19 June 2007

Kudos to Bishop Seratelli

Ever so slowly the tide is turning. Each day, if one looks properly, the signs are readily apparent.

As just one more example, the Most Reverend Arthur J. Serratelli, Bishop of Patterson, has recently begun a series of articles exploring the "loss and the recovery of the sense of the sacred in Catholic life."

His Excellency says:
Even within the most sacred precincts of the Church, we witness a loss of the sense of the sacred. With the enthusiasm that followed the Second Vatican Council, there was a well-intentioned effort to make the liturgy modern. It became commonplace to say that the liturgy had to be relevant to the worshipper. Old songs were jettisoned. The guitar replaced the organ. Some priests even began to walk down the road of liturgical innovation, only to discover it was a dead end. And all the while, the awareness of entering into something sacred that has been given to us from above and draws us out of ourselves and into the mystery of God was gone. [more]
This first installment is quite good; do read it in its totality. Fr. Z. adds his own comments here.

It is interesting to compare Bishop Serratelli's thoughts with those of Bishop Trautman.

3 comments:

  1. Having been a child at the time of Vatican II, I really don't remember much of the Latin Mass. I believe that I was either the first or second group of children in my parish to make their First Communion at a mass in English, so I can't speak much to the Latin mass. But growing up in the 70's and 80's I have to say that I was not a fan of the "folk mass" either.

    I often wonder if the church went too far from Latin to "cha-cha" at mass. And in the process lost so many people who wanted modern not "far out."

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  2. I think you've just hit the nail on the head, Ellen.

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  3. Yay! Another plug for Paterson! Bishop Serratelli has been a welcome relief in this Diocese. I remember attending the folky/guitar masses. I don't remember the Latin Mass at all.

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