Do we need something more than the Latin Mass? TLM churches empty

[Miriam_M]

Getting back to the topic at hand,

I agree with Archer (and I think a few others here) that the Mass -- and traditional devotion and spiritual practice itself -- has an integrity that is the heart of Tradition.  No need -- and no benefit -- in getting sidetracked into "forcing" a wider community by trying to appeal to factors other than that integrity.  That's N.O. land. ("Get social, then the community will grow.")

I maintain, though, that projections and so-called predictions are not helpful in terms of strengthening the return to Tradition.  I seriously doubt that the first Christians looked around themselves and said, "Wait, We have 11 core members here and many disciples but one heck of a lot of unconverted men, women, and children, many of whom are the resistant Judaizers and many more of whom are pagans. Let's look at our "projections."   

The confidence of the first Christians was not in themselves and their power, but in God's.  They recognized that their first roles were their personal fidelity and community worship.  They evangelized "in place" by "proclaiming Christ, and Him crucified."  Paul and some others had the mettle and freedom from family responsibility to travel widely.  They proclaimed and evangelized in the present tense, not the future tense, not calculating what "their numbers" would be or could be.  That's what true believers do:  concentrate on the message, not the demographics.  Maybe the latter is helpful for some people here who like to intellectualize about Tradition, and maybe I'm just reflecting personal experience, but it does not help my prayer life to glance at the back burner and wonder where Tradition will be in X number of years.  That's God's role, it seems to me.

[Miriam_M]

"Silly moral claims?"  They believed in natural law and constructed an actual framework of ideals and had the foresight to create a viable framework of governance.  That's a hell of a lot more than anyone can say about the current cynics, utilitarians, and materialists running the government, appointing judges who have no understanding of the Common Good and who regularly decide that the individual is a god.

These men also possessed something that has become increasingly rare -- and now virtually nonexistent in the 21st century in any country, not to mention the Vatican:  real leadership.

I would appreciate it if you didn't trash my country and its origins.  It has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.  I find it offensive.

But he's right.  This nation was founded on the ideals of the Enlightenment.  Sure, they did some good things, and a group of men that believed in natural law is great, but you can't take a good thing like that and disregard the things they screwed up majorly on.

......[snip].
[/quote]

Oh, please stop.  Again:  I find it both offensive and OFF-TOPIC. The topic is not, Were the Founders Saints?  They weren't even self-declared Christians, for heaven's sake.  Just stop.

'CHRISTENDOM" in capital letters is not going to be "restored" any time soon, short of shocking, cataclysmic divine intervention.  Catholics are not specifically called, as lay people, to "restore Christendom," except in our hearts, our personal lives, our families.  Please open a new thread, all those who now want to scapegoat the Founders for the evil fruits of Vatican 2.  There is no intellectual or historical logic to this derailment.

[The Harlequin King]

This is a "just saying", but most of the founding fathers of the United States were far more oligarchic than people today typically imagine them; Charles Carroll, the Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, was especially vocal about rule by the elite. Same with Alexander Hamilton.

And yet it wasn't enough.  Their system fell to the dogs just a couple decades later.

Sure. Carroll himself thought the republic was dead by his last years. But such is the way of all governments. Even Charlemagne's kingdom split three ways almost immediately after his death.

[KingTheoden]

This is a "just saying", but most of the founding fathers of the United States were far more oligarchic than people today typically imagine them; Charles Carroll, the Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, was especially vocal about rule by the elite. Same with Alexander Hamilton.

This is a great point, HK.

Actually, the system that the American Founders envisioned was markedly different in a number of ways: wealth threshold for enfranchisement, enormous latitude to constituent states (as long as they were republican governments), etc.

There was a pronounced split: Hamilton (and Washington to a lesser degree) oppose the more radical Jeffersonian model.

We have neither exactly, but clearly the US is based on the Enlightenment ideals of Locke and Rousseau. The fundamental underpinnings of the US, even as intended, are contrary to objective truth at various points.

Again, we have a sort of mega-corporate fake banking state backed by nukes and God only knows what else. So we have to deal with it. But if we want to comment on the objective realities, the US is not and never was some shining city on the hill.

[1seeker]

Getting back to the topic at hand,

Yeah thank you.

The confidence of the first Christians was not in themselves and their power, but in God's.  They recognized that their first roles were their personal fidelity and community worship....They proclaimed and evangelized in the present tense, not the future tense, not calculating what "their numbers" would be or could be.

To me this seems the most important point, out of everything. How did we get to a point where highly meticulous TLM steps-and-turns are seen to have supernatural significance, and it is optional to ever preach on the street, engage unbelievers, run community events, and turn the parish church the heart and soul of the community?

I mean I watch the FSSP TLM training videos, I see the intensity on their faces about every step and bow... I begin to fall under their spell of thinking that merely doing the steps and turns perfectly will save the world. And then the reality shines through. You are so correct that the Apostles were concerned with preaching and condemning a sinful world. A radical turn inward, into the safe, precise comfort of the chancel, where all steps were predefined and nothing could go wrong, is a product of a very different, very civilized, era of Trent.

[Bl. Karl Hapsburg]

God wants more saints in heaven not more people filling up space in the pews. If the church isn't producing saints than it serves no purpose.

[zork]

But yet the Son of man, when he cometh, shall he find, think you, faith on earth? Luke 18:8

The possibility of an entirely faithless society before the 2nd coming has been postulated for us.

That passage haunts me all the time.

[Archer]

To me this seems the most important point, out of everything. How did we get to a point where highly meticulous TLM steps-and-turns are seen to have supernatural significance, and it is optional to ever preach on the street, engage unbelievers, run community events, and turn the parish church the heart and soul of the community?

I mean I watch the FSSP TLM training videos, I see the intensity on their faces about every step and bow... I begin to fall under their spell of thinking that merely doing the steps and turns perfectly will save the world. And then the reality shines through. You are so correct that the Apostles were concerned with preaching and condemning a sinful world. A radical turn inward, into the safe, precise comfort of the chancel, where all steps were predefined and nothing could go wrong, is a product of a very different, very civilized, era of Trent.

Because the "steps and bows" are important.  Almost every action of the Priest during Mass has specific and powerful meaning. 

I'm not sure what you want.  Do you want TLM-goers out on the street evangelizing and spreading the word about Tradition? Are you saying Priests are too detail focussed and should be more worried about evangelizing? The Apostles vocation was to spread the Gospel.  Not every lay person is called to that.  In fact, most lay people would be neglecting their state in life if they were to engage in missionary work.  A Father's vocation is to provide for his family spritually and physically.  He does this by going to work and doing battle with a sinful world, living his Faith and following the precepts of the Church, and loving his wife and children and making sure they are educated in the Faith.  If he does all this in the state of grace he is fulfilling his state in life.  Yes, his very ordinary, mundane, actions will produce good fruit and are pleasing to God.  We're not called to save the world.  We're called to save our souls and the souls of those we're responsible for.

[1seeker]

Because the "steps and bows" are important.  Almost every action of the Priest during Mass has specific and powerful meaning.

I know, they're important. I guess what I'm trying to say is, we treat them as being *all* important. You know what I mean? This lack of a need for evangelization seems to stem from a belief, that the "steps and bows" will make God, through his own grace, to grow the Church. In other words we seem to say, that as long as we make sure the "steps and bows" are done right, then God will then cause the Church to zoom in numbers.

I'm not sure what you want.  Do you want TLM-goers out on the street evangelizing and spreading the word about Tradition? Are you saying Priests are too detail focussed and should be more worried about evangelizing? The Apostles vocation was to spread the Gospel.  Not every lay person is called to that.  In fact, most lay people would be neglecting their state in life if they were to engage in missionary work.  A Father's vocation is to provide for his family spritually and physically.  He does this by going to work and doing battle with a sinful world, living his Faith and following the precepts of the Church, and loving his wife and children and making sure they are educated in the Faith.  If he does all this in the state of grace he is fulfilling his state in life.  Yes, his very ordinary, mundane, actions will produce good fruit and are pleasing to God.  We're not called to save the world.  We're called to save our souls and the souls of those we're responsible for.

So in your analysis, everyone is ok in not doing it. The regular people don't all have vocation, the priests are supposed to focus on the TLM, the fathers and parents are mainly called to provide for their particular families... So everyone has a good excuse not to do it, to grow the church.

But somebody has to do that, don't you think? The reason we are here today is some men in the past did precisely this work, which we are too busy for today. In the TLM paradigm of today, as long as we provide for ourselves, we are all set. I think that if everyone in Christendom thought so for thousands of years, we just wouldn't be here today.

[Gardener]

I dunno about 1seeker's experience, but in my experience there are a ton of TLM going Catholics who do evangelization work.

The Legion of Mary is active in my parish, and a good friend of mine is always talking to people on the street, bus, light-rail, etc. Frankly, I sometimes worry for his safety, given the caliber of people he approaches.  I can't keep him stocked with Rosaries fast enough, he gives away so many (including one I made for him, not intending it depart his possession!  ). He gets into apologetical arguments with die-hard prots, too. (the one I was there for was interesting... I ended up being the voice of reason between the two, despite my typical mode being irascibility, and his the picture of calm; even more interesting, I was able to basically shut the prot up with Bible only, and drawing out arguments from there -- dude did not like that).

The priests at my parish are consistently the only priests available locally for sick calls, last rites, etc. One of the new ones (we have 3 now), seems to have the skills to reach out to the local Hispanic community, being fluent in Spanish. He even celebrated a 5AM Mass, with sermon in Spanish, for the Feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe -- 50 people came, and not many were regular parishioners.  Another is constantly out in the community doing things like giving interviews, going to nursing homes, and other things like celebrating Mass in front of Planned Parenthood.

Could more be done? Sure. The question is resource availability.

[KingTheoden]

I think what 1seeker is driving at is that there have been some who has postulated (or at least implied) that the Tridentine Rite, offered well, will only multiply the numbers of faithful.  For me, this is certainly what I thought perhaps 5-6 years ago: Offer the traditional rites and young people will be shocked into returning to the Church.

Clearly, this is not the case and I think those with a better grounding in the Faith have understood this.  While the old ways are important and I would say critical to a restoration, the Tridentine Rite in a vacuum is not going to spontaneously cause Christendom to reconstitute.

I strongly believe that this only changes in any significant way when the hierarchy charts a new course (actually preaching the bare bones of the Faith clearly.)  But God will only give us such a Pope and loyal clerics when He finds a population that would do well with those graces.

And that is the part we don't like: Sure, a bad clergy is a punishment, but then that means something real about us.  It is for God to grant and withhold His grace.  To a significant degree, this involves His knowledge of just what we would do with such advantages. 

Consider again this Charlie Hebdo situation.  Churchmen are tripping over themselves to pinch their incense to the god of the Enlightenment.  But so are even some 'traditional' Catholics.  If even non-negligible TLM only people are partaking in this worship of the 'right' to produce amongst the most vile blasphemy in circulation, then we have to accept the fact that culturally speaking the Church is catatonic. 

I agree with Archer that for most of us our state requires a number of things.  The enemy does not generally frontally persecute the Church anymore because that isn't effective.  Rather, following the lead of Julian the Apostate, the enemy either entices through economic advantage or attempts to promote decay through economic and civic blockade.  So, many of us are forced to accept quiet slow-motion 'small wave' suffering, all with the lesson to detach from worldly concerns ultimately.

But for the moment, we retain many temporal responsibilities that, should we shirk from them, would earn no merit whatsoever.  And that is the difficult balancing act for each of us.  To the degree that we find ourselves in the world, well, then we must respond.

This is why I have suggested that in our TLM redoubts, we need to manage expectations.  If the resources are present for elaborate liturgies, etc., then they should be embraced.  But in some cases I think that a closed circle develops and people lose sight of responsibilities (or are pressured to blow off their duties) in order to make the elaborate happen. 

Further, while most of us will not be in a position for any serious evangelism, nonetheless we must retain a missionary mindset.  A closed circle doesn't foster this and in practice I have seen people balk at including non-Catholics (even non-TLM only people) in social events (events completely apart from the parish.)  No, we are supposed to always be ready to receive and spread the Faith.  Even a casual comment to someone at the airport or on a line could be that one small contribution that God expects of us (again, if we're given such moments.)

[1seeker]

I think what 1seeker is driving at is that there have been some who has postulated (or at least implied) that the Tridentine Rite, offered well, will only multiply the numbers of faithful.  For me, this is certainly what I thought perhaps 5-6 years ago: Offer the traditional rites and young people will be shocked into returning to the Church.

Clearly, this is not the case and I think those with a better grounding in the Faith have understood this.  While the old ways are important and I would say critical to a restoration, the Tridentine Rite in a vacuum is not going to spontaneously cause Christendom to reconstitute.

You have said it better than I.

This is why I have suggested that in our TLM redoubts, we need to manage expectations.  If the resources are present for elaborate liturgies, etc., then they should be embraced.  But in some cases I think that a closed circle develops and people lose sight of responsibilities (or are pressured to blow off their duties) in order to make the elaborate happen.

Yeah we put all we have into producing the elaborate. I've known conservative parishes, small in numbers, blow their whole budget on a beautiful organist and a hired choir; and in 6 months have neither the budget nor the choir.

Do we have Catholicism when "the elaborate" is absent? All our money, hopes and dreams go into that one Sunday TLM moment. Apart from it, on weekdays, as a community, do we even have a Catholicism? The Early Church triumphed over paganism by emphasizing daily brotherhood, intense catechesis, and communal love (even to the point of scandal among the Romans). They often didnt have money for "the elaborate," and was their faith gone? No from the histories it seems like they were fine, with or without the elaborate.

We have a high-expense Catholicism, and all the low-expense things -- prayer life, parish brotherhood, scripture studies, weekly catechesis of neighboring, communal marches for Life and on feast days -- all the easy, low-cost things -- seem to be often lacking (there are of course exceptions).

[The Harlequin King]

What's sad is that most professional-grade Catholic organists and singers I know are hired by Episcopal or other mainstream Protestant sects for their Sunday services. The Catholic Church has at large has totally abandoned them.

[LoneWolfRadTrad]

"Silly moral claims?"  They believed in natural law and constructed an actual framework of ideals and had the foresight to create a viable framework of governance.  That's a hell of a lot more than anyone can say about the current cynics, utilitarians, and materialists running the government, appointing judges who have no understanding of the Common Good and who regularly decide that the individual is a god.

These men also possessed something that has become increasingly rare -- and now virtually nonexistent in the 21st century in any country, not to mention the Vatican:  real leadership.

I would appreciate it if you didn't trash my country and its origins.  It has nothing to do with the topic of this thread.  I find it offensive.

But he's right.  This nation was founded on the ideals of the Enlightenment.  Sure, they did some good things, and a group of men that believed in natural law is great, but you can't take a good thing like that and disregard the things they screwed up majorly on.

......[snip].

Oh, please stop.  Again:  I find it both offensive and OFF-TOPIC. The topic is not, Were the Founders Saints?  They weren't even self-declared Christians, for heaven's sake.  Just stop.

'CHRISTENDOM" in capital letters is not going to be "restored" any time soon, short of shocking, cataclysmic divine intervention.  Catholics are not specifically called, as lay people, to "restore Christendom," except in our hearts, our personal lives, our families.  Please open a new thread, all those who now want to scapegoat the Founders for the evil fruits of Vatican 2.  There is no intellectual or historical logic to this derailment.
[/quote]

And yet we're not STRICTLY called to avoid the Novus Ordo and go exclusively Tridentine.  Yet you see the fruits each one bears.  So, in a way, by the fruits borne, yes, we are, not directly, but in a way, called to restore Christendom.

History is full of strange happenings.  To say it won't be restored anytime soon is to second guess God's will.  He has seen fit to grace lost causes in their 11th hour.  Endurance, strength of will, acceptance of His grace, patience, dedication, remaining "stubbornly Catholic" are all things that will pay off in the end.  Discouraging a Godly effort isn't something you should be doing.

I never said we shouldn't keep Christendom alive in our hearts, minds, prayers, families, Churches, etc. I'm not saying either one or the other.  No.  I'm saying both must be done.

The revolutions of the past did indeed infect the mindset of the council fathers.  I thought that was obvious.  America's own being among the revolutions. 

Just because you find something offensive doesn't mean someone's going to stop.  Maybe you should learn not to get offended.  We are called to be patriots and love our land and people.  We are not called to the sin of nationalism, where we have love for the erroneous ideology behind the formation of our government and it's past.

[LoneWolfRadTrad]

This is a "just saying", but most of the founding fathers of the United States were far more oligarchic than people today typically imagine them; Charles Carroll, the Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence, was especially vocal about rule by the elite. Same with Alexander Hamilton.

And yet it wasn't enough.  Their system fell to the dogs just a couple decades later.

Sure. Carroll himself thought the republic was dead by his last years. But such is the way of all governments. Even Charlemagne's kingdom split three ways almost immediately after his death.

But Charlemagne's lands still remained kingdoms.  They didn't devolve into Godless republics with every random self entitled inhabitant thinking they had a good idea for ruling the land.