It's St. Wikipedia. The beloved holy one goes on to say:

The minor Rogation Days were introduced around AD 470 by Mamertus, bishop of Vienne, and eventually adopted elsewhere. Their observance was ordered by the Council of Orleans in 511, and though the practice was spreading in Gaul during the 7th century, it wasn't officially adopted into the Roman rite until the reign of Pope Leo III.[5]

The faithful typically observed the Rogation days by fasting and abstinence in preparation to celebrate the Ascension, and farmers often had their crops blessed by a priest at this time.[6] Violet vestments are worn at the rogation litany and its associated Mass, regardless of what colour was worn at the ordinary liturgies of the day.[2]

A common feature of Rogation days in former times was the ceremony of beating the bounds, in which a procession of parishioners, led by the minister, churchwarden, and choirboys, would proceed around the boundary of their parish and pray for its protection in the forthcoming year. This was also known as 'Gang-day', after the old British name for going or walking.[7] This was also a feature of the original Roman festival, when revellers would walk to a grove five miles from the city to perform their rites.[4]

I actually have very high regard for St. Joseph the Worker. Definitely more for him than for a pagan custom later adopted by Christianity.

God, please bless these hybrid tomatoes since the natural ones you sent us just don't cut it. Thank you.

The notion that women should have to cover their heads in church today is ridiculous.

I agree with this, especially in the case of those tiny doilies that women used to put on their heads. They didn't even cover their hair!

But. This is what confuses me: With the rule change being what it is, the same rule that was eliminated to allow women to enter church with their hair uncovered also forbade men from wearing a hat in church. Logically, a man is now allowed to wear a hat in church.

So for those of us who reject the principle of head-covering for women, are you ok with a man wearing a hat in church? And why not?

I have personally instructed men to remove their hats in church, but yet I don't have a problem with women being uncovered. And that seems kind of inconsistent to me.

I don't really have a problem with it on religious or theological grounds. But our American culture and customs dictate that it is polite for a man to remove his hat when indoors. So I think that I would compare that gesture more to shaking hands and other cultural affects.

Trivial tangent: Holy Roman emperors were ordained as subdeacons, IIRC. Don't know if that custom was retained for the Austrian emperors after the Napoleonic era (even before that, I can imagine Joseph II not having bothered, for one thing...).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jus_exclusivae

I am aloud to do some Latin at Mass (not the Ordinary though), and I am not allowed to make hand outs.
So whenever I introduce a new piece of music or the proper Marian antiphon of the season. I go to the ambo prior to the start of Mass and tell everyone what it is that we are going sing, what it means and possibly sing it for them ahead of time.

I think this helps their understanding and makes them appreciate the Latin more.

I have not had anyone tell me they don't appreciate it but many who come to me and thank me.

A little teaching goes a long way.

I apologize that I am late to the posting, but I feel this pertains to my experience in the Catholic church. I do not play music in our church, but feel that music and liturgy is such an important part of the Mass that changes the perception and feeling of the entire thing. I tried posting about this on the Catholic.org message board, but at least half the people on there slammed me for my opinions, but I feel like I can post this hear with some like minded people. I will preface what I am saying with my age, as I feel it should be known that people who are my age (I am a 25 year old male) enjoy this type of mass.

I am very fortunate to be part of a church that is very traditional in its ways and understands that when Mass is celebrated the way the church has set up and intends, it truly is a powerful experience. I have sent emails to both our Director of Music/Liturgy and our Priest, and both have the same ideals and want the same thing for the church... what a breath of fresh air! Our DOM just started a year ago, a little after I became a member of the church. Since she has started, she has introduced more Latin to the mass, as well as beautiful instruments to accompany the organ such as the cello and viola. The experience is unlike any other. Since Lent, we have now been saying the Lamb of God as Agnus Dei in Latin 100%. She has also added in at least one Latin song per Mass. It is amazing how much more powerful the Mass is with this.

On our Easter Vigil, they had two Cantors, male and female, then two choirs (male who sounded like a Gregorian Chant and female), one of the songs had just bells being played... a few had piano and viola/cello, some organ with cello... all solemn, and all absolutely breathtaking.

I guess I am very passionate about the history of the church and what it can bring. I have always been brought up and have thought that Mass was supposed to be a one on one connection with God, supposed to be solemn and prayerful. Yet, it seems like more than half of the churches in my state that I live in the USA are playing secular music, with guitars, tambourines, and the like, and this absolutely interrupts my connection with God. It makes me sad, irritated, all sorts of things I shouldn't feel in Mass. I wish it didn't.. but it does.

To sum it up though, I really am blessed and fortunate to be at a church like mine.... even though it was really hard to find a church like that. I have discussed with my wife about taking her to an EF Mass someday... though she is unsure because she (nor I) know Latin. I told her that we would still understand the order of the Mass and the general things to do with it, even if it is in Latin. I just think it is the most beautiful thing...

WICatholic, in the event that you wish to take your wife to an EF mass, it might be good for you to view a few of the masses which are available online. There may even be some voice overs to explain what is happening. In that way, the two of you can preview what you will experience and have some idea of what is going on when you do attend.

Interesting post. Also a nice plug for your institute. However, we have to meet our colleagues where they are as opposed to where they might be. The hope is that we help each other by our observations and experience. In that regard, B Nardo, please let us know where these institutes might be found. There may be members of this site who would be interested in checking them out.

WICatholic ... things are sadly in a poor state of affairs here in Western WI where I live, although a few oases of better liturgical music do exist within about 30 miles.

The Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest (ICKSP in the US) is technically a "Society of Apostolic Life of Pontifical Right." In a structural sense, they are somewhat like the Priestly Fraternity of St Peter -- mission-focused, communal life, with the same kinds of promises made by diocesan priests, though not formal vows as in many holy orders. They were started by French and German missionaries in Africa, have 50 apostolates in 12 countries, a thriving seminary in Italy, and now some Sisters as well. In the US, they are in St Louis and Kansas City, several places in Wisconsin and Illinois, Arizona, Oakland and San Jose CA, and northern New Jersey / just outside of NYC. I got to know them during the 5 1/2 years that my wife and I attended their apostolates in Chicago and New Jersey, which is where I learned Gregorian chant as part of a Schola. (I should note that I did not grow up in "indult" TLM Masses - I was raised on Haugen, Dufford, et al.) Much more information is available on their wonderful website: http://www.institute-christ-king.org

To the point made by WICatholic, one of the ways they've grown in the US is by effectively taking over parishes that dioceses have needed help with -- in many cases (such as Milwaukee, Chicago, and St Louis), once-thriving but now shrunken or crumbling parishes in old urban core areas, or (in the case of New Jersey) once schismatic traditional Latin Mass parishes that they bring back into communion with the church.

The main point I'm trying to make about the Institute -- what I think is so unique about what they offer the contemporary church -- is how they simultaneously have a very reverent and traditional liturgy and aesthetic (they celebrate and follow the traditional Latin Rite 1962 Missal, and are devoted to Sts Benedict and Thomas), and combine it with a profoundly charitable approach (rooted in the spirituality of St. Francis de Sales, also looking to St Therese, and with consecration to the Immaculate Conception).

In other words, they offer the liturgical and theological correction abundantly needed by much of the contemporary church, but with the kind of "spirit" (if I can use that fraught term) that is certainly needed and perhaps intended in the Vatican II era -- one that offers the traditional, timeless, beautiful, inviting gift of God, not as the kind of self-righteous, exclusive, obscurantism that *some* people *seem to think* is the case about the traditional movement (and would *seem* to be confirmed at times such as in my story about the friend refused communion because of dyed blue hair).

The Institute's spiritual and liturgical influence on me over several years in the Extraordinary Form with them is why I feel confident about both the bold, traditional vision and winning-flies-with-honey / prudent approach as I now work (well, volunteer) in music direction in an Ordinary Form setting.

Of course this promising kind of synthesis is certainly evident in countless other places -- I'm thinking of St John Cantius in Chicago, or David Hughes' church in Connecticut, for just two examples.

However, we have to meet our colleagues where they are as opposed to where they might be.

Bob_Nardo

Don't let this throw you. We all lived in that scenario for many years, even decades. It is indeed disintegrating in front of our very eyes. The problem so often found in the philosophy of 'meeting them where they are' is that many never 'take them where they need to be'.

What you and many of us do now, is the 'draw bees to honey' approach. I have found it works very well, and once the honey is in the nest, (parish) so to speak, the bees who find it set up a permanent nest for more of it, and they are adamant about never living without honey ever again.

Kenstb,

Indeed there is a difference, but far too often the consequence of "meeting" people at a place is that objects in motion tend to stay in motion, and those at rest tend to stay at rest.

There is meeting people where they are which I have found to be an excellent place to begin. There is also knowing where you are going with it in terms of your music program. For example, I have been working to improve the quality of sacred music at my parish for a number of years. Most on this forum could say the same thing. Where am I headed with this? A reverent and sacred OF mass is my goal. The EF is not my ideal or my goal so I am not headed there - and that's the truth!

CharlesW,

Does your goal (a reverent and sacred OF mass) mean that you believe that this is not (as is claimed all over everywhere, by defenders of the status quo) an oxymoron.

CharlesW,

Does your goal (a reverent and sacred OF mass) mean that you believe that this is not (as is claimed all over everywhere, by defenders of the status quo) an oxymoron.

So do you believe that there is nothing sacred or reverent about an OF mass?

I'm not sure how you think that.

The question is quite clear: Does your goal mean that you believe that this is not an oxymoron? This was in reference to the stated goal of a "reverent and sacred OF mass." So the poster then said "Does this mean that you don't think that's an oxymoron?"

I issued the same question BACK to the poster: "So, wait, do you think that this IS an oxymoron?"

The implication is QUITE clear to me, and nothing needs to be "read into."

One particular group of defenders say that what the like, and see as a necessary correction of the EF, is less formality, less clericalism, less "priest-with-his-back-to-the-people"......

As to my opinion on the topic, I assist so infrequently at an OF that I have trouble offering an opinion based on up-to-date information, so I'll answer in a different vein: the purpose of the reform was to reduce "accretions", in the name of "purity", to create a more "intimate" atmosphere, if you will, and so it is BY ITS INTENTION and ITS NATURE less reverent than an EF, when celebrated according to its rubrics.

To quote Archbishop Ranjith, the Ordo of 1969 "can be celebrated with reverence".

Formality, clericalism, and "priest-with-his-back-to-the-people," do NOT equal "reverence," or a sense of the sacred.

Personally, I prefer formality in worship for many reasons and I don't see "clericalism" in the EF mass to begin with - but none the less, you seem to be making a big jump in the logic of those who say that they want less of those things. I don't think that they are saying that they want less REVERENCE or sense of sacred.

Secondly, you just said that in your view, the OF is "BY ITS INTENTION and ITS NATURE less reverent than an EF, when celebrated according to its rubrics." So it seems that you DO in fact equate the OF with a lack of reverence.

Depending on where you're from and how old you are I can't blame you, and I can see how you may have arrived at that conclusion over the course of years.

But I do still think that your conclusion is wrong. There are places everywhere celebrating the OF with reverence. And I think the contention is deeply wrong that the OF was DESIGNED to have less reverence. I think it was supposed to have more RELEVANCE and an EQUAL amount of REVERENCE.

Some good but misguided people inserted their own agendas over the years into the mass and made it go off the rails. But let's blame their interpretations and not the initial idea!

I think the mass was SUPPOSED to be what you frequently see from St. Peter's Basilica, not at your local suburban church.

And that is what so many of us are working so hard to change.

I think you have attributed to Charles Giffen some remarks I made. Please don't blame him for anything I said. He's a good guy and doesn't deserve that. LOL.

The 50 vs. 1500 is not a popularity contest. In many places, it seems to me that some have fled the OF and gone to the EF because the OF is celebrated badly. In my parish, the 4 Sunday morning OF masses are celebrated by the book with good music. There is nothing objectionable to run away from, and hence no real reason to flee to the EF. The 50-60 who are attend the EF every Sunday are there because of their love for the EF.

Gentlemen, I agree with you wholeheartedly. I don't think that a preference for one form over the other is our central issue. The real goal and desire of any liturgical musician is to participate in a mass that is celebrated with all of the reverence due to our Lord. I don't think that any of us who has a preference of form wishes to impose that form on everyone regardless of whether or not it is done well.

I do not take sides on EF vrs. OF, but our ROOTS are in the EF and it is the native form of RC worship. The OF is a fabrication.

The OF is no more a fabrication than the EF. The EF, as it has been transmitted to us, came from the Council of Trent and the Pope of that time. There was a Pope in office who promulgated the OF - Paul VI, whether you particularly like him or not. The EF is no more native than the OF, it is just older. It significantly departed from the masses known to most of Europe at the time of Trent. The Orthodox, btw, rejoice that they don't have popes who can mess around with the liturgy. They may have a point. If you glorify the papacy and give it that kind of power, why would you be surprised that those who hold the office use those powers for good or ill?

Controversy Warning:

The legitimate diversity present between the Rites of the East and West and their various local Usages is not the same as the liturgical 'reform' of Paul VI. (c.f. Adrian Fortesque (The Mass: A Study of the Roman Rite), and Alcuin Reed (The Organ Development of the Liturgy), and any other treatise on the history of the Pio-Johannine Missal and its development.)

The Missal of Paul VI (which is completely valid and licit) is a hodge-podge, cut-and-paste job, by a committee of people who couldn't agree on what to keep, what to scrap and what to add.

The so-called Tridentine Missal is a codification (with slight modifications and trimmings) of the Missal of the Roman Curia that had been in use for centuries (at least) prior to the Council of Trent; the Novus Ordo is a completely new use, retaining very little of what came before 1969 - thus what makes it Novus.

I won't get into the mangling of the Divine Office, and the watering down of the other sacramental rites here. (Baptism suffered greatly)

Hi All,

I haven't been on here for the last couple days, but the reads since I last posted have been wonderful. I have been trying to post in response to someone asking if "drums are OK in Mass or not", and I ended up in an argument with people on the Catholic.com message board who were saying contemporary instruments are fine depending on how they are used. All I can say is that my head is spinning, as I couldn't even defend what I believed... I am not going back there again, that is for sure. I felt like I was arguing with people over politics, not talking with fellow Catholics.

I know what I see, and our church has a lot of regulars that go that are young married couples with babies, and young adults in general. There are a lot who long for a solemn, reverent type of Mass.

I really appreciate seeing people on here talking about the way (In my opinion) the Mass should be carried out, in both OF and EF. Our church is OF, but they have been slowly transitioning to a hybrid almost, especially with how we are now hearing latin more often.

Gavin... I have been looking at options to get involved with our Parish. I am contemplating the choir, as well as some other things. It is amazing how much I actually WANT to help them out in any way I can, just because of a simple thing of reverence and respect to God through how they carry out Mass. It really shown at the Easter Vigil, as I have never felt so wonderful before at a church.