To my last post I have received a comment, which you may find here, that accuses me of pushing for a return of the Extraordinary form of the Catholic Church's worship, that is to say the Traditional Latin Mass. Now if one reads the text of that post, one does not find this reality. Granted in the video that I link to the Redemptorists are praying the Latin Mass and the Breviary, aka the Liturgy of the Hours, in Latin. But this was more incidental to that posting, than being the point of it.
Rather, the point of my post was that these monks' devotion to their faith is by far a witness that is lost in today's Church. We need Catholics - priests, laity, and religious - who come to the realization that our Faith is not a secondary thing to our lives. It should not be seen as some added icing to "the cake" that is our everyday lives. Rather, our Catholic Faith needs to become our lifesblood. Why? Is it because we all need to be some overly strict monks or nuns in lay people's clothes? Is it because we need to be rigid mindless sheep?
No. Our Catholic Faith needs to become our lifesblood because we need to find the gratitude in our lives that recognize God the Father as the living Creator of our life, and Jesus Christ who was sent into the world to establish the Catholic Church that give us new life - even "life more abundantly (Jn 10:10)." We have the opportunity to accept this life, to come to know God through Jesus. But this is not just merely through the bible, as so many of our separated brethren suggest. Rather, it is also through the living Sacred Tradition of the Church. Part of that tradition is encompassed in the Traditional Latin Mass. As, then, Cardinal Ratzinger himself pointed out in his book Salt of the Earth:
I am of the opinion, to be sure, that the old rite should be granted much more generously to all those who desire it. It's impossible to see what could be dangerous or unacceptable about that. A community is calling its very being into question when it suddenly declares that what until now was its holiest and highest possession is strictly forbidden and when it makes the longing for it seem downright indecent.
I do not hold , as the Anonymous poster accuses me, that"the ills of the Church would all go away if all we did was return to a language most do not know and a liturgy that does not speak to people of today." I do hold however, as the Holy Father himself teaches us in the Lettter that accompanied and explained the Motu Proprio that : "What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church's faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place." And further, I do think that the lack of catechesis, the lack of reverance at many Masses, and the lack of seriousness with which some approach our Catholic Faith can be helped by experiencing the solemnity which the Extraordinary form integrates.
This is not to say, that it will be some magical experience for every person, however for those who begin to take their faith more seriously the Extraordinary Form can bear some great fruit in one's contemplation of the solemnity with which the Sacred Mystery of the Holy Sacrifice is celebrated - as it has been for centuries. This in turn can truly bear greater fruit in one's experience in the Ordinary form (aka the Novus Ordo). For those older folks who grew up with the Latin Mass but "hated or disliked it" it would certainly behoove them to not attend the extraordinary form of mass if they would be led away from their belief in Jesus Christ (though I can't see how this would be so). Nevertheless, it is a "shame," or at least I feel it is "shame," for us as a community to withhold from our brothers and sisters, especially those of us who never grew up with it, the beauty of the extraordinary form (- which by the way is not to say there isn't a particular beauty in the Novus Ordo). Let us decide if we like it or not, don't decide for us! Don't deny us the opportunity to enter into the beautiful mystery of the Mass of the Ages!
Personally, I think that, when done with the reverance it deserves, the Novus Ordo can be quite a blessed and moving experience of prayer. Nevertheless, so many are the abuses and unaesthetic accoutrements that have been born from the unfortunate "spirit of rebellion" that accompanied the Novus Ordo that there is a great need to balance that spirit with the, as the Holy Father puts it, "hermeneutic of continutity." As a younger Catholic, who has been given the great opportunity and blessing to attend a Pontifical University in Rome (something, I might add, which I would never have been able to do prior to Vatican II), I felt "gyped" in not being allowed to experience the Extraordinary form while growing up.
Thankfully, Archbishop Chaput has been so gracious in allowing the Confraternity of St. Peter to operate a chapel in Littleton, where I have been able to attend this beautiful form of the mass. I wish it were more available, because if it weren't so far away, my family is agreed that we would attend more frequently - especially as my duties at St. Jude necessitate my remaining near by the parish on many Sundays.
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