The reform’s on! Pope B’s new missal is now in use





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• I went to the earliest, lowest Novus on a Sunday, a good choice in most places; Catholics’ lifeline for 40 years. No bad attempt at music and no funny business.
• I like the congregation reciting the introit at such Low Masses.
• A congregation of about 40. Not bad for first thing in the morning in an irreligious age.
• As you can see, St Philomena’s wasn’t wreckovated much, which helps now.
• The Benedict Effect has high-churched the ceremonial a little.
• Not bad! Of course Irish Catholics won’t use the Book of Common Prayer’s prose but because it’s an OK translation it’s not that different; it’s like a Tridentine hand-missal translation.
• More important, the Pope has reset the clock to 1965 where a sound Mass keeps all the priests in line regardless of their own views. He is rolling back the effects of the council.
• The kindly old gentleman lector kept everybody on track with the new responses most of the time.
• The congregation lapsed into ‘And also with you’ at the gospel. Understandable.
• Silent offertory.
• No intrusive ‘sign of peace’. Yes, I know it’s ancient, etc. You understand.
• No altar girls at this Mass.
• No layfolk giving Communion either!
• Almost everybody went to Communion, and received in the hand in that annoying modern way. That last one will take a generation to get rid of. In the meantime, stick to the basics: be in the state of grace and fasting according to the current rule.
• My camera filled up before it could get Father saying ‘Behold the Lamb of God’ and giving the blessing in Latin starting with ‘Dominus vobiscum’.
• 25 years ago two priests on two separate occasions screamed at me that something like this would never happen.
• The RC liturgy war is over. The real Catholics won. (Gates of hell not prevailing and all that.) The Pope has fixed all the serious problems.
• Evviva il Papa.

Labels: Pennsylvania, the Catholic faith