Bad Habits
Subtitled "Can we correct liturgical abuse in religious communities?" a matter of concern to the author, the Rev. Vincent Capuano, S.J., in
Adoremus. Some of these, believe it or not, are sometimes seen in our parishes.
a) healthy persons celebrating the entire Mass seated even during the parts when it is prescribed to stand or kneel
As I've said before, at
our parish we don't kneel, they have us sit for any lengthy gospel reading, and the parish leadership wonders why they can't get the parishioners off their duffs otherwise.
b) healthy priests celebrating or concelebrating the Mass seated
Does healthy include that buffet muscle? There's a lot of priests whose knees look like one of the Stations of the Cross.
d) priests not vesting with a chasuble when they are the principal celebrants (and there are chasubles available)
So it's come to this, Jesuits who won't wear chasubles while
Lutheran ministers [pdf] will.
f) priests making intentional changes in the prescribed prayers
I once heard one get so tangled in his
ad libs that he asked Jesus to intercede with Himself.
k) the use of glass or pottery chalice and paten
Our new pastor has a gold chalice inherited from an uncle who was killed while serving as a chaplain in Burma in the Second World War. The E.M.E.s use glass stemware.
l) the use of strange bread-like substances
At least we finally abandoned the Euchroutons and are back to hosts, the traditional strange bread-like substance.
m) the use of grape juice in place of wine
I don't believe that. Isn't the Jesuit fifth vow to only order call brands?
(via Diogenes at Off the Record)