"I am going to drag you through a sustained rant about liturgy, punctuated by Latin vocabulary and Neo-Platonism. First, to be grown up Catholics we need a Mass for grown ups. Our Mass should give us thick red steak and Cabernet, not pureed carrots and milk for baby teeth. I want meat for you, not goop. Goop is fine for babies. Babies need goop. But when you grow up, you need more. You might be able to survive for a while on goop, but you won’t thrive. I want you to thrive through our Mass not just survive. Mass must be succulent, not insipid."Thus begins another one of Fr. Z's edifying 'rants' offering to help us "chew the marrow" out of prayers -- both newer and older -- in order to retrieve something important that has been lost in our Catholic identity by the "snipping and pasting together" of various revised prayers in the last half-century.
I heartily agree. Let's remember, though, that we've not fared well for many years. We need to be brought back to such a hearty diet gradually, and so might take a page from Aquinas on this on:
ReplyDelete"Here we must consider that this way of acquiring virtues is most effective: that a man should strive for the opposite of that to which he is inclined either by nature or habit. However, the way advocated by the Stoics is easier: that a man little by little withdraw from those things to which he is inclined, as Cicero relates in his work Questiones Tusculanae (Bk. IV, C. 31-35, n. 65-76). The way that Aristotle lays down is suitable for those who strongly desire to withdraw from vice and to attain virtue. But the way of the Stoics is more appropriate to those who have weak and halfhearted wills." Commentary on the Ethics II 11 #376
I get his intention, but what a bizarre metaphor in which to carry his message. After all, the whole idea of the Mass as a meal is part of the problem. Holy Thursday would have been pointless without Good Friday, after all. Oh well, carry on.
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