- There! is! no! discontinuity! between the post and pre-Vatican II Church. None! Exactly the same! What are you talking about?!
but…
- Guys, that pre-Vatican II liturgy? Yeah, it’s not an expression of post-Vatican II faith. I’m gonna need you to stop it.
Try this one:
- Tickets available: Sunday afternoon concert of a Mass setting composed for the pre-Vatican II church in a church building constructed with that liturgy in mind.
but…
- Cancelled and moved to the meeting room at the Motel 6: Sunday morning celebration of an actual traditional Mass using that same setting.
Or this one:
- The Church must be a listening Church
but…
- No, no, no. Not to you.
Or:
- Please dig deep into the riches of two thousand years of Catholic tradition! It’s super beautiful!
Except…
- Except the Mass! Not that!
Or:
- Liturgical Unity is super important!
Um…
- *Link to YouTube recordings of Masses around the world.*
Well, then…
- Liturgical Diversity is such a beautiful thing!
okay, then, so….
- NO!
Oh, and this?
- Church from below! People of God! Local and decentralized! Yeah, that’s it! Decentralized!
Ahahaha…
- Here are your instructions from Rome on how to advertise your Mass in the bulletin.
Wait!
- Clericalism is the source of all of our problems!
but…
- Here are some rules created by clerics to be promulgated by clerics restricting the laity. Oh, and also, here are clerics centering a liturgy that gives clerics the power to call their narcissistic liturgical stylings Spirit-led “inculturation” so shut up and don’t contradict the Spirit, you lay person, you.
Meanwhile, we’re. having a Synod! We want to hear what you have to say about Everything! Well, not EVERYTHING… most things… that we tell you we want to hear about… but not anything we obviously don’t want to hear about…
This post absolutely nails it….
gracias
Amy–That was perfect…
Thank you, Amy. As always, you have a knack for pithily and humorously summing it all up. My wife and I had a good laugh at this one, particularly the bit about the Sunday afternoon concert: it’s a bracing though darkly humorous thought to think that one day, aficionados of old music (who are themselves not believers) might fawn over such a “venue” that will probably be an old closed parish at that point.
At any rate, as with so many things in life, it’s good to laugh when the only other alternative seems to be weeping endlessly. So, thanks again. I’ve been reading you for many years now and I feel like I can always count on you to help me keep my sanity.
Perfect!