My personal memory of the liturgy prior to Vatican II is an awful one. I remember the daily Requiem Masses screeched by the eighth grade girls of St. Charles Borromeo parish in Peru, Indiana, mandatory prior to the start of every school day, and even with their screeching, the Mass gratefully only lasted about twenty minutes.
If the priest thinks the girls are "screeching," he has the ability to get some vocal
instruction at the school to alleviate the problem. Here he was getting a sign from
God to improve the children's education for the benefit of their whole lives, and
he uses the opportunity to grumble and mope, and tuck away a miserable
memory he can use in the future to evoke sympathy, like a true Liberal would?
Communion distributed to the kneeling at the altar rail was more comic than reverent (remember hearing the words “Corpus Domini. . .as the priest started at one end and then eternam” as he reached the thirtieth person kneeling?).
Communion on the tongue was "comic?" Is that a direct quote of St. Therese of
Lisieux or St. Peter Julian Eymard? No? Why did this clown want to become a priest
in the first place? He could have been Lutheran or Unitarian and be much happier.
He ought to be grateful he lives in an age when the mainstream Church is allowing
him to practice Protestantism while "presenting himself" as a priest! The "thirteenth
person kneeling" is an obvious lie, meant to make a joke by exaggeration, of the
Apostolic tradition of those words. Does he even bother to think of the dark, hot
pedestal in hell he is preparing for himself, where he would be held up for
eternal ridicule and torment?
Also strong in my memory remain Masses on Holy Days of Obligation when at the beginning of Mass, during the Offertory and at the Pater Noster, the assistant priests would come out and give communion to anyone who needed to “duck out” and get back to work (this was especially true at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York even when the Cardinal was the celebrant).
So that would be Communion distributed before the consecration ("during the
Offertory"), so it must have been hosts from a prior Mass being used. Talk about
distraction! How many in the pews would be watching the "duck-outs" instead of
paying attention to the Mass? Apparently he's using this as an argument against
having any Holy Days of Obligation, and it has nothing entirely to do with the
Canonized Traditional Latin Mass. Let me guess: he's got no complaints about
making Rosh Hashana and Yom Kippur into quasi-National holidays, right? And
he no doubt reserves the most respectful tones for his mutterings on Ramadan,
all in the spirit of ecuмenism. (Remember, ecuмenism means becoming an
enemy of the Faith of our Fathers, a turncoat who disdains the Faith, ridicules it,
and dares not say a word against the longstanding enemies of the Faith.)
Adult choirs attempting Mozart were only slightly better in most churches than the eighth grade girls at St. Charles. My grandparents and parents taught us to distract ourselves during Mass by following their example and either praying the Rosary continuously throughout Mass or attempting to follow along using a Missal which had Latin on one side of the fold and the English translation on the other. It was mystery, for sure, but not the kind of mystery which is reverentially spoken of now for the past.
So his own parents and grandparents taught him to distract himself at Mass? So
it's all their fault he was misguided. Why did he become a priest, again? He
doesn't say. Maybe it was to destroy the Church from within? Was he AA-1030?
Why did he have such a hard time using a handmissal, when my children could do
it when they were 7 and 8? Seems odd to me: "...attempting to follow along using
a Missal which had Latin on one side of the fold and the English translation on the
other." He was in all likelihood on the wrong side of the "fold." HAHAHAHA
Further on in
his blog he has the following to say:
I am on vacation as I write this and substituting for the pastor of a one priest, large parish who uses the opportunity of my presence to get about the only genuine vacation he can. The people in this parish sing beautifully, participate fully and reverently, receive the Eucharist with great respect and the older congregation would not like to return to what they knew as I knew when we grew up. There is always work which needs to be done to achieve a beautiful and spiritually inviting celebration of the Eucharist.
So the people of that parish sing beautifully: maybe they had the blessing of a
priest who arranged for vocal training in their elementary school?
Aa-hem. And they "receive the Eucharist with great respect" -- that would be with great
respect, IN THE HAND, of course. I'm unable to imagine how communion-in-the-
hand can be "with great respect." I've seen thousands of examples, and not
one of them was "respectful." And then, "There is always work to be done to
achieve a beautiful and spiritually inviting celebration of the Eucharist." Well, I
should think so, when you have such a pile of nonsense to work with. He must
enjoy trying to make a silk purse out of a sow's ear. That's why he disdains the
Canonized Traditional Latin Mass: it's too easy to make it beautiful. He much
prefers an impossible challenge. How big of him ...NOT!