A Sunday in Our Second Easter Season During This C-Virus Mess

The traditional calendar calls this The 2nd Sunday after Easter; the new-fangled dubs it The Third Sunday of Easter. Why the difference? The more I've wondered, the less the answers I find make any sense. This brings us to some benefits of this Mess since COVID made its presence known over a year ago.

The radical changes to our Roman Rite Liturgy imposed post Vatican II have finally crystallized. For years I've waffled back and forth about them. Having been raised in the traditional Mass and Liturgies, a certain preference always had me leaning traditional. Our family - at one point in time - attended the Traditional Latin Mass on Sundays. But when I started attending daily Mass from time to time, it would be the new-fangled right, aka Novus Ordo.

Without dwelling on the sometimes overwrought complaining about the NO that would spew out of my less-than-sainted mouth at times, the fact is that years of such complaints piled up. Having a musician's background, and growing up with real Catholic music and chant, the music was the typical target of the discontent. But that wasn't all. Priests making up the liturgy as they went along, boring us with silly and banal sermons that avoided anything remotely meaty or even Catholic, ugly vestments, effeminate priests and bishops all made attendance at Mass a trial at times.

Fortunately, my wife tried to refocus my attention on what is really going on at the altar - even if the altar was a table in the NO. And her efforts did help me to see the futility of my carping, even the souring effect it might be having on our kids. This is a woman who was raised with Byzantine Catholic Liturgies. Had I been less self-centered, I might have earlier seen that what gnawed at my Catholic sensibility might also stick in her craw - although she seldom complained.

Well, when our shepherds closed down our churches and put the Sacraments in the dust bin, many of us sought Mass online. It was easy to nix a newfangled Liturgy that wasn't up to snuff. My wife found the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (the form of Mass of her upbringing) offered daily. I poked around and found a number of resources that enriched both my understanding and participation (at least virtually) in traditional Liturgies.

The end result of all this: a mix of relief, excitement, liberty of spirit.

The relief comes when I spend time online, or now with texts I've found and squirreled away, with the traditional liturgy of our Holy Catholic Church. I'd done this somewhat in the past, but this Mess has more or less pushed me into really sinking my teeth and time into these venerable liturgies. Those include Mass and the Divine Office - something that I try to incorporate now into my daily prayer regimen. 

For years I had approached the Office in fits and starts. I'd even downloaded an app on my phone, but it's the newfangled Office. I don't know if it was the way the app functioned, or simply that it was part of the Novus Ordo Rite that kept deflecting me. Whatever the case, I have finally found my way to the traditional Office and there I've remained.

Along with the traditional spiritual writing I had always preferred to more recently published writings, my staple sources of reading and study has expanded to a much richer treasury. Not that everything written in recent years is all bad. But a lot of it really can't compare to the richness and orthodoxy of older texts. And given the virtually endless list of works that have helped countless Catholics deepen their Interior Lives for centuries, there's plenty there to do the same for me.

As for excitement, I must say that our traditional Liturgy and the various forms of written works easily accessible - most for free - really does excite the intellect and emotions in ways the newfangled stuff simply can't. At least that's been my experience. Maybe it has something to do with a kind of "reconnecting" with those years growing up with the traditional liturgy. Perhaps that combines with those years of discontent grappling with that which the newfangled liturgy brought to us. Whatever the reason, the traditional Liturgy rings in my ears, lifts up my heart, and nourishes my soul.

Finally, we come to liberty of spirit. It's something St. Benedict writes about. We're all uniquely created by God, body and soul, with commensurate individual character and temperament. Given those facts, we should seek to follow our inclinations when it comes to how and when we pray, meditate, study, even worship. That's not to say we should flit from one form of liturgy to another willy-nilly. You can be - and should - be disciplined as you explore and follow your liberty of spirit.

(At least that is my best understanding of "liberty of spirit." I have no professional expertise here.)

All in all, this Mess has brought some blessings - at least to me - when it comes to practicing my Catholic Religion, specifically my participation in the Roman Rite Liturgy. Of course, since I'm not a monk, my praying of the Divine Office is private and takes place typically at home, including when I'm in my home office. (A break from my work routine for prayer is something I work at all the time.) As for Mass (a part of "Liturgy"), what's been available has been the Novus Ordo only. I don't know how the Mess has affected the Traditional Latin Mass. For the newfangled, it's been masks, distancing, with the rest pretty much as it had been before the Mess broke out. I do my best not to dwell on what's lacking or off-center. With some occasional slips, I try not to criticize or complain. At least the priests in our parish aren't on the extreme fringe and do seem to be sincere in saying Mass as they were taught (which, at the end of the day, is the problem). 

If you weren't raised with the traditional Roman Rite, I can only suggest you try to learn something about it. Sometimes people don't have the patience or inclination to do this. But it's their loss. Frankly, the more I imbibe of the traditional liturgy, the more watered-down the newfangled tastes.

Happy Easter!