Vatican II: Mass Destruction
You might want to check out whether your blanket accusations about Wascally Evangelical practice are even TRUE. Truth must be at the core of good Christian worship anywhere, and good evangelical and biblical practice (cf C. S. Lewis for just one) insists that spiritual transformation is the proof of the faith pudding. You folks are so busy thinking you’re the only ones on heaven’s list that you miss the obvious.
It is not enough then to celebrate the New Mass with devotion since it’s conceived as the Last Supper and not [the Sacrifice of] Calvary.
The author doesn't understand the continuity between the Last Supper and Calvary?
I’m not sure the problem described here (a detachment from the transforming power of Christ’s Sacrament) can be, exclusively linked to post-Vatican II celebrations. This disconnect seems more largely related to modernism creeping in to not only the laity but ordinary as well. And I wouldn’t say the source of said modernism is Vatican II per se.
Rather it’s a “liberal” interpretation of the Council’s recommendations. Take for example the Mass itself (the topic of this thread although there are other examples of abuse of the Council’s product). Vatican II never called for what we call the TLM to be replaced. Rather that an alternative Mass be offered as well, to help obtain the overarching goal of the Council which was to open up the Church, make Her more accessible and inviting to the world. Hence, the so-called “novus ordo”’Mass was born.
It is unfortunate that this alternative was taken too far, taken to an extreme, where the more traditional Mass, relatively speaking, was shunned and discarded. The reason this happened though was not because of Vatican II but because of all the priests, nuns and bishops who were the product of the 60’s and early 70’s, to whom anything “traditional” was anathema. This radical humanism is the root cause of all the problems described in the OP not the Council itself.
My main point is that the blame for the disuse of the TLM lies in the same area from which disrespect for and ignorance of the Sacrament is born, which is secularism and modernity.
To blame what is ultimately, a matter of form for the woes that currently infect all of Christendom is short sighted at best. It doesn’t address the root of the problem which is that far too many aren’t as simplistic as need be, which is trusting in not just the transformation via the Sacrament, but daily prayer, acts of charity and reading Sacred Scripture. For such people who regularly engage in all those activities, it really doesn’t matter what kind of Mass they attend, the Sacrament will always be a point of sublime departure from the temporal to the eternal.
For those who don’t exercise spiritually as described above, it doesn’t and won’t matter how many TLM Masses they attend. It’s the receptive heart (”poverty of spirit”) that is required, not how many times we kneel or in what language the Mass is recited.