This is Catholic Worship

November 10, 2012 By 25 Comments

Filed Under: Catholic Culture Tagged With: , , 25 Comments
About Fr. Dwight Longenecker
  • Gia

    Nice! Love to see a return to all altar boys! Not too sure about the incense — cough cough — but it sure looks good.

    • http://www.gardenofholiness.blogspot.com Christie Martin

      It might not make you cough, Gia. Good, costly real incense doesn’t irritate as much as the stuff most of our parishes can afford. This looks awe inspiring!

  • Johnofthecrumbs

    We have this kind of Holy Worship every Sunday at two different times complete with traditional music and choir. .Visit Our Lady of the Atonement on line to see samples of true Catholic Worship. God Bless

    • http://imperfectfollower.blogspot.com NickD

      I don’t know if you were aware of this, but this past Wednesday a priest from the Congregation of the Fathers of Mercy said Mass on Wednesday in your Sacred Heart Chapel. I was able to serve at the altar. It was one of the most beautiful Masses that I have ever served.

      P.S. Click on my name to read more

  • David N

    Oh yes, now THAT’s what I call Catholic! Proper worship involving all the senses.

  • Matt

    Where is that from?

    • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

      St Peters

  • http://bloggingtheology.wordpress.com Paul Williams

    Hmm – I’m not sure Jesus the Jew would have recognised this…

    • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

      Have a look at the worship in the temple in Jerusalem. You have: 1. Big beautiful building 2. Incense 3. Priests in fine robes 4. processions 5. liturgical attendants. 6. golden lampstands 7. eternal flame of the presence 8. Golden altar of sacrifice….Catholic worship is a direct descendent.

      • http://bloggingtheology.wordpress.com Paul Williams

        It is a bit difficult for me to look at the worship in the Temple as it was destroyed by the Romans 2000 years ago. Do you perhaps have a photo I could see? I may be wrong but a) Jesus wasn’t killed in the Temple or any building (but outside of Jerusalem) b) human sacrifices were an abomination to the God of Israel c) the drinking of blood which Catholics believe they are literally doing in Catholic worship is a form of cannibalism and anyway it was prohibited in the Torah to eat blood (gentiles were prohibited from consuming blood too in Acts 15:29).

        I could go on…:)

        Paul

        • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

          The Christian faith is the New Covenant. The Jewish faith is the Old Covenant. The Jewish religion holds types and foreshadowings of the Christian faith. These Old Testament types and shadows are fulfilled in Jesus Christ, and the types and foreshadowings seen in the Old Testament and the Jewish religion are not only fulfilled in Jesus Christ, but also in the Catholic religion. The connections are abundant in many many ways. The way Catholic worship fulfills the Scriptures are very numerous, but from your comments so far I doubt whether you would be able to see them.

          • http://bloggingtheology.wordpress.com Paul Williams

            Indeed my capacity to understand many things is limited.

            But I note you did not respond to 2 of my points re Jesus and the later Catholic Mass:

            1) human sacrifices were an abomination to the God of Israel

            2) the drinking of blood which Catholics believe they are literally doing in Catholic worship is a form of cannibalism (ie humans eating the flesh/drinking the blood of other human beings)

            3) and anyway drinking blood was prohibited in the Torah and Gentiles too were prohibited from consuming blood in Acts 15:29.

            So as I said: ‘I’m not sure Jesus the Jew would have recognised this…’

          • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

            1. I’m not sure to what you are referring in you question about human sacrifices. Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the one, full, final sacrifice that satisfies both God and man.
            2. I think you misunderstand the Catholic understanding of the transformation of bread and wine to be the body and blood of Christ. We do not believe in a transformation at the physical level. Instead the bread and wine are transformed to become the real body and blood of Christ at the ‘substantial’ level–the level of invisible reality.
            2. We do not drink literal blood. We drink wine that is transformed into the blood of Christ at the substantial level of reality.

            I hardly think Jesus Christ, who was a faithful Jew, would have commanded that we ‘eat his flesh and drink his blood’ if doing so would have broken the Jewish law. Instead this command in John chapter 6 is to be understood as a reality, but on a level which is not greater than merely physical.

        • JoeFen

          “….the Temple as it was destroyed by the Romans 2000 years ago.” Really?? It’s always a treat when the athiests hold class for all us dumb Catholics.
          Based on your question: “Do you perhaps have a photo I could see?”, you probably aren’t aware that Fr. Longenecker’s list of similarities is based on written descriptions (both Scriptural and secular), not a polaroid. (Paul, they didn’t have cameras back then.)

          “I may be wrong but a) Jesus wasn’t killed in the Temple or any building (but outside of Jerusalem).” And your point is…..?

          “b) human sacrifices were an abomination to the God of Israel”
          Oh, no! All us Christians for 2000 yrs never realized that!! Now what brothers??

          ” c) the drinking of blood which Catholics believe they are literally doing in Catholic worship is a form of cannibalism and anyway it was prohibited in the Torah to eat blood (gentiles were prohibited from consuming blood too in Acts 15:29). ”
          Paul, if only you and your fellow athiests had been blogging back in the first century. With your brilliant insights, you might have put Christianity on the right path – not this crazy notion of the Real Presence that all Christians believed for the first 1500 yrs – until symbolic communion and other brilliant ‘corrections’ to Christ’s teaching arrived during the Reformation.
          BTW, cannibalism is defined as eating dead human flesh. The Blessed Sacrament is not dead human flesh, but the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord made miraculously present under the appearances of bread and wine.

          • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

            Paul is not an atheist or a Protestant but a British Catholic who has converted to Islam.

  • Woody Jones

    Looks like the procession into St. Peter’s for Vespers on Sunday, in Latin, with homily in Italian, and Sistine Chapel choir to boot. I have been there twice now and it is tremendous, and very well attended, too.

    • Keith Fraser

      @Will, actually it’s a mass. If you notice, the bishops in the procession are all wearing albs, and chasubles (and presumably stoles underneath). They are also wearing simlpe mitres and not carrying croziers, which denotes that they are concelebrating bishops.

      Had this been Vespers the clergy would be in the choir dress appropriate to their rank (choir cassock in the appropriate colour – black for priests with a cotta and black biretta, purple with amaranth trim for bishops and archbishops with a rochet and mozetta overlain with a pectoral cross in chord of green and gold, or scarlet for cardinals (pectoral cross with a chord of scarlet and gold) with a zuchetta with biretta. The celebrant and 2 deacons would also be vested in choir dress but with copes. in that case only the celebrant would be wearing a mitre and carrying the crozier.

      While the “Sistine Screamers” may well be a slight cut above the average parish, “tremendous” isn’t an adjective I’d ascribe to them……

      • Arnold

        I agree with you about the Sistine Chapel choir. Benedict needs to bring in a German or English choir director, maybe a former Anglican. My new pastor here in southern Oregon is insisting on at least two altar servers for every Mass and a new recruitment and training program was introduced. Recently the new servers were included in an “installation” Mass for them and I noticed they were all boys (ten of them). I don’t know if that was accidental or the result of a deliberate decision.

  • Will

    Our pastor has incense at least twice a month. We have one “leftover” female altar server – no more girls are being trained as altar servers. These things do not make it any more Catholic than other parishes. We need the outward symbols and acts but we also need the inside love and prayers.

  • Amanda

    “Leftover” female altar server? Wow. Just wow. As one of those past female altar servers I cannot believe there is such contempt for the service that we gave at mass. Perhaps we should just sit in the back of the church during mass too. That way we won’t get in anyone’s way.

    • Arnold

      He used an unfortunate expression. Female servers do a good job, sometimes better than the boys, but it has been apparent to me for some time in the parishes I have belonged to that they inhibit the effort to recruit more boys. They often come to be the majority of available servers. I have noticed in my parish that many of the younger parents are eager to have their children involved in the liturgy as altar boys or as members of a to-be-established children’s choir. I belong to the adult choir and our director told us that there are over 20 children ready to join if the go-ahead is given (budget). Their parents want them to learn the Church’s patrimony of good music. I was pleasantly surprised.

      • Amanda

        I have seen absolutely no evidence of that whatsoever. When I served we had plenty of boys AND girls. The idea that boys don’t want to do something because girls do it is absolutely ridiculous. If you’re child really is that immature, perhaps they shouldn’t be on the altar. Our children sit in mixed classrooms and play mixed sports too. They even go to church together. Give me a break.

    • Will

      I did not mean to offend anyone, or any sex, by the comment. Perhaps I should have said that she was the last remaining female altar server, grandfathered (or grandmothered ?) in before our pastor decided not to have any more take part as altar servers. I am offended that girls are no longer able to be altar servers in our parish. No one asked me. No announcement was made. That is the way our parish operates.

  • http://bloggingtheology.wordpress.com Paul Williams

    Fr. Dwight Longenecker said,
    ‘I’m not sure to what you are referring in you question about human sacrifices. Jesus Christ’s sacrifice on the cross is the one, full, final sacrifice that satisfies both God and man.’

    I was referring to Jesus’ alleged sacrifice on the cross. Jesus was fully human – if he was a sacrifice for sin then simple logic suggests he was a human sacrifice. Such an idea is abhorrent to God in the Torah. But throughout Jesus’ ministry he taught that God’s grace and forgiveness and salvation were freely available if one just repented and did good works (see for example the story of Zacchaeus in Luke).

    you say,
    ‘We do not believe in a transformation at the physical level. Instead the bread and wine are transformed to become the real body and blood of Christ at the ‘substantial’ level–the level of invisible reality. We do not drink literal blood. We drink wine that is transformed into the blood of Christ at the substantial level of reality.’

    It may be invisible to Catholics but not to God (in your understanding), but it is still – really – truly – actually – is Jesus’ blood and body (whether invisible or not). So it is still wholly appropriate to designate this as cannibalism.

    It remains the case. and you have not responded to this significant point, that drinking blood was prohibited in the Torah and Gentiles too were prohibited from consuming blood in Acts 15:29.

    • Fr. Dwight Longenecker

      Actually, I did respond, but as I supposed, you were unable to understand or accept my answer. Have a good day.