I have fallen for this more times than I can remember. I order cloths that are supposed to be one size fits all from Amazon and I find sleeves too long on shirts, or waist size too small for my waist (its not me, its the pants……….HONEST!). In most things in life people try to find common ground. One thing in common that may or may not be good. However there are some things you just can not compromise on. That entity is the Roman Catholic Church.
I live in Chicago, third generation native born. My mother was Polish extraction, my Father of German heritage. Chicago has long been referred to as the windy city. Many thought it was the weather and we can get some challenges there. Don’t believe me, then just watch them try to play a game at Wrigley field when we have gale force wind whipping across the outfield. However the weather conditions is not how Chicago got its nickname. It was from the politicians here who stood on soap boxes on the street corner spewing their lies to an innocent population and none of that has changed.
We are also called the city of neighborhoods. Each nationality had their fiefdom. The Poles the Northwest side, the Germans the North side, the Irish the South side. Here to this day you can find a little taste of the native land at each neighborhood. I know some great German restaurants in Hyde park and a to die for polish bakery at Milwaukee and Devon avenue. You can hear fluent Polish being spoken at any neighborhood tavern there as well. That was the neighborhood my mother was brought up at by the way.
Originally in Chicago the nationality’s preferred to keep to themselves, most of it language I suppose. You could not press one for Polish or two for German like can for Spanish today. You had to learn English, but…………….there was also a part of the homeland you did not want to leave. However these immigrants wanted to assimilate so you adopt to the host country. My mother said she only spoke Polish until 5 then my Grandfather forbid Polish being spoken in the house. The point was we are in America so learn English. In later life she told me she could still understand polish if someone spoke slowly but could not speak it. However she did used to send me off to school every morning with the Polish, phrase, idź z Bogiem, pronounce Each Buggum, meaning go with God.
My Dad was the opposite, never spoke German in fact his grandfather (My great grandfather) used to line the boys up and tell them the history of Europe, one sided obviously. He would rattle on in German, which the boys could not understand but when he got to the part about Napoleon invading Germany he broke out in perfect English, “God D*mn Napoleon!” Then switched back to German. The only reason the boys listened was because at the end of this History lesson each boy got a nickle from Grampa’s grouch bag as they called it.
Its my mother’s Father, my grand father is what I want to elude to. In those days in Chicago it was not uncommon to find Catholic churches literally across the street from each other. The reason for this is each nationality built their own. Poles felt uncomfortable going into a German church and Germans uncomfortable going in a Polish church. The Germans named their new Parish Saint Alphonsus, the poles St. Stanislaus, and the Irish usually St. Patrick. Despite this there was unity of the faith. Churches had dances with all the different nationalities accepted. My mom and dad met at one of those events. They were married in my mother Polish parish St. Tarcisis but I guess to split the difference they were married by an Irish priest. Fr. Leo Spring who I mentioned in another piece.
In my Polish Grandfather’s day around the late 1800s he was an altar boy at St. John Cantius here in Chicago, one of those polish neighborhood churches. Beautiful old church. Fr. Phillips a resurrectionist was pastor there in the 1980s and began to restore the church to its former beauty despite the decay of the neighborhood. By the number of Mexican flags around there you would swear you were in Mexico city. He then got permission to read the Tridentine mass. This drew People from Wisconsin and Indiana as well. What did they say in the movie field of dreams? “Build it and they will come” and that they did. It was a thrill for me to think my grandfather walked in that very same sanctuary serving the same mass they read today. Fr. Phillips then got permission from JP2 to start a religious order he called the Society of St. John Cantius and now have a number of parishes they serve.
They came up with a schedule which at one time I though should be the template for all parishes. They had a Tridentine mass, a mass of Paul VI in Latin. I guess that is what they call “reverent Novus Ordo”, and a Novus Ordo in English. I say at one time I thought this the perfect template. Not any more.
The more I read about the Tridentine mass the more I found that there is a lot more too it than just Latin. Latin is an important part, with it we are unified as the one holy Catholic church, anywhere you go same mass every time, and being a dead language the mass today means the very same as it did 1000 years ago. Prayers still carry the same punch, as it were. That is only one part. It is the unbloody sacrifice of Christ on Calvary. The new mass is just a commemoration of the last supper. This was all planned by Bugnini and the new liturgical movement back in the 1940s. It was about making the church secular with the people the center of attention. Any notion of transubstantiation, the divine presence had to be eliminated. It was all about the assembly and it was based on Matthew, “For where two or three gather in my name, there am I with them.”. This new created prayer service was based on the community and not the sacrifice of the son of God. I know I sound like a broken record but Fr. Cekada’s book work of human hands is a must read for any one devoted to the Tridentine mass.
The church structure had to be changed to reflect the goals of the new mass. Now Christ “spirit” was in the congregation. He was no longer present in the divine presence of the consecrated host. Actually the tabernacle was removed to drive home that point. It wound up somewhere near the janitors closet. Statues were removed making it look more like the inside of an empty refrigerator. This had a purpose, its hard to concentrate on the “assembly” with all those annoying statues of saints around so deep six them. Again read Cekada’s book, its eye opening!
The Novus Ordo vernacular, and in fact even the 62 missal created by Vatican II are errors to be avoided even at St. John Cantius. Beautiful yes, but a mass? No. You can put lipstick on a pig but it remains a pig. Do not settle for the bones the Vatican is tossing you with their compromises masses trying to suck you in on their programs. Take the real mass full strength. Accept no substitutes. One size does not fit all.