Catholic Info
Traditional Catholic Faith => Crisis in the Church => Topic started by: Nishant Xavier on September 16, 2019, 10:40:25 AM
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If we take the right steps in prayer and action today, it's becoming very clear that the future will definitely be Traditional in the Catholic Church. Convents, Monasteries, Seminaries and Orders that embrace the Traditional Mass, as the Mother of God has often asked to do, experience for themselves how it has far greater effects of grace in increasing vocations etc. See Directives from Heaven, https://www.tldm.org/Directives/d01.holysacrificeofthemass.htm (https://www.tldm.org/Directives/d01.holysacrificeofthemass.htm)
From: https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/latin-mass-church-traditions-bring-boom-in-vocations-for-us-order-of-nuns (https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/latin-mass-church-traditions-bring-boom-in-vocations-for-us-order-of-nuns) Thoughts?
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(https://assets.lifesitenews.com/images/made/images/remote/https_www.lifesitenews.com/images/local/carmelites_1_810_500_75_s_c1.jpg)J
FAIRFIELD, Pennsylvania, August 13, 2019 (LifeSiteNews (https://www.lifesitenews.com/)) – In an age where religious professions are in decline (https://catholicherald.co.uk/commentandblogs/2018/10/22/the-number-of-us-nuns-is-collapsing-but-there-are-still-signs-of-growth/), especially in the United States, one order is looking back in time to buck the trend. The Discalced Carmelites have turned from the modern Church’s reforms of the 1960s and embraced ancient traditions – particularly the traditional Latin Mass. Now their order is booming, with multiple at-capacity monasteries dotting the eastern U.S.
Since 2000, the Carmelites have been faced with the sort of challenge many religious orders pine for: a boom in vocations. In that year, the nuns moved into the monastery at Elysburg, Pennsylvania from their original home in Nebraska, which they soon outgrew. They were thus granted permission to take over another declining Carmelite monastery, the Carmel of St. Joseph and St. Anne, in Philadelphia — and filled that one with vocations as well. So finally, with the community having overflowed its lodgings twice, the Carmelites received permission last summer from His Excellency Ronald Gainer, bishop of the Diocese of hαɾɾιsburg, to expand operations again, this time constructing a new monastery from the ground up.
That’s how the Carmel at Fairfield, still under construction but already in operation, was born. Women interested in a life with the cloistered Carmelites must meet a number of qualifications. Postulants need a high school education and to be in good health, coming in at an age range of 17 to their late twenties — though Mother Stella-Marie of Jesus, who heads the Fairfield monastery, told LifeSiteNews that inquirers tend to be between 17 and 24.
Currently, the monastery at Fairfield has ten professed members, with more on the way from around the globe, including as far as Sweden.
The cloistered nuns at the Carmel in Fairfield close themselves off from the world and devote the rest of their lives to strict silence, arduous labor, and prayer. Once they profess their vows, their faces may not be seen in photographs until after they die. When LifeSiteNews traveled to Pennsylvania to profile the monastery, Mother Stella gave her interview from behind a heavy grate – the same grate through which the Carmelites are permitted to speak to their family members a single time per year.
“I think the young women are drawn to beauty in the liturgy. They know that if God exists, if God is on our altars, if God is within the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, then He needs to be worshiped as He deserves: with beauty and reverence,” she said of what she thinks draws young women to the Carmelites in particular. “They see that we have that here in our monastery, and they want to be a part of that. They also want something that is authentic, that goes back to the time of our holy mother, St. Teresa.” ...
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This group has regular interactions with the TFP School (St. Louis de Montfort Academy) near hαɾɾιsburg as well.
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It doesn’t surprise me in the least that young women seeking a religious vocation are drawn to the most traditional and strict observance of their faith.
My experience from our own women’s Church group is that women and girls are not looking for the increasingly compromised, secular, feminist influenced and worldly view of the mainstream Churches. They want deeply traditional and undiluted path to follow Christ.
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Wonder when Francis will shut them down.
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Right, Susanne. Those who are serious and sincere in their Faith naturally gravitate toward Traditional Praxis. And wherever the Traditional Mass, and traditional practices and preaching of the Faith is restored, wonderful effects of Grace soon follow, as in the OP.
Here's another article from LifeSiteNews of a while ago, https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/us-bishops-ask-young-catholics-why-they-stayed-in-the-church-their-answer-the-latin-mass (https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/us-bishops-ask-young-catholics-why-they-stayed-in-the-church-their-answer-the-latin-mass)
(https://assets.lifesitenews.com/images/made/images/remote/https_www.lifesitenews.com/images/local/Latin_Mass_Old_Rite_Cdl._Burke_810_500_75_s_c1.jpg)Cardinal Raymond Burke distributes Holy Communion at a traditional Latin Mass in Rome after a LifeSiteNews and Voice of the Family conference (October 2018
US Bishops ask young Catholics why they stayed in Church. They respond it’s the Latin Mass
June 13, 2019 (LifeSiteNews (http://www.lifesitenews.com/)) – The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) asked young Catholics who haven’t left the faith what made them stay. While their answer may be surprising to many, it will not be to anyone familiar with the state of the Church today.
First of all, the USCCB is to be commended for asking young people why they’ve stayed in the Church rather than left; too often Church leadership takes its cues on catechesis and evangelization from those who object to various Catholic doctrines (https://www.lifesitenews.com/tags/tag/youth+synod). The USCCB is also to be commended for acknowledging young adults are a better authority on “youth” than the aging, liberal Vatican II baby boomers whose grip on Church life has produced memes like “Susan from the Parish Council (https://www.facebook.com/SusanFromTheParishCouncil/).”
Many of the most “liked” comments on this question posed to USCCB Facebook followers were about the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM), the beautiful ancient rite of the Mass that was codified at the Council of Trent. It’s experienced a resurgence in the last decade or so since Pope Benedict XVI clarified that Vatican II never abrogated this form of the Mass, and that priests don’t need permission from their bishops to offer it. Much of this resurgence has been from my generation. The beauty, goodness, and truth of the Old Mass appeal to us. It’s otherworldly. It directs our thoughts to heaven and God. It isn’t a show the priest puts on for the congregation. The Old Mass helps souls get to heaven. It makes people Catholic because it is Catholic – far more Catholic than much of what goes on in parishes in most of the West.
“I'm 23,” one young woman commented. “Staying because of the truth rooted in tradition found in the Church (especially the TLM).”
“Discovering the Traditional Latin Mass, and learning about all the beautiful Traditional teachings of our Church is what has kept me a Catholic,” said another.
“24 year old millennial: Seeing the beauty in church tradition and the reverence in the traditional Mass. This type of mass led to an encounter with Christ in the Eucharist,” wrote a young man. “The traditional music, incense, and beautiful traditional church architecture. Through parents who were great models of the faith and were much involved in teaching us the faith and the ‘Why’ to the church teachings and Mary. I was taught of God's love and how when we strive to love God in all our actions this allows us to [become] fully the person God made us to be and leads to happiness.”
Other comments on the USCCB Facebook post reflected the same sentiment:
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- “Discovering the Latin Mass strengthened my faith. I found it at a time in college when i became disengaged. My husband did not grow up going to church and became catholic and also loved the Latin mass.”
- “The Traditional Latin Mass which includes the reverence, true adoration, petition, and Thanksgiving of the Eucharist. Solid Catholic teaching without error or emotional overtures. Grateful for the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest! The Catholic Church is the true faith in which salvation is found.”
- “After being introduced to the Extrodinary [sic] Form of the Mass by my boyfriend (now husband), I have changed careers from elementary music teacher to pursuing a Masters in Sacred Music. My heart burns with a desire to share the gift of our 1000+ year, distinctly Catholic musical heritage and reclaim such pieces for the context of the liturgy rather than a concert stage (where I have performed them in the past). Also, my husband and I drive 30 min to our parish that has EF...as well as a beautiful and fittingly executed OF (Ordianry [sic] Form). We recently discovered there is a group of about 20 other young families from our area that do the same after having discovered the EF in the past few years. Our parish is growing, increasing primarily with young adults and young families. Seeing such care for the liturgy and learning more about the liturgy and our church's treasures has made me an even more enthusiastic Catholic than ever before in my life.”
- “The availability of the Traditional Mass (extraordinary form, as it is currently called), made me stay. There I found reverence, and a call to live every more deeply a life of sacrificial love, and to strive for Heaven daily.”