Quote from Paul Inwood: "Chant was never honored by Church until the 19th century."
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    I have never understood the attitude toward liturgy in the Roman church in the U.S. There's a mindset that if you do liturgy badly, you compensate for it by doing it badly more often. Definitely a case of quantity over quality in many places. Thankfully, it's not that way everywhere. It's those wonderful exceptions that make all the difference.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    Wow, Kathy. For some reason I read that as being sarcastic, or short, or something. I can't fathom having that kind of attitude toward the liturgy and the parish community. Is this just a huge worldview difference? But chonak did say that the rules on the books say one Mass per priest per day...
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    Yes, it's a huge worldview difference. Roman Catholics really don't have the Orthodox hangup about having one Mass per week per altar. It's not a far-off ideal for us that we wish we could approach. It's not anywhere in the picture. The Catholic ideal is not about being more and more like the Orthodox. It's about being more and more Catholic.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    You wouldn't want liturgy every day if it were still 3-hours long. It is, again, an emphasis in the east of quality over quantity. In too many places, Western masses are thrown together affairs with a little "touchy-feely" thrown in for effect. God help the poor priest who runs mass over an hour, because he will never hear the last of it. Even in the church where I work, they have too many masses. The five on Sunday could easily be consolidated into three, since two of them are not well attended. I do think that's what we are all about on this forum however - quality. It seems to me that the musicians who post here make a serious effort to raise the musical quality of liturgy. Now if we could just do something about some of those sermons. But that's beyond our control. ;-)
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    But chonak did say that the rules on the books say one Mass per priest per day...

    I don't think I said that: please review my post above.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    sorry chonak. I mean to say, the ideals on the books, not the rules.
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    Friends,

    The Pope and Bishops govern the Church: but certain things (like disciplinary rules) can be changed, and often are.

    For instance, a Catholic is now allowed to eat meat on Fridays outside of Lent, so long as he makes some other sacrifice.

    With regard to how many Masses a priest is allowed to say each day, this is something that changes.

    I remember reading that there was a Pope who would offer Mass nine times in one day. Currently, however, priests are not allowed to do that (except on certain days, they can say more Masses).

    Obedience is better than Sacrifice --- we are bound to obey the Church.
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    I think Kathy is talking about the general esprit de corps among American Catholics, not the teaching of the Church. For the Church, the Mass is just one of the daily liturgies, albeit the high point. One wouldn't think about celebrating Vespers at 10:00 am and then again at 3:30 in the afternoon. (I of course realize that even these can be combined or anticipated, but to my knowledge never swapped or repeated). The day has its own hours for the Church, but the PIPs don't see it that way.

    American Catholics (who, unlike their Parisian counterparts, are accustomed to shopping in 24 hour supermarkets, walking into a restaurant at 3:50 in the afternoon, having a public restroom in every building, and being able to buy a to-go coffee or a bottled water on ever street corner) have come to think of choosing a Mass time like choosing a showtime at the local movieplex. [I don't mean to equate a film with the Mass, only the amount of thought that goes into choosing the time].

    When every Saturday afternoon we offer a convenience Mass for those who don't want to wake up on Sunday, is it any surprise when the Easter vigil has a third of the number of people that attend any one Mass on Easter morning? On any given Sunday, does anyone really say "I will be able to participate more fully, actively, and consciously at the High Mass, since the choir will be singing all of the propers"? Probably not. Some do of course, and some go out of their way to hear a particular homilist. For the most part, however, convenience and personal taste in music probably play a larger role.
  • Paul F. Ford
    Posts: 857
    Well said, David and Kathy!
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    3 points:

    *What Jeff said
    *Symbolic unity is nice, but actual unity (full communion) is tons better. Liturgically conservative Catholics are not crypto-Orthodox. We don't go around secretly longing to join schismatic Churches. At all.
    *Enjoying full communion means that far from having to elevate symbols of communion into law, we can make other symbolic gestures, such as the merciful abundance symbolized by the wondrous blessing of daily Mass.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Hey, I don't do daily mass and I am as Catholic as you are. My eastern Catholic church is in full communion with Benedict, the Pope of Rome. Of course, my church doesn't usually offer daily Divine Liturgy - it never offers it during Lent - just the Liturgy of the Hours, or Divine Praises. I don't know why the west dropped that, for all practical purposes. Even the very conservative Latin parish where I work, has sung Vespers no more than two or three times a year. We do have a still relatively new associate pastor who is introducing the spoken prayers in the late afternoon. The west is definitely missing something by not having, at the very least, Vespers daily. One of my criticisms of current practice in the west, is that the western church has folded all its liturgies and sacraments into one entity, the mass. It seems to me that some of those liturgies and sacraments have lost a bit of their identities and importance because of that. That's certainly no attempt on my part to take anything away from the mass, but the importance of all the rest needs restoration, too.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    CharlesW,

    You don't know what you're missing. And I think this East-West snobbery is pretty rude.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    I'm not missing anything. Because I play for them, I probably attend more masses than most priests during any given week. Somehow, over time, one element of worship has become over-emphasized in the west, to the point it has effectively supressed other valid forms. The Church, from popes to councils, has asked for the restoration of the Liturgy of the Hours for quite some time. Perhaps our culture is just too busy for the hours, or thinks it is. But I have found that when I begin worship with Saturday Vespers, pray morning prayer, attend Divine Liturgy (or a Mass), and perhaps pray other hours during the day, I have a more complete and full worship "package" than what comes from Divine Liturgy alone.
  • Paul F. Ford
    Posts: 857
    Well said, CharlesW!
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    This thread gets weirder by the minute.

    Anyway, the site will be overhauled and the memory of the last 24 hours will be lost. I hope this East-West nonsense doesn't come up again, because it's really insulting.
  • francis
    Posts: 10,668
    What site is being overhauled?
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    The Eastern Catholics have once again taken a subject and turned it into a discussion of their superiority. Unfortunately, they good things that they say are ignored because of their continual attacks on Rome, the Pope, Roman Catholics and now American Roman Catholics.

    But those who are employed by Roman Catholic churches still take their paychecks...is it time for them to resign to truly stand behind what they think?

    All of you Eastern Catholics who drop in at Roman Churches and work in them....think about it. As Kathy says, it's insulting. I am amazed at the politeness of the group over this...and saddened that so many people who might post and be involved do not for fear of being ridiculed....
  • amanda.palisteramanda.palister
    Posts: 82
    I have assembled here a group of people. We have been following this thread since the beginning. Some of us have popcorn. All of us are wondering where the soft points are. We're from the west, but we have among us two Orthodox Catholics. Can someone please explain? Thanks!
  • RagueneauRagueneau
    Posts: 2,592
    Amanda.P,

    I began this thread to help correct a historically inaccurate statement.

    I have no idea about some of these comments . . . .

    ( . . . and I think it's going to be deleted anyway! )
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    Charles is onto a good subject: the disappearance of Sunday Vespers.

    In parishes with a Sunday late-afternoon Mass, we can see how the typical Vespers and Benediction were supplanted.

    And then what: when Mass schedules are cut back due to the shortage of priests, the late-afternoon Mass goes, and the Vespers isn't brought back. Maybe we ought to work on that!
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    I don't think it's a case of eastern superiority at all. We have our issues, too. Fortunately, they are rarely liturgical. The liturgy, from an eastern viewpoint, is too sacred to tamper with. It's more a case of the west not doing a good job of preserving its liturgical heritage. You have the heritage, it's just strange that so many western Christians place so little value on it. Granted, some are trying to help in the restoration, but that battle is not won and is far from over.

    At Pope Benedict's election, I made the comment that he is truly a gift from God to the church. I still think that. The leadership is good, but so many of the followers are rotten. Do they have any idea of the liturgical treasures they possess? I meet even priests, who don't. And yes, the Liturgy of the Hours is the other half of worship and needs restoration. "Church" was never intended by any pope, council, or Christ Himself, to be a one-hour-a -week activity.
  • noel jones, aagonoel jones, aago
    Posts: 6,605
    And what does any of this have to do with the subject of this discussion?
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    This discussion veered off-course long ago - one of the unique points of interest on this forum. Some are deadly dull, but this forum never is.
  • tdunbar
    Posts: 120
    Sung Services at the Cathedral of the Madeleine (in Salt Lake City where, not coincidentally, there is also a choir school)

    Sundays
    10:00 AM Lauds
    11:00 AM Mass
    5:00 PM Vespers and Benediction

    Holy Days

    12:00 Noon Mass
    4:30 PM Vespers
    6:00 PM Mass
  • amanda.palisteramanda.palister
    Posts: 82
    Thank you for clarifying, however we are trying to understand the "core issues" here, and why there are such strong feelings that a post will be deleted! I see no inflammatory or otherwise abusive remarks being hurled. It conforms to the etiquette guidelines as far as I can tell. Who decides when and why posts get deleted? Sorry still new and getting my feet wet. (I also want to make sure that I don't get any of my posts deleted.)

    Mandee
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    Mandee,

    The deletions referred to here have to do with a technical website issue. Apparently there will be a site upgrade, and some recent information will be lost. C'est la vie.

    On the other hand, it seems to me that some people have been irresponsibly comparing one liturgical rite against another. C'est la guerre.
  • amanda.palisteramanda.palister
    Posts: 82
    Thank you for the info re: website upgrades. I thought there was some sort of snap decision to delete because of strong feelings, and I wanted to make sure that in my postings, because I am relatively new, that I do not cross any lines.

    This comparison of liturgies is common with the two Orthodox members in my group. What we were wondering, is where exactly are the bones of contention that would provoke such strong feelings? We usually compare for informational purposes, without judgment or superiority. That's why I said some of us have popcorn, it seemed that things were getting a lil rowdy round here. ;)

    Is this better left alone, i.e. is the smoke getting too thick in the kitch, or are we as a group able to discuss these issues, perhaps work through them, rationally? If so, where are the soft points?

    Mandee
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    *Symbolic unity is nice, but actual unity (full communion) is tons better. Liturgically conservative Catholics are not crypto-Orthodox. We don't go around secretly longing to join schismatic Churches. At all.


    I never said that. I never even thought that! What I did was mistakenly think that on this issue (Masses per day) the Catholic and the Orthodox ideal were the same. They're not, and I was wrong. But I never thought that the Catholic ideal was to be Orthodox. We do have a lot in common (a thousand years of history, for starters) and I just mistakenly assumed that this one ideal was something we had in common also.

    However. CharlesW is Eastern Catholic. 100% in full communion with you and not schismatic from Rome at all. He is just as Catholic as you are.

    Y'all sense a kind of snobbery on the East's part... on this forum, I sense a snobbery on the side of the West. Y'all often make blanket statements about Catholics that only apply to the Latin or western rites. Y'all often seem to think that Latin-rite things are better than Eastern-rite things. Okay, fine, this is a Latin rite forum, but you can't ignore or dismiss the Eastern rites you are 100% in communion with! Sometimes it sounds like some of y'all don't want to be in communion with the East.
  • amanda.palisteramanda.palister
    Posts: 82
    So what I'm hearing, Jam, is that you feel that often the Eastern Rite is overlooked and dismissed in discussions on this forum?

    The two Orthodox Catholics in my group (singing group) receive communion with the rest of us at Mass. I am assuming that they are in full communion, or Eastern, as you put it. They do often share with us some of the differences in their liturgy, and the rest of the group is pretty open/amenable and interested in hearing them share. They patiently answer our many questions and we find that we have more in common than we thought. There is quite a rich history involved! They make no indications of superiority (from what I can tell), and it seems to me that the comparing is mostly for educational purposes. We were all suprised to find such strong feelings about the differences themselves, but I now am thinking that it may be miscommunication about the way that these differences were expressed in the little white box, which can easily be misinterpreted according to one's mood. Hope this helps and isn't misconstrued as condescending or preachy in any way.

    Mandee
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    Much more annoying to me than the assumption that the Eastern ideal "must be" the Western ideal (I realize now it was naivete that led to this assumption, but I still think it's a rather superior-minded naivete to think that we want to be like you), was this:

    "I'd almost forgotten y'all's dependence on documents and official paperwork to determine what the ideal is."

    Over the centuries there have been certain tropes, certain memes, that the East has flung at the West. That's one of them.

    If we have a discussion of rites, which could be very fruitful, I think it should be free of charged characterizations like the above. Personally I'd like to ban the word y'all, too, but whatever.
  • IanWIanW
    Posts: 756
    Amanda,

    Don't forget the proposed autosarcophagy that featured in one earlier comment on the thread.
  • amanda.palisteramanda.palister
    Posts: 82
    Well, Ian, maybe moving forward if we all agree to 1) have good faith in one another and 2) try to perceive the best interpretation possible, maybe these insults, both perceived and intentional (reactive/defensive), can be avoided, especially when discussing issues of known former contention? If we start to react/feel strongly maybe we can stop and say, "whoa, what did you (not ya'll lol) mean by that, this is how I interpreted it." Just my two cents.

    Mandee
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    tdunbar, why is Vespers so early? Perhaps in the winter, the sun sets that early, but in summer and taking into account that most people work until 5:00, wouldn't a later start for Vespers be more appropriate?

    BTW when I read the allowances for reciting the Office for priests (in regard to what time they may be read) I wondered why bother to require it in the first place. I do wish we could have kept the Roman Office intact (translate if you must) and allowed parish priests to recite a version of the hours that laity used in the Middle Ages.

    I realize that most here are more concerned with re-sanctifying the Mass, but hours are special to me.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    Here back East (in Massachusetts), the monasteries say Vespers at 5 or 6, so I don't think the timing at the Madeleine is unusual.
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    Much more annoying to me than the assumption that the Eastern ideal "must be" the Western ideal (I realize now it was naivete that led to this assumption, but I still think it's a rather superior-minded naivete to think that we want to be like you)


    The naivete was not that the Western ideal "must be" the Eastern ideal. The naivete was that East and West aren't as different as they are.

    , was this: "I'd almost forgotten y'all's dependence on documents and official paperwork to determine what the ideal is."

    Over the centuries there have been certain tropes, certain memes, that the East has flung at the West. That's one of them.


    It was unwarranted, and I apologize.

    If we have a discussion of rites, which could be very fruitful, I think it should be free of charged characterizations like the above. Personally I'd like to ban the word y'all, too, but whatever.


    Neither side is free from them. Rather than getting angry and heated, perhaps it would be better for us to dig up these charged characterizations and get rid of them. I admit to my fault earlier. Hopefully we can all proceed without letting these get in our way: we just need to find them and get rid of them peaceably.

    I use "y'all" to be the plural for "you," because that is the way I was raised to talk. I'm sorry if it bothers you, but that is not pertinent to this discussion in any way.
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    Apology accepted. And I'm sorry I got overheated. I spent a good deal of time as a young adult with Orthodox people, some of whom were openly disdainful, some of whom I loved very much. I've heard all of the characterizations of that sort that I ever want to hear. I've known other Orthodox people who have always been very polite about our differences. They seemed to me to be just as fervent, and yet better ambassadors for Orthodoxy.

    Regarding y'all, I just wonder if "you plural" is a generally necessary noun form on a discussion forum. I rarely use it, I think, and if I did, I think I would run the risk of overgeneralizing.

    Anyways, I'm sorry I took my youthful frustrations out on y'all... ;)
  • JamJam
    Posts: 636
    I'm always afraid with using "you" that a particular poster will think that I am talking specifically to him or her. But perhaps I should stop being lazy and say "you all" rather than the contracted form, or something else along those lines.
  • chonakchonak
    Posts: 9,160
    In Pittsburgh, we'll learn to say "yinz" as the plural for "you".

    ---

    Back to Paul Inwood: What, if anything, O ye historians, did the Council of Trent say about chant?
  • incantuincantu
    Posts: 989
    I always understood "y'all" as singular, and "y'alls" as plural (making the possessive plural "y'alls's.")
  • Kathy
    Posts: 5,500
    I like the British, "you lot," but not the American "you(se) guys."
  • mahrt
    Posts: 517
    Concerning the number of Masses per day,it seems that in the Middle Ages (at least at Salisbury cathedral) only one Mass per altar was said in a day; at least this is cited as the reason for the numerous altars in the church.
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    That's the law in the eastern churches, too. One mass per altar per day. That likely was the law in both east and west at one time. I think the length of eastern liturgies is the practical reason they tend to not be celebrated daily. My RC "pastor" where I work, tells me he is only supposed to celebrate once per day, but has permission to say more than one mass, if needed. Given the shortage of priests and the size of the congregation, his normal practice is to say three masses every Sunday, with the associate pastor picking up the remainder.
  • Donnaswan
    Posts: 585
    Here in Est TN, it's ' you'ins' :)
  • Donnaswan
    Posts: 585
    Or might that be 'you'Uns'?
    Donna
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Whatever happened to "you'se guys?"
  • Michael O'Connor
    Posts: 1,637
    I have to stop checking this thread...
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Ditto
  • CharlesW
    Posts: 11,934
    Charles, are there any plural idioms in CA? Local dialects with an expression for you, plural?
  • Charles in CenCA
    Posts: 2,416
    Charles, CA is ground zero for plural idioms, witness Pelosi, Schwarzeneggar, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, Berkeley, Hollywood, Gavin Newsome/Jerry Brown redux, Mahonyfest, no water for farms but 2 inch smelt safely awash, a state legislature that can't govern but will legalize marijuana, dude..., but I digress and violated my ditto.
    To answer your question, not really, save for the indiscriminate raised middle finger waved towards any and all supposed transgressors.
    Outta here.
  • IanWIanW
    Posts: 756
    Amanda,

    I wouldn't worry for Paul Inwood, if I were you. He's more than happy to hand it out, and in that spirit, I'm quite happy to be robust about his style of argument and the quality of his liturgical compositions. And besides, he's quite happy to hide behind Fr. Ruff's non-too-subtle censorship over at 'Pray, Tell' (as indeed he just has).
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