Monday, February 6, 2006

Bad Habits

Subtitled "Can we correct liturgical abuse in religious communities?" a matter of concern to the author, the Rev. Vincent Capuano, S.J., in Adoremus. Some of these, believe it or not, are sometimes seen in our parishes.
a) healthy persons celebrating the entire Mass seated even during the parts when it is prescribed to stand or kneel

As I've said before, at our parish we don't kneel, they have us sit for any lengthy gospel reading, and the parish leadership wonders why they can't get the parishioners off their duffs otherwise.
b) healthy priests celebrating or concelebrating the Mass seated

Does healthy include that buffet muscle? There's a lot of priests whose knees look like one of the Stations of the Cross.
d) priests not vesting with a chasuble when they are the principal celebrants (and there are chasubles available)

So it's come to this, Jesuits who won't wear chasubles while Lutheran ministers [pdf] will.
f) priests making intentional changes in the prescribed prayers

I once heard one get so tangled in his ad libs that he asked Jesus to intercede with Himself.
k) the use of glass or pottery chalice and paten

Our new pastor has a gold chalice inherited from an uncle who was killed while serving as a chaplain in Burma in the Second World War. The E.M.E.s use glass stemware.
l) the use of strange bread-like substances

At least we finally abandoned the Euchroutons and are back to hosts, the traditional strange bread-like substance.
m) the use of grape juice in place of wine

I don't believe that. Isn't the Jesuit fifth vow to only order call brands?

(via Diogenes at Off the Record)

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1 comment:

  1. Nancy C. Brown8:05 PM

    Went to mass out of town last Sunday. There was a woman sitting up there on the altar with the priest. I wondered, if I didn't know better, if she was his wife? Mistress? Feminazi type nun? She was dressed in a conservative nun-like suit. She sat there all mass until the Eucharistic prayer, and then, guess what? She was the altar boy! How ecumenical and gender-busting that was to see.
    I think that should be on the list of things we can outlaw.
    Let altar boys be boys! I say. We have so many altar girls at our parish that they are scaring the boys away. Most masses we have two girls. Its getting rare to see a boy, and there are NEVER two boys. Strange.

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