What's with this bowing business?

                              Only to be found in a salvage yard, not in a church

I rarely (if ever) attend a Mass in the Ordinary Form so, on the odd occasion when I arrive at a church to attend Sunday Mass and find an OF in progress, I observe with increasing amazement.

It was after the 'excommunications' back in 1988 that my wife and I took the decision to withdraw from what was then the Novus Ordo.

It, or rather the circus acts that accompanied it, was disaffecting our children and I could not answer their questions as to why the priest insisted on sitting down throughout the Mass with half a dozen small children sitting on his lap, yes, really.
Or why we no longer knelt to receive Holy Communion from a priest but queued to receive standing from a lay person.

Or why my wife and I constantly had to re-brief the children on what the priest meant in his sermon when he said that all Catholics should, as a matter of conscience, vote Labour or when he continually referred to the teachings of Gandhi.

And now, I find that what I witness at an OF Mass really bears little resemblance, in any shape or form, to the OF and EF Masses we attended pre 1986.

Above all else there is the total lack of reverence. You could be sitting in a pub if you closed your eyes and listened to the clamour around you.

With the destruction of the communion rails came a total disregard for the Body and Blood of Christ truly present on the sanctuary; the barrier that provided a dividing line between the profane and the sacred was gone and with it vanished all the inhibitions of reverence.

It seems to me that all sorts of odd bodies wander on and off the sanctuary before Mass as if it's a sort of circus arena that requires the tables and chairs laid out in readiness for the clowns to appear.

Above all else, what I notice more than anything, is the disappearance of the genuflection.

No one, priest, nun or layman, bends their knee any longer when they cross in front of the tabernacle.

Why?

I know why.

 It is because they no longer believe that the Son of God is present in the form of bread in the tabernacle.

Holy Communion has become an unholy reunion when they adopt the Protestant theology of it being an occasion of remembrance rather than of commemoration. How sad.


And when they do cross the aisle or sanctuary, they bow, and it's an awful sort of an apology of a bow, a bob of the head, a nod and a wink. 

Give them a few more years and the bow will have disappeared also and all and sundry will stroll around, hands in pockets, gum in mouth.

                      The Japanese know how to bow, maybe a few lessons are needed

A small gift for Archbishop Conti

This is Archbishop Mario Conti of Glasgow where any priest with a desire to conform with the traditional liturgical practices as practiced by the Holy Father is apt to be met with a Glaswegian kiss (aka a headbut). Hence, any traditional priest brave enough to comment on goings on in this diocese, does so anonymously.

Now Archbishop Conti is 77, which places him two years past his sell-by date. Let us pray fervently that the Holy See will appoint a suitably devout and orthodox man in his place - Glasgow deserves a break!

In the meantime, Archbishop Conti continues to contradict the ethos established by Pope Benedict. His Grace has now advised his priests that Holy Communion should be given into the hand of the standing faithful. We all know that to be wrong - the ruling is clear, those who wish to receive kneeling and by mouth are free to do so.

So, as a farewell gift to Archbishop Conti, here is a Cardinal, the great Cardinal Raymond Burke speaking on the subject.

Further details from...

http://www.catholicculture.org/news/headlines/index.cfm?storyid=11575

Catholics of England and Wales rise up and kneel down!

That is an exhortation, not a contradiction in terms, and one that calls for careful consideration. I am saying that now is the time for English and Welsh Catholics (and others who may wish to join in) to disobey the Bishops - gulp! Yes, disobey them and kneel to receive Our Lord in Holy Communion.
Stop shilly shallying and just do it! Kneel. It is your right and the right thing to do.
Who will you offend by doing so? Your parish priest? Fellow parishioners? Tough!
Who will you offend by not doing so? - Almighty God.

It doesn't have to be a big thing, just go down on one knee (if you are able) and if you take some flak after Mass remember that Christ took some flak for us also and it was much worse than a nag from one's fellow man.

The Bishops of England and Wales are quite wrong to state that reception of Communion standing should be the norm - so do not stand for it, kneel!

The following piece was written by he who must be obeyed, the Holy Father (when he was Cardinal Ratzinger)

"It may well be that kneeling is alien to modern culture–insofar as it is a culture, for this culture has turned away from the faith and no longer knows the One before whom kneeling is the right, indeed the intrinsically necessary gesture. The man who learns to believe learns also to kneel, and a faith or a liturgy no longer familiar with kneeling would be sick at the core. Where it has been lost, kneeling must be rediscovered, so that, in our prayer, we remain in fellowship with the apostles and martyrs, in fellowship with the whole cosmos, indeed in union with Jesus Christ Himself. "

H/T to Roma Locuta Est and The Muniment Room