On Christmas Eve, it's my family's humble Christmas shopping tradition (Can one time with the intention of doing this from now on be considered a tradition?) to converge on downtown Brainerd and shop for each other. There are five of us, our daughters ranging in age from 8-11, 2nd-6th grade. Depending on who's shopping for whom, we begin our shopping adventure in groups of two and three.
My oldest daughter stopped in at our used book store and purchased a 1975 edition of a book on the post-concilliar documents from the Second Vatican Council as one of my gifts. While the original documents were difficult to locate in the pocket-sized paperback, the post-concilliar documents literally jumped out of the pages...like warning signs along a highway indicating in letters large and bold: Bridge Out!
This year has been designated as the "Year of Faith" by our beloved Pope Benedict XVI, and, as such, the pope has promoted the study of the original documents of the Second Vatican Coucil, a council near and dear to the hearts of many who lived in that era.
My main concern, as a Catholic convert who came into the Church through attending a traditional Latin Mass offered at St.Augustines in South St. Paul, was and is the document on the Sacred Liturgy, the Sacrosanctum Concilium, mainly, because I want to know why the one thing that drew me to the Catholic Church is that very thing that the Church seems to turn Its back on.
As I read the original documents, while there are a few vague, subjective terms and phrases that seem to dangle at the end of otherwise clearly orthodox, traditional statements, it's difficult to find tangible evidence to clearly explain the astounding difference between the Masses as offered before and after the Second Vatican Council.
Now, I have my answer.
The changes, many of which must be considered to be abrupt and not the result of the organic evolution essential to authentic growth of the Catholic liturgy, changes oft described as being in line with the "spirit of Vatican II," were suggested after the Council at the hands of liturgical committees. These suggestions, which in most cases seem to have been embraced and embellished upon in the ensuing years after the Council, constitute a recipe for division much like what has happened in the Protestant churches: Each town provides its own version of that denomination's faith until the next round of division occurs, at which time, the First Methodist Church of Fill-in-the-Blank spawns the Church of Moral Relativity and the Church of the Campfire Song-singers.
In these post-Concilliar docs, time and again, age-old, tried-and-true practices, and even the orientation and emphasis of the Mass, are casually swept aside in carrying forward the cause of "active participation" and "ecumenism" with an emphasis on adapting the attitude of the Mass to each local community. As the myriad of potential options even now continue to find pride of place in local parishes, the sense of the universality of the Mass as a bridge connecting all Catholics through time and space becomes ever more obscured.
In the end, the infusion of so many options, attitudes, and orientations into local parishes have all but replaced this bridge with a vast armada of ferrys and tug-driven barges, each captain striving to negotiate the ever-turbulent waters in his own way.
Of course, from a perch atop the mountain of abuses, innovation, novelties, fallen away Catholics, and confusion that came about in the wake of these post-Concilliar changes, it's not difficult to see the stress points and general weakness of the bridge. It's also not difficult to lay blame.
What is difficult is to repair the infrastructure.
Thankfully, there is hope, and there is movement. In homilies, books, and the Catholic media, there's a growing conviction that we must overcome the attitudes of dissent and experimentation that led the Church to this precipice. There's a growing conviction to span the precipice with a bridge built upon the fullness of Catholic heritage, traditions, and worship.
The footings have been set, and the building has begun, but the bridge has yet to span the distance.
Until it does, the warning signs that keep popping up along this road we've been traveling start to take on the urgency of a countdown, with the same repeating message as the number of miles ahead decreases: Bridge Out.
