Assuming Magister is right, his story of battling prima donnas in the Vatican squabbling over how to make Gregorian Chant the standard for a Church which has largely rejected it and Latin too, convinces me the effort, no matter who happens to have the pope’s ear, is still doomed to oblivion. Isn’t this just another project to clean barnacles from the hull of a sinking ship.

Thanks for your follow-up answers. I actually grant both of your points. 1. I see what you mean. For instance, people who try to reconstruct liturgies of the Church Fathers as being more authentic, more traditional. You’re certainly right; they do. 2. You’re right, my cocktail party wasn’t a very good example, but you still understood my point and added your clarifications, which I find apt. Thanks.

At any rate, it seems as if you are enjoying (and are enliveded by) your experiences and investigations. Good. Cheers.

It is fitting and right to call you blessed, O Theotokos: you are ever-blessed and all blameless and the Mother of our God. Higher in honor than the Cherubim and more glorious without compare than the Seraphim, you gave birth to God the Word in virginity. You are truly Mother of God: you do we exalt.

Liturgy is not chemistry. All sorts of “impurities” can creep in without messing up the experiment.

There are very limited direct prayers to saints on occasion in the Mass: in the Litany of the Saints very directly (but subordinated to, and bracketed within, prayers to the Holy Trinity), in the Confiteor (where even the rest of the faithful are asked, but again, it’s subordinated), and certain patronal propers. Those have a long history.

The innovation of inserting the Ave into the Mass at the POTF lacks such antiquity. And the reported reasoning behind the innovation was specious (concern that the faithful, no longer praying the Rosary during the Mass, might forget the Ave).

This is the time …

for a renewed trust in personal relationships; it is a time to stay close to the poor and those in distress.

While God has not preserved popes and bishops from corruption by money, power and status, he has abundantly given the Church saints for its renewal, often in the form of founders of religious orders.

Certainly American women religious are our modern day saints. Before Vatican II they not only led a dual life as active religious, e.g. teaching by day, and completive religious in the convent, they were getting their educations during the summer!

Even before Vatican II, Pius XII recognized that modernization needed to be made in education and habits(!!!), hence the Sister Formation movement. They essentially were given the task of completing modernization by Vatican II. So the Sisters have been outstanding models of doing their best with all the Church has handed them both before and afte the Council.

Unlike the bishops and the even the clergy, they are outstanding models that we can hold up and imitate, and that non-Catholics and non-Christians can admire.

In response to the bishop’s request for more money, I made clear to my pastor my continued support for our parish ministries to the poor. My support exceeds by several times what the bishop wanted for the diocese.

I reminded the pastor that the parish fails to earn its offertory money since I mostly worship at another parish with a sung Eucharist Prayer. I suggested simply having one such Mass per Weekend would earn the parish more money annually than the bishop was asking.

Yes we should affirm the exemplars of life for the community, and we should take care of neediest members of the community, but at all times not just when we are in trouble.

Community is not only dying it has never really existed if we are not talking honestly to one another. Honest talk by itself is not Pentecost, but it could be a step in the right direction.