Friday, August 11, 2006

IN DEFENSE OF GOOD LITURGY

Fr. Keyes has an excellent post, aimed at those critics who would prefer to get away with more butchering and blatant abuses of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

The one thing that amazes me is that several women, people with official roles in leadership, often think that my criticism is inappropriate. In other words, brides who wear strapless gowns should be allowed to do so. This is the culture, they say. This is what everyone does, they say.

Ever notice how progressives like to use the word culture in order to get what they want, even if it's wrong? And again, just because everyone does it doesn't necessarily make it right. In fact, not everyone does it. Maybe everyone in their progressive little circles, that's about it.

I am the pastor. I am not a talk-show host or a choreographer. I am the one responsible for the liturgy at this parish and I take my responsibility seriously. We are not putting on a show here.

A million points to Fr. Keyes for correct use of the word pastor.

I remember a conversation where I said that we needed to begin to look at the liturgy from the Church's perspective. The answer came back, "we are the Church." Nope, sorry, we are not individually or collectively the church. We do not get to decide what is right or wrong or what the truth is. Truth is not based on what we might feel about something or what we might like. Jesus himself is the truth and our task is to listen, to learn and to receive his grace.

As I heard a junior choir (under its progressive director) once sing: We are the church, happy to be God's children in one fam-i-ly. Cough, choke, barf! There goes my breakfast! We are a parish, within the Church, but we are definitely not the Church. We are members of the Church, expected to uphold the Church's teachings, but we are not the Church, that can pick and choose which teachings to uphold. Fred Flintstone and Barney Rubble may be Water Buffaloes, by virtue of being members of the Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes, but they are not THE Loyal Order of Water Buffaloes in itself.

This is a way cool paragraph:
There are many who wonder how long they have to put up with me. The most telling day was when someone complained and said they wanted their church back. That very day another thanked me for bringing back reverence and beauty and they ended by saying, "thank you for giving us our church back."

You'll get plenty more with the latter, Father. You're doing everything right. As for the former, as I said at MickeyD's last Tuesday, they'll get over it. (side note: they also need to get over themselves)

Peace,
BMP

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Let's use logic.

Those who say, "We are Church," often say, "The Church must change."

If both "We are Church" and "The Church must change" are true, then "We must change" must be a true statement.

Brian Michael Page said...

That's about as good a deduction as you're gonna get on this topic.
BMP