Scourge Us

Indeed, the historical paradox is that synagogue practices moved away from this, as the Jews frankly admitted the loss of the Temple, and accepted the fact of their dispersal. The Christians consciously "took the Temple with them"; and in the doctrine of the Real Presence, implicitly accepted from the beginning, they grasped the structure of that Temple in this world -- its Crucifixion, Descent, and Resurrection, in time and through time.

I do not mean to be writing mysteriously or mystically here; I am referring to the actual historical progression from Old Testament to New, and the liturgical transformation that was wrought, historically, by Jesus Christ. The Temple remains, and is within, the Sanctuary.

The "reforms" that followed Vatican II were human work, done by men very foolish, operating upon fashionable ideas of how the Mass should work. Their ideas, in turn, now look very dated, and the "reforms" are exposed as a desecration. We recall, or should recall, how Jesus took the whip to the desecrators of the Temple -- to the men who had set up their stalls to pursue their own purposes within its precincts.

While one is of course hopeful that the much-advertised "reform of the reforms" will bring a partial restoration of the status quo, it is still being done by liturgical commission -- by a bureaucratic agency, under weak human management. It is a job beyond human capacity, and we must pray that, instead, Christ will come to scourge us.