It is always wonderful to recall those times when the church was really strong and the traditional teachings and beautiful traditional liturgies were the norm. Imagine a day in a church in the 16th, 17th, 18th or 19th centuries....oh how beautiful! The Holy Faith was taught with great authority and the people never questioned anything. They obeyed and prayed. Reverence in church was natural and automatic. The Mass was all in Latin, and there were no modern vulgarities like microphones or electronically generated music. The mystery and the devotion were strong enough to win converts! A noncatholic would visit a church - and be converted just by what he saw and experienced inside!! How different today! It is more likely that someone visiting some of our modern bare and ugly "re-ordered" churches would turn AWAY from the Faith rather than be converted to it!

God be with all, Tom

-- Thomas the Lesser (faith@msn.com), February 22, 2003

Answers

Dear Thomas,

I can relate to what you are saying, but I think you are romanticizing it a bit - easy to do after the fact.

The Church is every bit as strong today as it was then, and it still teaches exactly what it taught then, as it will do until the end of time. While the Tridentine Mass was a thing of sensate beauty, that is not the reason we attend Mass. My experience has been that people whose reverence was a response to sensate stimuli naturally experience a sense of loss of reverence in today's Mass. But people who emphasize the essence of the Mass, the real presence of Jesus Christ in the Eucharist, which has not changed in any way since early times, cannot help but experience the same sense of awe and reverence at any Mass they attend. For myself, being in the immediate presence of Jesus Christ completely dominates anything else. When He is there before me, when I am receiving His flesh and Blood, where I am is the least of my concerns. If someone were handing me a million dollars, I wouldn't really care if the exchange took place in a palace or in a back alley, as long as I received it. The value of what I received would still be the same. How much more so for the most precious gift of all!

It's true that electronic music wasn't needed when they had gigantic pipe prgans that could almost blow the roof off the church, and some of that music was truly inspiring - but again, that is just part of the sensate surroundings. I enjoy it when it is there, but I don't mourn it when it is not. Microphones on the other hand are a great practical aid no matter what language the Mass is being celebrated in. I often wonder how Jesus could preach to thousands of people at a time, outdoors, and have any more than a few dozen actually hear him?

As for non-Catholics being converted by the sensate experience of the Mass, that would be a poor reason for conversion, unless there was a simultaneous conversion of the heart and mind to the truth of the Catholic faith. People who enter the Church merely because of such experiential effects are no better off than people who leave the Church because of loss of the same. And, such conversions were not happening at any great rate during the years prior to Vatican II. One of the main reasons the Council was called was dwindling attendance at Mass - the Latin Mass!

-- Paul (PaulCyp@cox.net), February 22, 2003.

That sounds all good, but really, Tom, we ARE in the 21'st century. I find it all the more to God's glory to see a person truly have a heart-conversion to Jesus Christ right in the midst of chaos, microphones and all.

As we see with our eyes perhaps those exterior things we hold precious disappearing, we also see the Kingdom of God moving upon us with great hope and might. It just calls us to greater conviction and the courage to cry mercy for each other.

-- Theresa Huether (Rodntee4Jesus@aol.com), February 23, 2003.

The 20th and 21st centuries; The Damnation Machine. The age of reason and enlightenment attempts to force us into playing the part of cogs in a machine, a sort of machine that feeds on its own members as fuel.

"...and the courage to cry mercy for each other." Aint that the truth, Theresa. It is true though, this age will pass and there will be a great renewal of all things in Christ.

What we have to offer, the bread and wine to be consecrated, and the following consecration sometimes seems to be like the aligning of the State with the Church; what we have to offer, and the salvation offered to us by the Almighty. When that alignment happens in society again, there will be a new golden age more golden than any previous one.

Then after a while, everyone will get lazy again... lol! j/k

-- Emerald (emerald1@cox.net), February 23, 2003.

This is how he farts -------- ------ --- --- -. Moderator

-- Tommy (faith@msn.com), February 24, 2003.