Mass. June 2025. Now You See Him. Now You Don’t.

Who or what here is front and Center at Mass the whole time? And Who is casually picked up – with one hand! – put back down and de-emphasized quickly, then passed around in what appears to be the real climax of the present liturgical intention: the act, it would appear, not of adoring His Real and most Sacred Presence, nor the re-presentation of the Cross of Christ at the altar, but rather the celebrating of ourselves, the liturgical “Community”?

Time is relative. Recently at a Novus Ordo Mass near me I experienced something of what a bad eternity might be like. The walls were all but bare, the acoustics wretched, there was nothing remotely sacred-sounding about the pounding sole piano “music” we experienced. It was clunky saloon-like playing accompanied by what we too often have come to expect at Mass, hesitant dismal singing which could not easily be confused with praying. If things had started to improve under Pope Benedict XVI, we certainly have backslid into the worst kind of mediocrity since the time of the Francis’ “mess”.

This is supposed to be what Vatican II had in mind? You’d never know it. But the Wreckers early had their way. Will Leo XIV clean this depressing mess up and reconnect us to Catholicism’s sacred Tradition? Will the Sacred aesthetics of our churches and Mass reemerge?

Flashback: Damian Thompson wrote, “Arthur Roche permits this Protestant ceremony while calling traditional Catholics Protestants.” —SH.

Just one more "unique expression of the «lex orandi» of the Roman Rite", brought to you by the parish of St. Martin Illnau-Effretikon/Lindau/Brütten (https://t.co/dmSD2hLyrz), in the Diocese of Chur, Switzerland… pic.twitter.com/lh3ggVyk09

— Matthew Hazell (@M_P_Hazell) September 1, 2022

+ No more traditional priesthood: a goal for some.

“Vatican’s new liturgy chief is ‘innocent of learning'” “…If he really knew how the Novus ordo got crafted, he might have a bit more patience and charity. Or, maybe not” … Continue

— Read: Ecclesial-Theological Implications. In the Most Grave Confusions the People Are Not Obliged to Know.

— Grave controversies and confusions aside, the Councils of Trent and Vatican II each affirm that in any case Catholics are obliged to know and believe the whole Catholic Faith: The Credo of the People of God.

— 2007 Dogmatics Clarified Yet Again

— John XXIII, Benedict XVI and Francis

— Traditionis Custodes. Reactions

The first time I heard something like this I was 22 and just happened to walk into a cathedral while in France. They were only practicing and it literally stopped me in my tracks. It was like heaven opened up. How did Catholics trade this for what sounds like bad 70s music? pic.twitter.com/zkzoHFFQaC

— Jeremy Wayne Tate (@JeremyTate41) June 29, 2025

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