Posted on 11/09/2002 9:56:20 PM PST by ultima ratio
Dom Gueranger, rightly in my opinion, notes that far too many were engaged in their own private devotions at Mass and he saw that as a corrruption of right order and reason.
Attentive participation at Mass far surpasses any devotion ever developed anywhere at any time. If one stops to think about what it is that happens at Mass, then one would realise the impossibility of opposing that thought. I am surely not suggesting you or anyone else does. I just think with all the Mass attacks (the Trad Mass is the real Mass not the Norvus Ordo etc), we lose sight of the fact that Mass is the action of Jesus in its essence.<>
Of course, as I understand it, you don't have to move here to Rockford to find the traditional Mass, but have one in your vicinity in communion with Rome and your bishop but, that did not satisfy your rarified standards either.
Since you are so convinced that you are right and virtually everyone else must therefore be wrong, I have a suggestion. Rule #1: The Holy Ghost secures the election of our popes for divine reasons. Rule #2: The Holy Ghost is surely not wrong. Rule #3: If the Holy Ghjost seems to be wrong, refer back to Rule #2.
Suggestion: Drop whatever you are doing and get to a seminary for older vocations. Become ordained as a priest. Let the Holy Ghost take you up through the ranks of pastor, bishop, and cardinal. Leave it in His hands to see to your election as pope. When the white smoke pours up the chimney in the Vatican and a smiling or otherwise ultima ratio emerges onto the balcony with the camerlengo who announces: I announce a great joy! We have a new pope: Ultima Ratio I or whatever name you may choose (Torquemada I, Lev Trotsky of the Cross I, Lefebvre II or whatever), then we will follow you. Until then, let's follow one of our most important traditions and follow this man from a far country who was chosen by the Holy Ghost.
If you are old enough to have lived consciously during the papacies of John XXIII and Paul VI, you know that we can co-exist with the minor peccadillos of this papacy while standing on our heads especially given the extraordinary achievements of this papacy.
AND, if JPII was good enough for Cardinal Wyczinsky (sp.?), he is good enough for me. Do you remember the beatific smile on the face of 1978's Dean of the College of Cardinals, the then-95 year-old ramrod straight movie-star handsome and most importantly ultraorthodox (looked like Tom Tryon) Carlo Cardinal Confalonieri as he presided over the funeral of Pope Paul VI suggesting as someone once said "the words of the old Negro spiritual: Free at last! Free at last! Thank God Almighty, we're free at last!" And so they and we were indeed free to see the election of two grand popes: John Paul I, according to Fr. Gomar DePauw (if you don't know who he is, you are not the traditionalist you claim to be) the favorite of Alfredo Cardinal Ottaviani; and then John Paul II in short order thereafter as one too wilely for in-house assassination and a spiritual and intellectual powerhouse transcending even Leo XIII.
Your last paragraph is the long form of "Let George do it. I'm too lazy to do anything but whine and too little committed to meet my own responsibilities in my own family and on my own turf. "
If AmChurch parochial schools are objectionable (and most certainly are), Catholics should pull their own kids with a restrained but determined letter of explanation to pastor, principal, offending teacher and bishop, educate them at home or in cooperative arrangements woth other orthodox parents, outside the purview of diocesan bureaucrats disloyal to the magisterium and morally dangerous to kids. We don't knowingly hire physical or sexual child molestors to babysit our kids. Why would we turn our kids over to parochial schools so bad that they can be justly described as intellectual and moral child molestors? Again, it is the desire of the physically and morally lazy, to "Let George do it," and why should they have to bother about their own kids.
Things are harder than they used to be because of AmChurch and despite JPII and Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger. Whining accomplishes nothing. DO something constructive. It beats the heck out of holding your breath until you turn blue while whining in internet land.
BTW, your understanding of how politics is played in Rome is as erroneous and lightweight as your other strategies. The "fine Roman hand" is a subtle weapon: "the iron fist in the velvet glove." It is not a policy of: "Shoot your mouth or keyboard off and carry a blunt toothpick."
Looking forward to the Holy Ghost's affirmation of your policies by guiding your election to the See of Peter which is about all that would change my mind, I remain
Very truly yours, BlackElk
What I had in mind as to the hard work is the proper upbringing of the children of those in your church, the recruitment of those who are faithless, the ongoing education not only of the children but also of the adults in the Truth and in the methods by which the Truth may be translated into reality not necessarily by magic wand all at once but step by step and no turning back. How do you reach out to the surrounding community to teach and convert? When the children of your Church come of age will they know IN YOUR CHURCH potential spouses who can be trusted to contract lifetime marriages and to be good parents to their kids? Even if you are politically conservative, how do you bring the love of Christ to the poor without being doormats and in such a way as to induce the poor to adhere to God's desires in their lives? And many more: that's what I mean by hard work. If your Church is not only sound on Catholic principles, theology, catechesis, liturgy, but also an effective witness for Christ and His Church in your community while the worst of the Kumbaya churches are what we alll know they are, people will notice the difference including those in Church power.
Do I remember correctly that Charleston produced the execrable Bernardin? You have real enemies in such a diocese but you must not abandon the Church itself to them in your disappointment and disgust over the sins of others and you must not allow those enemies, however well-entrenched, to lead you into the sin of schism.
According to this, the Rosary has undergone more than a few changes over these many years. What do you make of this?
73 posted on 11/11/2002 7:48 AM PST by sandyeggo
I thought you were just chiding that if the BVM had wanted to complain that there was a "huge gaping hole" in her rosary, she ought to have spoken to Dominic the Prussian, not Saint Dominic de Guzman.
But if you meant that the rosary changed over time, please note that the changes stopped with Pope St. Pius V in the 16th century; so I would characterize it not as evolutionary change but as the change of growth and coming to maturity.
The rosary is not ... even an important part of Catholicism.
18 posted on 11/10/2002 10:04 AM PST by LadyDoc
I believe that it is important, albeit not essential. Worldwide the “picture” of a Catholic is somebody holding a rosary. Mystics have said that as a prayer pleasing to God, it is second only to the Holy Mass.
Seems like John Vennari wants to be more Catholic than the Pope.
21 posted on 11/10/2002 10:37 AM PST by Dusty Rose
My oldest son, 10 yrs., thinks these mysteries help him recall the entire Gospel and salvation story, and has stated he always thought something was missing to the Rosary till now.
27 posted on 11/10/2002 11:56 AM PST by Polycarp
I would rather try to engage in a dialogue with the living Pontiff and try to convince him of my point of view, than nurture the conceit that Pope Saint Pius V, innumerable saints, innumerable ordinary Catholics, and the children of Fatima had been praying a rosary that was “missing something.”
We need to stop treating devotions ... like they were written on the stone tablets brought down by Moses. Devotions have changed over the years, and will continue to do so.
31 posted on 11/10/2002 12:58 PM PST by SuziQ
Well, you know, the Fifteen Mysteries actually are etched in stone on the walls of many a church and cathedral, as well as depicted in many, many stain glass windows and paintings. I think it a shame that all of these holy objects have been rendered obsolete, as if the new fashion line for next spring had just come in from Paris (and you wouldn’t want to be caught wearing last year’s style). Mary’s Psalter should not be treated like that.
He commended to the Church the Luminous Mysteries as a suggestion not a command.
34 posted on 11/10/2002 2:40 PM PST by Siobhan
I LOVE the new Mysteries of Light.I say them everyday.
50 posted on 11/10/2002 8:47 PM PST by Lady In Blue
This is why I use the word obsolescence. The pope suggests five “new” mysteries, and suddenly someone stops even saying the “dusty, old” fifteen mysteries any more.
A “suggestion” from the pope is more than a “suggestion” from your next-door neighbor. In fact, there have been many proposals over the years to alter or add to the mysteries of the rosary, and many good Catholics have been saying their own versions of mysteries as private devotions. This is fine.
But a “suggestion to add” five mysteries from Pope John Paul II is, de facto a “fait accompli addition” of those five mysteries. I may be free to say them or not, but "The Rosary" is no longer fifteen mysteries long, it is now twenty mysteries long, and all of the wealth of devotional art and literature containing only the fifteen is henceforth obsolete and unusable.
Hand in hand with obsolescence is planned obsolescence. We see it not only in the design of toasters, but since 1969 we have been seeing it in the way the Novus Ordo changes from year to year to year.
When one innovation has been made, expect another one soon, and then another one after that.
After all, why isn’t there a mystery for the Sermon on the Mount? The Cleansing of the Temple? The Woman at the Well? The Raising of Lazarus?
Well, I expect that there will be soon.
Why decades? We could fit in 25 mysteries for 200 beads if we said only 8 Hail Marys in between. (A great planned obsolescence scheme for some rosary manufacturer.)
As I said above, IMHO the Luminous Mysteries ought to have been “suggested” as a new chaplet.
Since "static" seems to be that quality you most value, you ought to IMMEDIATELY move to suppress the writings of ... John Newman--remember that fellow, who thought "development" was a natural thing...
92 posted on 11/11/2002 9:20 AM PST by ninenot
Actually, the proper model here is not Newman but Yves Congar, who taught that the Catholic Church has no capital-T Tradition, but only many small-t traditions, all of which evolve over time. Cardinal Avery Dulles has said that the Second Vatican Council was the vindication of Yves Congar.
I think the demonstration that even with "decrees" such as Rosarium Virginis Mariae (which was more of a suggestion than anything else), that "old ways" still find a way to continue shows that even though we have a one, holy, catholic, and apostolic church, God has given us free will (checked by dogma) to worship and praise Him in our favorite ways.
118 posted on 11/11/2002 12:29 PM PST by Pyro7480
Our religion unites man, who lives in a Hereclitian world of flux, with the immutable, unchanging God, Who has no beginning or end: I Am Who Am (Ex.3:14). It is appropriate for there to be some mimesis between the unchanging object of our contemplation, and the method of our contemplation. Granted, it will be imperfect; our world is a world of historical change. But must we live in a Congarian sect where change is the only constant?
Oh, you mean like being a slave of Christ and of the Vicar of Christ on Earth??? Well, if one is going to be a slave, it makes sense to be a slave of Christ. Oh, that's right, that may not seem as obvious when you have rejected His Church for a taste factory of your own preference. If you think I am arrogant now, you should have known me when I was a teenager or a young lawyer. I've mellowed quite a bit.
I do not congratulate myself. I merely streetfight as every good elk should on behalf of Jesus Christ and His own Church. Sorry you are no longer up to being among us.
I also see that you think Jesus Christ made a mistake of some sort in choosing Judas. Didn't He tell Judas at the Last Supper to do what he had to do? My Savior does not, did not and never will make mistakes.
Cardinal Wyczinski was not fond of Fr. Wojtlywa (JPII) in his earliest priesthood but they became quite close thereafter. It is understood that Wyczinski was JPII's kingmaker at the conclave. It is also quite well understood that, after the assassination attempt by Muhammed Ali Agca, as the pope lay recovering from his grievous wounds and Wyczinski lay dying of cancer in Poland, they spent gobs of time in mutual conversations that were their last due to Wyczinski's death. Your history is as deficient as your humility and submission to the pope.
As to your status as married man with kids, the Holy Ghost is wonderful. He can do anything including making a married man like you or someone like you pope. Williamson isn't married, is he? Fellay? Don't hold your breath waiting for the election of such as you or them, however.
Oh, and Jesus Christ did not found SSPX or any other schismatic group.
AND, I didn't think you would get around to the substantive arguments.
My sedan chair and my slaves, please. Ther is nothing new here and work to be done with others.
Of course, as I understand it from sitetest, you abandoned your local Tridentine or traditional mass in communion with the Holy See for the schismatic substitute. Don't complain about your circumstances when you reject the old Mass offered in communion with your bishop and Rome.
Thank you for your continued blazing insight, courtesy and, above all, diligent attention to the argument producing nearly nothing by way of substantive response.
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