Butterflies
Gilsdorf, Ethan
I've also heard the Tridentine Mass described as a "one- man show." My impression is precisely the opposite. I never thought the Tridentine rite theatrical, but the first time I at- tended the...
...sist the temptation...
...merly seemed...
...succeed only in conveying that he is eccentric as well as un- Before driving to Flint, I looked over the readings for the friendly or remote...
...The Latin words I heard in Flint were still familiar, but when it is almost as likely that the recipient will be a woman...
...name by which we refer to it is significant...
...The very The lung and gut hunt love...
...I've also heard the Tridentine Mass described as a "oneman show...
...There was no other...
...It seems particularly unfitting at a time in be celebrated in the same language, and on my first trip to which Catholics and other Christians are moving in the diEurope I found that to be true...
...Too much has intervened...
...In the stomach, approval of an audience...
...My understanding of the rection of sharing a common lectionary...
...It still signifies that the church is the same semper (almodes of address have grown virtually obsolete even in the ways), but it has been deprived of its capacity to signify that workplace, a professor who still held to that practice would it is the same ubique (everywhere...
...I impedes the communality of worship the lectionary was was told that wherever I went in the world the Mass would designed to foster...
...much of its associative power for me...
...With time I've grown accustomed to the Their iridescent wings present rite, but I still remember fondly the days when the ir- beat along the esophagus, ritating personality or the exasperating mannerisms of a less dusting the lungs, flustering than amiable priest could be so readily obscured by his sa- the larynx so no one can speak...
...day, which, according to my lectionary, was the twentySomething analogous has occurred over time with the third Sunday of ordinary time...
...For example, after so many years of On reflection, however, I recognized that this difference in community participation, I couldn't but feel that the servers readings focused my vague sense of dissatisfaction with the at the Flint Mass were usurping a role that was properly Tridentine rite...
...identifies and defines the atmosphere between them...
...Latin of the Mass still reminds us that the church transcends Jones," in order to convey that they were no longer high- time, but it no longer reminds us that it also transcends school students but college-age adults...
...Down changed in every respect from the Mass of my with the thudding machine...
...The meanings we attach to things Ethan Gilsdorf depend largely on their context...
...Purely by virtue of con- pastor, who had celebrated an earlier Mass in Ypsilanti and trast, it has become more formal and hieratic than it for- who therefore had to prepare two quite different homilies...
...ferent...
...But now that formal place...
...youth and yet it impressed me as radically dif- That heart catches nothing...
...An institution or convention may remain itself unchanged, but it is invested with a different meaning after its context is altered...
...credotal function...
...I Enough with these ideas did not envy the priest his position...
...That I should be Commonweal 2 5 September 8, 2000...
...self-conscious when all eyes follow your every gesture, and That dumb, stumbling muscle the impulse (a naturally human one) is to perform, to win the knows nothing...
...In my youth we never spoke of the Tridentine rite but spoke only of the Mass...
...It is difficult not to be about a heart holding love...
...It has become impossible to experience it was the fifteenth Sunday after Pentecost, which employs without contrasting it mentally with the form of the Mass quite different readings...
...I never thought the Tridentine rite theatrical, but the first time I attended the present rite my initial impression was that the Butterflies sanctuary had been turned into a stage, the congregation into an audience, and the priest into the star performer...
...At one time the conventional letter salutation employed when writing to a sermons I heard was imperfect, but the words of the Mass itbusiness person whose name was unknown was "Dear Sir...
...I'm impressed that many priests re- butterflies churn and clarify love...
...My first thoughts were of our dear with which we are more familiar...
...But at the church I visited it Tridentine Mass...
...I knew they were not the words being heard in the parish When I began my teaching career years ago, I was told by my churches of France, of Brooklyn, or even of Ypsilanti...
...In my youth, the Latin The use of readings other than those in the present lectionary of the Mass served as a sign of the church's universality...
...One lesson at least I have retained from my Each exhale propels wing dust earlier experience of the Tridentine rite: Catholics, unlike into the air between lovers, many of our fellow Christians, place (or should place) more and in fresh sun the butterfly dust importance on the office of a priest than on his personality...
...Like many other Catholics, I consult the lecthe assembly's...
...he Tridentine rite I attended in Flint was un- Love eats air, not blood...
...self were the words I knew from my childhood in BrookThe same salutation would resonate very differently today, lyn...
...tionary readings for the day in order to participate in the I regret to report that even my beloved Latin has lost spirit of the liturgy even when I cannot attend daily Mass...
...The supervisor to address students as "Miss Smith" or "Mr...
Vol. 127 • September 2000 • No. 15
