Thursday 20 June 2013

He'll be calling a Council next!


Following in the footsteps of Blessed John XXIII it seems that the name of St Joseph is to appear in all the Eucharistic Prayers. A good thing.  Many of the prayers off the Mass (and indeed many other prayers generally) used to include the names of the saints - St Joseph, Ss Peter and Paul, St Andrew, Holy Michael the Archangel, to name but a few.  The complete expunging of the names of saints from the Mass are one of the losses of the new Mass.  I am glad that Pope Francis is showing himself a restorer in this area and following in the footsteps of Blessed Pope John XXIII.  There do appear to be some similarities - the "smiling" popes (although I think that I did see Pope Benedict and Pope John Paul smile on occasion - perhaps I'm mistaken) the "man of the people", even a slight similarity in look, similar age.  Let's hope he's not thinking of suddenly calling a Council!

Of course, it's also possible that this was long in the planning and was initiated under Pope Benedict.

Like the new translation, this smaller move is laudable and a help to bringing the liturgy back into some continuity with our Tradition but will many priests simply ignore it?  I know of places where the new translation is not being used at all. Where it is being used, in many places words are changed and bits from the old translation are substituted (or others completely).  At a Mass where a bishop was present just recently, it was impossible to join in with concelebration, as the celebrant varied the words too much (not that I would be concelebrating, you understand!)

Unfortunately, the mindset of liturgical abuse - that "I" know better than the Church has not been addressed.  We will have to wait for a better formed generation of priests to come up through he ranks.

1 comment:

Jacobi said...

“Let's hope he's not thinking of suddenly calling a Council!”

Perhaps Father, it would be a good thing if he did.

We need another Council to sort out the collapse of Faith and worship in the Catholic Church which has occurred over the last fifty years.

Parallels with the 5th Lateran Council, the Council of Trent, and the present are interesting. Trent had to be called to establish a Counter–Reformation to Protestantism, which the 5th Lateran Council failed to prevent. Now we may well need another Council to deal with what many believe was another Reformation, the Secularist/ Modernist upsurge of the 60s, from within and without the Church, which used the excuse of Vatican II to launch a major heretical assault.

Councils normally are called to put right a heresy or deal with a crisis in the Church. We certainly have both now.