Fr Z rang me up the other night and we did an impromptu interview about the older form of the Mass. We covered subjects such as family life, the life of the Church, the spiritual life of the priest, the involvement of children in the Mass, and genuine participation in the liturgy.
Listen to the podcast here.
7 comments:
I listened to the podcast last night - very informative and it's good to hear how much you're doing for your parish and the Church at large. Kudos!
But cAn we trust Fr. s? He's the one who keeps telling us that you are going to get Westminster.
That was a truly wonderful interview Father. At age 66 I am in that middle category and indeed in my teenage years leading up to the Council I bought or subscribed to everything I could get concerning Liturgical reform. A priest I knew who was sparing with his compliments told me I really understood the Liturgy. But I was rather alone in my enthusiaism.
Then, around 1965 as the changes began to come in I felt an ever growing disatisfation. Many of my friends were seminarians and whereas they had not been iterested before they were now enthralled, ofen over what I felt to be drivel. IT WASN'T SUPPSED TO TURN OUT THIS WAY! I heard all the cliches e.g. "relavant to our modern age" or "the spiriti of Vatican II" and was accused of being all caught up in the externals when I complained about all the things they were doing ot the extrnals. But I stuck to my guns.
So now I am at an age where I am supposed to be upset at what the Pope is doing but I'm thrilled.
And by the way, there were many things in the reign of Paul VI which I was not fond of but he was spot on in Humanae Vitae and it's tragic that the world didn't listen to him.
Father Z and Father T, the anecdote about the Portuguese shepherd reminded me of a story told by one of our seminary professors back in the 1960s. When he was about half way through his seminary studies he met a neighbour, a simple man like the shepherd, who asked him, ‘What part of the Mass are you at now?’ For that simple soul the Mass was everything.
Dear Father
Not too sure if this is the place to ask this but I’d be thankful if you would help.
The hermeneutic of reform and of rupture was raised in the interview. Then there is the hermeneutic of continuity and discontinuity. Perhaps there are many other forms of ‘hermeneutics’ one has yet to hear of. Can you please explain in really simple language what this all means in the nous that it is being used? Have read the first blog and failed to grasp core points. That is no surprise as the Holy Father pitched his text to great men and not to us on the outfield.
I got to listen to the podcaZt today at work. It was good to hear your voice. The overall conversation was excellent.
Our parish experienced something similar to what you communicated about some who were basically not at all happy with the EF.
In fact, there is a group of older people who go to the 7:00pm weekday evening Mass at Grotto which has since become a Latin Novus Ordo. Those people were fearful that they would lose their OF Mass. But, once they got a taste of it on Sundays, they began to petition the pastor for the EF at that evening Mass. He has permitted it once weekly thus far. There is still one person protesting out of about a dozen+ people who assist at that Mass.
Overall, people at my parish have embraced the usus antiquior.
Catechesis, time, and patience is critical.
I also agree on the age thing. The young seem more interested. We have a corp of about 50-60 altar boys (in a parish of about 800 families) and it was fascinating to watch many of them gravitate to the TLM. We were considering an early morning Rorate Mass in Advent and I was pleased with a 14 and 17 year old altar boy who were willing to be there around 5:45am. We did not follow through because of questions unanswered at the time about the calendar and classes. Perhaps this Advent.
The way I usually explain it is to say that we should not assume that everything old is bad and everything new is good.
Vatican II can only properly be understood in terms of affirming all that is good in the tradition of the Church and not in terms of rejecting everything before 1962.
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