Letters: ... bossy ushers in flash uniforms

Sydney
24 March 2002

‘Little Flower’ is almost here

Vinnies: Scrap penalties!

Family planning a viable choice

Premier ‘confuses issue’ on embryos

Fr Denis Madigan dies

Quilted testimony to a century of worship

Ecumenical Way of the Cross

CHOGM urged: Ease debt of poorer countries and save lives

You can sponsor a young seminarian

Carnivale Christi – festival returns

Marathon man

Workers have the right to a just wage, hearing told

Archbishop consults students on Pentecost speech

Wife, then widow – a mother called Sister

Play aids refugee centre

Caritas warns of poverty in Europe

Editorial: Inspiring Little Way

Letters: ... bossy ushers in flash uniforms

Conversation: All are called to God’s work - Sr Mary Ryan, RSJ, vocations ministry executive officer

Mixed feelings on relics

Mercy girls look to make a difference

Education: Choose career in science, students told

Art, dance, design, drama – HSC talent on display

Inspirations: Close encounter of a preferred kind

Letters: ... bossy ushers in flash uniforms

I read The Catholic Weekly on-line (www.catholicweekly.com.au) to stay in touch with the church in my home town. I sympathise with E McGovern (Faith and fashion, Letters, CW 10/3).

When I was involved in building what is now a much admired parish church in another state we took concerns of parishioners very seriously. I myself would be slow to criticise though, as the tradition of the church is, as they say, rich.

There are different ways of doing things.

I mean, monks and nuns have been praying in choirs looking at each other for a very long time. So maybe it isn’t a complete barrier to recollection and reverence.

Let me tell you about an ordination I attended in a city not noted for ecclesiastical trendiness. We were firmly directed by very bossy ushers in flash uniforms.

There were no pews, let alone kneelers.

Instead, there were rows and rows of cheap stackable chairs. It was impossible to kneel without disturbing people and being very uncomfortable.

Still, a few loyal souls did, although most stood. From where I sat, at the side, I had a distracting view of those opposite. To make matters worse those in the front were obviously dressed to gain maximum attention.

There was no tabernacle at all in the sanctuary. The blessed sacrament was hidden away in a special chapel completely out of sight.

The local bishop happily presided over it all. Still, I must say, I enjoyed the ceremony and was surprised and delighted with the bishop’s brief words (12 minutes).

The church was St Peter’s in Rome, the ushers were Swiss Guards, those in the front row opposite were cardinals and such, and the bishop was, of course, our Holy Father, Pope John Paul II.

Greg Burke
Ávila, Spain

DIGNITY OF LIFE

Now we have three cases of litigation for ‘wrongful life’, in other words, for not aborting babies with suspected

or unsuspected congenital anomalies.

This continuing attack on the dignity of life surely reflects loss of faith in God.

The words of our Holy Father resound even stronger today – “no-one born into this world is free from human frailty, whether it be physical, emotional or spiritual ... but in the providence of God, a different life is not a less important life”.

And again in his 2002 Lenten message: “Scientific work aimed at securing a quality of life more in keeping with human dignity is admirable, but it must never be forgotten that human life is a gift, and that it remains precious even when marked by suffering and limitations, a gift to be accepted and to be loved at all times.”

This is the reality of our faith.

David Baartz
Blacktown, NSW

HEART OF THE MASS

I have survived beyond my allotted three score years and ten and seen many changes in the Church, including the liturgy, I would not reverse any of them.

This puts me at issue with Valentine Gallagher (Litur gical reform, Letters, CW 10/3). It seems I also have the temerity to disagree with Cardinal Ratzinger.

As for CS Lewis, the “brilliant Anglican university academic”, I ask: who cares?

The essentials of the Mass are unchanged and, indeed, unchangeable. The readings are from the Bible and its words are fixed for all time.

The heart of the Mass is the Eucharist with all that leads to it and flows from it.

It has been thus since the Last Supper. In this all Masses are identical. Fringe changes affect nothing of consequence.

What reform of the reforms would your correspondent urge on us?

He is short on specifics.

Are we to replace the altar rails and ban women from the sanctuary (except for arranging the flowers and cleaning the brass)? Do we return to a celebration in Latin, a language with which only the priest and a few ‘brilliant academics’ were at ease? Do we sack the acolytes, the lectors, the eucharistic ministers, the girl altar servers?

We can respect tradition as a brake on needless change but let us be wary lest it become a trammel to healthy progress.

Leave us be. Now we are participants in the Mass, not merely spectators.

John Kennedy
Concord West, NSW

GRACE OF GOD?

V Gallagher (no relation to me!) refers to “incessant liturgical changes” since Vatican II (Liturgical reform, Letters, CW 10/3). I don’t see these “incessant” changes in any of the churches I attend.

Anyone who suggests ret urning to pre-Vatican II (including Cardinal Ratzing er) must fail to see the capacity of ordinary Catholics to join in the liturgy, especially the Eucharist, with involvement impossible before the post-Vatican II changes.

When I look back on the ‘old’ Mass – Latin, priest with his back to the congregation, people ruffling the pages of their missals trying to keep up by reading the translations – I wonder why we all bothered. It was surely only the grace of God which kept us going.

Mass now is so devotional and meaningful that I hope ‘they’ keep their hands off it and don’t try to turn the clock back to an era which, thank God, is in the past.

Dorothy Gallagher
Cambewarra, NSW

COLLECTION DIRECTION

Why has it become the practice to hide the offertory collection (First collection, Letters, CW 10/2)?

The intention is not to hide the offertory, but to prevent theft by someone entering the church for that sole purpose. The theft could otherwise be achieved in moments.

A church warden
Illawarra, NSW