Comments for Heart and Soul at http://www.thecatholicthing.org , comment 1 to 9 out of 9 comments http://www.thecatholicthing.org Tue, 21 May 2013 15:42:12 +0100 FeedCreator 1.7.3 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/heart-and-soul.html#comment-6049 Dear Fr. Danny, Thank you for adding that dimension of work as service. "Service" is another many-faceted word that bears a lot of thinking about. I'm afraid my thinking at the time was much more mundane. I was thinking of work as that which keeps body and soul together; work is what provides sustenance to the body and strengthens it, whether in the sense of providing income or providing exercise for muscles--as in shoveling snow. In the Body of Christ, that work is the Eucharist. It is the "work" that Christ gave His Body to do to maintain life, vitality, strength, and to keep the arteries of grace open. "Work" precedes mission and it should never be confused with it. Thank you again, Father. I find all your posts very helpful. - Louise Tue, 15 Feb 2011 05:20:08 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/heart-and-soul.html#comment-6048 Dear Fr. Danny, Thank you for adding that dimension of work as service. "Service" is another many-faceted word that bears a lot of thinking about. I'm afraid my thinking at the time was much more mundane. I was thinking of work as that which keeps body and soul together; work is what provides sustenance to the body and strengthens it, whether in the sense of providing income or providing exercise for muscles--as in shoveling snow. In the Body of Christ, that work is the Eucharist. It is the "work" that Christ gave His Body to do to maintain life, vitality, strength, and to keep the arteries of grace open. "Work" precedes mission and it should never be confused with it. Thank you again, Father. I find all your posts very helpful. - Louise Tue, 15 Feb 2011 04:58:38 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/heart-and-soul.html#comment-6047 If I recall my ordination correctly, the word "service" is used primarily to refer to the offering of the Sacrifice, so I think Louise that you are quite accurate in your distinction between "work" and "mission" if we understand "work" as "service". Without that Divine Service of the Holy Sacrifice no of our other efforts make any sense as specifically Christian. God Bless and Peace. - fatherdannychamps Mon, 14 Feb 2011 23:48:30 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/heart-and-soul.html#comment-6044 Brad, thanks for continuing to build my enthusiasm for the coming "transition!" I look forward to the change as a shock to the system -- mine for sure, and others' too. I hope that it will provide our priests an opportunity to help "acquaint the fishes with the water in which they have swum for so long" as your introductory paragraph so well describes. I'm already off to Amazon to pick up Cardinal Wuerl and Mr. Aquilina's book. - Nick Palmer Mon, 14 Feb 2011 09:24:42 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/heart-and-soul.html#comment-6043 In one sentence, my heart soared when I read " . . . 'The Mass: The Glory, the Mystery, the Tradition' " only to be thrust to the depths of despair when the title was followed by " by Cardinal Donald Wuerl and Mike Aquilina." I knew that not a lot of good could come out of that. During the Lent that followed our return to the Church, my husband and I eagerly attended a video series given by the former Bishop of Pittsburgh. As eagerly as we listened, by the time we had got to the parking lot, neither of us could remember a word that was said or that had made any impression on us at all. What did impress us both was the background of the speaker--what are called "optics" in the latest TV commentator's jargon. The Bishop stood by a desk or table with a lamp on it and behind him was a wall of bookcases. There was no crucifix, no icon of Christ or His Mother, no holy painting, no statue of a saint or of our Lord, no stained glass--nothing to indicate, except the black suit, that this lecture had any connection to religion at all--let alone the holy season of Lent and the coming days of the Death and Resurrection of Jesus. The good Bishop said more about himself by his setting than he said about the Faith by his words. A year or so later, in preparation for Confirmation (in our first conversion to the Faith, in those heady days of evangelistic zeal in the early '70s, no one ever told us that we should be Confirmed), we endured another series by the good Bishop. I have one memory of those four lectures (same setting, by the way). I took issue with the good Bishop's choice of words. I was probably quibbling, but, words are important. He said, "The work or the Church is to teach the Gospel." I blurted out, "No. The WORK of the Church is to celebrate the Eucharist. It is the MISSION of the Church to teach. it's not the thing." What else he said in four weeks escapes me. But, we were confirmed anyway. “ 'We should do,' the authors write, 'what is culturally appropriate.' ” This seems as if it might be a misappropriation of the citation. I am not ever going to slap my neighbor on the back or raise my hand in the '60's peace sign, no matter what culture I am in. What a lost opportunity to explain why the sign of peace should be just as holy as the rest of the Mass and can be given with dignity and solemnity. Given the authorship, why am I not surprised? The only example of the new translation that I ever find references to is "And with your spirit." If that is the greatest objection that the modernists have to the new translation, they should stop complaining and enjoy their victory. I will try very hard to hold my disappointment in abeyance and wait for the great event, but I am deeply worried that, once again, we will hear only the squeaky bleep of an old rusty trumpet, and not the clarion call to Faith that we have been waiting for, that our ears are aching to hear. But, in the meantime, will someone please inform our dear leaders that our congregations are full of intelligent, informed people, who can actually read actual books, even when they have 450 pages, and who can actually understand words of more than two syllables. Mr. Miner, having told us all the important information that the authors left out, are you sure that "definitive" is the right word? - Louise Mon, 14 Feb 2011 08:35:28 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/heart-and-soul.html#comment-6042 Mr. Miner, You wrote: "If offered, I’d gladly attend workshops to learn plainchant." That comment leads me to suspect that you are unaware of the one week chant intensives that are held several times annually, at a number of locations around the country. Granted, these are to learn Gregorian chant, rather than plainchant, but they routinely organized to include training of individuals ranging from rank beginners to the very experienced. Should you, or anyone else be interested in attending one, information is available at the blog Chant Café and other sites. Pax et bonum, Keith Töpfer - Martial Artist Mon, 14 Feb 2011 07:11:46 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/heart-and-soul.html#comment-6041 fatherdannychamps is correct.The Roman Rite, with some minor modifications, does go back to ancient times as did the Athanasian Rite. I cited 1570 as that was the time of the Counter Reformation when the Roman Catechism was produced. The Church wanted to homogenize both Its liturgy and Its catechesis so there would be no confusion as to what was truly Catholic and what was heretical. A recent example of this is the Catechism of the Catholic Church in 1994 when the Church again tried to determine and teach what was in fact True.The fact that we have had three(?) Missals since Vatican II signals why Benedict and the sound bishops are taking steps to correct decades of liturgical abuse. - Bill Mon, 14 Feb 2011 05:17:01 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/heart-and-soul.html#comment-6039 Mr. Miner: If you were invited to a Seder and you suspected that the central figure at the seder who was Divine would be tortured and executed by your co-religionists by the very next evening, would you enjoy the seder? In the Traditional Mass which priests say today, and have said since 1570, is the Supper in which Christ instituted the Eucharist along with another unbloody Sacrifice of the unblemished Lamb(Christ)by the (Other Christ) the sacerdotal priest who alone can accomplish this. It is the idea of "a community meal" in lieu of the above described Sacrifice introduced at Vatican II which has made the New Mass (Novus Ordo), and all that pertains to it. suspect. As many of the prayers and responses are taken from the Traditional Mass, the new Missal is not being received well as it exposes why the New Mass was introduced in the first place. It attempted to establish a new religion which Benedict and sound bishops are now trying to back away from. - Bill Mon, 14 Feb 2011 00:22:13 +0100 http://www.thecatholicthing.org/columns/2011/heart-and-soul.html#comment-6036 Thanks for the article- I hope to read it soon. Just a note about the standardization of the Liturgy- it seems that while 1570 was the Tridentine standardization, the actual form and structure of the Mass was pretty consistent long before that- it would seem that some would say the Ancient/Tridentine Mass only dates to the 1500's, but that is simply not the case. Sure it was standardized and promulgated for the Roman Church in a particular way at that time, but I would venture to say that most of the prayers, readings cycles, Liturgical calendar...goes way back. We mustn't fall into the trap of believing the Ancient Mass is only from Medieval Times- that is a tactic employed by those who believe history began in 1970. Maybe a "Liturgist" (which I am not) can help clarify this important point. Thanks and I do look forward to reading the book. peace. - fatherdannychamps Sun, 13 Feb 2011 22:30:05 +0100