My liberal church finally went over the edge.

Started by 2Towers, September 08, 2019, 06:18:48 PM

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TheReturnofLive

#60
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on September 11, 2019, 04:05:54 AM
Quote from: bigbadtrad on September 10, 2019, 06:02:04 PM
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on September 10, 2019, 12:40:33 PM
What you're saying is that anyone who questions your right to destroy the beautiful silence of the Mass must be old, bitter and nasty.

Holiness and charity in a nutshell.

Actually I'm making distinctions, something nasty/bitter people don't.

You used the Last Supper as an example - FAIL
You said children screaming is normal - FAIL
You said parents treat it as toddler practice - FAIL
You quote Trent as a straw man - FAIL
Now you say I'm against silence - FAIL

I was a monk as a young man. When I want silence I get silence. Our Lord tells us to go to desert for it, or we call it a retreat.

You're like that battle ax who lives in an apartment with parents who have kids upset with every noise when if you were really serious about "silence" they'd live next to a monastery.

It's Scooby-Doo all over again: "If it wasn't for those pesky kids I would have reached ecstasy." It's alright, I have your mask over here when you want it back.

Thank you for demonstrating yet again the charity and holiness of the Trad parent.

You literally went Keyboard Crusader about how Trad Cats are betraying the Faith by bringing their kids to Mass. THAT is uncharitable. It takes a high degree of being lost to extremely take the moral high ground on petty things, judging others from above for those who disagree, and then play the victim when it's revealed how you aren't high and mighty above everyone else.
"The task of the modern educator is not to cut down jungles but irrigate deserts." - C.S. Lewis

awkwardcustomer

Does bringing babies and toddlers to Mass enhance or destroy the beautiful silence of the Mass?

Perhaps you don't like silence.  Or perhaps you've never experienced the beautiful silence of the trad Mass.

Either way, you can't have your cake and eat it on this question.

So which is it? 

Do babies and toddlers at Mass enhance the beautiful silence or destroy it?
And formerly the heretics were manifest; but now the Church is filled with heretics in disguise.  
St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 15, para 9.

And what rough beast, it's hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
WB Yeats, 'The Second Coming'.

Aeternitus

I see both sides of this argument and think further distinctions need to be made.    I have had the wonderful good fortune to see families of children grow from babes to adults.  Sunday Mass was the only time I would see some of them.  Watching a large family of children from age 7 –  adult,  dressed beautifully and returning one behind the other from communion, heads bowed, hands clasped, used to lift my spirit and I would ensure I communicated after them, just so I could watch them come back down the aisle so reverently.  Their younger siblings, including babes in arms, were all in the pew, or on mother's hip and none of them caused any disturbance.  If they did and couldn't be quieted immediately, the parents (or an older sibling) would immediately take them out of the church.    They had prayer or saint books for them to read. They often sat on their mother or father's  lap or fell asleep in their arms.    The expectation was for them to remain quiet for the duration of the Mass – which they did.   

I have friends, all of whom have had many children attending Mass every Sunday from just after birth, unless, of course, they were unwell.  Babes do cry, toddlers do become restless and noisy and the moment this happened and the mother or father wasn't able to hush them immediately, they left the Church in a bid not to disrupt everyone else.    Many of these children have grown into extremely well formed adults (or nearly so) still practising the faith, setting yet a further good example for their younger siblings.

I  have also been to traditional Masses, where the priest would stop mid-sentence in his sermon if a crying or disruptive child persisted and wasn't removed.   The parents soon got the message.   

In more recent times, I have noticed that the newer/younger parents don't seem to be as concerned about a crying or noisy child.   They don't always remove them or quieten them or elect to sit in the back room, sound-proofed from the main Church (but with the altar visible) with the rest of the mothers and young children.  I imagine it is their different form of parenting, lending more to the modern way, where children "need" to be able to express themselves freely.  Or perhaps it is because the parents, in choosing that mode of parenting, have become immune to the noise and crying without good reason and expect the rest of us to abide by their choices and build up a tolerance similar to theirs.  The child would have to be crying without good reason and not because they were hungry, wet, over-tired etc., in which case the parent's obvious duty is to address the child's needs, which would require them to do so outside the Church, one would think.     

And like Awkward, I find the parents in this latter category very annoying, disrespectful and selfish.  I don't agree with their mode of parenting and I am open to any evidence one might be able to provide that shows me it is pleasing to God.  Until then, I remain unconvinced and "suffer the little children to come unto Me" does not cut it.  Awkward was not arguing that children should be turned away from God, but just that the baptised crying baby is just as pleasing to God if it is being rocked to sleep at home, or outside the Church or screaming in the pew next to Awkward.   The mother is pleasing to God when she is fulfilling her duty.  One will need to present a case if that is supposed to include attempting unsuccessfully to pacify a crying child in the church or curb an unruly tot, whilst they disturb everyone else trying to fulfil their Sunday obligation.  An obligation which requires "devout attendance, i.e. he must have the necessary intention and attention" (Jone: Moral Theology).       

Offer up the inconvenience?  Well, I try, together with a prayer for the poor child, whose prospects are compromised.   I also ensure I sit down the front, close as possible to the altar and priest, as I find those in question tend to sit further back.  Fortunately, my experience is not nearly as bad as Awkward's and neither do I have their issue with noise.  And I don't think that it is right to classify all traditional Masses as a liturgy played to the tune of a cacophony of unrestrained brats.  I don't know how one would be in a position to know what all Masses are like, unless one had been to a significant amount of them at different locations worldwide.  I can only speak from my own experience, over a significant amount of years, at a number of different Mass venues, from which I can verify a recent trend in the direction Awkward describes and unfortunately has to endure.  I too think it is an unfortunate sign of the times in which we live. 

Have you tried speaking to your priest about it Awkward?  Perhaps if enough people raise it with him, he would be forced to address it.   

Tales

What do you all think about women wearing pants?

Anyone have any opinions on the necessity of baptism?

How about that Benedict, pope or not?

:trainwreck:

MundaCorMeum

I agree with you, Aeternitus.  Myown experience is of what you first described, where most of the families I attend Mass with keep their children quiet, and if the child makes noise, they step out.  I've been to low Masses with more children than adults, and you could hear a pin drop.  I don't like unruly children in Mass, either, and I think parents have a duty to handle it rather than ignore it (I have seen parents let children do whatever the please, as well, but that was more in the NO).  My issue is not with the fact that people don't like children to be noisy in Mass (why would they?), but rather with awkward's seeming insistence that bringing children to Mass at all, even when quiet, is displeasing to God (he mentioned that in another thread); or that parents are being accused of being intentionally malicious by bringing their children to Mass; or that they don't feed their children because they bring them to Mass (how they came to that conclusion,I cannot even fathom). He doesn't seem to want to show any understanding or compassion whatsoever about the issue, nor has he admitted that  children sitting quietly in the pew is fine.  He seems to just have the blanket, general opinion that if children are in Mass, they will be screaming and noisy, and parents will do nothing about it. When we try to tell him otherwise, even charitably, we get accused of being entitled and full of virtol. If I have misinterpreted his position, I apologize, but that it how it has come across to me, and that is what I take issue with.  It actually doesn't bother me if people prefer children to not be at Mass.  They are entitled to their opinion and preference.  However, to accuse families of being less Catholic (he said that in another thread, as well), full of malice, and taking pleasure in bringing children to Mass, simply because they enjoy the power they have of annoying others, is quite another issue.

MundaCorMeum

Quote from: Davis Blank - EG on September 11, 2019, 06:07:25 AM
What do you all think about women wearing pants?

Anyone have any opinions on the necessity of baptism?

How about that Benedict, pope or not?

:trainwreck:

It depends...does the pants-wearing woman breastfeed, or bottle feed; and, did she use an epidural during birth?   :cheeseheadbeer:

Michael Wilson

Crying children is not half as disturbing, as the parent who is continually inter-acting with the young child, either to be pinching, pushing, turning its head, making the two year old that is half asleep, kneel on the kneeler, turn the pages of the child's prayer book (which the kid obviously cannot read) etc. etc. The adult is twice as distracting as any of its children and has missed the whole Mass.
Ps. Aeternitas, good to see you here again.  :)
"The World Must Conform to Our Lord and not He to it." Rev. Dennis Fahey CSSP

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit." Cardinal Pie of Potiers

Aeternitus

Quote from: MundaCorMeum on September 11, 2019, 06:10:21 AM
I agree with you, Aeternitus.  Myown experience is of what you first described, where most of the families I attend Mass with keep their children quiet, and if the child makes noise, they step out.  I've been to low Masses with more children than adults, and you could hear a pin drop.  I don't like unruly children in Mass, either, and I think parents have a duty to handle it rather than ignore it (I have seen parents let children do whatever the please, as well, but that was more in the NO).  My issue is not with the fact that people don't like children to be noisy in Mass (why would they?), but rather with awkward's seeming insistence that bringing children to Mass at all, even when quiet, is displeasing to God (he mentioned that in another thread); or that parents are being accused of being intentionally malicious by bringing their children to Mass; or that they don't feed their children because they bring them to Mass (how they came to that conclusion,I cannot even fathom). He doesn't seem to want to show any understanding or compassion whatsoever about the issue, nor has he admitted that  children sitting quietly in the pew is fine.  He seems to just have the blanket, general opinion that if children are in Mass, they will be screaming and noisy, and parents will do nothing about it. When we try to tell him otherwise, even charitably, we get accused of being entitled and full of virtol. If I have misinterpreted his position, I apologize, but that it how it has come across to me, and that is what I take issue with.  It actually doesn't bother me if people prefer children to not be at Mass.  They are entitled to their opinion and preference.  However, to accuse families of being less Catholic (he said that in another thread, as well), full of malice, and taking pleasure in bringing children to Mass, simply because they enjoy the power they have of annoying others, is quite another issue.

Well, perhaps Awkward can clear up any misunderstanding that may have occurred.  I am only commenting on this thread, not the other one you mention, so perhaps I don't have all the information.  I certainly believe children should attend Mass from as early as possible, providing they behave properly and are removed from the church when they don't.  I will leave it to Awkward to address your concerns. 

Aeternitus

Quote from: Michael Wilson on September 11, 2019, 06:24:23 AM
Crying children is not half as disturbing, as the parent who is continually inter-acting with the young child, either to be pinching, pushing, turning its head, making the two year old that is half asleep, kneel on the kneeler, turn the pages of the child's prayer book (which the kid obviously cannot read) etc. etc. The adult is twice as distracting as any of its children and has missed the whole Mass.
Ps. Aeternitas, good to see you here again.  :)

I agree!!  The whispers of instruction drive me to distraction, which is why I try and sit at the front with the walking sticks and wheelchairs!

Thanks Michael.  I do pop in from time to time. 

Michael Wilson

Quote from: Davis Blank - EG on September 11, 2019, 06:07:25 AM
What do you all think about women wearing pants?

Anyone have any opinions on the necessity of baptism?

How about that Benedict, pope or not?

:trainwreck:
Maybe we can start some new threads just on those subjects?  :laugh:
"The World Must Conform to Our Lord and not He to it." Rev. Dennis Fahey CSSP

"My brothers, all of you, if you are condemned to see the triumph of evil, never applaud it. Never say to evil: you are good; to decadence: you are progess; to death: you are life. Sanctify yourselves in the times wherein God has placed you; bewail the evils and the disorders which God tolerates; oppose them with the energy of your works and your efforts, your life uncontaminated by error, free from being led astray, in such a way that having lived here below, united with the Spirit of the Lord, you will be admitted to be made but one with Him forever and ever: But he who is joined to the Lord is one in spirit." Cardinal Pie of Potiers

awkwardcustomer

Quote from: MundaCorMeum on September 11, 2019, 06:10:21 AM
I agree with you, Aeternitus.  Myown experience is of what you first described, where most of the families I attend Mass with keep their children quiet, and if the child makes noise, they step out.  I've been to low Masses with more children than adults, and you could hear a pin drop. 

Just to be clear, I'm specifically referring to babies and toddlers - not children in general.  Babies and toddlers who, by the very fact that they are babies and toddlers, find it extremely difficult to stay still and quiet for any length of time.

In 20 years of attending Mass, including the NO but predominantly the TLM, my experience is that if a baby or a toddler is at Mass, that baby or toddler will, inevitably, cry or make a fuss.  There may have been a couple of examples of this not happening - in 20 years - but that would be rare.

As for children - I don't think I've noticed anything which suggests there isn't a problem.

Quote
I don't like unruly children in Mass, either, and I think parents have a duty to handle it rather than ignore it (I have seen parents let children do whatever the please, as well, but that was more in the NO).  My issue is not with the fact that people don't like children to be noisy in Mass (why would they?), but rather with awkward's seeming insistence that bringing children to Mass at all, even when quiet, is displeasing to God (he mentioned that in another thread);

Not children, babies and toddlers who will inevitably cause a disturbance because they're babies and toddlers.

So you're half right.  I don't think babies and toddlers should be at Mass.

Quote
.... or that parents are being accused of being intentionally malicious by bringing their children to Mass; or that they don't feed their children because they bring them to Mass (how they came to that conclusion,I cannot even fathom). He doesn't seem to want to show any understanding or compassion whatsoever about the issue,

I was replying to a specific poster who claimed that she enjoyed a 'curmudgeon rant'.  It was hardly a leap for me to wonder if she enjoyed 'curmudgeon rants' so much that she might also enjoy the discomfort of the 'curmudgeons' at Mass when the baby and toddler chorus starts up.

Plus, I have witnessed this kind of behaviour.  You can deny it all you like but I have witnessed such malice.

Quote
... nor has he admitted that  children sitting quietly in the pew is fine.  He seems to just have the blanket, general opinion that if children are in Mass, they will be screaming and noisy, and parents will do nothing about it. When we try to tell him otherwise, even charitably, we get accused of being entitled and full of virtol.

Since the point I am making concerns babies and toddlers specifically, I didn't think it necessary to admit that children sitting quietly in the pews is fine.

But I'll say it now.  Children sitting quietly in the pews isn't a problem, is lovely in fact.

But babies and toddlers don't, can't, sit quietly in the pews.  And the parents don't do anything about it most of the time, in my experience of 20 years, and even if they do, they take 10 minutes to make up their mind, another 5 minutes to gather their things and carry the (by now) screaming toddler outside, by which time half the Mass has been subjected to yet another toddler drama.

This is what I have witnessed time and time again.  And yet you tell me what I'm experiencing isn't true.

Quote
If I have misinterpreted his position, I apologize, but that it how it has come across to me, and that is what I take issue with.  It actually doesn't bother me if people prefer children to not be at Mass.  They are entitled to their opinion and preference.  However, to accuse families of being less Catholic (he said that in another thread, as well), full of malice, and taking pleasure in bringing children to Mass, simply because they enjoy the power they have of annoying others, is quite another issue.

Well, judging by the arrogant and sullen expressions on the faces of some parents as their babies and toddlers scream and have tantrums during the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass ...... I wonder how wrong I am in at least some cases.

The beautiful silence of the Traditional Low Mass is a fragile thing and should be protected for the precious gift it is.  It is beyond belief to me that so few Trads recognise this.

And formerly the heretics were manifest; but now the Church is filled with heretics in disguise.  
St Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical Lecture 15, para 9.

And what rough beast, it's hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
WB Yeats, 'The Second Coming'.

Miriam_M

Quote from: Michael Wilson on September 11, 2019, 06:24:23 AM
Crying children is not half as disturbing, as .......

...adults who call attention to themselves, as if they themselves are children.

Yesterday at the low Mass a parent came in with her 2 toddlers and one 5-year-old.  Often, a young couple who likes children helps her out, which happened also yesterday.  Although the three were a handful among the three adults, I was so much LESS distracted by that than when an older woman who is a theatrical type shows up and draws as much attention to herself as possible.

I think this is mostly about expectations.  I think that Awkward expects a certain stillness at Mass, and I appreciate that. (I also prefer more "perfect" calm than even mild disturbance.)  However, because I've been a Mom of young children and do know young children well anyway, I have a certain expectation that they're not going to sit completely still, even if they're silent/very quiet.  And I know they won't, not because they are consciously trying to be uncooperative, but because it's difficult for them, giving their unsettled age and bodies.  So, if the children are merely more physically restless than the adults supervising them, that does not disturb me as long as there's basic quiet and not inappropriate movement.  (No children kept in the pew screaming, whining; no lying down on the pews, crawling underneath the kneelers, sprawling in the aisles.)

What does disturb me is what we have a right not to expect:  that adults will behave like babies.  Said theatrical adult did not appear yesterday.  Whenever she is not present at Mass, the entire atmosphere changes:  there is calm in the air, and it's beautiful.

MundaCorMeum

#72
Actually, awkward, the very quiet Low Mass I was referring to with more children than adults, had babies, toddlers, preschoolers, and all the way up to teens.  They are very much capable of being quiet. My own babies and toddlers are usually quiet, as well.  That's not to say that the have never made noise or cried (I immediately take them out in that case, or I stay in the back where no one can see me until they are able to sit in the pew without making noise), but generally they are well-fed before Mass and quiet.  Most of the time, the toddler sleeps on her Dad's shoulder or sits in his lap without saying anything for the entire Mass.  Unless something is wrong or they are hurt or something, they are quiet.

Our own personal experiences demonstrate two completely different scenarios.  Which means, we can't make a general statement that babies and toddlers are always and everywhere noisy, or incapable of being quiet.  I've seen evidence to the contrary.


bigbadtrad

#73
Quote from: awkwardcustomer on September 11, 2019, 04:05:54 AM
Meanwhile, thank you again for your charity and holiness.

So says the person who insults parents, misdirects people, and pretends it's all about holiness and charity. Good luck with that.

Your argument boils down to "I can offend anyone, but if you dare offend me it's uncharitable." Got it. Why not quote Trent on justification since you've justified yourself with any pseudo-argument you want.
"God has proved his love to us by laying down his life for our sakes; we too must be ready to lay down our lives for the sake of our brethren." 1 John 3:16

bigbadtrad

Quote from: Gardener on September 10, 2019, 06:31:31 PM
Quote from: bigbadtrad on September 10, 2019, 06:15:25 PM
Quote from: Non Nobis on September 10, 2019, 02:36:40 PM
Quote from: bigbadtrad on September 10, 2019, 07:51:42 AM

The first Mass wasn't the Last Supper, that's a prefiguring. The real first Mass was the Crucifixion, that's why the Mass is called the unbloody sacrifice of Calvary, not the Last Supper.


The Catholic teaching I know is that the Last Supper was the first Mass.  The Crucifixion was the BLOODY Sacrifice of Calvary.  The Mass is the one and the same sacrifice, but re-presented in an UNBLOODY manner.  The Last Supper was the first Mass, the UNBLOODY Sacrifice, with the Consecration and Transubstantiation.  There was no Transubstantiation in the Bloody Sacrifice of Calvary. I think you might say that the Last Supper was the unbloody PRE-presentation of the bloody Sacrifice of Calvary (this just occurs to me).  Notice how the Consecration says that  Christ's blood "SHALL be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins" - at the Last Supper the Crucifixion had not yet taken place.  The Mass today, while it is also the same sacrifice as the one at Calvary, uses the words of the Last Supper.

Obviously there is mystery here, and I am not positive that I am presenting this in the perfect theological way, but this is how I understand it.

It's the true sacrifice was a prefigurement to the actual sacrifice. The Last Supper is the 1st Mass but only as an unbloody sacrifice of what was to come of the True Sacrifice. The "this is my body" which will shall be given up for you is the Crucifixion. The Last Supper has meaning only through the Crucifixion.

Passover is an "anamnesis" which literally means recollection of past events, but truly it was the full embodiment of living what was lived in the past as to be lived now through a full recollection of the totality of the experience. The anamnesis of the New Testament is True Sacrifice of Calvary. We don't "remember" it literally, it's the anamnesis, the living as if it were true today. We don't just pray the Mass, we live it as if it were happening in real time with Christ. I had a great professor who explained it to me for an hour. It was beautiful.

"Why is this night different from all other nights?" ... :)

Indeed.

Calvary is truly the crux of history. All flowed to it, and all flows from it. Without Calvary, we'd have only bread and wine. With Calvary, as mystically, truly enacted/prefigured at the Last Supper, we have the Eucharist.

Your professor didn't happen to be Dr. Pitre, was he?
[yt]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P45BHDRA7pU[/yt]

Actually it is a Fr. McCloskey who rediscovered "traditio" after 30 years of being a charismatic. Today he's in a nursing home and needs our prayers. He is a fine man.
"God has proved his love to us by laying down his life for our sakes; we too must be ready to lay down our lives for the sake of our brethren." 1 John 3:16