During this Holy Season Season of Lent, let us cease praising ourselves, and begin to humbly serve the Lord our God. Let us remember what we have become through what we have lost --- in so many ways "Jersulaem desolata est": Jerusalem has become desolate --- a wasteland of our narcissism, for we have made the City of God the City of Man, worshipping no longer the One True God in Whose image we are made, but the mere image itself for which we now clamor, calling it our god --- and we are that image and now we have made ourselves that god.

Let us be called called away from ourselves ... to Almighty God; from our own delicate frivolities to the hard work of sanctification and salvation. Let us rebuild Jerusalem, for  Her walls were pulled down from within, and it has collapsed upon the children She once nourished ... and in the ruins over which we rejoice we still hear the plaintive cries of her children beneath the detritus: "Jersulaem desolata est!"

The Church We Never Knew, had:
 

• Mortal Sin

• Venial Sin

• Saturday Confession for 2 hours, not 1/2 hour or, increasingly, "by appointment".

• No "altar servers" (now largely girls)

• Altar Rails

• Women wearing mantillas (white or black lace coverings for their heads), or some form of head covering, and were modestly dressed. No bare shoulders, plunging neck-lines, jeans, sports suits, or skirts above the knees.

• All Readings were read by the priest

• All Communions were given by a priest

• The Altar was an Altar of Sacrifice and not a "Table"

• The Mass understood, above all else, as a Sacrifice, not a communal (and often "fast-food") feast

• The Liturgy was in Latin even while the readings were in English

• No Church or parish was ever called a "Faith Community" — it was called a "Church"

• No such oddities called, "Prayer Spaces"

• No disposable monthly Missalettes

• The "Saint Joseph Daily Missal" for Mass, it was leather-bound, and everyone had one

• The Organ as the only musical instrument. The piano was unheard of outside the school band or the next town's "lounge".

• Rogation Days

• Ember Days

• No guitars, drums, cymbals, flutes, or tambourines — and consequently no entertainers to applaud at the end of Mass.

• The organ and the choir unobtrusively in a loft at the back of the Church

• Baptism as the washing away of Original Sin and a minor exorcism, a Baptism into the death of Christ, and an emergence into utter innocence from sin

• Priests who wore Roman cassocks

• Sisters who wore full habits and always lived in community  — not their own apartments

• Nuns wore full habits

• You never saw your priest dressed in casual clothing

• No one but a priest or deacon-soon-to-be-priest ever approached or touched the Tabernacle

• Absolutely no talking in the pews — only a sacred silence

• The Tabernacle at the center of the Altar

• The Altar oriented to worshipping God, not the "celebrating" the people

• Convents

• A Pastor who exercised complete authority and led the flock entrusted to him; not a contentious parish council of largely liberal laywomen and (some) laymen

• Intelligibility throughout the world: you understood every part of the Mass, even if you did not understand Latin

• Absolution in Confession with an unalterable — rather than an ad-libbed —  and deeply spiritual format*

• No "Ministries" and "Ministers". Protestants had ministers. Catholics had priests

• Kneeling for Holy Communion

• An utter reverence for the Sacred Body of Christ: it was unthinkable to take the Sacred Host in ones hand

• Was never used for non-liturgical "functions"

• Votive candles, and they were not "electronic light bulbs"

• Gregorian chant, Palestrina, and Jacopone de Todi — not Marty Haugan, Dan Schutte, David Haas, and Michael Joncas

• Confessionals with kneelers, partitions, and sliding panels — not "Reconciliation Rooms" with couches, tables and lamps suggestive of a therapist's office

• Only two types of Masses: a High Mass and a Low Mass

• No "Charismatic Masses"

• No "Children's Masses"

• No "Masses of Reconciliation"

• No "Folk Masses"

• No "Clown Masses"

• No "Halloween Masses" with children dressed as witches or devils

• No "Healing Masses" where people were "prayed over" and then predictably fell to the floor at their proper turn  — or into the arms of the "Ministry" of "Catchers"

• Sermons that had something to do with the Readings — and were not venues for comedy

• Priests who did not double as Stand-up Comedians. We had television for comedy.

• No "Charismatics". They had another name, "Revivalists", and they were always emotionally animated and mostly southern Protestants

• No one who "Spoke in Tongues" —  or "workshops" for learning to

• Catholics who sang

• Catholics who never sang hymns by Martin Luther or Calvin, and never said "Shalom"

• No "ecumenical" singing. Catholics did not sing Protestant songs —  just as Protestants still do not sing Catholic songs

• Proper reverence for the Episcopacy: a Catholic genuflected and kissed a bishop's ring —  and when he did the bishop never looked embarrassed

• Proper reverence for priests: You always called your priest by his last name with "Father" before it. There were no "Father Dicks"

• Bishops addressed as, "Your Excellency" and a Catholic never used his bishop's first name

• May Processions for Mary

• Not everyone — without exception — went to Holy Communion at every single Mass. Catholics used to sin.

• Laymen never "distributed" Communion

• Women never "distributed" Communion

• Laymen never "distributed" ashes on Ash Wednesday

• Women never "distributed"  ashes on Ash Wednesday

• Men never wore "jeans" to Church

• Women never wore "jeans" to Church

• People dressed carefully for Mass because it was a holy occasion. We spoke of it as our "Sunday Best".

• You never "touched" the person next to you — and in front of you, and behind you — with a "handshake", kiss or hug.

• No one frantically waved two fingers in the "V" Peace Sign from the Hippy culture of the 60's to everyone they could not touch or reach, or even see.

• Confessional lines were long and the benches were always full

• Sisters in habits taught our children their Catechism

• Devotions

• We always named our children after Saints

• The Jesus taught at Catechism was the Christ, not Mr. Rogers

• There were no "Presenters" (the current neologism for "Speakers") of this and that concerning things having nothing to do with being Catholic

• It was okay to be a man.  We were not "patriarchal oppressors" of the opposite sex.

• It was okay to be a womanly Catholic, and to affect no masculinity

• Catholic women did not wear "crew cuts" like men and you could tell men apart from women at a glance

• Our priests were not effeminate

• We did not equate holiness with femininity

• You never attended a Protestant service

• A Protestant Minister or Jewish Rabbi never "co-presided" in a Catholic Church at an "Ecumenical Religious Service"

• Catholics did not enter Protestant churches

• Catholics always bowed their head at the name of "Jesus"

• There was one "Act of Contrition" and everyone knew it by heart

• Everyone genuflected when passing before the Tabernacle.

• There were no "Banners", just statues of Mary and the Saints

• Only Protestants ended the Lord's Prayer with the gloss, "For the Kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now and forever."

• The priest never left the sanctuary during Mass to give his homily in the aisle

• We never had "skits" at Mass

• Priests never made up the words for the Mass to suit or emphasize an ideology

• During the Elevation of the Eucharist (when the priest lifts up and presents the Sacred Body and Precious Blood) Jesus Christ was offered up to the Father — and not to the congregation--- just as He offered His Body and Blood to His Father on the Cross. The priest did not pivot as on a spindle so that everyone could get "a good look at" the Host and Chalice. Christ's offering was, and remains, to the Father for us, not to the Father through us

• "Man" was understood as also and equally pertaining to women. No one thought otherwise. When Christ said "Man does not live by bread alone", no one in the congregation ever thought that women did. When St. Paul addressed his "brothers" in a reading, women in the congregation did not think that what he taught was for men only

• "Brothers and sisters", was not added as a preface to every reading, emphasizing an already factitious ideological division rooted in secular and militant feminism.

• Inclusive language, gender-sensitive language, and neutered language, did not confuse people and mutilate readings

• Holy Communion was not delayed to accommodate a rush of women to the Sanctuary to become "Ministers of Communion" (not, correctly, "Extraordinary Ministers", for this would diminish their coveted quasi-priestly status.)

• The present ratio of 1 priest to every 6 (Extraordinary) "Eucharistic Ministers" was 0

• The priest never sat down to allow the (Extraordinary) "Eucharistic Ministers" to distribute Holy Communion while he benignly looked on from the comfort of his chair, in the very benevolent and very mistaken notion that he was free to share the faculties of his priesthood with whomever he chose.

_______________________

* "Passio Domini nostri Jesu Christi, merita Beatae Mariae Virginis et omnium Sanctorum, quidquid boni feceris vel mail sustinueris sint tibi in remissionem peccatorum, augmentum gratiae et praemium vitae aeternae."

"May the Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ, the merits of the Blessed Virgin Mary and of all the Saints obtain for you that whatever good you do or whatever evil you bear might merit for you the remission of your sins, the increase of grace and the reward of everlasting life."

"Dominus noster Jesus Christus te absolvat; et ego auctoritate ipsius te absolvo ab omni vinculo excommunicationis (suspensionis) et interdicti in quantum possum et tu indiges. Deinde, ego te absolvo a peccatis tuis in nomine Patris, et Filii, + et Spiritus Sancti. Amen."

"May our Lord Jesus Christ absolve you; and by His authority I absolve you from every bond of excommunication (suspension) and interdict, so far as my power allows and your needs require. [making the Sign of the Cross:] Thereupon, I absolve you from your sins in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen."

to be continued ...

             Totally Faithful to the Holy See in Rome

 "Scio opera tua ... quia modicum habes virtutem, et servasti verbum Meum, nec non negasti Nomen Meum"  
"I know your works ... that you have but little power, and yet you have kept My word, and have not denied My Name." (Apocalypse 3.8)