www.byzcath.org Forums Faith & Christian Life Faith & Theology What's "Wrong" with "On Eagles Wings"

And I will raze your town with F-16's
Blow you into kingdom come!
Make you to shine like the sun
and destroy you with a booooomb, from my hands!

Yoo-hoo!

Gordo

PS: Fr. Michael Joncas hates this song now...I think his purgatory will be spent listening to it!

Although I detest the song, in all fairness Michael Joncas says he never intended that composition for congregational use. He meant it as more of a performance piece. Can tens of millions of Catholics be wrong? Apparently Pope Benedict thinks so when this type of music is used during the liturgy.

Who cares what people were brought up with? If people were brought up with excreting in public and vandalizing, would that be enough to argue for its continuance? Of course not! These songs are nothing less than vandalism of Catholic liturgy (and sort of excreting in public, too).

Alexis

Funny that you mentioned this song. I was traveling home this weekend. We stopped 1/2 way and got a hotel. There was a little Roman Catholic Church near the hotel so we went to Mass this morning there. It was the classic guitar Mass with Eagles Wings. It was a SMALL Church but for Communion the Priest sat down and let the "Extraordinary" Eucharist "Ministers" give out communion.

Along with the altar girls and "tabernacle" way off to the side I guess it was the typical Roman Catholic Church in the USA.

BTW, today is the Feast of Christ the King in the Latin Rite in the USA. Apparently, it use to be on a week day but the Bishops felt that it was too difficult for people to go to Mass during the week so they moved it to the weekend. The priest, during his homily, told us before Vatican II it was celebrated at the end of October.

*shrug* As I recall, the feast of Christ the King was always on a Sunday; the earlier date (last Sunday in October) was chosen as a foil to the Protestant commemoration of Martin Luther's 95 theses, "Reformation Day" (October 31), which WAS often transferred to the Sunday on or before October 31. After Vatican II, the Catholic feast was moved from "Reformation Sunday" to the Sunday before Advent, in line with the eschatalogical emphasis of Advent in the West, which looks forward to the Second Coming as well as back to the Nativity two thousand years ago. As such, a feast celebrating Christ's kingship in THIS world at the end of "ordinary time" and just before Advent makes more liturgical sense than the date chosen in response to the Protestant calendar.

Jeff

Take heart, Ray. Things truly are changing. The younger clergy and lay members are tired of the stuff you mentioned.

Where was this church, if I may ask? I see you're from Florida, and therefore might be traveling through Georgia; I hope it wasn't in the Archdiocese of Atlanta!

Alexis

Of course, that I would agree. But if someone does write a song which bears the weight of the liturgy? The Spirit works in many ways and if someone does compose a liturgical hymn, by God... WHAT DO WE DO?!

How do you know what it was like "before?" I mean sure you can go to a parish that is centered around the 1962 missal, but that is a unique parish and it isn't representative of the norm. The parishoners choose to go to that parish for that specific reason, the 1962 missal usage.
However, standard Roman Catholic practice is that you go to the parish nearest your house. PERIOD.
It isn't a Protestant game of "I don't like the priest, I don't like the flowers, I don't like the music, so I'll go to the parish in Mayberry instead." Although I've seen Catholics online act like this.
Catholics are to stick with their home parish. There you can get on a music committee to help change the music.
Catholics don't go, "oh, Father Bilosky in St. Kevin uses Latin in the canon and they don't hold hands during the Our Father, so I'll go there." No, you stay at your home parish. If you don't want to hold hands, don't, if you do not like the music, be glad you have a climate controlled church (warm in winter, chilly in summer) and don't have terrorist groups threatening your life when you walk out of mass like other countries deal with. No, you pray and pray with the people. They are your brothers and sisters in Christ.
These are some of the unspoken differences between protestantism and Catholicism.
Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum

Maybe you just need to look in some different places!

On The Use Of Black Vestments [thenewliturgicalmovement.blogspot.com]

I don't know how common they will be any time soon, this article seems to suggest the trend for black is growing. Maybe it would be ill advised to start www.BlackVestments.com [blackvestments.com] just yet, but like the Coelacanth [en.wikipedia.org] they aren't entirely extinct yet...

In the interest of full disclosure, I must admit, I have never seen them worn...

Simple

Catholics are not obliged to be parish members at the nearest church. That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard! And I think you know it, too.

It's not a matter of taste, for many people. It is a matter of whether or not their process of deification is being fulfilled as much as it can be through the Mass and other worship services. It's about their spiritual HEALTH. And the Mass as it is celebrated in many churches is harmful to one's spiritual health! Catholics have a right to seek out a parish in which they are not poisoned by heterdoxy and heteropraxis constantly.

No, it isn't a Protestant game. It's a very serious matter of attending a parish where our legitimate spiritual need and health is identified and met!

I never said a thing about what things were like "before." I never used that phrase, I don't know where you're getting that from. I didn't even mention the 1962 Missal. Why should you assume I'm talking about the Old Rite?

Alexis

Um, I just didn't make that up. And I tossed in the other examples just to go on my point.
Where I live, if I drove to the next town and tried to register at that parish the priest would seriously question me to why I didn't register at the parish a mile from my house.
You did mention about the young priests changing. What are they going back to? That would be "Before" they are aiming to change to. Unless there is an onslaught of new hymns.
Ps, I can give you my 88 year old Irish grandfather's home phone nubmer who goes to mass everyday, sick, hurting, wounded, on vacation he goes. He's not a canon lawyer or a theologian, but he knows a thing or two about being Catholic.
Go Bulldogs!

pss. the words I highlighted in red are the "personal me" I was speaking of. Sadly it is creeping into the Orthodox and Catholic Churches. Oh grasshopper, we have much to teach you.
One of the larger challenges Orthodoxy and Catholicism face is this American individualism which has spewed from the protestants. Church isn't about "me." It isn't about what satisfies me. So much to say that I could write a thesis on it.

I have served mass in many many places growing up. I've been to many many different Catholic parishes growing up, whether Greek Catholic or Roman Catholic. The masses in the Roman Catholic churches have been almost uniform in my experience. I've served funerals, weddings, you name it, in convents, spent time in Catholic monasteries praying the hours in the choir with the monks, staying in the monastery. I used to serve mass 7 times a week, bad music, latin hymns, no hymns. I never experienced anything that I would say was "harmful" as you say.
We must remember that Liturgy comes from the Greek word Liturgica. Liturgica translates "work of the people."
Mass/Liturgy is not about personal/individual tastes. Liturgy/mass is not about private devotion. It is about coming together as a community to celebrate the Divine Mysteries, it is the ultimate prayer. One must clear the mind and not centre on the fact that the priest didn't elevate the gifts high enough, or that the lady sang the responsorial psalm wrong. It is about praying as a community, being witness and partaking in Communion.

And what do you mean poisoned by heterodoy/heteropraxis. Please give me examples? And yes, a person seeking out a parish because it doesn't fit his personal notion of what church should be is indeed a protestant/american culture phenomenon.

My understanding is that RCs are free to attend the parish of their choice. The old regulations about attending the nearest parish are no longer in force.

Dear OP,


As I understand it, in the Latin Rite, the Roman Pontiff is the "liturgical authority" of record. Liturgical norms come as liturgical books, and Instructions. They are intended to be followed with some reverence. Vatican II's Constitution on the Liturgy even says that nobody, not even a priest, should "add, delete or change" any of the words or rubrics. That defines "orthopraxis" in the Liturgy in the Latin Rite.

This praxis has been violated habitually in many parishes of the Latin Rite.

If, on top of that, Confraternity of Christian Doctrine (CCD) classes do not actually teach the faith to our children, they can often produce "indifferentism" in the young -- I have seen this in my own children.

While it is true, that if possible, it may be better to remain in a parish so as to improve it from within, if it becomes sufficiently clear that the parish won't have it (either the pastor or one or more of the various "committtees" by which the pastor chooses to let his hands be tied), there comes a point where one needs to consider what is best for one's family, and if it is possible to find something better within reach, it is not irresponsible or un-Christian to follow through.

I view it as an aberration and an injustice that any Catholic should be put in that position. But when the local parish clearly is not in communion with the Roman Pontiff on these things, and they refuse to change (and that includes the Bishop of the diocese who permits this "disobedience"), there is nothing "wrong" about looking for greener pastures.

It is not protestantism, it is a defensive manifestation of the sensus fidelium.

BTW, simply "bad singing" wouldn't be sufficient -- there would need to be a whole galaxy of things which all evince a "lack of communion" with the Pope.

God bless,
Michael

The practices in one's home parish can be and in my experience
sometimes are a temptation against charity. Catholics are not
bound by canon law to attend their own parish churches. I would
therefore argue that people who find themselves being so
tempted are not only permitted but obliged to seek out more
acceptable places to worship.

Edmac

I agree with both Michael and Edmac.

Orthodox Pyrohy, if you want examples, please come to the Catholic Center or St. Joseph's in Athens for literally any Mass they offer. It is rife with ad-libbing, deletions, changed words, and homilies by especially one priest in which he pretty much habitually instructs the congregants to ignore teachings on things like Confession/Reconclitation, etc. If I didn't think it would be irreverent, I would go this next Sunday and simply make you a list of all these things.

As the others said, we are not only alowed, but obliged to go somewhere the Catholic Faith is at least taught and acted out in the actions of the liturgy and by the priest.

I wonder, if your Orthodox parish with the approval of the bishop chucked its august liturgy for un-Orthodox liturgy and your priest taught heresy, whether you would begrudge others their right, really their obligation, to find a place where the Orthodox faith is taught and practiced.

Alexis