That woman in Clonakilty

Michael G

I'm sorry if everyone is tired of this, but the Sunday Times had it again yesterday when Justine McCarthy tried to turn it into a new story. Apparently some old hippies in America have decided that Mrs Sleeman is going to lead them into the Age of Arcadia. Sinead O'Connor might join them but for her fastidious sense of liturgy.

I have no wish to insult anyone (is there any way to put that in bright flashing letters?), but Mrs Sleeman's understanding of the Mass appears to be either Protestant or representative of the deformed "Spirit of Vatican II" faction that misrepresented the conclusions of the Council to serve their own ends.

Mrs Sleeman seems to think that the Mass is for her and the other people who go to it. It is not for them. It is not for the priest himself either; in fact he matters even less than the congregation. He is there only as a cipher.

Every Mass, any time in the last two thousand years and every day it is celebrated, is the same. Not similar, but the one same Mass. Every one of them has been and is a re-enactment in "real time" of the Passion, Death and Resurrection of Our Lord. The Mass in Clonakilty on Sunday will be the very same once-off Mass, in Eternity, as the Mass that a priest offered at the Mass Rock at Leap (near Clonakilty) three hundred years ago or the Mass that a priest will offer in Johannesburg next week. Those priests, on Sunday, next week or three hundred years ago, are completely unimportant and insignificant in themselves. When they offer the Mass, they disappear as individuals.

robindch

Michael G wrote: »

That woman in Clonakilty

...should get back to her sink, eh?

Hasn't she even read 1 Corinthians 14:34?

lmaopml

robindch wrote: »

...should get back to her sink, eh?

Hasn't she even read 1 Corinthians 14:34?

pml, It does say, 'in the churches'......it doesn't say, 'on the net' where we blather for all we're worth...

However, I have no idea about the Clonakilty woman and what she said...I need a link?:)

Michael G

robindch wrote: »

...should get back to her sink, eh?

Hasn't she even read 1 Corinthians 14:34?

I don't know whether Mrs Sleeman has ever been near a sink, but I do it every day (a man, and I haven't even got a woman as a chattel), and - who knows - perhaps Mrs Sleeman does it too.

Plowman

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robindch

Plowman wrote: »

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Actually, in support of women in general against an religious hierarchy which gives every sign of having been created by men for their own exclusive benefit.

lmaopml

Plowman wrote: »

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Cheers Plowman.
As a female Catholic, I would add my voice to those within the faith who would like to see women play a greater role, and more accountability, better education in the faith etc., but I would have no wish to 'reform' the church either, and an umbrella group of females with such diverse opinions from morality on abortion to women priests does not represent my position at all.

Plowman

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Michael G

Plowman wrote: »

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What do you mean by "participation"? Some people think the daily explosion of uninformed stupidity on Liveline is a kind of participation. The views of ignorant people have no dialectical value, however strongly they may hold them.

And for that reason, I agree completely with you about the need for better faith education. When my niece in England was making her first Holy Communion two years ago, she was told she would be given "holy bread". I am still working on correcting that.

Michael G

robindch wrote: »

Actually, in support of women in general against an religious hierarchy which gives every sign of having been created by men for their own exclusive benefit.

I would have thought this post was a bit tendentious for a moderator.

PDN

Michael G wrote: »

I would have thought this post was a bit tendentious for a moderator.

Moderators in one forum are just ordinary posters when they enter another forum.

Back to the OP, I find it hard to understand the angst of this woman. She converted from Presbyterianism to Catholicism, so presumably she had some idea of what she was getting into and what the Catholic Church's position is regardiing female ordination etc.

Fanny Cradock

Plowman wrote: »

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I saw her on the news a number of weeks back. More power to her!

Fanny Cradock

PDN wrote: »

Back to the OP, I find it hard to understand the angst of this woman. She converted from Presbyterianism to Catholicism, so presumably she had some idea of what she was getting into and what the Catholic Church's position is regardiing female ordination etc.

But that was over 50 years ago. Maybe this has always been a burning issue with her and it's only now that she feels strong enough to do something about it.

Plowman

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lmaopml

PDN wrote: »

Moderators in one forum are just ordinary posters when they enter another forum.

Back to the OP, I find it hard to understand the angst of this woman. She converted from Presbyterianism to Catholicism, so presumably she had some idea of what she was getting into and what the Catholic Church's position is regardiing female ordination etc.

I agree with you PDN, when someone converts it should be something they really really think about - whatever path they take, and they should at least try to understand the theology of their new faith.....If there is something they dislike, then they need to ask the personal questions of themselves and their motives..

The Catholic church can no more allow women priests, then they could change black to white, and the vast majority of the 'women' of the Catholic church are not being represented by this faux feminism that doesn't even 'want' to understand the, 'Eucharist' most especially, and how central it is to our faith..and the different but equal part that women play within the Church. Men are NOT central, Women are NOT central - God is central..

I will fight for education anyday for women, and equality issues in the secular world, but this group do nothing for me, when they try to reform my faith, I'll be at mass and only too glad - and feel more a woman then ever when I receive the Eucharist consecrated by my priest..

Michael G

Plowman wrote: »

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No problem with most of this, but I am never happy with "Eucharistic Ministers," as they are commonly called — the correct name for them is "Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion" and they are supposed to be involved only if there are too many communicants at a Mass for the number of priests present to administer Holy Communion in a reasonable time.

However I go to Mass in the Extraordinary Form whenever possible, so that issue doesn't arise.

Plowman

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Michael G

Plowman wrote: »

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Canon Law allows them so that's good enough for me, but I'm not comfortable with lay people handling the Host — whether giving it or receiving it. I think it can take away from the fact of what the Host is.

Glad you can understand the Latin then. Most people can't!

I started going to the Extrardinary Form of the Mass about six years ago, when I was in my 40s. It takes only a short time to become familiar with it. It's actually very simple Latin and of course there is a parallel English text (booklets are freely available if you don't have a Missal); plus the Canon (what is now called the Eucharistic Prayer) is the same in every Mass. Furthermore, movement and gesture are as important in the Extraordinary Form as the words themselves. Finally, in the 1962 form which is what is normally celebrated in Ireland, the Epistle and Gospel are usually read either in both Latin and English, or in English alone.

irishmotorist

Michael G wrote: »

...but I'm not comfortable with lay people handling the Host — whether giving it or receiving it. I think it can take away from the fact of what the Host is.

Just to clarify, are you uncomfortable with anybody (apart from a priest) receiving communion to their hand before their mouth?

Michael G

irishmotorist wrote: »

Just to clarify, are you uncomfortable with anybody (apart from a priest) receiving communion to their hand before their mouth?

Yes. A priest is just a man like me, but once ordained, when he is doing his work as a priest, he has a second identity, alter Christus, another Christ. When he takes the Host, the Body of Christ, in his hands, he inhabits that second identity. The Host is his own, in that other identity, to hold. It is not earthly bread; it is Panis Angelorum and it should be handled only by hands consecrated for it. I don't think a lay person should do it.

irishmotorist

OK, you're obviously more knowledgeable about these things than me.

Now that you mention it though, I seem to remember hearing that, say, when my parents were receiving for the first time, they weren't allowed to touch the Host with their hands. That only came about later and is the world that I'm familiar with. Was this something what was maybe introduced with Vatican 2 or something? Was our interaction with the Host "upgraded" to be similar to that of a priest at this point?

From my own point of view (and it's from being familiar with receiving it into my hand) it feels kind of like receiving a gift to accept the Host into my hand. Any time I think of receiving it directly to my mouth, it feels a bit uncomfortable or something. I'm not familiar with the doctrine surrounding it, however.

georgieporgy

irishmotorist wrote: »

OK, you're obviously more knowledgeable about these things than me.

Now that you mention it though, I seem to remember hearing that, say, when my parents were receiving for the first time, they weren't allowed to touch the Host with their hands. That only came about later and is the world that I'm familiar with. Was this something what was maybe introduced with Vatican 2 or something? Was our interaction with the Host "upgraded" to be similar to that of a priest at this point?

From my own point of view (and it's from being familiar with receiving it into my hand) it feels kind of like receiving a gift to accept the Host into my hand. Any time I think of receiving it directly to my mouth, it feels a bit uncomfortable or something. I'm not familiar with the doctrine surrounding it, however.

let me recommend you receive on the tongue for the next year. I guarantee you will feel uncomforable receiving in the hand after that. Both forms are legitimate though.
the trouble with receiving in the hand is people drop the "crumbs"

Michael G

irishmotorist wrote: »

OK, you're obviously more knowledgeable about these things than me.

Now that you mention it though, I seem to remember hearing that, say, when my parents were receiving for the first time, they weren't allowed to touch the Host with their hands. That only came about later and is the world that I'm familiar with. Was this something what was maybe introduced with Vatican 2 or something? Was our interaction with the Host "upgraded" to be similar to that of a priest at this point?

From my own point of view (and it's from being familiar with receiving it into my hand) it feels kind of like receiving a gift to accept the Host into my hand. Any time I think of receiving it directly to my mouth, it feels a bit uncomfortable or something. I'm not familiar with the doctrine surrounding it, however.

I do not claim to be more knowedgeable than you or better in any way.

Before Vatican II, everyone received the Host kneeling, and on their tongues. That was because it was the actual Body of Christ and we were not supposed to touch it. The priest, when he celebrated the Sacraments like the Mass, Confession and the Last Rites (perhaps some of the other Sacraments as well though I cannot remember them), is and was not a man. He is just a cipher. When he did his work at Mass as the priest, he was taking the place of Christ Himself. That was why he (the cipher, not the man) could touch the Host and the chalice that contained the Blood of Christ.

Vatican II allowed other things. Those included Communion in the hand and celebration of the Mass facing the congregation. They arose from a preoccupation at the time with an idea of "ecumenism" that was concentrated almost entirely on the Protestant churches of Northern Europe and North America. (At that time, the Eastern Churches, inconveniently traditional in their theology, were out of the picture thanks to the efficient management of the USSR, and all of those pre-Lapsarian converts in Africa were childlike initiates into the post-Conciliar Age of Arcadia. Not that anyone thought Africans were not like us. Mary Robinson preserve us from sin.) Neither Communion in the hand nor celebration of the Mass facing the congregation was obligatory, but most bishops in northern Europe and the USA chose to make them so and to take advantage of their old pre-Vatican II authority to force them through. In a remarkable and shameful way, and in many cases clearly with a view to their own prospects of advancement in the new Church, they and their priests bullied people into accepting these unnecessary changes.

However there is, thank God, a strong and active resistance to this. It is not just the hard-line marginal groups like the Society of St Pius X http://ireland.sspx.net/ but just as much people within the mainstream church like the Latin Mass Society of Ireland http://www.latinmassireland.org/.

lmaopml

I'm sorry, I must be a Vatican II person...(which is total bull really imo) but, the idea of receiving the Eucharist is about 'receiving the Eucharist' which God wanted us to receive....and receive it with most of all 'understanding' which begs respect...

Yes, it's brilliant to have a stoic respect of course, but receiving the Eucharist in the hand or on the tongue won't make any big difference to Jesus, the faith, and the beauty of the occasion..and what is conveyed between God and person during the sacrament...

Surely that's most important, and not this immovable perception of how it should be according to the ritual of receiving, 'Ritual' is important, but people are more important? The whole idea would be to greet the people of God, the inquisitors and the nervous, and not to ball rag them and confound them, but to let them understand the great beauty and strength of the faith, and most especially the Eucharist...

Michael G

lmaopml wrote: »

Yes, it's brilliant to have a stoic respect of course, but receiving the Eucharist in the hand or on the tongue won't make any big difference to Jesus, the faith, and the beauty of the occasion..and what is conveyed between God and person during the sacrament...

I don't know what you mean by stoic; Stoicism was an atheist Graeco-Roman philosophy which was basically about making the best of what you had in this life because there was no other life. Marcus Aurelius (a pleasure to read because of his style) would be a good example.

Surely that's most important, and not this immovable perception of how it should be according to the ritual of receiving, 'Ritual' is important, but people are more important? The whole idea would be to greet the people of God, the inquisitors and the nervous, and not to ball rag them and confound them, but to let them understand the great beauty and strength of the faith, and most especially the Eucharist...

I don't disagree with you at all really, but the phrase people of God has a hint of Spirit of Vatican II cant about it. (I should say that I don't believe there was a "Spirit of Vatican II". I think it is an invention by people who thought that they had achieved a second Reformation in the 1960s and are indignant that it was frustrated. The "Spirit of Vatican II" idea is firmly rooted in 1960s thinking and borrows much from Trotsky's idea of permanent revolution.)

I think that by words and actions, and letting the Host be handled as if it were just a piece of bread, we are (in the old-fashioned phrase) giving scandal. In other words, we are teaching people by our own example to do wrong.