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I tend to appreciate Stuart's point of view. While I do not see myself to his "right" or "left" (whatever that would mean!), I think I am a little more flexible.

To David, yes, the highest preference would be Vespers followed by Eucharist. Stuart is right many of what VCII wished for has yet to be realized due to either mossbacked, conservative pastors, (if you will) or alternatively, laity who have not picked up the liturgical renewal. I do see some advanced Roman parishes with Vespers, but very few. Stuart is right that before the Council, lay observance of the Office was next to nil. To their credit, the renewal has resulted in many lay people privately praying the Office, almost unheard of previously. I think more advanced Latins now see the Office was as belonging to the people rather than the clergy. Common prayer is still unrealized. Stuart is very correct that the Office should be prefered to paraliturgical devotions.

You are right that many parishes focus on the legalism of obligation rather than on the idea of Vigil, but in Southern California, I think the advanced Roman parishes at least use the term "Vigil" rather than the legalistic thrust. Hopefully, more will move in this direction. Obviously, more than a word on the parish bulletin is needed. More liturgical development is needed.

I think you are lucky if the Vigil Mass is the same as the Sunday morning Mass. Too often, it has little or no music, an abbreviated homily, etc. This is inappropriate and simply lazyness. The Latin Church still has this element that sees "following the rules" as the begining and the end of everything. Sadly, once the law is fulfilled, they lose interest in doing anymore.

Undoubtedly, some chose the Vigil Mass for convienence (as some chose a Sunday afternoon, or an early morning, or what have you). People are certainly free to do this. I just think it is sad that these legalistic pastors advertize it that way. It would not kill these guys to stand up and say "let us begin the Lord's Day by first giving Thanksgiving by celebrating Holy Mass before any other activity. Let us pray during the evening hours just as our Lord did the night of the Last Supper."

I really think those words are not that difficult. But, well, life goes on!

Axios

Laus,

The website you refer mentions "But it was precisely this that St. Pius X condemned in his Syllabus of Errors..."

Is that an error?

Axios

I am sorry Axios, Could you be more specific? I am not sure what you are quoting above. Thanks.

[ 07-03-2002: Message edited by: Laus Tibi, Christe. ]

I meant, was that not written by Pius IX, not St. Pius X, or am I having a "senior momement"?

Axios

BTW, Adrian Fortescue is excellent and wrote on Eastern Church matters as well. Jungmann, Pius Parsch, Emminghaus (sorry for the German bias) are also well worth reading on western liturgy.

[ 07-03-2002: Message edited by: Axios ]

"I meant, was that not written by Pius IX, or am I having a "senior momement"?

Axios, I'm afraid I'm still not sure what you are referring to. Are you referring to a specific article or document on the Una Voce web site?

Sorry. It was Fr. Hugh S. Thwaites article. I started reading it and for some reason thought it was the home page of the website.

Axios

Ahhh. O.K. Yes Axios you are correct, it is an error. It was Blessed Pius IX who wrote the Syllabus of Errors not St. Pius X. Fr. Thwaites made a small error,I am sure he chuckled when he discovered his mistake. I had the great grace of meeting Fr. Thwaites and was totally edified by him, the way he spoke about the holy Mother of God was really something to behold.

Stuart, you made some excellent points. While claiming to be the inheritance of Quo Primum and the Council of Trent most of the traditionalists I have run across are the inheritance of Ward Cleaver (some of you may not be old enough to remember "Leave it to Beaver") and post-World War II American Catholocism and especially the Low Mass. The local Latin Mass community here lives in relative peace with the hosting NO parishes, although privately the traditionalists generally don't have too many positive comments to make about the hierarchy and the Church in general.

Your comments bring me back to the old addage of St. Prosper of Aquitane, lex orandi...lex credendi. Someone with even a rudimentary knowledge of the Roman liturgies knows there is a difference in the lex orandi with the NO relative to the Tridentine rite. I unfortunately can't see anything other than a disconnect and continuing dicotomy between the "traditionalists" and the mainstream Latin church. We are all called to be traditional, but when any movement transgresses to an "ism", generally some negative aspects appear.

Looking at it from my perspective as an Eastern Catholic, and a former SSPX communicant in a past life, we in the Eastern Catholic churches have a visible liturgical continuity from the hierarchy down to the parish level. In a Latin diocese with the indult, the liturgy of the cathedral (supposedly the liturgical center of the diocese) is completely different from that of the indult parish. This creates a divide in the communal nature of the worship considering the diocese as an organic whole and in a way disturbs the familial relationship between the diocese and its member parishes.
Subdeacon Randolph, a sinner

Axios:

What Vatican II said would have been fulfilled long ago if we did not have to deal with die-hard liberals who have high-jacked Vatican II and have renamed their heresy "the Spirit of Vatican II." Vatican II said that Gregorian Chant and Sacred Polyphony were supposed to hold "pride of place" in the Liturgical Setting of the Latin Rite. The place it refers to is as the sole, or at least main, form of liturgical music for the Latin Rite. Go and look in any OCP hymnal and you will be able to count on just your hands the numbers of songs that come from these two great traditions.

Most people who are traditionists and conservatives are educated people who have profound theological and spiritual reasons for being so.

Read the documents of Vatican II and you would find that they are as "moss-backed" conservative as they come and you will not find any yellow-bellied liberalism in them.

The traditionalist movement is not seperated from the local Bishop and is therefore not seperated from the Church, at least in most cases.

In most cases the Bishop will do the Ancient Latin Mass when performing the Sacrament of Confirmation.

At the local indult parish, it is a retired Bihop (+Eugene Gerber) who says the Ancient Latin Mass.

We are not asking for a complete destruction of the Novus Ordo Mass but simply a greater charity towards those of us who are attached to the Tridentine Latin Mass. In many ways those of us who love the Latin Mass have been "gettoized" by liberal Bishops. Persecuted by the same Bishops when we began to grow. And in some unfortunate cases our parishes have been shut down when the liberal Bishops see that the population at the indult Parishes tends to be mostly teenagers. In some even more unfortunate cases, the traditional crowd has been forced to become a sort of modern day catacomb church. When these things happen, many traditionalists become spiritual orphans with no where to turn exept a schismatic body. May the day come soon that we will be able to have the beuty and dignity of the Tridentine Latin Mass in peace.

Joe Zollars

Dear Joe,

The Tridentine folks do seem to have a determination and faithfulness to tradition and personal self-sacrifice for the good of the Church that I think many of us need to recover.

I would suggest that it is the ongoing sense of "imposed top-down uniformity" on the part of Latin bishops that make them naturally go against the idea of having two Latin Rites in their dioceses.

So in the end it is not a matter of "both and" but of "either or."

I, for one, hope the Tridentines win out . . .

Perhaps they could hire someone like Stuart to iron out the issues of liturgical development and related problems of historical practice and we can all get on with life!

Alex

[ 07-09-2002: Message edited by: Orthodox Catholic ]

Dear Administrator,

As this thread has reached 130 posts, is this like some kind of record?

Do I get a prize of any kind?

Or should we get on with life on other threads?

Alex

+JMJ+

Alex:

You are indeed correct. The problem with SOME of the Bishops opposing the indult communities is that traditional religious orders are growing by leaps and bounds. The Solesmes Benedictines and the FSSP are just two examples. Liberal orders are dying out. What is their in liberalism to get exited about?

I have noticed that this has not had the same effect on the Anglican Use parishes. At least in Texas, they are fairly plentiful and there are a few more throughout the nation. Hopefully more Anglican Use parishes can be established. Wherever they are, they thrive. Good orthodox Roman Riters would rather attend an AU Liturgy over a NO Liturgy anyday. A good website for the Anglican Use is www.atonementonline.com. [atonementonline.com.] This is the flagship parish of the AU and they are growing by leaps and bounds.

For those interested, a chaplet has been designed to pray for the spread of the Anglican Use. Email me privately (joe_zollars@hotmail.com) if you are interested in obtaining a chaplet and information on how to pray it.

Joe Zollars

Dear Joe,

And I can't recommend your magnificent Anglican Rite chaplet highly enough!!

Joe is a masterful beadsman, as is our Don in Kansas.

I know of some Anglicans who are not in union with Rome yet who know of Joe's work and use his chaplet.

Sorry for speaking about you as if you weren't here, Joe!

Just doing a plug for you, Big Guy!

Alex

Who? please PM or email me their names so that I can be sure and pray for them.

Joe Zollars

Dear Joe,

They were Anglicans I met at one of our League meetings.

Two of them were actually fingering your beads!

We all developed quite a conversation about the Anglican Rite in Catholicism and Orthodoxy and I shared info on how to reach you etc.

Alex