GIRM-ane observations.

OK, just one more. Then I'm gone for sure until Monday.

Make sure you read Amy Welborn's blog about the latest battle in the Catholic Liturgy Wars. Good stuff. It pretty well captures one problem (forced community building), and illustrates another (loss of authentic Catholic community).

Let's face it: Catholic culture has pretty much been obliterated in the past 40 years in this country. In at least one sense, I'll have to acknowledge that the liturgical/education trendsetters have correctly identified that this is indeed the case--hence, the incessant efforts at community building.

The problem is that too many of our liturgical/educator types never much liked that culture in the first place. In fact, they were and remain profoundly embarrassed by it and are desperately trying to put it behind them: hence the readings of Vatican II documents that have gutted churches, liturgy, scriptural study, religious education, formation, theology, etc. all at once. Goodbye to all that. We are an Easter People, you know, and the preconciliar Church was a corpse, etc....

The "problem" with that has been that the tattered remnants of the sensus fidei keep rejecting the offered transplant as the faulty artificial heart it is. The reforms don't work because they have no real, living (as opposed to pretextual) connection to Catholic tradition. But the surgeons are bent on making the transplant work no matter how profound the signs of rejection are, no matter how badly the patient's life signs falter. If they just change "X", they know things will get better. This time for sure.

I was handed a flyer by one of our parish's more liberal members announcing a liturgical workshop sponsored by the Diocese of Saginaw. The header proudly announced that "The Renewal of the Liturgy Continues." I politely accepted and successfully stifled my snort.

The "renewal", of course, has resulted in mass attendance, vocations, and Catholic influence on the culture of that diocese that can be accurately described with the term "pffthppt." Or "squat," if you prefer.

But they just *know* that the Jarvik will work eventually. Personally, I'm waiting for the physician to call it first. For my part, I'm getting profoundly tired of it all. The call of the Melkites and Byzantines is becoming too strong, and I think I'll be going East before too long.