“If I were a bishop, I would send round formidable, even terrifying, hit squads of young clergy…”
We have to get serious about our sacred liturgical worship. Every initiative we undertake in the Church must begin in worship and come back to worship. If our liturgical worship is screwed up, nothing else will work correctly.
From Fr. Hunwicke’s excellent Mutual Enrichment. Here is only part of what he wrote. Find the rest there!
[…]
I wonder why some priests of a certain generation and a ‘Conciliar’ culture have such a rooted aversion to preaching. This leads me on to wonder what exactly it was that they were taught in the corrupted and emptying seminaries of the post-Conciliar decades. We know that (despite Canon 249 and the Veterum Sapientia of S John XXIII) they were not taught Latin or Greek; because of this, they were blocked from sudying Patristics. [They were kept in the fog…. on purpose!] They did not … clearly … do Liturgy or Liturgical Theology or Practical Liturgy; it appears that they received no education in Scripture, Biblical Theology, or how to open the Word of God for their people. I somehow doubt that they were all given a deep formation in traditional moral theology or the hearing of confessions, because I know of (another) church in the South of England where the priest explained that the difficulty about hearing confessions was that the Confessional had for many years been used for stacking away the unsold debris of Parish bazaars. What, in the Name of God Almighty and God most Adorable, did all those men learn in those seven expensive years of ‘priestly formation’? [It was a horror show, let me tell you.]
I know some traddies cheerfully but (IMHO) irresponsibly point out that Monsignor Time will solve the problem of that generation of clergy; [What I have called the “Biological Solution”.] but, in a decade or two’s time, will the joyless and infantilised congregations still be in existence? These are souls for whom Christ died. [“But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth?” Maybe in small communities. “Base” communities?]
CLICK!
If I were a bishop, I would send round formidable, even terrifying, hit squads of bright, orthodox, and cheerful young clergy with the oil of ordination still damp upon their hands, to teach the dear old gentlemen all the things that their lecturers forgot to mention in the 1970s and 1980s; and to overhaul a radicibus the parish liturgies. [I once thought that we needed a new religious order called The Rubricians. They would go two by two into the world to battle liturgical abuses and teach the erring the error of their ways.] Cardinal Sarah’s recent extremely sound suggestions could provide a lively and exciting start to a programme of restoring catholic authenticity in the desert areas. And His Eminence, with his true and accurate pastoral heart, clearly understands the urgency of this need. Happily, one hears of diocesan bishops loyally responding to his timely initiative. Let us hope that, on Advent Sunday …
But not, sadly, quite all bishops. One or two Ordinarii locorum prefer to resemble stewards careering crazily around on the Great Liner’s dangerously sloping decks while shouting noisily and inaccurately at anyone they meet about the ‘true post-Conciliar’ alignment of deckchairs.
Fathers, yes, we are all busy. But let’s crack the books again. Let’s set some priorities and work harder.
