JD and Ed talk about the Vatican’s recent letter regarding single mothers and the Eucharist, and Cardinal Wilton Gregory’s comments about the Traditional Latin Mass.
-ding dong, merrily on high, especially when used as a replacement for the Gloria during the Christmas season. (This was done at the Episcopal church i grew up in - never seen it done at a Catholic church thank heaven for small mercies)
Everyone could do without the little drummer boy. Having been forced to do school Christmas concerts with breathy over-felt pop renditions and tableau out the story, I hate it. I also pointed out to the teachers how rude that boy was. WHO THOUGHT IT WAS CUTE TO WAKE THE BABY JESUS UP WITH A DRUM SOLO??
Today I had a chat with someone who (pivoting from me explaining my family circumstances, because she likes to know everything about everyone and is a good listener) volunteered the information that "if there is one rule in the Church I would change..." (she did not actually explain what rule she would change) "because I know at least five people who married divorced men and stopped going to church" and then I explained how easy my annulment was and that she should tell them to at least TRY the process. I did not probe secondhand for whether these people think they cannot even attend Mass while divorced-and-remarried (I think it's useless to try to find out the real reason by a game of telephone), but sometimes it seems like people think that; the idea of communion and Mass are so welded together in current popular understanding.
On another topic: The most striking generational liturgical difference, to me, is the physical actions and posture of the priest while saying "take this, all of you". This could be (1) bending slightly down and looking at the item. Or it could be (2) turning from left to right and back to center, holding the item up and showing it to an audience, possibly making sweeping eye contact with them to draw them into a moment of attention (it is meant to feel like a reenactment of the last supper, and *not* like a magician about to do a trick who has nothing up his sleeves and who is holding ordinary unleavened bread, or ordinary just-slightly-watered wine, and is about to astonish us.) I do not object to either approach, because each is just doing either what the book says or what he was taught or both, but the more I see of 1, the *odder* 2 feels.
Good podcast, gentlemen. Card. Gregory's "supply side" take on the TLM issue is fascinating (and off-the-mark, in my opinion), but it does seem to be consistent with the mentality informing Traditionis Custodes. The Holy Father and Cardinal Roche have made comments along the lines that previous pontificates had simply meant to throw a bone to a few fuddy-duddies who couldn't get with the times, but there was never the intention that the TLM should grow among younger generations. That's revisionist history, explicitly contradicted by B16's letter accompanying Summorum Pontificum. Nonetheless, the desire to keep the "youth" away from the TLM is ultimately the party line at the moment. That's why they're pushing to extirpate it from "normal" parishes. The feeling is essentially that the TLM is a sort of vice that spreads virally due to availability, social acceptance, peer pressure and essential addictiveness. You guys mentioned the drug dealer analogy, but I'd say that the powers that be view it more along the lines of cigarettes (i.e., a noxious, unhealthy habit of an earlier era). Perhaps the old codger sucking on a Lucky Strike outside the V.A. home can be tolerated, but it absolutely must be kept away from the kids.
Online graduate ( and other levels) studies in theology are also readily available at The Catholic Distance University. I started with Fr. John Hardon’s catechism certificate program, finished with my MA Theology - all online, and all deeply satisfying!
https://www.mentalfloss.com/posts/have-yourself-a-merry-little-christmas-song-dark-origins-history?utm_campaign=mb&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_source=morning_brew
Guys:
- Ask your Substack friends to refer you to a proper modern bank!
- In all the talk about single mothers you seemed to limit the discussion to the formerly-married, not never-married.
- Falcon 9 boosters are reused up to 20 times, not two!
Interesting. the tour guide at dish network told me two times!
Could be an early model that SpaceX didn’t want to keep flying.
https://search.brave.com/search?q=falcon%209%20booster%20reuse%20statistics
This was a super fun, fantastic content episode on many levels. I listened twice.
Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas came out in 1944. I think most of the world could be excused a little extra pathos at that time.
Christmas carols I could do without:
- Go tell it on the mountain
-parumpapumpum
-ding dong, merrily on high, especially when used as a replacement for the Gloria during the Christmas season. (This was done at the Episcopal church i grew up in - never seen it done at a Catholic church thank heaven for small mercies)
Everyone could do without the little drummer boy. Having been forced to do school Christmas concerts with breathy over-felt pop renditions and tableau out the story, I hate it. I also pointed out to the teachers how rude that boy was. WHO THOUGHT IT WAS CUTE TO WAKE THE BABY JESUS UP WITH A DRUM SOLO??
Our Gloria gets set to "Angels We Have Heard on High" with refrains of glooooooooooo-ooooooo-oooooooo-ooooorrrr-ia.
I strongly prefer the Mass of Saint Paul VI/Ordinary Form/Novus Ordo, but I'd buy that T-shirt.
Today I had a chat with someone who (pivoting from me explaining my family circumstances, because she likes to know everything about everyone and is a good listener) volunteered the information that "if there is one rule in the Church I would change..." (she did not actually explain what rule she would change) "because I know at least five people who married divorced men and stopped going to church" and then I explained how easy my annulment was and that she should tell them to at least TRY the process. I did not probe secondhand for whether these people think they cannot even attend Mass while divorced-and-remarried (I think it's useless to try to find out the real reason by a game of telephone), but sometimes it seems like people think that; the idea of communion and Mass are so welded together in current popular understanding.
On another topic: The most striking generational liturgical difference, to me, is the physical actions and posture of the priest while saying "take this, all of you". This could be (1) bending slightly down and looking at the item. Or it could be (2) turning from left to right and back to center, holding the item up and showing it to an audience, possibly making sweeping eye contact with them to draw them into a moment of attention (it is meant to feel like a reenactment of the last supper, and *not* like a magician about to do a trick who has nothing up his sleeves and who is holding ordinary unleavened bread, or ordinary just-slightly-watered wine, and is about to astonish us.) I do not object to either approach, because each is just doing either what the book says or what he was taught or both, but the more I see of 1, the *odder* 2 feels.
Good podcast, gentlemen. Card. Gregory's "supply side" take on the TLM issue is fascinating (and off-the-mark, in my opinion), but it does seem to be consistent with the mentality informing Traditionis Custodes. The Holy Father and Cardinal Roche have made comments along the lines that previous pontificates had simply meant to throw a bone to a few fuddy-duddies who couldn't get with the times, but there was never the intention that the TLM should grow among younger generations. That's revisionist history, explicitly contradicted by B16's letter accompanying Summorum Pontificum. Nonetheless, the desire to keep the "youth" away from the TLM is ultimately the party line at the moment. That's why they're pushing to extirpate it from "normal" parishes. The feeling is essentially that the TLM is a sort of vice that spreads virally due to availability, social acceptance, peer pressure and essential addictiveness. You guys mentioned the drug dealer analogy, but I'd say that the powers that be view it more along the lines of cigarettes (i.e., a noxious, unhealthy habit of an earlier era). Perhaps the old codger sucking on a Lucky Strike outside the V.A. home can be tolerated, but it absolutely must be kept away from the kids.
Online graduate ( and other levels) studies in theology are also readily available at The Catholic Distance University. I started with Fr. John Hardon’s catechism certificate program, finished with my MA Theology - all online, and all deeply satisfying!