Michael Davies, R.I.P.

The Remnant ^ | 09/26/04 | Michael Matt

[thor76]

Sad to say, but mass in "Ebonics" is already here in both NY and Chicago.....complete with Kente cloth vestments, the worst possible gospel music, liturgical dance, and women dancing & hopping around with flaming pots of ceremonial inscence - as if it were a pagan ritual. They even celebrate the "made-up" pagan festival of Kwaanza....complete with story telling, songs, dance, and tribal drumming.

That has even happened in St. Patrick's Cathedral.

[ELS]

How much longer, O Lord?

[Agrarian]

It simply hadn't occured to me, since the idea of whole-scale rewriting of the liturgical texts is foreign to Orthodoxy. There have certainly been changes and evolutions in the Eastern Orthodox liturgical services, but they appear to have been fairly gradual and organic.

The notable exception was Patriarch Nikon's reforms of the Slavonic Liturgy, but the point there was to bring the Slavonic texts into exact correlation with the existing Greek texts (the Slavonic practices were in many, if not most, cases older), which had undergone further gradual changes.

I had assumed that the process surrounding Vat II was like that in the Orthodox Church -- translating existing texts from languages people don't understand to those they do.

The Vatican certainly had the right to change the Mass -- none of my business. But don't you think that many people in the pews assumed that the "new Mass" was just a translation of the "Old Mass?"

[Mike Fieschko]

But don't you think that many people in the pews assumed that the "new Mass" was just a translation of the "Old Mass?"

I'll answer your question this way. I am old enough to have been confirmed while the Council was in session, so I remember the old Mass and remember teaching myself how to follow along with the old Mass with my St Joseph's Missal.

So I was familiar back in the early and middle 1960s with the Latin and the English translation of the old Mass.

Many people didn't use missals (my experience, YMMV).

But, I left the church around 1966 or 1967, and didn't return until 1992, and a lot, a lot, happened in the 25 years I was away.

I can't say that if I had stayed, I would have realized immediately that the new Mass was not a translation of the old. I probably would have realized it immediately, but I can honestly say I would have quickly realized it.

I can't speak for others, since I wasn't on the scene back then.

From time to time, I've wondered what was going through the minds of the folks in the pews. Sometimes I think they must have been upset or angry. Sometimes I think they went along because 'Father says it's OK' or 'If this is what the Pope wants, that settles it', and sometimes I think people were taken by its novelty on first exposure.

[Diva]

The orthodox believers want as a minimum to see a reverent and accurate translation (if not return to the Latin), whereas the dregs of the 1960's hippies who have ascended to the episcopate are desperately trying to cling on to their dumbed-down semi-heretical street-patois.

Bingo!

[Diva]

MOST QUOTED tune in classical music; inter alia, Rachmaninov, Tschaikowsky, and the composer of the score for "Lion King" used it..

I think Berlioz uses it in his Symphonie Fantastique! Indeed the Requiem Chant is used quite a bit by Classical composers. A wonderful example is Durrufle's Requiem, 20th century but gorgeous.

[Diva]

ROFLOL

[Diva]

Sometimes I think they must have been upset or angry. Sometimes I think they went along because 'Father says it's OK' or 'If this is what the Pope wants, that settles it', and sometimes I think people were taken by its novelty on first exposure.

And, sad to say, a lot of them just left. Perhaps not immediately but within a few years lots of Catholics were saying to themselves things like, "If the Church is suppose to be One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic why are they changing everything? If they are changing everything then maybe my Protestant friends are right."

I've heard this sentiment expressed by several of my friends who were Catholic, then left, and one who has come back (thank the Lord). She came back becasue she found a Catholic Church that does the Novus Ordo in Latin and has a very good Liturgy complete with Gregorian Chant.

[Agrarian]

"And, sad to say, a lot of them just left."

I also have talked to Roman Catholics who told of "taking a break" and then coming back to the Church only to find out that it was gone. These individuals would certainly be more affected by these changes than would those who never left. Given the fact that "youthful wandering" is pretty common, it would seem reasonable to postulate that wholesale changes in matters of liturgics and practical piety hurt the Catholic Church.

It would also make sense that those who followed along in a missal with translation would see the changes -- whether they would care is another issue. Again, the approach in Roman Catholicism is different, since the view of authority is different, so it wouldn't surprise me that many would indeed accept the changes without complaint, as long as they were there every Sunday to be "brought along" and "re-educated."

My son is a string player, and he has played a few "gigs" the last couple of years at some large churches in our city. It was his impression, just from his liturgical experience, that Lutherans (who are pretty low-church around here) were closer to the Orthodox Church than are Catholics... That was certainly not the case when I was growing up!

My point there is that if relatively unsophisticated cradle Catholics returned to their church after a long absence, and didn't see much different between it and neighboring Protestant churches, it shouldn't be surprising if some felt free to choose something else from the available palette of ecclesiastical colors...

Anyway, to circle around to the topic of the thread, none of these things are Michael Davies' fault...

[Mike Fieschko]

Given the fact that "youthful wandering" is pretty common, it would seem reasonable to postulate that wholesale changes in matters of liturgics and practical piety hurt the Catholic Church.

Sometimes *cough* understatement *cough* makes a point very effectively.