Pax Et Bonum…

INTRODUCTION

1. The restoration of unity among all Christians is one of the principal concerns of the Second Vatican Council. Christ the Lord founded one Church and one Church only. However, many Christian communions present themselves to men as the true inheritors of Jesus Christ; all indeed profess to be followers of the Lord but differ in mind and go their different ways, as if Christ Himself were divided.(1) Such division openly contradicts the will of Christ, scandalizes the world, and damages the holy cause of preaching the Gospel to every creature.

May the peace of Our Risen Savior, Jesus Christ be with all of you.

I totally agree with your take on all the clapping and hugging being a replacement for the real thing that best happens outside the setting of the Mass. There’s no closing time of the church building after Mass on Sunday, nothing’s stopping us from inviting other parishioners to our house after Mass for lunch, etc.

I’d love to see some teaching from good priests and bishops talking about that. Talking about turning off your TV’s and computers on Sundays, and inviting people over, or visiting shut-ins. And at the same time, recognizing Mass as a time set apart and Holy. How a reverent, holy prayer time during Mass can be the source of true (not pantomimed) Christian relationships.

Some of those priests with dynamic personalities could welcome newcomers, introduce people, share about themselves, etc., in the basement/fellowship hall after Mass. Think of it like a patriarch at a family gathering making some announcment. If the priest doesn’t care for that type of public speaking, recruit someone else to do it.

It’s probably not feasible to do that after every Mass – but perhaps after the last Mass or monthly, do the fellowship thing. I think the key would be not just to put out donuts and then expect everyone to meet the needs of any newcomers. But actually have a short 3 minute or so greeting. Ask if anyone is new, introduce key people, etc. That would be great for newcomers to a parish who are trying to break in and get to know someone at their parish. If there was a place for that outside Mass, people wouldn’t feel the need to do it within Mass.

So, I’m prideful and stare at people? At least I know from which direction the stones are coming.

Before anyone else wants to castigate me as a pedia-nazi, I understand that kids will be kids and brief outbursts followed by prompt correction are to be expected from time to time. In TLM parishes, there are often many large families and it’s interesting to notice the difference in children’s behavior. The Naval Academy grad with four children could sit (and has) right in front of me and I’d hardly notice – he whispers “turn around” and his daughters obey. But another woman with the same number of children (at nearly the same ages) sees no problem in conducting a four ring circus in the FRONT ROW during the sparsley attended weekday mass – which I ‘ve noticed has interrupted the priest’s train of thought/prayer as well as mine. I find that to be rude and inconsiderate. Perhaps we might want to consider that an undisciplined/unruly child/children is really a symptom of a larger problem (i.e. the parenting skills or lack thereof) in SOME cases.

And for those who want to cling to scripture verses such as, “Suffer the little children to come unto me…” (Mark 10:14) in order to enable/justify such behavior, here are a few more for you to chew on (taken from drbo.org):

Withhold not correction from a child: for if thou strike him with the rod, he shall not die. Thou shalt beat him with the rod, and deliver his soul from hell. (Proverbs 23:13-14)

He that spareth the rod hateth his son: but he that loveth him correcteth him betimes. (Proverbs 13:24)

Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is just…And you, fathers, provoke not your children to anger; but bring them up in the discipline and correction of the Lord. (Ephesians 6:1,4)

To get back on topic, for those interested in the history of the changes that occured in the way mass is celebrated, I would recommend the video, “Reform or Revolt: The Mass of Pope Paul VI.” It’s available on youtube. It’s very interesting and I was surprised to learn that the seeds of the liturgical reform movement began long before VII. There are also two books I would recommend, “Iota Unum” (haven’t read it yet but there are intriguing reviews on amazon and it is highly recommended by traditionalists) and “The Rhine Flows into the Tiber,” which I have just begun.

The above-referenced film is in two parts – about 45 min each. It illustrates the importance of restoring orthodoxy to Holy Mother Church. This can be summed up in the phrase, “Lex orandi, lex credendi,” or, loosely translated, ‘as we pray, so we believe,’ with the converse being true as well. The changes made when the ICEL rewrote the Latin to English in 1969 were more of an interpretation than a translation. A Catholic lecturer made a pertinent comment on such saying that social engineering is always proceeded by verbal engineering. He made these comments in regards to the Pro Choice movement altering language to make abortion more palatable to society. Thereby, the National Birth Control League became known as Planned Parenthood. Here are links to a couple of articles discussing two of the most hotly debated interpretations by the ICEL which are scheduled for reversion by BXVI:
http://www.latin-mass-society.org/promult.htm and http://catholictradition.org/incarnatus-est.htm

I hope you will pray and consider how much we stand to lose if another generation or two goes by without emphasising the importance of proper catechesis. If so, I fear one will not be able to distinguish Catholicism from your garden variety Protestant denomination.

Pax vobiscum

First of all, if clapping is done at the end of the last song, it is indeed AFTER mass. Once we, along with Father make the sign of the cross and he says “Mass has ended”….then clapping is not DURING mass….it is AFTER mass. In the same way, BEFORE we do the sign of the cross in the beginning of mass, we make a point of turning around to the people around us and introducing ourselves and making them feel welcome. ( We keep the sign of peace DURING mass very short.) Only THEN do we make the sign of the cross to officially begin mass. The clapping after mass is not ‘for the music ministry’ but for our Savior and Lord. Our bishop claps right along with us too when he is visiting.

May I also mention that we are also a parish that has 24 hour/7 day a week perpetual adoration (the only church in our diocese.) The mass that I attend is considered a ‘charismatic’ mass, and the others are not, but we are one blended community of conservative people who just love Jesus with all of our hearts in the way that we are most comfortable, while being true to the church’s ‘rules.

Just MHO.

I do not hold hands or shake hands. The dirty looks I get at times are funny. At the sign of peace I have started to say “GOD’s peace on our US soldiers” oooohhh does that get the ‘go to h&ll’ glare! ! ! it’s priceless ! ! !

Going to mass where the priest and the band leader have a stand up comic routine during mass is ——–.

Pick any parish you want they are all the same in this diocese.
We do not have the bells at the consecration since Easter.

This all brings tears to my heart.

You ask what would have been the ‘right way’ to welcome your new priest. First, not within mass itself. The sacrificial nature of mass itself would have been presenved (in the NO mass it is first broken as soon as the priest looks away from God and says a cheery good morning to the faithful)). Instead, customarily, there would have been an announcement in the bulletin of the presence of a new priest, and an invitation to join the parish celebration held after Sunday mass in the parish hall. Those who wished attended and enjoyed as much applause, and coffee, and home made cakes and pies, as they could stand. Father met everyone, told jokes, mentioned his sports team preference, gave all the details about his family and aspirations for the parish.

Just this morning I attended a NO week day mass here in Chicago in a large parish. As NO masses go, it was okay, no eucharistic ministers, Father goes to the taberacle himself, the people stay in their places during the handshake. So I risk going there rather than driving the thirty minutes to the traditional mass even there are still abuses (no paten, Father leaves the sanctuary for his handshakes, there’s no place to kneel to receive Our Lord, they are still using glass chalices, and they sing everything, all fifteen or twenty old folks present, the responsorial and the acclamation and all that without any accompaniment or direction –they don’t need no stinkin’ direction, thank you very much–and thus manage to sound like scalded cats).

There is a major problem to prayer, though, there are two people who manage to start conversations both before and after mass. One is the cantor, although she does not lead these weekday masses, who absolutely always has a word or two here and a word or two there with her bf’s, right in front of the sanctuary, right in the middle of church, standing with her back to the tabernacle, and laughing and gesticulating as if she were in her own living room instead of between me and the Lord God of the Universe. Another is a very old woman who seats herself in the last seat in the rear next to the door and talks to absolutely everyone who enters or leaves. Most people, about as brave as those commenting on this page who feel compelled to clap if others clap, will stop, out of misplaced charity, and speak with her. Between the two of them, the cantor and the elderly woman, there is no silence in the church either before mass or after. It makes me mad every single day.

But this morning, I went and knelt right beside the old woman, and putting my things down to kneel, I gave her and the woman she was loudly chatting with a long and serious look. Then I turned to prayer. They got it. The detainee immediately went to her seat, and the old woman composed herself and made a visible effort to pray.

After mass I left with her and began a friendly and sustained conversation–about the beautiful weather, for one thing– in the vestibule which continued outside and to the corner. It will continue tomorrow at her house, because she told me she has no air conditioner, and she would like me to show her a trick I know and mentioned to her, about using one’s largest fan to exhaust air from the house in order to draw cooler outside air in at the windows. And I promised that I will also keep an eye out for a used air conditioner, as she said she could stand the electicity cost but didn’t know how to install one.

It struck me later that all the talking and clapping we do in church doesn’t accomplish as much as good conversation outside church, which could get around to more personal and needed interaction, and even visitation. It struck me that all that talking and hugging in church is a good way to avoid really helping somebody, avoid really knowing somebody. It struck me for what it is, just posturing, or how did someone put it, vogueing. (Did you know that we’re supposed to help our widowed women faithful? Says St. Paul.)

Tomorrow I’m going to kneel by the cantor. She’s going to be tougher, because she’s not lonely, she’s part of a crowd that, during the late eighties, decided it was their personal mission to make Catholic churches ‘friendlier, like protestant ones,’ by talking and laughing and flirting and expressing oneself right in front of God.

But I’m tired of it. I’m tired of a few people making it impossible for others to concentrate in prayer. I urge you to do the same. Ask people nicely to be quiet, please, or show chatting people by kneeling near them in prayer that our purpose there is to worship, and that socializing is for outside the confines of God’s House. Father is NOT going to speak up. Benedict is NOT going to lecture anybody on it. But he’s hoping each Catholic will get some backbone and stand up and say, Enough! That’s why he’s not so much issuing rules (which have been completely ignored anyway, like Redemptionis Sacramentum) as about making appeals, and himself making the example.

And yes, while we’re at it–stop clapping! Just stop! And shake your head and even make the dreaded, ‘No no finger waggle’ at clapping people. Would you not have defended Christ if you had been there? Well, you ARE there! He’s in the tabernacle, and He is suffering disrespect! All it takes is one look, because people KNOW it’s wrong. They’re just waiting for someone to say it. So say it!