Renewal Rejected?

Cartoonish or Cultivated?

Are Latin Rite Catholics—bishops, priests, and laypeople—ignoring the signs?

Many voices are being continuously raised warning Latin Rite Catholics to repent of their superficial faith, and turn to God—who remains the same yesterday and today—and stop polluting the temple with profane music, irreverent conduct, and worldly philosophies. These calls for renewal urge the faithful to embrace a deeper, more authentic relationship with God. By fostering genuine worship and a commitment to spiritual growth, parishes can reclaim an authentic Catholic identity and inspire a transformative faith among its members.

St John 2:13-17 | The Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. In the temple he found those who were selling oxen and sheep and pigeons, and the money-changers at their business. And making a whip of cords, he drove them all, with the sheep and oxen, out of the temple; and he poured out the coins of the money-changers and overturned their tables. And he told those who sold the pigeons, “Take these things away; you shall not make my Father’s house a house of trade.” His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for thy house will consume me.”

Mass is an opportunity to worship God as He desires to be adored. This call to deeper faith encourages believers to reconsider their spiritual practices and the authenticity of their worship. By embracing a deeper devotion that conforms to God's designs, they will please God in the way that God desires. Such a commitment not only strengthens individual faith but also fosters community among congregants. As they gather in shared purpose, the transformative power of collective worship becomes evident, inspiring all to live out their faith in tangible ways throughout the week.

St John 4:24 | God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.

The Mass is not a casual event where individuals engage in superficial gestures of greeting their neighbours, such as clichéd displays of affirmation or insincere peace. The peace offered during Mass is the divine peace that only God can provide. The peace comes from the altar upon which rests the Eucharistic Lord, Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity. This profound peace transcends mere social niceties and invites the faithful into a deeper communion with God and one another. It calls for a genuine transformation of the heart, urging each participant to reflect on their relationship with the divine and to extend that same authentic peace to those around them.

Rather than the Rite of Peace degenerating into a prolonged distraction from the fact that the Lord's Body and Blood are present on the altar, it is enough for the congregation to respond with a clear intention expressed with the prescribed words.

THE PEACE | Divine Worship: the Missal

Then bowing in the middle of the altar, with hands joined upon it, the Priest says:

O LORD Jesus Christ, who saidst to thine Apostles, Peace I leave with you; my peace I give unto you: regard not our sins, but the faith of thy Church; and grant to her peace and unity according to thy will; who livest and reignest with the Father and the Holy Spirit, ever one God, world without end. Amen. 

The Priest kisses the altar and, turning toward the People and extending his hands, he sings or says: 

The peace of the Lord be always with you. 

People: And with thy spirit. 

The People may (not 'must') offer one another a sign of peace.

In this blogger's experience, Ordinariate communities restrain themselves by offering the response alone rather than breaking the focus by making a physical gesture.

Signs Unheeded

• Those seeking to worship God in spirit and in truth are fleeing the banal and woke, and turning in droves to communities wherein the Liturgy is traditional, reverent, and beautiful.
• Where ideologues attempt to reshape the Mass and the Faith in their own image, those communities are dying or dead.
• Weak teaching is not teaching, and honest seekers want the Truth, not entertainment. Vocations are strong in communities with a traditional Catholic identity.
• False prophets are liars like their father the devil (St John 8:44). They are popular on social media and use their influence to spread confusion and foment rebellion. Do not listen to nor support those wolves.
• Bishops are dismissing highly respected faithful academics (St Matthew 23:34), priests are behaving like petulant teens or spewing crass views about human sexuality, and lay men and women, in particular those holding cafeteria views, are still treating Mass like a social club and the consecrated Host as a cookie.

What might the Holy Ghost be saying to the Latin Church?

"Wake up you morons. I AM (is) speaking to you. I have sent many messengers. The Mass is a mess. You are disoriented. There is no room for God in your gatherings. You have defiled your sanctuaries with empty signs."

Or perhaps,

"Awake, you fools. I AM addressing you. Many a herald I have dispatched. The Holy Mass hath become a confusion; you are disarrayed. There existeth no space for the Almighty within your congregations. Your sanctuaries art filled with naught but vain tokens."

Or...

"Come hither unto me, all ye who art laden with burdens, and I shall grant thee rest. Rejoice with thy Creator in truth, goodness, and beauty. Approach unto me in the Holy Eucharist; a glimpse of heaven upon this earth. If thou dost love me, keep mine commandments. I am the Lord."

Intellegisne?

There is much holiness, beauty and goodness manifesting where liturgies are God-centered, celebrations are dignified and reverent, and the preaching is biblically based and well thought out. As mentioned, vocations to the priesthood, religious and marriage life, are flourishing in such places.

The Latin Church in the West requires a restoration. By informed accounts, the Second Vatican Council was hijacked in many respects, not the least of which has been the degradation of the Sacred Liturgy due to deliberately shabby interpretations of Council documents that can hardly be called interpretations. They are more accurately described as misappropriations, distortions, and inventions. Such misinterpretations have led to a liturgical landscape that often strays far from the rich traditions and theological depth intended by the Council.

Pope Benedict XVI | I would now like to add yet a third point: there was the Council of the Fathers - the true Council - but there was also the Council of the media. It was almost a Council in and of itself, and the world perceived the Council through them, through the media. So the immediately efficiently Council that got thorough to the people, was that of the media, not that of the Fathers. And while the Council of the Fathers evolved within the Faith, it was a Council of the Faith that sought the intellectus, that sought to understand and try to understand the signs of God at that moment, that tried to meet the challenge of God in this time to find the words for today and tomorrow. So while the whole council - as I said - moved within the Faith, as fides quaerens intellectum, the Council of journalists did not, naturally, take place within the world of faith but within the categories of the media of today, that is outside of the Faith, with different hermeneutics. It was a hermeneutic of politics. The media saw the Council as a political struggle, a struggle for power between different currents within the Church. It was obvious that the media would take the side of whatever faction best suited their world. There were those who sought a decentralization of the Church, power for the bishops and then, through the Word for the "people of God", the power of the people, the laity. 

A genuine restoration must focus on a return to authentic practices that honour the sacredness of the liturgy and foster a deeper spiritual engagement among the faithful.

Abuses regularly occur regarding the mode of the celebration of the Liturgy, the Mass. The typical diocesan vernacular Mass is rife with shortcomings: weak settings of the Gloria; the omission of propers (i.e., the biblical chants that enhance the character of each Mass, i.e., the biblical chants that flesh out the character of each Mass: Introit, Gradual Psalm, Offertory chant, and Communion chant); the imposition of syrupy songs with bland lyrics that verge on heresy; cobbled-together homilies that sound like articles from a tabloid magazine; the parading of unchristian symbols throughout churches; and so on.

Pope Leo XIV has rightly urged Latin Catholics to follow the example of the Eastern Catholic Churches, whose magnificent liturgies are clearly directed toward God's worship and bring worshippers into the mystery of the Holy Trinity. The Holy Father has encouraged us to eschew spectacle and instead focus on delving into God's mysteries via the Sacred Liturgy.

Pope Leo XIV: "The Liturgy should not be spectacle but an encounter with the Mystery."

The Church should resist the temptation to believe that it can compete with modern mass media by turning the sacred liturgy into a spectacle. […] Church fathers such as Tertullian remind us today that visual spectacle is the domain of the saeculum, and that our mission is to introduce people to the nature of mystery as an antidote to spectacle. As a consequence, evangelization in the modern world must find appropriate means for redirecting public attention away from spectacle and into mystery. Cardinal Robert Prevost (Pope Leo XIV) in his address to the world Synod of Bishops on the New Evangelization.

Where can people find God, meaning, and life? Every celebration of Divine Worship, the Mass of the Personal Ordinariates, is clearly focused on God. Mass is celebrated ad orientem, which means facing liturgical east, orienting us to Christ's return in glory. The priest and the people both face in the same direction. The same is true for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.

As more and more people find their way through the doorways of the Personal Ordinariates, they discover a liturgical symphony that speaks to heart and mind, that captures the imagination and fuels curiosity. This rich tapestry of worship not only deepens their spiritual journeys but also fosters a profound sense of community among the faithful. As they engage with these time-honoured traditions, many feel a renewed connection to their faith that transcends mere ritual. God provides a rich banquet of love and mercy for the person seeking his or her origin and destiny in Christ.