Worship in Spirit and in Truth

This article by Fr. Jerry Pokorsky, Pondering the Pandemic, unleashed all sorts of thoughts for me. I cannot fully espouse Father's position vis-à-vis the civil authorities, because I find our position as Catholic Church rather weak, because it is less than free of ambiguity. What has happened in these days of church closings and other "verbotens" is that we have been challenged by the forces of order, who find no evidence of our holding to any "pearl of great price", be it Holy Mass or what. That sounds cynical on my part, but civil authorities seemed confident they could make the demands they did and the highest authorities in the Church most everywhere in the world corresponded fully to their expectations and demands. We were tested and time and again in these days found wanting. The "social distancing" strategy of whomever won out over any potential competing values.

I hear stories of lay people wringing their hands and wanting to stand up to their bishops and priests, insisting that the leadership is selling the Mass and the Sacraments short, that a pandemic requires other of us as believers. Lots of questions or issues come to mind. The big question is always: "When do I as a private citizen have enough of the facts to be able to oppose public authority?" In point of fact,  however, that is probably not the key issue. Watching some of the video offerings on the internet, which are supposed to be good liturgy, I rather suspect that our day of reckoning for having sold out the Sacred Liturgy seems to have come.

While I am tempted to argue the point at length, I will not. There is too much blindness and emotion involved here. I say that because of a case I saw of where a diocese chose for their official video Mass a church with a totally stark grey/black concrete back wall and no proper focus. Try and tell these folks they could have chosen a brighter, a prettier church? 

These days there are lots of lovely offerings on the internet of Vetus Ordo Masses. My hope and prayer would be that people will see them and once freed from social restrictions, they might go seeking such beauty and order. As brutal as it may sound, I am inclined to believe that civil authorities asked us to give up all we had and bishops and priests rushed to do their bidding, because what we had to offer was no pearl at all...

PROPERANTES ADVENTUM DIEI DEI