tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9504617.post8646048167661329116..comments2023-12-04T00:02:53.130+08:00Comments on p r o d e o e t p a t r i a: Is the Mass a meal or a sacrifice?Geraldhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/01090680129606569116noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9504617.post-83703910574148166822008-11-09T23:10:00.000+08:002008-11-09T23:10:00.000+08:00It is too bad that the implementation of Vatican I...It is too bad that the implementation of Vatican II wasn't more respectful of tradition. Many went too far. They changed too much. The language could have been changed to the vernacular without so many of the other problems. Things could have been implemented better, If they had looked at the Anglican tradition, now officially part of Church as Anglican Use.<BR/><BR/>The new English translation of the mass will be an improvement when fully implemented. Will it be implement in the Philippines?<BR/><BR/>Regarding the meal, we must remember our Jewish roots. In Judaism the holiest traditions happen in the family around the dinner table. Passover is not a celebration in the temple; it is a family meal. The Sabbath is not celebrated by a ceremony at the temple but primarily by a meal at home. And it was Passover that Jesus was celebrating when he took the bread and wine, the Last Supper.<BR/><BR/>The Catholic Mass is not a pagan celebration at a Hindu or Shinto temple. It is not the sacrifices of the destroyed Jeruselum Temple (though there are elements of it). it is a meal, a Passover meal, that we are echoing back to, and recreating in a real way.<BR/><BR/>But it is not a common meal. It is, simply, the Mass. When we decide how to celebrate a mass, we should look to Catholic tradition and the scores of licit masses available to us. These metaphors -- meal, worship, sacrifice -- are helpful but we should not let our use of such words drive how we celebrate the mass. The mass is unique. It may share elements with other things we do in our lives, but we shouldn't import elements from outside just because we adopt the "meal" imagery or the "sacrifice" imagery.<BR/><BR/>Humility is helpful with this, as with so much else. We should be humble when faced with tradition. Maybe our ideas are an improvement, but humility requires small, increment changes, not wholesale reform. Ultimately, the fault of so much that has been done in modern times is not the result of "meal" vs. "sacrifice" but the result of a lack of humility. It is the result of people who had the power imposing because they think they know better then us masses, that they know better then the masses that came before us. <BR/><BR/>It wasn't a word that led astray, it was the lack of humble respect for tradition, for the wisdom of the ages.Bruce In Iloilohttps://www.blogger.com/profile/13696713855390145393noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9504617.post-66703128120513239202008-10-06T02:52:00.000+08:002008-10-06T02:52:00.000+08:00I am also a Catholic who was raised in Catholic sc...I am also a Catholic who was raised in Catholic schools but I never knew that the Mass is a sacrifice. All I knew was that we eat the host as Jesus said, "Do this in memory of me". There was a time that I began to question myself why we kept on doing this over and over again and even thought that we should do some of the things that borg-again christians do; long lively emotional preachings, lively music etc. My mother who was raised in the Tridentine Mass would always tell us that the Mass before feels like that you're in heaven but she never went into specifics. As I became older (I'm now 30) I stopped attending Mass (my mother had also stopped attending Mass)but I still consider myself a loyal Catholic. It was just because I wasn't getting anything from the Mass, for me it was boring. But the guilt feeling was always there but to make the long story short, it was not until a year ago when I came across EWTN that my faith again was reinvigorated and it was thru EWTN that I learned that the Mass is a sacrifice. I again started attending Mass but still with this feeling that we could incorporate what protestants are doing in their worship services. But the first time I watched a <BR/>Tridentine Mass in EWTN (that was last Christmas), I immediately fell in love with it and until now I'm hooked up with it. It was very reverent, silent, dignified and I can feel the sense of mystery. Finally I realized what my mother had been telling me of the way the Mass was being celebrated before. But theologically speaking I'm actually more knoweledgeable of my faith now than my mother even if she was raised in the Tridentine rite. I don't think that she never ever knew that Mass is a sacrife, but she along with many other of her age loved going to Mass then. My point here is that not everyone will really grasp the real meaning of the Mass. But if we celebrate the Mass in a way that promotes the real meaning of the Mass as a sacrifice everyone will behave accordingly inside a church during Mass. Lex orandi,lex credendi, lex vivendi, I hope I got that one right but it simply means the way we worship reflects on what we believe and influences our actions. So if the Mass is celebrated that promotes it as a sacrifice people will behave properly in the Mass and you don't expect people to be chatting or letting their children play during the Mass or people clapping their hands or waving their hands and dancing as in many charismatic masses. We just simply must do these things as we witness Jesus's unbloody sacrifice on Calvery represented in the Mass. As I see it in the Church today there is really a lot of pressure on priest to entertain the people hence the abuses. Catholics now do not anymore sense the mystery in the Mass it has become so banal and casual they're leaving the Church for heretical Protestant churches (some of my relatives had). I pray to God fervently the our present Pope can reverse the damage done to the Church in the name of Vatican2 and bring back the glory of Catholic Church. In the meantime I am hoping to take my mother with me one day when I attend any of the Latin Mass here in Manila (she lives in Batangas)to bring her bach to the Church.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com