This is not going to be a long post, since I have not the energy at the moment. Someone said something to me the other day about the importance of staying within one's parish for Liturgy instead of going off to other churches dotted about London for Liturgy ''more to my taste.'' My mother said something very similar herself in her veiled attacks on the ''snobbish'' Latin Mass. Is this such a bad thing, I ask? It is a great boon, living in suburban London that is, to have so many more traditional Rite Masses on offer (I say more traditional because not all of them are the Old Rite). I don't go to all of them, but I go to a fair number of them. But forgive me if I don't quite understand the grievance about it all. A former Protestant friend of mine, we have since fallen out of contact, sympathised with me about this and said: ''I expect it is better to go to a church farther afield where one feels more comfortable in the worship of God than to simply 'throw in the towel' and just feel miserable in a local parish setting.'' What he meant, of course, was that I was doing the sensible thing according to the dictates of my conscience. Liturgy is the most important thing in this world.
When the Traditional Latin Mass was in exile (in reality, if not according to the law), I was forced to travel all over the place for a decent Mass, and I feel at home in the Traditional Mass. At New Rite Masses, I often feel very hot inside and I do my utmost to suppress a rising wrath, when I consider the violence so many reprobate men did to the Liturgy...well this is not about all that. I am lucky because my actual parish has Traditional Liturgy, so for Sundays and Holydays I don't have to travel into town. Parishes are important, but I would say that in the last 40 years of liturgical crisis, they have become less important. I would rather go to a Mass where I am a complete stranger than go to a Mass in my parish at which I didn't feel at all comfortable. How can I worship the Lord in spirit and in truth if I am sat there feeling sullen and ill-tempered? I am glad to have a parish, since the parish ought to be (and is, in my case), a love oriented and catholic setting, modeled on the Church herself which mirrors the inner life of the Blessed Trinity; but if the Liturgy vanished, what then...?
Friday, 5 February 2010
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". . . but if the Liturgy vanished, what then..?" See you at Rievaulx, Patricius.
ReplyDeleteLiturgy is the most important thing in this world.
ReplyDeleteIs it? While it is certainly at the centre of the Christian faith, it is all too easy to think that having nice ceremonies makes us good Christians, without performing the good works that are also required. The liturgy should be a means to an end and not the end in itself.
Whilst it is certainly true that in one sense the liturgy is a means to an end, in that we receive the graces in the liturgy which enable us to live according to God's commandments in faith, hope and charity; in another sense it is also and end in itself. For we owe God right worship, which is the very definition of orthodoxy, and in the sacred mysteries we celebrate God reveals himself to his people, the Church.
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