(Emphasis added)The rock Mass seems awkward just at this level: one is overstimulating the senses, just as one might at a bar or club, which may provide an endorphin rush and sense of excitement, but surely isn't very good for promoting chastity, meditation, contemplative prayer, self-denial and so on. Maybe it doesn't matter. But it seems quite an odd variant on Christian spirituality.
'we can make people holy if we just modify these details in the ritual'.
To a very large extent the problem is not with the ritual as laid down, it is with the failure to follow what is laid down, or even to know what is laid down. At Midnight Mass the missalette includes the rubric (actually printed in red so that it is visible) "all genuflect at the next three lines", and Father pointed this out before starting the Creed. And yet many people were still caught unawares!I was so moved when, at my first TLM, the name 'Jesus' was said at the sermon and instantly a whole sanctuary full of men and boys turned towards the altar and bowed their heads at the name of Jesus. That was the moment I was won over.
At Midnight Mass the missalette includes the rubric (actually printed in red so that it is visible) "all genuflect at the next three lines", and Father pointed this out before starting the Creed. And yet many people were still caught unawares!
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