Mass Should Be Reformed For The Modern Era

[polskieserce]

Ya it is.. the main difference that is striking is in the actual prayers themselves.. take a look at them if your interested and they are beautiful yet extremely representative (Since Mass is a re-presentation* of Christ's Sacrifice on Calvary) It's as if thought went into every single detail to gear the entire mind towards God and His Glorious Triumph over Sin and death.

 

IE actually re Presenting the Son on Calvary transcending time to offer on Calvary the Spotless Victim for the propitiation of our sins

 

Are the prayers themselves different or is it just the language that's different.  The biggest issue I see with the old school mass is that if someone was raised on hearing the mass in their daily language, they won't know what's going on in latin at all.  Or has a solution already been drafted for this problem?

[truthfinder]

Some prayers are the same, but the biggest differences for me, is that there is the prayers at the foot of the altar, there are several more (silent) prayers the priest does before communion, as was as the last gospel.  

[Credo in Deum]

Are the prayers themselves different or is it just the language that's different.  The biggest issue I see with the old school mass is that if someone was raised on hearing the mass in their daily language, they won't know what's going on in latin at all.  Or has a solution already been drafted for this problem?

 

Yes, there has been a solution.  The biggest one is called a Missal. 

[maximillion]

The Mass is a sacred space in which we Worship. It is not by any means the only way we can worship God, but it is the form par excellence of that worship.

 

Worship does not include forming a working party to resolve the social, cultural, financial or any other problems of the day.....personal or collective.

 

 

If people want to do that and they get together in order to do so, great. Let's hope they include a little worship time in that too.

[Benedictus]

With this thread, we are basically touching upon an even bigger topic, the decline of the church.  I brought up mass since that is the most common link that people have with the church.  I think the low mass attendance is a combination of things, as you pointed out.

 

1. Young people are not getting enough out of mass, most think it's boring and a waste of time

2. Culture changes have taken place over the past few decades

3. A lot of young people don't agree with some church positions, like no condoms, pre-m sex, or gay marriage

4. Marriage decline has taken place

5. Parents are no longer married/not practicing the religion

 

I do agree with you that there needs to be more of a social atmosphere at churches to really get young people interested in that type of stuff.  But it is clear that something has to change for the results to be different.

 

Yes, I agree with much of that. But your solution seems to be cosmetic. Changing externals is useless if people don't have the inner spirit of transformation to go with it. It's not spirit led in those instances. if these issues are to be taken seriously then there needs to be a mission based outreach to cultivate and raise up the ideals of the church. It's not about giving up to trends and cultural shifts. There's no evidence this works. I think, if anything, the opposite is true.

Now we could discuss why evangelical churches are working in countries that were traditionally Catholic. There is an issue about discipleship here. That would, I think, be getting the the crux of the issues. But many liberal Catholics, especially in countries where they are imploding, aren't interested in those sort of discussions. They have their own agenda and it's not driven towards growth and transformation, but rather secular and political platforms.

 

Are the prayers themselves different or is it just the language that's different.  The biggest issue I see with the old school mass is that if someone was raised on hearing the mass in their daily language, they won't know what's going on in latin at all.  Or has a solution already been drafted for this problem?

Missal translations do this. Muslims do collective prayers in Arabic across the whole world. They learn to read their scriptures in Arabic as children. They don't have a retention issue. Sometimes I think Catholics act like being lazy, or as easy as attitude, is some sort of virtue. 

[maximillion]

We all  - Catholics in the whole world, used Latin for the Liturgy ( not just Mass) all the time. This meant that we could cross continents and still be able to follow and know what was going on. Personally, I think it was a mistake to stop this universality just because Latin was falling out of usage as a studied language. Few of us ever studied Latin, yet we knew and understood the Mass and the other prayers. Just like current day Jews and Moslems, we learned.......

 

 

It would be quite possible to return to this situation, even easier now that we have the net for disseminating the prayer forms......kids could learn them in school or be taught (like I was) by their parents.

 

Currently, if I go abroad, I don't follow a thing if I attend Mass and have to trust to my knowledge of the form of the Mass, and I can't join in the prayers. If it was in Latin everywhere, it wouldn't matter where I was.

[Perigrina]

Are the prayers themselves different or is it just the language that's different.  The biggest issue I see with the old school mass is that if someone was raised on hearing the mass in their daily language, they won't know what's going on in latin at all.  Or has a solution already been drafted for this problem?

 

Some of the prayers are the same or have only slight changes.  Others are completely different.  

 

I agree that adjusting to Latin after being raised on Mass in the vernacular would be difficult for many people.

[polskieserce]

Some of the prayers are the same or have only slight changes.  Others are completely different.  

 

I agree that adjusting to Latin after being raised on Mass in the vernacular would be difficult for many people.

It's already difficult to get people to come to a mass that is in their own native language.  I honestly do not know what changing the language back to latin would do?  I think what the vernacular mass did was slow the decline, but it by no means reversed it since cultural and moral shifts probably play the biggest part in the decline.

[Credo in Deum]

It's already difficult to get people to come to a mass that is in their own native language.  I honestly do not know what changing the language back to latin would do?  I think what the vernacular mass did was slow the decline, but it by no means reversed it since cultural and moral shifts probably play the biggest part in the decline.

 

Latin worked just fine bringing people to the Church before V2.   If you go to a Tridentine Mass you will see it is still continuing to draw young people in just fine even in todays society.  Plus it draws in all different types of young people from different ethnic backgrounds since they're united under one language and do not need to attend different Masses because they each speak a different language. 

[Nihil Obstat]

It's already difficult to get people to come to a mass that is in their own native language.  I honestly do not know what changing the language back to latin would do?  I think what the vernacular mass did was slow the decline, but it by no means reversed it since cultural and moral shifts probably play the biggest part in the decline.

Going purely by the numbers, it seems prima facie that the implementation of the vernacular drastically increased the decline in Mass attendance. I mean, we are free to speculate that the numbers might have dropped off even more, but that is a somewhat more difficult case to make.

[polskieserce]

Going purely by the numbers, it seems prima facie that the implementation of the vernacular drastically increased the decline in Mass attendance. I mean, we are free to speculate that the numbers might have dropped off even more, but that is a somewhat more difficult case to make.

 

If it means anything, I heard (heard being the keyword) that the anglican church still uses the latin mass.  Nowadays, Britain is a very secular country.  That's probably one of the closest measures there is to back up my statement about how the vernacular mass slowed the decline.

[Perigrina]

If it means anything, I heard (heard being the keyword) that the anglican church still uses the latin mass.  Nowadays, Britain is a very secular country.  That's probably one of the closest measures there is to back up my statement about how the vernacular mass slowed the decline.

 

Anglicans do not use a Latin Mass.  Until recently their only prayer service was written in something called the Book of Common Prayer.  In recent decades, alternate prayer services have been available, the Alternate Service Book in 1980 and Common Worship in 2000.  All of these are in English, although the BCP uses archaic English similar to Shakespeare.  

[Nihil Obstat]

If it means anything, I heard (heard being the keyword) that the anglican church still uses the latin mass.  Nowadays, Britain is a very secular country.  That's probably one of the closest measures there is to back up my statement about how the vernacular mass slowed the decline.

Strictly speaking, that is not quite true. The Anglican service, which of course is invalid when celebrated by Anglicans, is aesthetically similar to the traditional Latin (Catholic) Mass. We also have to be careful to distinguish those Anglican uses which are celebrated by now-Catholic former Anglicans, and those services used by Anglicans who might or might not profess varying degrees of Catholicity.

Then there is the Sarum Rite, the Use of Salisbury, which is a use of the Roman Rite, and traditional in its own right, mostly abandoned during the reformation. Being from the Roman rite, it shares its fundamental characteristics. It also influenced the Anglican liturgies.

 

As I understand it, Anglicans generally base their liturgies on the Book of Common Prayer, and more recently also the Book of Common Worship, both of which which have been extensively revised by various people throughout the centuries. Cranmer is an important one. All kinds of others. I think the liturgies are hugely variant, owing to the fact that the Anglican communion is essentially made up of subgroups, many of which do not particularly get along. :P

[Benedictus]

If it means anything, I heard (heard being the keyword) that the anglican church still uses the latin mass.  Nowadays, Britain is a very secular country.  That's probably one of the closest measures there is to back up my statement about how the vernacular mass slowed the decline.

No, a very very small minority of Church of England churches use latin. Those that do definately wouldn't do the whole thing in latin. They'd merely adopt it for elements of the service.  A couple of hundred years ago it would have been illegal to use latin in an Anglican church service in England, along with Wales. It would have also been illegal to wear certain vestments, to deviate from the liturgy, to use more than the prescribed candles and to have certain statues. It's only in the last hundred and fifty years or so it's relaxed somewhat. This gave rise to trends such as the Oxford Movement, which held to some Catholic trends in worship and practices within Anglican churches. They did this amidst great protest and disagreement, mostly from evangelcials and centrists within the Anglican church. The church of England has been in decline since the late 1800's, it's simply speed up in recent decades. Interestingly its attendence decline has slowed down, mostly due to growth among evangelical congregations. About 10% of the population go to church in England, about half of that to the Anglican church, on a weekly basis. About 58% identified as Christian in the last census.

 

Anglicans do not use a Latin Mass.  Until recently their only prayer service was written in something called the Book of Common Prayer.  In recent decades, alternate prayer services have been available, the Alternate Service Book in 1980 and Common Worship in 2000.  All of these are in English, although the BCP uses archaic English similar to Shakespeare.  

Most use Common Worship, with modern language. A very very small number are BCP only. Some parishes offer a BCP service in addition to a main Common Worship service. But some don't bother with BCP, especially if they offer Evensong instead. Many evangelical leaning churches won't stick as striclty to any of the liturgical books. The churchmanship within the church is varied: liberal  (modern) catholic, traditional catholic, high church (somewhere between liberal and traditional), charismatic evangelical (like pentecostal worship), conservative evangelical (strict adherence to traditional evangelical views, and sometimes more rigid worship), open evangelical (more willing to be inclusive on social liberal positions, often open to new forms of worship).
The problems for the Church of England, and there are many, is that they have a middle class liberal clergy leadership. Many churches are dominated by liberal clergy, and they are in decline and closing. About 30 churches are closed each year in England alone. Increasingly the money and the numbers come from evangelical parishes -  their money is propping up churches that they don't agree with theologically. They are slowly getting fed up with that, especially as their numbers don't translate to seats on the governing bodies.
Although motions like the Women Bishops measure are likely to pass soon it was in the laity voting chamber that it failed last time. It passed easily in the clergy and bishops voting chambers. Liberals would often have you believe clerics oppose everything :hehe2:

[Nihil Obstat]

The most successful Anglican parishes are the ones who exclusively use traditional liturgies and convert to Catholicism. :|