We
have never posted photographs of our little Church before, so I thought I’d
upload these which show how we have decorated this same little Church for this
holy season. We are a former mining village in quite a rural setting, outside
the Cities of our Diocese. In fact, our former parish priest described this
area as the ‘back-end of beyond’! Still, we like the place and we are very proud
of our little Church which was built in 1900. As you can see, we celebrate all
our Masses towards the altar. Father did this unexpectedly in his first Easter
with us nine years ago, and asked for responses via the Bulletin: approve/disapprove/no
preference. There was an almost 50/50 split between approve and disapprove, so
Father took the opportunity to change all Masses to ad orientem, spurred on by comments that “it felt more holy” and “I
felt as though we are all walking to God together”. I hope you like the
pictures –and sorry about the quality. The camera we used is rather inexpensive and not too brilliant! I might be able to persuade Father to let us take a better photogrpah during the Mass
of the Epiphany...
PS
The final picture is a Solemn High Mass two years ago. The celebrant is Father
Dickson with Father Philips as Deacon and Father Brown as Subdeacon.
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Beautiful and Holy God Bless you
ReplyDeleteThank you for the comment -and especially the prayer for my blessing!
DeleteGod bless you and yours in 2014 and beyond.
Thanks for the photos. it shows what can be done in a small parish when the priest is committed to doing more than the least possible to bring the signs of the sacred to Holy Mass. the disinterest, even hostility towards anything but pot-luck-liturgy is all too prevelant, and held as some sort of virtue. it's all upside down.
ReplyDeleteThank you, viterbo.
Deleteyes, we have a small parish but we love our Church and some of us are particularly devoted to showing love for the liturgy. Sadly, it seems that the Church world-wide has a prevalence for informal liturgy, as though worshipping God with reverence and beauty diminishes His intimacy with us our our dignity...I feel a post coming on sometime soon!
God bless you and yours in 2014 and beyond.
When you say there was a 50/50 split including some favourable comments... what you really mean is that you imposed ad orientum upon the parish with minimal consultation or regard for local custom. Clericalism at it's worst!
ReplyDeleteThanks for commenting Mattias.
DeleteFirst if all, I imposed nothing, and neither did Father Dickson. The consultation slip on orientation for the Mass (not a determining vote but the seeking of opinion) was part of the weekly bulletin, and a vast majority of the parish replied (we still have the responses in the parish archives). Father has used this method of consultation several times because it tends to bring in a high number of responses, allowing for everyone to respond without having to speak at a public meeting which some find intimidating.
Ad orientem cannot have been 'imposed' as you suggest, since a third of respondents preferred it, and a further third had no preference. Only a third wanted to keep versus populum.
As for local custom, you seem to suggest that this should hold sway. I only wish it did, for we have a two-thousand year universal culture of versus apsidem which should have excluded versus populum from the start. There is, mind you, a five-hundred year custom of facing the people -it is found and favoured in Protestantism...
God bless.
'as though worshipping God with reverence and beauty diminishes His intimacy with us our our dignity' which only makes sense to the world. God Bless. and for your comment, 'tie', on the force of 'local custom' - the choices that came out of nowhere after the misinterpretation or whatever of VII - facing God or the people, standing in the hand, or kneeling, sacred language or vulgar tongue - which vulgar tongue? Habits or no habits? Be ambassadors for salvation in the ungodly world or mingle in? Where should the tabernacle be?! Bulldoze the altar and toss the relics and have a table that can be moved aside for liturgical dance...or not. So many choices. to incense or not to incense, to bless with water or not to bless with water. By and large the cheap, easy, God-won't-care, choice won out. But we are the wons who have lost.
ReplyDeleteNonsense and even more so after your reply. So it wasn't a 50/50 split, it was only a 3rd who wanted the change to ad orientum. You don't get to recast the ambivalent votes in your favour so you should have held the status quo. Somebody obviously did make the choice to impose it on your parish, it didn't happen on it's own - and it sounds like Fr Dickson. I'd be interested to know truthful the drop in your attendance figures since the change.
ReplyDeleteMattias,
DeleteThanks again for commenting.
There are three points here. First, a third liked the change to ad orientem; a third disapproved, and a third was neither one way nor the other. While we don’t get to cast the ambivalent votes with the ‘approves’, you don’t get to cast them with the ‘disapproves’ either. This means there was indeed a 50/50 split in those who expressed a preference.
Second, Father cannot have imposed something o the parish that is directed by the Missal (the rubrics direct the priest to face the altar from the offertory onwards). facing the people is an option even though it is most popularly used.
Third, attendance figures in the nine years we have been celebrating ad orientem have remained constant, despite the higher rate of deaths than baptisms. Indeed, there has been a slight growth in numbers and a higher number of conversions in these nine years than in the previous nine.
I think it is worth noting that just as some positively dislike the priest facing the same direction as the people (toward the altar), some positively dislike having the priest face the people as though they were his audience and not a praying congregation. Whichever orientation one chooses, someone has something imposed upon them.
God Bless