-
Mortal Sin
-
Venial Sin
-
Saturday Confession
for 2 hours, not 1/2 hour or, increasingly, “by appointment”.
-
No “altar
servers” (now largely girls in unisex and quasi-monastic “habits”)
-
No invitation
to applaud the choir, the soloist, the altar “servers”, the ushers,
the lectors, etc., etc. at the end of Mass and before the
final blessing.
-
Altar Rails
-
Women wearing
chapel veils, or mantillas (white or black lace coverings for their
heads), or some form of head covering, and were modestly dressed.
No bare shoulders, plunging neck-lines, jeans, sports suits, or
skirts above the knees.
-
All Readings
read by the priest
-
All Communions
were given by a priest
-
An Altar that
was an Altar of Sacrifice and not a “Table”
-
The Mass understood,
above all else, as a Sacrifice, not a communal (and often
“fast-food”) feast
-
The Liturgy
in Latin even while the readings were also in English
-
Was never called a
“Faith
Community”
— it was called
a “Church”
-
No such oddities called
“Prayer
Spaces”
and “Worship
Spaces”.
We prayed “in
Church”
-
No disposable
monthly Missalettes
-
The
“Saint
Joseph Daily Missal”
for Mass, it was leather-bound, and everyone had one
-
The Organ
as the only musical instrument. The piano was unheard of
outside the local school band or in the next town's “lounge”.
-
Rogation Days
-
Ember Days
-
Ferias
-
No guitars,
drums, cymbals, flutes, or tambourines — and consequently no troupe
of entertainers for whom it was mandatory to applaud at the
end of Mass.
-
The organ
and the choir unobtrusively in a loft at the back of the Church
-
A very clear
understanding of Baptism as the washing away of Original Sin
and a minor exorcism; it was a Baptism into the death of
Christ, and an emergence into utter innocence free from sin
-
Priests who
wore Roman cassocks
-
Sisters who
wore full habits and always lived in community — not their own individual
apartments
-
Nuns who wore
full-length habits that swirled in the wind
-
No priest
ever dressed in casual clothing — at any time
-
No one but
a priest or deacon-soon-to-be-priest who ever approached
or touched the Tabernacle
-
Absolutely no talking in the
pews
—
only a sacred silence
-
Our Lady’s Sodality for women
-
The Tabernacle
at the center of the Altar — not shunted off to the side
and hidden as an embarrassing artifact of a long past Age of Faith
-
The Altar
oriented to worshipping God — not “celebrating” the people
-
Convents (and
they were full)
-
A Pastor
who exercised complete authority and confidently led the flock entrusted
to him; not a contentious parish council of largely liberal laywomen
and disaffected laymen who “advised” the priest
-
Intelligibility
throughout the world: you understood every part of the Mass, even
if you did not understand Latin
-
Absolution
in Confession with an unalterable (rather than an ad-libbed)
and deeply spiritual formula*
-
No “Ministries”
and thus no “Ministers.” Protestants had ministers. Catholics
had priests
-
Kneeling for
Holy Communion
-
Kneelers
-
An utter
reverence for the Sacred Body of Christ: it was unthinkable
to take the Sacred Host in ones hand
-
A holy sanctuary
that never doubled as a liturgical “workshop”, or a dais for profane
use (in which literature is often stacked on the Altar as “hand-outs”)
-
Votive candles
with real flames, not “electronic light bulbs” with switches
-
Gregorian
chant, Palestrina, and Jacopone de Todi — not Marty Haugan, Dan
Schutte, David Haas, and Michael Joncas
-
Confessionals
with kneelers, partitions, and sliding panels — not “Reconciliation
Rooms” with couches, tables and lamps suggestive of a therapist's
office
-
Only two types
of Masses: a High Mass and a Low Mass
-
No “Charismatic
Masses”
-
No “Children's
Masses”
-
No
“Masses
of Reconciliation”
-
No
“Folk
Masses”
-
No
“Clown
Masses”
-
No
“Halloween
Masses" with children dressed as witches or devils
-
No
“Healing
Masses" where people
were “prayed
over” and then predictably fell to the floor at their proper turn
— or into the arms of the “Ministry” of “Catchers”
-
Sermons that had something
to do with the Readings
—
and were not simply occasions for comedy
-
Priests who did not double
as stand-up comedians. We had television for comedy.
-
No “Charismatics”.
They had another name: “Revivalists”, and they were always extremely
emotionally animated and consisted of mostly southern Protestants
-
No one who
“Spoke in Tongues” — nor were there “workshops” for learning
to “speak in tongues”
-
Catholics
who occasionally sang
-
Catholics
who never sang hymns by Martin Luther or Calvin, and never
said “Shalom” to one another.
-
No
“ecumenical”
singing. Catholics simply did not sing Protestant songs
—
just as Protestants still
do not sing Catholic songs
-
Proper reverence
for the Episcopacy: a Catholic genuflected and kissed a bishop's
ring — and when
he did the bishop never looked embarrassed for it was the office
that was honored in this gesture
-
Proper reverence
for priests: You always called your priest by his last name with
“Father” before it. There were no “Father Dicks”
-
Bishops addressed as,
“Your
Excellency”
and a Catholic never used his bishop's first name
-
May Processions
for Mary
-
Sinners. Not
everyone — without exception — went to Holy Communion at
every single Mass. In other words, Catholics used to
sin ... before the notion of sin was apparently abolished
as “insensitive”
-
Laymen who
never “distributed” Communion
-
Women who
never “distributed” Communion
-
Laymen who
never “distributed” ashes on Ash Wednesday
-
Women who
never "distributed” ashes on Ash Wednesday
-
Men who never
wore “jeans” and “shorts” to Church
-
Women who
never wore “jeans” and “shorts” to Church
-
People who
dressed carefully for Mass because it was a holy occasion. We spoke
of it as our “Sunday Best”.
-
A respect
for unwanted tactility: You never “touched” or groped for the person
next to you — and in front of you, and behind you
— with a “handshake”, kiss or hug.
-
No one who
ever frantically waved two fingers in the “V” Peace Sign from the
Hippy culture of the 60's to everyone they could not touch or reach,
or even see.
-
Confessional
lines that were long and benches of penitents were always full
-
Sisters in
habits taught our children their Catechism
-
Devotions
-
Novenas
-
Parents who
always named their children after Saints
-
A Jesus taught
at Catechism Who was the Christ, not Elmo or Mr. Rogers
-
No
“Presenters”
(the current neologism for
“Speakers”)
of this and that concerning things having nothing to do with being
Catholic
-
A respect
for equality: It was okay to be a man. Men were not “patriarchal
oppressors” of the opposite sex.
-
A tacit understanding
that it was okay to be a womanly Catholic, and not to affect masculinity
-
Catholic women who did not
wear
“crew
cuts”
like men and you could tell men apart from women at a glance
-
Manly priests:
our priests were not effeminate
-
Pastors who
unabashedly wore Roman birettas
-
Never equated
holiness solely or largely with femininity
-
Members who
never attended a Protestant service
-
Priests who
celebrated the Catholic Mass. A Protestant Minister or Jewish Rabbi
never “co-presided” in a Catholic Church at an “Ecumenical Religious
Service”
-
Catholics
who did not enter Protestant churches
-
Catholics
who always bowed their head at the name of “Jesus”
-
One
“Act
of Contrition”
and everyone knew it by heart
-
So clear a
realization of Who dwelled upon the Altar that everyone genuflected
when passing before the Tabernacle ... no matter how many times
it had to be crossed
-
No flimsy
cloth “Banners”, just beautiful statues of Mary and the Saints
-
Priests did
not “concelebrate” a Mass with other priests present
-
Priests were
not called “Presiders”. There was no such thing as a “presider”.
Presiders were corporate chairmen, moderators, or performers. The
term was made up at Vatican II.
-
A clear identity
in prayer: only Protestants ended the Lord’s Prayer with the Protestant
gloss, “For the Kingdom, the power and the glory are yours, now
and forever.”
-
A priest who
never left the sanctuary during Mass to give his homily in
the aisle
-
Never had
“skits” at Mass
-
Priests who
never made up the words for the Mass to suit or emphasize an ideology
-
During the
Elevation of the Eucharist (when the priest lifts up and presents
the Sacred Body and Precious Blood) Jesus Christ was offered up
to the Father — not to the congregation—
just as He offered His Body and Blood to His Father on the Cross.
The priest did not pivot as on a spindle so that everyone could
get “a good look at” the Host and Chalice. Christ's offering was,
and remains, to the Father for us, not to the Father through
us
-
Common sense:
“Man” was understood as also and equally pertaining to women. No
one thought otherwise. When Christ said
“Man does not live
by bread alone”,
no one in the congregation ever thought that women did. When St.
Paul addressed his “brothers”
in a reading (called an Epistle), women in the congregation did
not think that what he taught was for men only
-
No false Scriptural
prologue that always started every reading with the “inclusive language”,
“Brothers and sisters”, emphasizing an already factitious
ideological division rooted in secular and militant feminism.
-
Never had
“inclusive language”, “gender-sensitive” language,
and “neutered language”, which confuse people and mutilate
readings
-
Holy Communion
that was not delayed to accommodate a rush of women to the Sanctuary
to become “Ministers of Communion” (not, correctly, “Extraordinary
Ministers”, for this would diminish their coveted quasi-priestly
status.)
-
Never experienced
the situation where the priest sat down to allow the (Extraordinary)
“Eucharistic Ministers” to distribute Holy Communion while he benignly
looked on from the comfort of his chair, in the superficially benevolent
and very mistaken notion that he was free to share the faculties
of his priesthood with whomever he chose.
-
The Odor of
Sanctity