Response: No. 1, here.

The 1962 missal is really important because it shows us where we came from- it's the best way of interpreting the current missal in a 'hermeneutic of continuity'.

If one doesn't feel called to worship according to the older missal, that's their choice.

If one is ignorant of the older missal and it's living tradition and thinks one is correctly interpreting the newer missal as the most recent council intended, one will not have a very clear picture of orthodox liturgical praxis. The list of options, especially options indicating preferences, makes less sense without the context of what came before, what was revised, etc.

Working intensively with both missals has opened my mind and heart to the huge gift BXVI gave us in Summorum Pontificum. There was so little cohesiveness in the decades following the council- we need to unwind and reflect at the same time the Church, as always, moves forward. Most of us can agree that, after looking at SC, the liturgical reforms of the council have not been met, and in most places veered off course.

I would go so far as to say that the best way forward is to have one sung EF Mass in every parish with three or more Sunday masses. How's that for radical? I know I'm not pope, but that's my lastest dream, which has been growing with my prayerful experience of the EF.

The hurdles to a liberal application of SP are major: priest training (because most never had it in seminary), bishops' attitudes, and skilled musicians to lead. So yeah, I know it's a very far off dream.

The EF is just too strange and different to most. ... Most would never see any connection between the two.

In the accidents, maybe, but not the substance. Give me the substance of Christian worship in the NO and the worthy accidents will come back soon enough.

But what is the substance of Christian worship? A good title for a book? Well, yes. It's also what the hermeneutic of continuity can teach us, the collection of underlying principles which govern Christian worship.

I am afraid that this "continuity" you reference is gone.

I know it's gone. Yet continuity, thanks to the Holy Father you and I both admire, is an axiom-level assumption, and officially.

If de facto there is no continuity but de jure there should be, then we'd better start making facto resemble jure. EDIT: THIS IS A LOOSE, RHETORICAL USE OF THE WORD; DO NOT CONFUSE THIS WITH EXPLICIT CITATION OF "LAW"; THANK YOU VERY MUCH.

Mary Ann, I think we are making the same overall point, but we aren't articulating it in quite the same way. To state my own position more succinctly, orthopraxis is not in the document itself (i.e., the missal) but in how it's implemented. If this is indeed what you are saying, I agree with you.

The point actually seems very obvious to me, and this is where I also feel the strongest agreement with EA (Benjamin?). Orthopraxis, by definition, is about "the doing." If we concede that there is a right way of doing (or many right ways, as the case may be), then doing the right thing is not dependent on the circumstances in which it is being done; ideally, it should be second nature. EF? OF? The possibility of orthopraxis (or not) is within both. End of story.

[On preview]: Mary Ann's vision of the future reminds me of something I have to deal with on a daily basis. To give you some background, I have a lot of experience in higher education, primarily at large public research institutions with diverse student populations (much like San Diego State and Fresno State, coincidentally). I've never taught at a community college but I have taught many disadvantaged students. So please read the following with that in mind.

More specifically, Mary Ann's vision reminds me of the model of teaching and learning that community colleges reject by their very nature as institutions providing an education regardless of status: the idea that if we simply hold up a model of true knowledge, people will recognize it as such and be drawn to it for its own sake. For some students, even today, this model works. I can lecture for 50 minutes and the authority of my expertise alone is enough for some students to lap up everything I say. Great. I am indeed an expert in my subject and if people would just listen to me, they might learn something. Anyone who has been to college has likely had professors like this.

Community colleges rightly reject this attitude. They stand by the maxim that the best way to teach is to meet people where they are and lead them to where you want them to go. As I said before, many of my students come from disadvantaged educational backgrounds, and I've also found that this is the best approach for them. If they can't write very well, I can't just give them good writing and say, "Distill first principles from this and apply it in your own writing." Instead, I have to meet them where they are and lead them to where I want them to go. And you know what? Sometimes by taking this approach I do things I really wish I didn't have to do--like take the time to explain the difference between "its" and "it's." That was someone else's job. They are in college. These kids today. What happened to parenting or personal accountability? We can come up with a million reasons why, at this moment, I have to teach little Johnny the difference between "its" and "it's," but that doesn't really help little Johnny, does it?

Yet how many times have we read on this forum that going into an OCP parish as music director would be the road straight to the devil? Or that the OF is inherently bad? Or that if only nuns hadn't terrorized children, they would be perfect Catholics? Or if only men would sing...? Or, or, or? Lots of excuses; not a lot of empathy.

It is great that some here are able to implement the EF gloriously, or to introduce chant of any kind to a congregation, but many, or dare I say most, parishes are nowhere near this. Nowhere. That is certainly true where I live.

To carry the higher ed analogy a little further, then, Mary Ann might be at Mount Holyoke in her FSSP parish and dream that one day all colleges will be as elite as Mount Holyoke, but the sad reality is that most faculty and most students reside at Metro/Rural Tech. We have to meet them where they are and lead them to where we want them to go. Maybe in the end, we will have something like Mary Ann's vision, but how we get there says a lot about us.

What does this look like in the more concrete scenario of a parish? I have no idea. I'm glad all I do is teach and that I don't really have much involvement with music ministry. Truth be told, I don't sing the bad songs, either. But meeting people where they are, instead of denigrating them for not being where we want to them to go, seems like a good first principle to me.

You're right- I edited to say "the best way", not the only way. For some reason it didn't take. I will re-edit it.

Right. The parishes that are the worst off liturgically have many many hurdles, and that assessment doesn't include any extra-liturgical issues!

But compare Credo III and 5 ordinaries a year to "Storrington Mass."

EA, I don't understand your first question because you are stating the obvious. Clearly someone needs to know the goal in order to lead others. Nothing I said contradicts this, does it?

As for your second set of questions: Certain posters here are notorious for leveling criticism at average parishioners, or at Catholic culture more generally, which to me is virtually the same thing. Some of the comments near the beginning of this thread border on it, if you want one convenient example.

Aside from that, though, "liturgical sociopaths calling the shots" and "average parishioners" are frequently the same people--or least they are at every parish where I've been a member. Personally I have never encountered anyone external to a parish who has had much influence on the parish's liturgical life, only people from its own membership (and the pastor).

There are several books that treat this subject in some detail, though the specifics aren't necessarily about the liturgy: When Sheep Attack; Well-Intentioned Dragons; and others.

You focused on the issue of "meeting folks" to exclusion. This appeared to deny the importance of distilling from first principles.

Wow Scott, that's a caldera sized cognitive dissonance.
Condolences.

The "Empire of Liturgical Trivialization" I like that title!

In answer to MaryAnn's question about the state of the EF in this diocese, I have answered that on another thread. To sum it up, the bishop is supportive, there is one per week in my city, and one twice a month a bit south of us. It would grow, if the demand were there for it. It isn't, and the attendance is relatively flat.

On other things, I think we may be talking past each other a bit. As far as continuity, I found in my situation I could not begin with 1962 and work forward - or the 1965 missal or practices either. I had to start with, in my case, 2001 and work backward. Any good music in my parish is the result of many years of work by myself and my predecessor.

There is an OF mass even later in the day on Sunday at 6:00 p.m. It's somewhat "folk" and draws few people from our parish. They are mostly folks from elsewhere in town who are taking advantage of the last Sunday mass available in town. So I don't see the 1:30 p.m. time as a big problem. I have 4 masses myself in the morning, and I don't leave until 1:00 p.m. The EF mass is at 1:30 p.m. because no slots were open earlier.

The EF mass has moved around with the associate pastor who is the one who knows Latin and the EF rubrics. He is now at Holy Ghost, therefore, that's where the EF mass is. When he was somewhere else, the EF mass was with him. It tends to follow the priest, who is too conservative for many other parishes. We love him and were delighted when the bishop sent him to us.

Yes, I know about all those crazy things that have happened with diocesan people, but I will tell you my strategy for dealing with the diocese. No matter what event the diocese holds, I am not there. I stay out of the limelight and don't mix with them. I am probably much happier not to have to deal with them in the first place. They come, and go, and I never even know what they looked like.

FNJ, surely you realize all folks named "Charles" see things differently, it comes standard on all models. For your consideration, ladies and gentlmen, I give you:
Prince Charles (Philip Arthur George....) Managed two lovely boys with one of the most beautiful women ever to walk the planet, but longed in his heart for...
Charles Barkley (no more needs be said, I love the guy!)
Charles (Charlie) Bucket- lover of Chocolate and philanthropy
Charles Sheen (ugh)
Charles Manson (arggh)
Charles Cole and Charles Giffen (woo hoo)
Charles Couralt and Charles Osborne and Charles (Charlie) Rose (a CBS three-fer)
Charles Chaplin
Charles (Charlie) McCarthey (not even human!)
Haven't googled anyone and could still go on like the Energizer Bunny...but I'll mercifully cease. Save for wondering at times if Prince Charles was human.
No matter what event the diocese holds, I am not there. I stay out of the limelight and don't mix with them. I am probably much happier not to have to deal with them in the first place. They come, and go, and I never even know what they looked like. Proves my point as well. C Dub is almost 3K miles away and we instinctively have the same policy! AND...
FNJ and I are palsies too!

I find that odd that some of you have had bad experience with Eastern Rite liturgies. While I admit my experience is limited (4-5 different churches,) it has been rather broad (Byzantine and Ukranian Catholic in 3 different states,) and I have only ever experienced no more than 1 hymn (at communion) and it was always fine. I've hardly even noticed a hymnal in the pews.
(Or are you referring to Eastern Orthodox and not Eastern Catholic?)

I´ve attended a variety of Eastern Catholic services (Melkite, Ukrainian, Russian, Maronite, Chaldean, Ruthenian, Armenian -- I´m collecting them) and only a couple of times has anyone tried to sing American pseudo-folk devotional songs in the Divine Liturgy. Sorry to hear it hasn´t disappeared totally yet.

Re: the beginning of this thread --

I've just been reading Golden Mouth, a book about St. John Chrysostom. Apparently a good number of his surviving sermons consist of breathing fire and brimstone against anyone who dares miss Sunday Mass, or even those who dare do other stuff on Sunday besides attend services and stay home quietly. Not just "It's a sin," but "You are going straight to Hell, so let me describe both Hell and the handbasket in detail."

Furthermore, there are a huge number of martyr saints honored in the East who were martyred because they went to Sunday Mass despite persecution (by the pagan Romans, pagan Persians, heretical government, Muslims, pagan tribespeople, Communists, etc.), and they are quoted saying they had to go, and had to obey God rather than men, and would die of sin if they didn't go to Mass, etc.

So it would seem that there is an obligation in the East to attend Mass, on pain of sin and Hell, which extends even to suffering a martyr's death instead of missing. Just because there's a lot of exceptions to the rule and sensible allowances, and just because it isn't worded as being a sin as much, doesn't mean that Eastern Catholics, Orthodox, and the various other Eastern groups are all okily dokily okay with missing Sunday Mass unless you really really want to go.

What it means is that you're supposed to know you're supposed to go, because strong social disapproval and your parents and grandparents' preaching to you replaces the priest having to preach it to you.

St. Hilary of Poitier was pretty tough when it came to heresy and he was a western bishop. I think it is the time more than the place, as Charles says, "It was a culture coming out of paganism with heresy rampant on every side."