In 2011 I wrote:

Like the TV detective Monk, I have a gift that is also a curse: I pay very close attention at Mass.

So when the priest veers away from the approved text, I hear it and fume. Used to. Now I go into my free-fly zone. Frequently.

In this zone, I wool-gather, daydream, write columns and imaginary sermons, etc. This means that one minute I’m saying “Lord hear our prayer” with the other faithful, next minute that I know about, I am rising for the Our Father.

Awful, I know. Can only say I’m working on it.

The paying close attention thing is a bigger problem.

The priest subs out “His” for “God’s,” “disciples” for “friends,” “Almighty God” for “Almighty Father,” etc. Two of these reduce masculine references, sparing feminist sensibilities. The other is apparently meant to de-emphasize levels of authority in favor of intimacy.

Irritating…

. . . was a triumph of centralized planning, enough to make a statist weep with envy, I wrote in 2006.

The world over, Catholics got used to mass in everyday language. It became part of a worldwide social engineering victory — change by design, not by natural influences or “organically,” as you hear.

Vatican II celebrated the freedom of the children of God, but not in liturgy. Latin had to go. Latin went. Rebels were marginalized. Only recently (in 2005) had Latin returned with church authority’s blessings.

So it goes, change dictated from above for our own good by people who know what’s best for us.

A whole new mass developed after Vatican II, developed quite consciously by dedicated experts.

Young Jesuits like me debated the coming changes in the mid-50s. It was already foreshadowed.

This liturgy of the future, in the vernacular, would be as much communicating with…

. . . Nah. Penetrating. To the heart of the matter.

. . . Which is yet more on the “Shake, rattle” controversy — handshake as kiss of peace before communion.

Summarizing, offering selective observations by readers of ten-plus years ago.

* Bob O. suggests kiss and non-kiss (-shake) sections of church, the ushers asking your preference.

* Bob K. considers church ideal for meeting, greeting, and otherwise being nice to people.

* Margaret tells us that church is for God, not us: Ask not what God can do for you but what you can do for God.

* D. says timing is all off: you greet fellow or sister worshipers (discreetly) at the start of mass, not in the middle of it.

* Jennifer has no use for “power” as used by Bob K. — “our gathering of power from the spirit” — and sees psychobabble in this.

*…

. . . in March of ’06. . .

The divide is in terms of religion as therapy vs. as sacrifice, people-centered vs. God-centered, that separates Catholics.

From Reader Margaret, reacting to Bob K’s enthusiastic endorsement of the kiss of peace as widely practiced:

We’ve slipped from the meaning of Mass as sacrifice, not as gathering for celebration. The idea of “our gathering of power from the spirit” sums up the problem.

The New Mass is about what God can do for us – bless us, empower us, help us, raise us up on eagle’s wings, etc. . .

But the traditional Mass is a sacrifice, the reenactment of Calvary where the emphasis is on God and giving Him thanks and adoration.

Can a New Mass that so obscures its own meaning be from God?

Reader Jennifer finds Margaret’s comment that we have “slipped from the meaning of Mass…

Garnered some years back while blogging on the sign of peace question.

Begin with Bob K.:

Sometimes it is good for Christians to reach out . . . and communicate with each other. The MASS is as good a time as any and better than most to do so.

It is when we GATHER TOGETHER to worship and celebrate the Transubstantiation and our gathering of power from the spirit . . . .

If we can’t talk to each other (whom we see and know and who are standing right next to us), how can we talk to the Lord (Whom we . . . have not seen or cannot see) or to the world (whom we are to evangelize)?

At that time of [mass], I make it a point to talk to those near me — the wheel chair kid, the three African-Americans who always sit in the last…

Back in my younger days, I considered the importance of ignoring what’s up front during Mass.

Various ministers were thrust up front by current rules. It’s not their fault, I told myself.

Politeness does not require looking at them, however, I added.

So don’t look, I said. Instead, mind your own business, reading and meditating on the day’s Scripture.

There’s too much going on up front, such as traipsing to and fro with book held high over forehead as if to ward off falling plaster, I said, prior to reading Scripture of the day.

It’s not helpful. Merely distracting.

Then you look up and see priest looking at you.

He can’t help it. Reverentially downcast eyes have not been part of his training.

But you can help it by not looking.

The bulletin warned us away from my illegal Latin mass church.

It’s a “chapel,” the bulletin said, “that advertises itself as ‘Our Lady Immaculate Roman Catholic Church.'”

But it’s actually not Roman Catholic, we were told, but is run by the St. Pius X society founded by Archbishop Lefebvre, who was excommunicated, etc. etc.

The bulletin quotes the Pope about the “grave offense” involved in adherence to the Society leading to excommunication.

I’m at risk, therefore, by now and then attending the Latin masses at Our Lady Immaculate.

Would  my  parish consider now and then having a Latin mass, so as to ween me away? For pastoral reasons?

A recent special mass for gays and lesbians at a neighboring parish was a one-time thing.

Maybe have a one-time thing for Latin mass embracers, who make no claims about being born that way but only say they were raised that way?

. . . Father Emil discussed “what Mass is all about” in the bulletin. It’s our coming “with full hearts to thank God,” he wrote.

Moreover, the Mass is “truly alive . . . when we bring to [it] the everyday things of our lives.”

Some of his best mass-time experience, he confessed, was when he is “truly bringing what was in [his] heart to God.”

The “sacrifice of the mass,” he said “refers to our self-offering to God.”

This self-offering “feels good” because it reminds him that God is “taking care of” his problems.

He said nothing about Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross and its redeeming value or its being re-enacted in the mass, whatever we bring.

He spoke only about what we bring.

Apart from his belief in God as protector, it’s as if there were no Christian tradition.

Pagans did this much, and probably still do.

If…