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Martin Mosebach refutes you thus, with a common sense than your rambling article fails to display:

« Kneeling was medieval, they said. The early Christians prayed standing. Standing signifies the resurrected Christ, they said; it is the most appropriate attitude for a Christian. The early Christians are also supposed to have received Communion in their hands. What is irreverent about the faithful making their hands into “throne” for the Host? I grant that the people who tell me such things are absolutely serious about it all. But it becomes very clear that pastors of souls are incredibly remote from the world in these matters; academic arguments are completely useless in questions of liturgy. These scholars are always concerned only about the historical side of the substance of faith and of the forms of devotion. If, however, we think correctly and historically, we should realize that what is an expression of veneration in one period can be an expression of blasphemy in another. If people who have been kneeling for a thousand years suddenly get to their feet, they do not think, “We’re doing this like the early Christians, who stood for the Consecration”; they are not aware of returning to some particularly authentic form of worship. They simply get up, brush the dust from their trouser-legs and say to themselves: “So it wasn’t such a serious business after all.” Everything that takes place in celebrations of this kind implies the same thing: “It wasn’t all that serious after all.” »

Martin Mosebach, Heresy of Formlessness, 14-15.

The worst aspect of your work is that it shows not the slightest appreciation for the cost, to souls, of all the liturgical upheavals—including the recent acts of bishops who, instead of letting certain practices the faithful find helpful return organically to the churches, now try to outlaw them. Such shepherds will have much to answer for in the world to come.

Jan 13
at
5:08 PM
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