The Novus Ordo Mass and Watching the Priest's Face

The perils of the ad populum Mass

I have occasion to go to a N.O. from time to time, and it is amazing, when one attends an N.O. only rarely, how "face-centered" it all is. Even with me, myself, and I, all three of us, constantly thinking, "No, I'm going to focus of the liturgy and Our Lord, focus, focus, focus...", helplessly find myself contemplating the priest's face, his every blink, angle of head, raised eyebrow.
It's just incredible. And then, of course, POW! I've got to shake hands! Er, wait...what? It is incredibly disconcerting experience, and one that is -- shall we say -- "not conducive to prayer."

It's just best to sit in the back, or look out a window, if by God's grace, there's a nice one to look out of.

None of that makes the rite invalid, I hasten to add, because God is always faithful (Romans 3:3), and we have entered into the New Covenant with Him (and thus into all the old ones), and He is always faithful, whether we are or not. But wow, I thank the Lord I only experience an N.O. rarely now.

Closely related to this: there's no way to attend a Traditional Latin Mass for the first time and not be surprised at the ornateness of the priest's chasuble. (A chasuble is the outer most garment of a priest who is vestured to say Mass.)

The ornate chasuble a TLM priest wears, of which we mainly see the back, prevents all that "face-watching" endemic to the New Mass. The chasuble symbolizes the royal robe the Roman soldiers threw over Our Lord, and when the priest vests, he prays of the chasuble as the "yoke of Christ". And on top of all that beautiful symbolism, it acts as a mobile iconostasis, an icon screen. separating us from the Mysteries at the altar as the iconostasis does in an Eastern Liturgy.

An Préachán

How to witness to a non-TLM Catholic about the TLM Mass

First, never rag on what they experience, for how are they to know any better, being brought up in it? Always remember: People like what they're used to. An old adage, and a true one.

Secondly, pray and really live the beauty of the TLM in your life outside the Liturgy, or I suppose one can say, bring the Heavenly beauty of the TLM into your public life, live as through Heaven -- and the Eternal Presence of Our Lord -- is here, for He is. Stress ever the Real Presence, and that that is the great aim of the TLM and the ancient Eastern Liturgies: to celebrate Immanuel, God with us, in His Real Presence. That's the reason for all the art, the exquisite music, the vertical worship. The Lord God of Hosts became Incarnate in us in order that we could become incarnate in Him. Theosis. It's that "Faith made manifest" that attracts. Always has, always will.

An Préachán 

Sedevacantism and Romans 3:3

I myself have never had much interest in Sedevacantism, unless it would be discussing whether Josef Ratzinger could be said to still be pope. My guess is that some future pontiff will declare Ratzinger's quasi-abdication/retirement/whatever-you-call-it to have been invalid, and thus that Bergoglio -- an obvious heretic, if ever heresy was practiced, preached, or professed -- was (past tense, since this is a future pope talking) an anti-pope.

But of course I don't know that will happen, and though I can clearly know "Bergi" is a heretic, and a rank one, especially odious in that he has no time to answer the Dubia Cardinals, nor the collection of theologians and laity who have asked him pleadingly to clarify his teaching on divorce and remarriage, and God-knows-what-else, but yet he somehow he manages to find the time to give lengthy interviews to old Eugenio Scalfari, that ridiculous Communist "journalist". Whatever. He may validly be pope, or not; but he's definitely a heretic. For what that's worth. 

So, I understand the Sedes' frustration. Declaring the popes since (who? John 23, Paul 6? Or...?) whomever to be invalid popes solves one aspect of the absurd Modernist Church. But it creates even worse ones, such as I wrote to a Sede at OnePeterFive:

Will you just stop about the Sedevacantist garbage? Just. Stop.

The Vatican II Church is a mess, true. But Sedes throw the Infant Lord out with the dirty bathwater. You, and all Sedes, need to re-read the opening of Romans chapter 3, especially the context of that chapter's verse three, which famously says, "For what if some of them have not believed? Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect? God forbid." That is what should be the engraved-in-gold motto of all Trads regarding even the most absurdly celebrated N.O.

You write, "Maybe the [New] Mass created by enemies of Christ isn't even valid." Subtle, as a brick. Oh, yeah, and like you KNOW that, do you? You blaspheme God, actually, for you're writing that the unbelief of the servants of the New Covenant are making God's side of the Covenant, His signature on it, without effect. Outrageous.

It's as simple as that, and what St. Paul wrote about those Jews of his day who rejected the New Covenant through their unbelief, applies to all Sedes.

Most Sedes are just desperate Catholics trying to hang on to their Faith in an Age of Heretics in High Places. Some of them, though, do commit both Blasphemy and Protestantism. I.e., they say God is not faithful, and they say that they themselves somehow have the authority to assert this and that. They don't. 

But St. Paulo had it right, in spades. So what if a bunch of these clowns are unfaithful. Does that invalidate God's side of the Covenant? Not. One. Iota.

An Préachán

Importance of Laughter Against Progressive Persecution: a reply to Brian!

This is a comment I replied with to BrianW at OnePeterFive about how we ought to laugh at our ecclesiastical persecutors. BrianW pointed out that those who are stuck in a region w/o the TLM are not in a laughing mood. He's quite right, of course. Here's my response:

Raghn Crow Brian W • an hour ago

Oh, I agree, Brian W. I spent what was it? Thirty years in Purgatory, otherwise known as the modern N.O. Mass. That no doubt sounds wicked to many but it WAS a purgatory. A misery. Suffering. (Only in Purgatory your suffering is part of your cleansing. So perhaps to some extent I've been a bit cleansed myself.)

And I remember, my friend, when the priest at that parish I grew up in stopped using the beautiful marble altar rail. Like it was yesterday. He must have told people to line up instead of using the rail, and receive standing. But this one family kept going to the rail. Others did at first but they fell away and this one family stayed. I could tell you their names (wasn't me; I kept losing myself in the beautiful windows of that church, which I wandered in since I first noticed them in childhood; but after what happened, I was ashamed that I didn't protest).

So this family, they kept going to the rail and the priest – I assume the moderators wouldn't like me using his name, but this occurred in the Columbus, Ohio, diocese – kept this family till last: he wouldn't give them Holy Communion till everyone else had theirs. And finally, I remember the day the priest just stopped giving them Holy Communion. He left them at the altar rail. Yes, he did.

He ended up rewarded for his services by getting a plum assignment in Columbus itself, (in a ritzy suburb) and the next priest, who acted the gay blade (whether he was or not) tore out the altar rail.

I grew up with that altar rail. It was a beautiful, subtle mottled grey-greenish (the Irish word is "glas" as in Dubhglas, the name) marble with sweet, humble, really, highlights of various colors. The new priest remodeled the entire sanctuary area, in fact, Tore out the side altars (same marble as the rail) and either used pieces of the rail or the old altars to make a new Vat2 altar. When people complained, he'd say, "Talk to the bishop! Talk to bishop!" We should have revolted. Pitchforks. Tar. Feathers. For the bishop and his "queen". Actually, this guy was accused after all this was done with having an affair with a woman! He got shunted off into oblivion and the bishop retired back to Cleveland or from wherever he came.

I left that church. I took my mother to the old school gym to Mass until the church was open again, and that was it. My brothers thereafter had to take her. (Mother and one brother now have died, and the remaining brothers no longer go to Mass at all.) It was a church in a county seat about a half an hour from Columbus, and my drive to Columbus was only 45-some minutes (too long for my mother). There in "the big city" I hung out at a conservative parish (which I formally joined) but spent my time with the Melkites in their heavenly liturgy. (I wish, I wish, I wish I were rich, for I'd have built them a proper church.) Then a TLM started up at an old downtown parish, started by a truly orthodox priest who saved that parish from extinction. The TLM was full every Sunday. I would have transferred to it but ended up leaving for Europe, where I've been living since. (The priest was not allowed to stay at the parish he saved, but the TLM continues there, at 8:30 a.m., though, an awkward time for a number of people, the older ones and families.)

So, you are right, my good sir. Nothing to laugh about.

Then again, what would have happened it we all had laughed out loud at the priest insisting on everyone lining up like lemmings? We should have stopped that then and there. Just sat there and laughed, and then all of us go to the rail! But we didn't. It might seem cruel to laugh but it would have been cruel, far more so, to show what we really felt.

I don't normally (as in never) watch Michael Voris but a good friend insisted I observe this one episode he liked. i did, and Voris was talking about the coming collapse of the Church in the U.S., population-wise, and how not only parishes but entire dioceses will be closing, with archdiocese becoming mere dioceses, and so on.

From my own experiences in the Vat2 Church, I know why that is happening. Exactly why.

You know your own situation, of course, and I'm sure you've tried to organize a TLM in your area. Keep at it. The Vat2 Church is doing us the favor of burying itself. "Far-stretching, endless time reveals all hidden things and buries that which once did shine," as Sophocles wrote long ago. (The Greeks knew everything.)

RC/An Préachán