Posted on 08/12/2003 7:52:00 PM PDT by Land of the Irish
In what way is it good? In fact, in what way is it better, because Sacrosanctum Concilium said that nothing was to be changed in the Mass unless necessity demanded it. The article that started this thread listed a book full of statistics documenting the decline of the Catholic Church concurrent with the New Mass. Can you give even one counter-statistic? And it's not just a question of numbers, it's a question of souls. Where are the souls that are being saved by the New Mass? Can you point to any?
Compare just one issue -- What is the Mass? People who attended the Latin Mass would tell you that it is the un-bloody re-presentation here and now of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross, offered by a priest who acts in persona Christi. People who attend the New Mass will tell you that it is the People of God gathered together to celebrate their community, presided over by a "presider" who is the representative of the community. Which one is the truth?
Actually both are the truth in their own way -- the two descriptions reflect the two realities. But which one is the Catholic Mass?
But by the progressive Catholics rejection to "Humanae Vitae" - well, that tells me something.
I remember in HS Freshman year we were given a copy of "Humanae Vitae" and that was that. No teaching on it at all. Just as I wrote that I realized that maybe I was just asleep at the wheel... spent most of my HS years that way. But I do not recall discussion of HV.
Me! And my kids! And probably a whole bunch of other people at my parish!
Do you like the Mass on EWTN?
Wha??? I'd never tell you that and I attend the New Mass. My kids wouldn't tell you that and they attend the New Mass. I know a bunch of people who wouldn't tell you that and they attend the New Mass.
Why do you make such sweeping, broad generalizations?
But that's accepting the idea that you wouldn't have been saved without the New Mass. That's just like the communists pointing to increased tractor production, as though there never would have been any tractors produced if the Czar were still in power.
Let me say also that my experience was different. After nearly 20 years of adult participation in the New Mass, and after paying for 12 years of Catholic school for my oldest, I recognized that it had failed to produce Catholics in my two oldest children. They are not living in a state of grace. And that is the reality for virtually all teenagers growing up in the New Mass and Catholic schools. They are not living in a state of grace. They are immersed in the "culture of death."
That's when I recognized that we needed a Plan B if I wanted any of my children to grow up Catholic.
Do you like the Mass on EWTN?
The Mass on EWTN is celebrated reverentially. By definition, the best New Mass is the one that is least distinguishable from the Latin Mass. So what is the point?
"A light shone in the darkness, and the darkness comprehended it not."
-- St John.
Unfortunately, the General Instruction on the Roman Missal WOULD tell you that. Here is an excerpt from Cardinal Ottaviani's objections to the New Mass:
Let us begin with the definition of the Mass. In Article 7 of the General Instruction which precedes the New Order of Mass, we discover the following definition:The Lord's Supper or Mass is the sacred assembly or congregation of the people of God gathering together, with a priest presiding, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord. For this reason Christ's promise applies supremely to a local gathering together of the Church: ‘Where two or three come together in my name, there am I in their midst.’ (Mt. 18:20).
The definition of the Mass is thus reduced to a "supper," a term which the General Instruction constantly repeats.
The Instruction further characterizes this "supper" as an assembly, presided over by a priest and held as a memorial of the Lord to recall what He did on Holy Thursday. None of this in the very least implies:
The Real Presence.
The reality of the Sacrifice.
The sacramental function of the priest who consecrates.
The intrinsic value of the Eucharistic Sacrifice independent of the presence of the "assembly."In a word, the Instruction's definition implies none of the dogmatic values which are essential to the Mass and which, taken together, provide its true definition. Here, deliberately omitting these dogmatic values by "going beyond them" amounts, at least in practice, to denying them.
The second part of Article 7 makes this already serious equivocation even worse. It states that Christ's promise, ("Where two or three come together in my name, there am I in their midst") applies to this assembly supremely.
Thus, the Instruction puts Christ's promise (which refers only to His spiritual presence through grace) on the same qualitative level (save for greater intensity) as the substantial and physical reality of the sacramental Eucharistic Presence.
No point. I just wondered, is all.
But that's accepting the idea that you wouldn't have been saved without the New Mass.
How did you get that? I never said it, I don't believe it. I would not have been saved without Jesus Christ. Period.
I sympathize with you regarding your oldest kids. Hey, I was one of them at one time and you probably were as well. But my aunts and uncles and parents were all educated well before Vatican II - steeped in proper catechism and all that goes along with it. And they are all apostates - divorce, sex, abortion, remarriage w/o annulment, etc. Each and every one, to some degree. So I pray for them as you pray for your oldest that He will give them the grace to hear Him and come back into the flock.
Most of us at some point embrace the culture of death because that is the world we live in. It's His grace that brings us back, not which Mass you attend.
And my kids are the only kids I know who look forward to attending Mass and don't complain about it at all.
Yikes! Time for an inter library search. But I doubt any libraries carry many books like that. Bet I could find McBrien's Catholicism or stuff by Gary Wills though. ;-)
Glad you got the other book. It's great, I know you'll love it.
It helps to have a thoroughly orthodox bishop. It helps to have diocesan officials relentlessly seeking orthodox vocations and encouraging them as a very high priority for the diocese. It helps to recruit members of the quite conservative and manly Knights of Columbus and to encourage conservative blacks and Hispanics to consider the priesthood. The priests here also set an example by approaching their work with orthodoxy, zeal and joy. We are privileged to have moved here from the East Coast.
I dunno. They've hooked me. I've been saying these things for years. The Catholic Churches in Minnesota are filled with liberal, weeney, touchy feely softies that bare little resemblence to the strong tough minded Catholic role models I admired growing up. I feel little connection to my parish. Sundays seem more like a PTA meeting than a holy mass.
Picking at scabs will get you nowhere. Most of you are curiously absent on pro-life threads, anti-homosexuality threads, the anti-RINO/CINO Ahhhhhhnold Schwrzenkennedy threads, et al., because these offer less of a venue for easy opportunism aimed at the impressionable.
Our Rockford Diocese has no problem with Vatican II, plenty of orthodox seminarians and ordinations and a bishop to kill for who is quite well-connected in the Vatican. We are fortunate. This is not necessarily an earned situation. We are lucky that Bishop Doran was born here, served as altar boy in the cathedral, ordained here, and consecrated as bishop here while well serving the Vatican and therefore the Church in other capacities such as service as one of seven judges on the Apostolic Signatura. That is the reality here and it can be the reality wherever a talented and thoroughly orthodox bishop takes firm control and does not fear to act.
The reserve troops ought to take care lest they be noticed firing at he backs of the regulars and doing so in the guise of firing at the actual enemy. You guys persist in attacking the Vatican when the problems today are much closer to your homes as in the chanceries of faithless bureaucrat liberals who have run your dioceses into the ground.
JP II is pope. Lefebvre was not. Fellay is not and will not be. Get over it. Take some responsibility for a change and stop being conscientious objectors in the spiritual warfare for which Jesus Christ founded this Church.
Also remember that, as a Church, we necessarily take the long view. We did not get into various messes overnight nor will we get out of them overnight because some apostle of disobedience of an excommunicated and illicitly consecrated bishop waves his magic wand and says Magicaboola. We mark time in centuries and not in moments.
Finally, I will admit that I do not favor any Vatican IIIs, Pope Joans, People's Revolutionary Pew Critter Caucuses or other delusions of the anti-Catholic "Catholics", but frankly, death comes for us all, particularly the aging anti-Catholic "Catholic" rebeles of yesteryear whose dreams of a thoroughly wreckovated RCC institution are dead. They are recognizing that their time is long past and that it will not come their way again. Their failure is marked by learning the hard way that heaven is neither democratic nor Demonratic as many die each day. It is in all the obituary columns every day.
2. Getting to us? Not in my lifetime. Not in God's lifetime.
Answer: NO. Celebritymania will wear off in about three weeks as we keep hearing things from CINO/RINO Riordan like: Arnold agrees with me 99% of the time.
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.