Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Liturgical Minimalism

Some reflections from Fr. Mark:
The liturgical minimalism and irreverence that have come to characterize the celebration of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in so many places have now invaded the rite of exposition and adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament. It was bound to happen. The ethos of Holy Communion received in the hand, of the abusive use of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion, and of the loss of any awareness of sacred space has now overflowed into the cultus of the Most Holy Eucharist outside of Mass.

The rite of exposition and adoration of the Most Blessed Sacrament is fast becoming the exclusive purview of the laity, and often of the sacristan, or of Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. A rite that, in the mind of the Church, is to be solemn, festive, and hierarchically ordered has become something sad, bland, and common. (Read entire post.)
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2 comments:

julygirl said...

A friend of mine who is Lutheran jokeingly remarked that it is getting to where the Lutherans and Episcopalians have more ritual than the RC's.

Ecgbert said...

Yep.

julygirl, my late dad, who was raised Catholic in the '40s, said the same thing 25 years ago. (Unlike me he liked the changes.) As crazy as the Episcopalians are, they were around to teach me high church when the church in most places wanted nothing to do with it (changing back slowly under this Pope).