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NorthStar
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| First Name: | Chuck | | Gender: | Male | | Faith History: | Roman Catholic, Evangelical, Orthodox |
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Posted: Sun Aug 17th, 2008 08:44 pm |
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Hi Everyone!
Considering how we were discussing recently the "chaos" in structure, politics and somewhat in doctrine in the Orthodox Church, now I have a question for all of you.  Particularly Latin Rite Catholics. This question is prompted by my experience in my local RC parish. I went to the evening Mass for the feast of the Assumption, because my parish is so far away (with gas as high as it is it seems even further than before...lol!) And first I was surprised there was only 15 or 20 people there, considering it is a day of obligation. (on Sundays there must be 100 people) But also I noticed how compared to how some of the feast day Masses are celebrated on EWTN, this was very plain, ordinary, with little fanfare. No bells and whistles, no incense (literally) almost no singing or chanting, the priest merely recited everything. Now I know that probably this would have been somewhat different if he had had some more help etc....but it just didn't seem like a feast day to. Considering it is one of the 12 great feasts of the Church, it just seemed weird to me.
Yes, Orthodoxy has chaos in almost everything, including even our Liturgy, (in America anyways) but it seems like the RCC has some real chaos in worship. I suppose chaos is way to strong a word, but it doesn't seem to be uniform. Why is this? I've heard Mitch Pacwa say on the radio it was much worse in the 70's, but why so long to get this straightened out? There is a joke in Orthodoxy that says, "don't let dust or cobwebs stay in the Church too long, otherwise it might become part of Tradition"  .....however in the RCC it seems like change since Vatican II is willy nilly. You don't have to for dust to build up, because someone is "cleaning house" every day.  I've heard of "abuses of Vatican II" and that, but why? How can the Church take what is most important, the Mass, the WORSHIP of the Church and water it down? I'm not saying my local RC parish is bad, because it's not. But I just expected more on a feast day I guess. I know the Pope is trying to change this slowly, but why doesn't he just crack down on it? What good is it having a central authority if he doesn't exercise that authority when there are REAL abuses of any sort?
Second, and more importantly, (and this is the heart of my question) how do you all deal with this? Do you confront your priests politiely when they do or not do something? Do you switch parishes until you find one that has a properly celebrated Mass? (I know Catholics who've become Orthodox for this very issue) For me as Orthodox, the most important thing is the Liturgy. Nothing, not all the disputes and politics and chaos holds a candle to the importance of partaking of the worship of God with and among the saints in heaven and earth. The Liturgy is where the whole Church both militant and triumphant is united. Does the American Catholic Church just not feel it is important anymore? Because from the Orthodox POV, there is nothing more important than the Liturgy in the life of the Church. Certainly we have lapsed in some ways especially in America, but we don't have polka Masses either so....
Please do not take this as an insult I just don't know of any other way to word my question and make it sound polite. I'm really curious how you can deal with this in your lives. because Orthodoxy even has some of these types of issues as well, and it's hard to deal with, but nothing like some of the things I've seen/heard about in the Roman Church.
Thank you, and I pray no one takes offense.
Chuck
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Sun Aug 17th, 2008 11:55 pm |
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Yes, there are some problems with the liturgy in the Catholic Church, Chuck. They are not nearly as great as they were in the 70s and 80s, but I still see few Masses that are “done” completely according to the book. Bad habits become ingrained and people won’t let go.
I was surprised there was only 15 or 20 people there, considering it is a day of obligation.
There’s only one word that can adequately describe this phenomenon: apathy. People just don’t care, don’t attend. They are “busy.” They “forget.” None of their friends is going. Whatever. Faith is at a low ebb, thanks to decades of lousy catechesis and a widespread cultural revolution.
I live in an area that is 80 percent Catholic. About 20 percent of them show up on a good Sunday. And about 20 percent of the Sunday attendees show up for holy days of obligation.
Inclement weather or any other small excuse will reduce attendance to a trickle. Recently I was not able to attend my usual Saturday Vigil Mass (mostly old folks like me) and instead went to the usually packed 10 AM “family” Sunday Mass; there were only about 60 souls there. Why? The pastor had been out of town the Sunday before (he was in Rome, concelebrating with the Holy Father and attending a worldwide seminar on moral theology, which is his specialty), and we ended up with a communion service led by a deacon from a nearby parish because the priest who was scheduled to fill in couldn’t make it. The people evidently figured, “Why bother? There’s no Mass anyway” — and stayed home. Adjoining parishes are just five minutes away, but likely they didn’t go there, either. Too much trouble. Yet the confessionals are usually empty. Like I said — apathy.
I had a rather full schedule at work last week, and it appears that God arranged things to go awry there, bumping a big job to the following day, just to allow me to attend the Thursday night vigil of the Assumption, which fulfills the obligation. I grabbed the chance. There were about 40 people there, most of them coming because just prior to the Mass there was Eucharistic adoration, Benediction (a devotional service whose focus is the Lord’s Eucharist Presence) and a rosary; all the most devout ladies of the parish were there. I suspect that if the holy day had been any other day during the week, the attendance would have been half that, most of them the same little old ladies.
…(literally) almost no singing or chanting…
Today’s Catholics are notorious for poor singing. I suspect much of it has to do with the facts that, since the Second Vatican Council, all the old, beautiful and meaningful hymns and chants are considered taboo — or if we do get to sing them, all the words are changed and you are left clueless unless you have your nose in the songbook — and also, whatever is being offered nowadays is either heretical, unsingable or highly inappropriate for the Mass.
I've heard Mitch Pacwa say on the radio it was much worse in the 70's, but why so long to get this straightened out?
If the cows escape the barn, getting them back inside is a chore. The Vatican has been hard at herding from the very beginning, but they are shepherding over a billion souls, all prone to stray, and it just takes about 50 years or so get them back into the barn.
Not even the bishops are always cooperative, as witness their recent row over the new, more conservative English translation of the Mass that they voted down in this country. This sets them back another six months to a year. Considering that they were already a couple of years behind schedule compared to the rest of the English-speaking world, things are not going well there, either.
I know the Pope is trying to change this slowly, but why doesn't he just crack down on it?
It’s a fact of life that if he did, nobody would listen. We’ve already seen widespread disobedience and contempt, beginning with the rejection of Paul VI’s Humanae Vitae, and the above-mentioned apathy does the rest. The pope, whoever he may be, would simply be laughed at. “Authority? What authority?”
Second, and more importantly, (and this is the heart of my question) how do you all deal with this? Do you confront your priests politely when they do or not do something? Do you switch parishes until you find one that has a properly celebrated Mass?
Isn’t this why we have numerous strains of “traditionalists” who also reject various points of “updating”? We are dealing with a polarized Church, and neither side — right or left — is completely in tune with what the Church authorities have been trying to do all these years.
Nothing, not all the disputes and politics and chaos holds a candle to the importance of partaking of the worship of God with and among the saints in heaven and earth.
Parish shopping sometimes yields improvement, but one has to remember that no parish is “perfect” because human beings — even the best ones — are imperfect. We have to accept the fact that, to a greater or lesser extent, we will always have to hold our noses and swallow what is served.
Certainly we [Orthodox] have lapsed in some ways especially in America, but we don't have polka Masses either so....
True. I know several parishes where professional dance bands have been hired to play at Mass. How does this happen? The parishioners want it (entertainment gets the nod over the Real Presence). The educators want it (pandering to the people who won’t attend Mass unless there’s entertainment). The pastor has no volunteers that know chant or polyphony or are even willing to try the traditional hymns. Ignorance and apathy.
Please do not take this as an insult I just don't know of any other way to word my question and make it sound polite.
You’ve proved yourself to be a solid and true Christian, Chuck, sincerely trying to learn. That’s all we ask of anyone.
We Catholics readily admit that the Catholic Church is populated by imperfect humans, just as you have done concerning the Orthodox Churches. This is a meeting of minds and hearts over serious matters of concern to all of us. Yes, they are hard to deal with, because the problem is ourselves. But precisely because of that and because of God’s universal call to salvation, it is necessary to deal with these things, just as the sinner must deal with his sins — not only the ones already committed, but those that one is tempted to commit in the future — through prayer and the sacraments (mysteries), repentance and asceticism.
David
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CajunRick
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Posted: Mon Aug 18th, 2008 03:43 am |
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One of the things we have seen in the aftermath of Vatican II is that it is never wise for the Church to hurry. Doing things right takes time, often decades or centuries.
After Vatican II, the implementation of liturgical reform was hurried, especially in the United States, and the result was an "anything goes" attitude. It not only affected liturgy, but catechesis as well. Seminary formation suffered, and the result is the mess we saw in the 80's. Unfortunately it is difficult, especially given the shortage of priests, to replace priests and bishops en masse, so instead Pope John Paul II began appointing more conservative bishops who in turn have established more traditional seminary programs, and the current generation of priests are more faithful to the liturgy and the Magisterium. But they are still mostly working under pastors who were ordained in the 70's and 80's. It will take several generations to fully "clean house".
At the same time, the introduction of the vernacular in the liturgy made for a sudden rush of music that even today would be considered embarrassing. My own personal "favorite" which I am ashamed to say I played and sand with enthusiasm, was "Sons of God":
Sons of God, hear his holy word,
Gather 'round the table of the Lord,
Eat his Body, drink his Blood,
And we'll sing a song of love:
Allelu, allelu, allelu, allelu-oo-ya.
Brothers, sisters, we are one,
And our lives have just begun.
In the Spirit we are one,
And we'll live for-ev-er.
And of course we sang it with guitars and tamborines, and I think we may have had maracas and bongos and Lord only knows what else. So in spite of the complaints and criticisms, the music actually has gotten better!
The Latin Rite has always had what are known as "high" and "low" masses. High masses include singing and low masses do not. As a kid (prior to Vatican II) our parish church had seven Sunday masses and only one of them was a high mass. Today that same church (which is now our diocese's co-cathedral) has four Sunday masses and a Satudray vigil, and all of them have music. (Two additional parishes have been created from its territory, which is the reason for the reduction in the number of services.)
And incense is seldom used in most parishes. In our parish we use incense on Holy Thursday and at the Easter Vigil, and that's it. It is used more often at the cathedrals. I understand incense is an integral part of Eastern liturgies, but that's not the case in the west. It is optional even on major feasts such as the Easter Vigil. In our parish people start coughing and complaining as soon as they see the censure, even if it's empty!
But I'm not sure if I would call it "disunity". The rubrics permit a rather wide variation in styles as long as the integrity of the liturgy itself is maintained. As such, it tends to take on the personality of the priest and, to a lesser extent, the parishioners. And yet the Eucharist itself is the same in any Catholic church anywhere in the world. And that's not to say there are not abuses; there are. But I believe true, serious abuses are rare, and what we see mostly is laziness and the result of poor formation of our priests and people in the first place.
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NorthStar
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Posted: Mon Aug 18th, 2008 06:27 pm |
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David W. Emery wrote
We Catholics readily admit that the Catholic Church is populated by imperfect humans, just as you have done concerning the Orthodox Churches. This is a meeting of minds and hearts over serious matters of concern to all of us. Yes, they are hard to deal with, because the problem is ourselves. But precisely because of that and because of God’s universal call to salvation, it is necessary to deal with these things, just as the sinner must deal with his sins — not only the ones already committed, but those that one is tempted to commit in the future — through prayer and the sacraments (mysteries), repentance and asceticism.
David
Thank you David for your excellent reply! We have all the same problems that you do with apathy, poor attendance, etc... It's just that we don't have anything compared to "days of obligation" which is why I was so surprised the attendance for Assumption was so Orthodox!
One thing that I've come to admire about the West is it puts the "praxis" of the Faith into practical terms. This includes the administration of the Church, which is far more practical than Orthodoxy, (and an argument many Catholics use against Orthodoxy) however for all the practicality of it, it still seems to be "in theory" when it comes to this issue. What's the use of having a Pope if he can't do anything? He becomes an Ecumenical Patriarch who is a "first among equals" which to me, has become a meaningless title...
Again, I understand it takes time, and I probably have sort of blown the situation out of proportion but the Roman Liturgy can be so beautiful and bring people directly into God's presence like the Eastern Liturgies, I guess it's a hard issue for, that's all.
I do understand it takes time to get the cows back into the barn as you said, and we have issues like that as well, especially with music. Where many Greek parishes no longer use Byzantine chant, but an invented out of thin air kind of music that is "based" on Byzantine chant, but is very American. (of course only Prysbyterian style American music, so it's not even "American" in totality) We have only 4 seminaries in the entire country, including Alaska, and only one is of the Greek Byzantine tradition, (the other 3 are Russian) and Byzantine chant is an elective even there. We have no chanting schools like in Greece and the middle east, and only a handful of materials available to anyone who wants to learn it, so we're kind of forced to learn it on our own, which is not the best way, but its the only way. There are some traditionally trained chanters trying to change this, but it is a SLOW process.
Anyway, I greatly appreciate your response as it helped me to understand some things a little better.
Oh, and thanks for the explanation of Benediction, I saw 2 minutes of it on EWTN last night, but I only get EWTN over the internet and had to get ready for dinner, so I missed finding out exactly what it was.
Chuck
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NorthStar
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Posted: Mon Aug 18th, 2008 06:32 pm |
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CajunRick wrote:
The Latin Rite has always had what are known as "high" and "low" masses. High masses include singing and low masses do not. As a kid (prior to Vatican II) our parish church had seven Sunday masses and only one of them was a high mass. Today that same church (which is now our diocese's co-cathedral) has four Sunday masses and a Satudray vigil, and all of them have music. (Two additional parishes have been created from its territory, which is the reason for the reduction in the number of services.)
And incense is seldom used in most parishes. In our parish we use incense on Holy Thursday and at the Easter Vigil, and that's it. It is used more often at the cathedrals. I understand incense is an integral part of Eastern liturgies, but that's not the case in the west. It is optional even on major feasts such as the Easter Vigil. In our parish people start coughing and complaining as soon as they see the censure, even if it's empty!
But I'm not sure if I would call it "disunity". The rubrics permit a rather wide variation in styles as long as the integrity of the liturgy itself is maintained. As such, it tends to take on the personality of the priest and, to a lesser extent, the parishioners. And yet the Eucharist itself is the same in any Catholic church anywhere in the world. And that's not to say there are not abuses; there are. But I believe true, serious abuses are rare, and what we see mostly is laziness and the result of poor formation of our priests and people in the first place.
Thanks for explaining the difference between low and high Mass. However, since the Assumption is such a major feast, shouldn't it be a high Mass? Or is that optional?
I appreciate your response, and things are a little more clear. Thank for your patience and time, it's greatly appreciated.
Oh, and if the people at your parish complain about the incense, send them to an Orthodox Church where a Bishop is visiting, I doubt they'll EVER complain about how you guys do it ever again...
Chuck
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CajunRick
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Posted: Mon Aug 18th, 2008 06:41 pm |
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NorthStar wrote: However, since the Assumption is such a major feast, shouldn't it be a high Mass? Or is that optional?
Should it be and must it be are two different questions. Yes it should, but it's optional. Singing is encouraged at every mass in the Latin Rite, but it's still optional.
Oh, and if the people at your parish complain about the incense, send them to an Orthodox Church where a Bishop is visiting, I doubt they'll EVER complain about how you guys do it ever again...
Then someone would complain about there not being enough! 
Seriously, I love the incense, and I've enjoyed it at the Eastern liturgies I've attended. It's a shame that we've gotten rid of most of the "smells and bells" that used to be so much a part of our liturgy.
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NorthStar
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Posted: Mon Aug 18th, 2008 08:11 pm |
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CajunRick wrote: NorthStar wrote:
Oh, and if the people at your parish complain about the incense, send them to an Orthodox Church where a Bishop is visiting, I doubt they'll EVER complain about how you guys do it ever again...
Then someone would complain about there not being enough!
LOL! I'd be one of those people!
I remember going to the Catholic parish for Holy Thursday, and they actually used incense...when i smelled it, I just absolutely felt "at home"....once you get used to it, it becomes a part of being in Church, and without it, it doesn't feel like I'm totally in Church. I'm weird that way.
The only thing I can compare to is kind of like mom's homemade apple pie, or when we smell something we did as a kid at summer camp, or for me personally the smell of a campfire on a wilderness lake.....even if I'm not camping, if I smell wood burning, (I can even tell the species) it takes me back to a specific camping trip, or when I smell birch firewood it takes me back to a really great Christmas with family, or anything like that. The human sense of smell is amazing for bringing back memories, good ones and it can change the whole mood. That's what incense does (and is supposed to do in part). Hopefully the West will use it a bit more, at least on holy days.
In fact, one lady at my parish left the Church for 30 years and became a Baptist....when one day she heard our priest doing his radio show...she wondered, "is that the same type of Orthodox Church I was baptized in?" (not the same parish but Orthodoxy in general)
She said the first day she walked in the door, and smelled the incense, she knew she was home! Something just clicked, and she came back to the Church after 30 years. (true story)
So it has practical uses as well, for us practical westerners.
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mrsbmoo
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Posted: Tue Aug 19th, 2008 03:28 am |
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| On a more practical note. On days of obligation, we often attend mass at a parish that is not our usual one(just like you did) for reasons of scheduling(I had to be in that neighoring town anyway for my daughter's sports practice). Also, there are usually 2 masses that day at each church to catch people of all work schedules. So, the one you attended might have only been empty due to people's attending a different mass somewhere or sometime else.
____________________
Becky
Wife of Michael(called Moo) and stay at home mom to 5 daughters between 13 months and 17
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David W. Emery
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Posted: Tue Aug 19th, 2008 06:22 am |
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NorthStar wrote:What's the use of having a Pope if he can't do anything?
Indeed, the problem is perennial. Witness the apostle John in 3 John 9: “I have written something to the church; but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge my authority.” And to make matters worse: “They said to him, ‘By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?’” — spoken to Christ himself within the temple precincts (Mark 11:28).
David
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NorthStar
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Posted: Tue Aug 19th, 2008 04:20 pm |
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mrsbmoo wrote: On a more practical note. On days of obligation, we often attend mass at a parish that is not our usual one(just like you did) for reasons of scheduling(I had to be in that neighoring town anyway for my daughter's sports practice). Also, there are usually 2 masses that day at each church to catch people of all work schedules. So, the one you attended might have only been empty due to people's attending a different mass somewhere or sometime else.
I suppose in most areas that's probably true, but I live in a town (actually a village) with a year round population of 600 people! The next nearest Catholic parish with Mass that day was 17 miles away in a larger town. (same priest so he is stretched thin) So in this particular case I'm pretty sure no one was at another parish. There are really only 2 parishes in town, the Catholic and the Lutheran. It's northern Wisconsin so pretty much everyone is either Catholic or Lutheran.
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NorthStar
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Posted: Tue Aug 19th, 2008 04:22 pm |
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David W. Emery wrote: NorthStar wrote:What's the use of having a Pope if he can't do anything?
Indeed, the problem is perennial. Witness the apostle John in 3 John 9: “I have written something to the church; but Diotrephes, who likes to put himself first, does not acknowledge my authority.” And to make matters worse: “They said to him, ‘By what authority are you doing these things, or who gave you this authority to do them?’” — spoken to Christ himself within the temple precincts (Mark 11:28).
David
Thanks for pointing that out to me, I guess I had kind of forgotten that even the Apostles and Jesus were not listened to. Thanks for bringing that to my attention.
Chuck
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