The Day Of Worship

 

why don't you have that, loser?

You know, dear friends, there was a time, just a few decades ago, when I would've thought anything less than an 8' stone Altar topped by a polychrome etc Reredos would've been infra dig, unworthy of my ecclesial sensibilities. O foolish priest! But hey, I was very young and wanted all the outward and visible signs of full-blown, triumphant catholicism, albeit within the Anglican thing and albeit without the inward and spiritual grace of the thing. OK, I was a kid and exceptionally foolish, that was me then.

Please don't do this punters

Fast forward to today, and almost 20 years serving mission churches in North Central Texas. No stone Altars, no polychrome, no beautiful polyphony, at least not yet, and there you are. But are the people believing? Yes, they are, most deliberate in their faith. Are there guitar playing nuns and liturgical dancers amongst them? No, there are not. Are there Lesbyterian Priestesses cavorting amongst us? No, that's a negative, and you know what? I feel blessed to serve these people.

That in mind, we celebrated the Mass this morning at two country missions and united ourselves with the all sufficient sacrifice of Christ. Think on that, it's no small thing. Were the altars made of stone? Were they adorned by late medieval art in all its gothic Christian glory? No, they were not. It was simple stuff, Said Mass with hymns, oriented to be sure, and celebrated in reverential order, but simple. The Old Rite, if you like, met the country, which is where we are

The Cross

And guess what? The Country likes it. That in mind, you can have all manner of fancy architecture, I wish I had some, but there's no substitute for the Faith once delivered by Christ to the Apostles. You will have noticed that all those Churches which have swapped this out for the spirit of the age, the wretched zeitgeist, are dying regardless of aesthetics and cash

Good riddance to them, they're apostate clowns. Those other churches,  however humble, which remain true to the Faith are not dying, and that applied to us today, right here in the bucolic haven of NC Texas.

There's a moral in this, should you care to draw it.

Keep The Faith,

LSP