Mac tagged me on this:
"What are the seven things that we, as Catholics, want or would like to see happen?"
Here goes:
1) If someone like, oh, say a Kennedy should die, their entire horrid pro-abortion clan doesn't trot up to Communion. If they disagree with the church they should have the guts and integrity to admit they've lost the faith. If a priest knowingly gives Communion to someone like B. Hussein Obama or Nancy Pelosi or the entire horrid pro-abortion Kennedy clan, the bishop MUST suspend faculties of the priest. IF the bishop doesn't do HIS job, the pope retires the bishop to count the holes in the accoustical tile of the lowest catacomb. It's a scandal, and high time it stopped.
2) Just once, I'd like to see some priest who does the EF form of Mass give a girl or woman a shot at serving the Mass to prove to me that the EF isn't a museum piece locked into 1962. Minor orders are gone, and frankly, it was a silly term for the functions they performed. Holy Orders are actual sacraments, those 4 functions weren't -- and east/west couldn't make up their minds regards the sub-deacon, then playing "All boys club" for serving should stop. There's ONE set of canon law rules, and they should apply to the EF form too, frankly. If the server represents "the people" it's high time to realize that 50% of "the people" are women and a woman/or girl can represent the body of pew sitters as well as a guy can. Why should the boys be taught the latin with great care, when the girls get invited to iron the altar cloths? Feh. Who wants to do "holy housework" at 9? Ironing the cloths is important, and necessary, but not something you want to do at age 9.
3) Oh, and can we quit with the "silent canon." I want to hear what the priest says. Might be nice in preference to: barking dogs, lawn mowers, fog horns, crying children, and ice-cream trucks that go "ding-a-ling-a-ling." And the choir should SHADDUP too. These singing yahoos over the centuries were one of the reasons the priests became mute during the canon. Do your bit, and stop riding over every thing. I'm following what the priest is doing, not listening to a concert. And in a high mass: Face us for the epistle and gospel, Okay? Not to some mythical barbarian to the north. If you want to face barbarians, look at the people, or SOUTH for that matter, those Muslims hordes are out to overrun us all.
4) Re: Catholic education. Revamp the whole thing so students have a clue other than simple simon stuff. They have NO idea how to defend the faith.
5) Stop waiting so long to give confirmation. DO NOT MAKE THEM JUMP THROUGH HOOPS! NO SERVICE PROJECTS. It's a sacrament. Let the grace work. [Pet peeve. They WAIT until the kids are old enough to get "busy-busy." 16-18 is TOO LATE.]
6) In any parish church (I'm not speaking of places like St. Peter's those are special cases) if you can't find the tabernacle within 5 seconds of entering, the place should be razed or put to rights. Whichever liturgical "team" approved the hide-and-go-seek tabernacle placement shall be immediately be put in the stockades so people can throw rotten fruit at them. And after that they will be stripped naked, tarred and feathered, and ridden out of town on a rail.
7. NO TERRYCLOTH bathtowel "things" for the lavabo. Ever. I mean it. It's T*A*C*K*Y. And I want BELLS, dammit. I don't give a flying hoot what Todd Brown and his little sychophants say.
8. Remove almost all "options" from the NO Mass. EP 2 or 3 should NEVER be used on a Sunday. Any priest who tries to "improve" by adding things shall be shot. Immediately. No questions. Not necessarily shoot to kill. A kneecapping will be adequate on the first offense. EP I must be used at least 2 Sundays out of 4.
9. EMs and Lectors (and deacons and servers for that matter) SHALL.KNOW.WHAT.IN.HELL.THEY.ARE.DOING or they don't get the gig. Anyone leaving an unconsummed chalice on the credence table at the side until after Mass like an unfinished cocktail will be summarily executed. Deacons need to learn the right way to purify vessels because too many don't have a clue. I've seen it, it's nasty.
10. Any cantor who uses the phrase "gathering song" will get ONE "warning shot" over his/her head. If they do it again. Tarred and feathered and sent over to the unitarian church where they are all aging hippies and don't know any better. And I'm with Mac re: a lot of the newer songs from the hippy days. 86 them or at least get rid of the ones that are questionable or outright heretical. The guitars need to go too. As a nice gesture IF Silent night is sung ON Christmas a single acoustic guitar may be used, otherwise forget it. I've always hated that song anyway.
11. The USCCB should stop prattling about economics. They know next to nothing. Ditto re: illegal aliens. We are NOT obligated to give a free ride for life to every Tom, Dick and Harry who makes it over the border. (There are exceptions for people who would be religiously persecuted, etc. But I'm talking about 99% of them.) Bernardin's "seemless garment" is a crock of crap, it just gives pro-aborts license to vote for liberals.
12. Shut down any purple palace seminaries. You know what I mean.
13. Every parish should have weekly benediction available at least once a week.
14. Frisbee Hosts. Gone. For. Good. Immediately. Instantly if not sooner. This one might even be number one.
This is more than 7, but I was on a roll and I might think up more. Gotta run. Project Runway's on.
And if you want to do this meme, go for it. It's too much fun to tag only seven people. So if you see yourself on my blogroll consider yourself tagged if you think it will be fun to do. Besides, notifying everyone they've been tagged is a pain in the kazoo.
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14 comments:
I thoughtyour said SEVEN things but you list more
and what is wong with "holy housework"? The Church depends on those who do that'
And finally, if you kneecap some priests how will they genuflect?
PS I agree with most of your other points!
Blimey Karen, you sure know how to rant!
EF: I did it twice. :-D Holy housework is good, noble, and excellent. But to offer that to a 9 year old girl would be percieved by her as WORK while her brother gets the "Mary" part in the learning department.
Pat: I know...it's in my skill set! :-D
I am with you on 12/14. (The silent Canon one would require Rome to change the rubrics.) I like the kneecapping options.
I have only just discovered your blog and I love it. I got a great laugh about the seven things - and agreed with most of them.
Fr. Erik, that rubrics change is a little irritating that it would necessitate that going to Rome. I understand the spirit, however because then you can get people doing "whatever."
HOWEVER, I've been doing some extensive reading in Jungmann, and it's clear that organic changes took place over the centuries. Because early on the Canon WAS heard for the first centuries. Then as people started losing the Latin as a mother tongue (and as Christianity spread to "barbarians") and choirs started yodeling over everything, the priest, rather than "wait" for the choir would say the canon quietly.
then THAT became encrusted and people like Alcuin and Alamar started doing "allegory" all to hell and gone to make things more mysterious than they already were. In some respects, okay, but in other respects that comes off as "let's keep the poor dumb illiterates dumb and illiterate they are too unwashed to let them know what's actually being said." You can see countless times where translations of the Latin to vernacular were verbotten.
If there can be an organic change to make the canon silent, then they ought to allow for some organic change to make it heard. [I'd love the offertory prayers to be heard too...but then in the low Mass the poor priest would never get a chance to rest his voice. But I'd love for that to be an option too. But the canon's more important so I'd settle for that.]
It's not like changing the order of anything, or the prayers themselves. I was REALLY both bemused and irritated to find out the reason why the phrase "nobis quoque peccatoribus" was said out loud of all things. Basically a signal to tell the subdeacons the priest was almost done and to get ready with the bags for distribution of holy Communion -- a thing done they later abandoned...but the outloud "reminder" remains, where as things like the words of consecration are essentially whispered.
This way if one KNOWS the Latin, I wouldn't have to keep taking as many peeks back and forth between priest and hand missal to make sure we are roughly in the same place. I'd hear it and KNOW we were "in the same place."
Hi Father J. You might enjoy my other posts on the liturgy (or perhaps not!) I've been immersed in it since just before Lent. [I had some experience as a small child so it's not entirely new, but I was too young to have plumbed the depths.] Check out the tags under the Latin Mass posts and you can see the blogs entries that dealt with that.
regarding #11...you mean Tomaso, Ricardo and Geraldo?
Tara, carummmmba!! E verdad!
Lol, too funny!
As alkways your forays into reforming the extraordainary form make me laugh but really you would remove some of its most distinctive features. Would you not just be happier at the ordinary form?
Nah. I wouldn't essentially change the EF. Just bring it up to 2009, not locked into 1962. There would have been organic changes. You can see Pius XII WAS setting up for people to vocally participate more, and not be zoned out into the rosary or private devotion. It's pretty clear to me, he REALLY thought (as I do) that if people could make the effort to follow the prayers they SHOULD. He just doesn't say so bluntly because otherwise it might come off as "okay, for you dumb people who never were swift with foreign language and really can't follow, you can say your beads, but I'm expecting more from those of you who are literate and can follow." Why do beads when you can pay attention to the canon? Back in the 50s here, I'm told the bishop at the time used to lead the people in the rosary DURING the canon. Irritating. Shaddup, buddy!! Lucky I wasn't around then or I would have told him as much.
As for letting girls serve...I think it's a fair organic change.
Neither alters the prayers of the Mass.
Besides, at one time the canon WAS said out loud. According to Jungmann, and he backs it up.
so if it can organically change to "silence" then it seems to me it can organically change back to voiced. Why should the servers be the only ones to hear the canon? Bizarre.
There are FAR too many damn choices in the OF. Far too much opportunity for "Father personality" to ad lib, and throw in crap that doesn't belong.
No.. I reached the conclusion a while back that I wasn't completely satisfied aesthetically with any of the types of Masses I go to. Either OF, EF or Byzantine. I wrote a lengthy post about that last month.
If God gave us that many rules and rituals to get into heaven, none of us would be allowed in. I am thankful that with Jesus as my Savior and with God's great mercy I stand a chance. I wouldn't with you. I think you need to check to see how high your pedestal is and maybe step down a bit.
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