our parish, one of the EMs fills the two cups. However, they drink from the chalice and the priest then hands them the filled cup. Not okay?

Not OK. The priest or deacon fills the cups. Also, the priest or deacon communicates the cup to the EM, then hands it to them. No more just walking up and drinking out of the cup.

[Snuffington]

Oh goodie. More new rules for our bishops to ignore.

[Snuffington]

As to the noise before Mass, frequently our church is so noisy the the assembly cannot hear the reader when she asks them to "stand and greet each other."

I'm surprised you're getting such a reaction to that little anecdote. It's quite common in parishes up here. Of course, it varies from parish to parish like almost everything else these days.

[B Knotts]

Just to clarify, I was quoting rogator.

[Snuffington]

Just to clarify, I was quoting rogator Oops. Sorry about that.

[american colleen]

Sorry! I associate Marty Haugen with all the crappy banal songs I hear in Church. I don't know all the names of the songs or the "composers" who write them, but I sure know them when I hear them!

[Desdemona]

The interesting thing is that the lyrics of the Jesuit stuff is mostly biblical. So, a lot of the time when I hear this reading or that, I have some icky 70's song running through my head.

[rogator]

Thank you.

[TradicalRC]

I'm hoping that the silence before the Mass will also purge the Church of the "standing and greeting each other" nonsense.

[Thorondir]

The idea of the revisions, however minor, is to make sure every Roman Catholic is celebrating mass, the central event in their faith, the same way.

What a joke. that means no more Mariachi Messes for the hispanic bigots. It means no more Gay Messes for the Sodomites. It means no more Clown Messes for the clowns in our Church. And it means no more do-it-yourself Messes or anything-goes Messes for the do-it-yourself gods and popes in our Church.

The Rev. Anthony Brankin, pastor of St. Thomas More parish on the Southwest Side where the Latin mass is still said at noon on Sunday, welcomes the revisions. "There are no bigger fish to fry," Brankin said of the importance of the mass. "If we do that right, then it's an indication that maybe everything will at least follow in some sense. If the act of worship . . . is out of control, is it not possible that everything else could be out of control?"

Uh, sure Rev. Everything could be out of control. Ya think?

[NYer]

Along side of illicit songs, dancing girls and a platoon of "extaordinary ministers" (five plus the padre for a crowd of 150-300), I guess this fits right in. At least we still have valid communion; no corn tortilla or honey flavored stuff as I have seen elsewhere.

Click on the following link, note each and every abuse currently practiced in your parish, and then address them with your pastor. If he fails to correct them, write to the diocesan office. Cite these laws and, trust me, the abuses will stop. It is important that you be persistent, while substantiating your facts with the information supplied here. It is your right as a catholic!

Inaestimabile Donum and Canon Law state:

"The faithful have a right to a true Liturgy, which means the Liturgy desired and laid down by the Church, which has in fact indicated where adaptations may be made as called for by pastoral requirements in different places or by different groups of people. Undue experimentation, changes and creativity bewilder the faithful. The use of unauthorized texts means a loss of the necessary connection between the lex orandi and the lex credendi. The Second Vatican Council's admonition in this regard must be remembered: "No person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove or change anything in the Liturgy on his own authority." [Sacrosanctum Concilium] And Paul VI of venerable memory stated that: "Anyone who takes advantage of the reform to indulge in arbitrary experiments is wasting energy and offending the ecclesial sense."[Paul VI, address of August 22, 1973: "L'Osservatore Romano," August 23, 1973.]

Canon 528 §2: "The parish priest is to take care that the blessed Eucharist is the center of the parish assembly of the faithful. He is to strive to ensure that the faithful are nourished by the devout celebration of the sacraments, and in particular that they frequently approach the sacraments of the blessed Eucharist and penance. He is to strive to lead them to prayer, including prayer in their families, and to take a live and active part in the sacred liturgy. Under the authority of the diocesan Bishop, the parish priest must direct this liturgy in his own parish, and he is bound to be on guard against abuses."

In general, experimentation is gravely wrong, as stated in Vatican II's Instruction on the Orderly Carrying out of the Constitution on the Liturgy (Liturgicae Instaurationes):

"The effectiveness of liturgy does not lie in experimenting with rites and altering them over and over, nor in a continuous reductionism, but solely in entering more deeply into the word of God and the mystery being celebrated. It is the presence of these two that authenticates the Church's rites, not what some priest decides, indulging his own preferences."

"Keep in mind, then, that the private recasting of ritual introduced by an individual priest insults the dignity of the believer and lays the way open to individual and idiosyncratic forms in celebrations that are in fact the property of the whole Church."

Abuses of any kind cause scandal, meaning that such practices are obstructions to a person's way to increased Faith (see Matthew 18:6-9).

IS YOUR MASS VALID?