Just back from the Cities

Things are spectacular in my life. I went to see the play version of my favorite musical called 1776. It has great quotes including....

"I have come to the conclusion that one useless man is called a disgrace,
that two are called a law firm
and that three or more become a congress..."

I tend to replace congress with "staff meeting" or "committee" and it makes me chuckle. But, the most fascinating thing was that the audience found a lot more lines humorous than I thought they ever would. Certainly more than I laughed at in the movie. I expected they would think the last hour dragged beyond belief but that wasn't at all true. It all moved along well and there really was only one time that I thought to myself, "this should have been cut." It was a depressing song called "Is anybody there? Does anybody care?"

Two more lines deserve special mention: There's a line from Ben Franklin that says, "Those who would give up some of their liberty in order to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."

And, my personal favorite

"...consider yourselves fortunate that you have John Adams (or Fr. Dennis Miller) here to abuse for no sane man would tolerate it!"

Pope celebrates so-called tridentine mass

I was reading this article and thought it would be good to get it out there. It's not all that suprising, to be honest. A clarification of terms is probably necessary. A private mass probably involves less than ten people and probably takes place in a private chapel, such as the pope's private chapel in his residence in his chapel. That's where the pope celebrates private mass. A public mass would involve a more public setting, of course, and would involve more people. You might think that a private mass just involves the pope but that is not encouraged in the new mass and, unless if I'm wrong, impossible in the old rite. There were parts for the server to say and movements that the server made during mass that would be impossible for the priest to do. In many ways, being an acolyte in the old rite is light and day different than the new. Servers had to really know and understand what was happening with near military precision. It was glorious.

But, back to the article, it's intriguing that, this close to the announcement of permission, the media is putting this out there. It's almost as if they are trying to indicate that this is the Pope's preferred way to offer mass. BUT the pope has indicated that the novus ordo mass (the mass as celebrated since the reforms of the Vatican Council) is still to be the norm. The present pope undoubtedly finds a great deal of consolation in the rite that he learned in seminary and has found a place that he can continue to find that proximity to God. What a joy for him and for us.

But, we will continue to make novus ordo masses the norm even as we try to do them with more reverence and more relevance. To the liberals that are terrified that this is going to turn the church back 50 years and the conservatives who hope that it will I say this: Don't try to make the exception the rule.