...and now we're hearing it again.
I am currently reading a 1993 article about one Fr. Grubb. Fr. Grubb was on the forefront of the hippie masses and went just about as far as one could go with this back in the 60s and 70s, even going so far as to bake pot brownies, sew burlap vestments with flowers and peace symbols on them, and invite raucous rock bands to play during "Mass," among other things. In any case, Fr. Grubb long ago repented, realizing his many errors, and became a traditional and orthodox priest. He even began saying the traditional Latin mass in the 1980s.
See if you find some of his sentiments, circa 1969, familiar:
But many of us grew up in churches where many of the means of being led to God--those sure, tried-and-true ways passed down through the centuries--were altogether absent. Even in the church I grew up in, which was built after I was baptized (in the late 70s), there were almost no statues and I'd never even heard of benediction, Eucharistic adoration, communion rails, most traditional Catholic hymns, Gregorian chant, a "morning offering," the Angelus, votive candles, an "examination of conscience," or any myriad number of other things. I don't remember being taught how to say the rosary, for that matter. My home parish was far from radical in the vast scheme of things, and my mother, though a product of her generation, was certainly a devout Catholic. These many rich means of growing closer to Our Lord--mostly traditional Catholic sacramentals--were effectively deprived the people in my parish, and particularly those in my generation--because they were seen as unnecessary and perhaps even embarrassing. One of the things we did have in my parish, and to the best of my knowledge it still exists, was a "guitar group" and quite a few "Eucharistic Ministers." Don't get me wrong, I have many fond memories of my home parish and certainly of our good and true pastor, but even our seemingly staid parish had its novelties.
Well, I took the long way around just to say that it happened before and it will happen again. Many look in vain for "novelty," and sometimes for all the best intentions. But truly there is nothing new under the sun. The only thing that will truly gain people's attention and keep it is God Himself.
From article, "The Prodigal Priest," by Jeffrey Rubin in Latin Mass Magazine Special Edition, 1993.
I am currently reading a 1993 article about one Fr. Grubb. Fr. Grubb was on the forefront of the hippie masses and went just about as far as one could go with this back in the 60s and 70s, even going so far as to bake pot brownies, sew burlap vestments with flowers and peace symbols on them, and invite raucous rock bands to play during "Mass," among other things. In any case, Fr. Grubb long ago repented, realizing his many errors, and became a traditional and orthodox priest. He even began saying the traditional Latin mass in the 1980s.
See if you find some of his sentiments, circa 1969, familiar:
Interestingly, Fr. Grubb noticed that
- As people change, the Church and the Mass must change with them.
- The traditional Mass for most people--especially the young--is dull. All over the country, churches are finding that the young people just are not coming to their services. We had to find a way to make Mass a happy, relevant experience for them.
"no matter what novelty was introduced," attendance at mass dropped. "He began to see that what the people were expecting, and what he had been providing, was not spiritual nourishment, not closeness to God--or even one another--but entertainment.The hippie masses may be over, for the most part, in this country. But their ghosts remain, as do advocates of the radical reforms they represented. Now what we face is the closure of our churches, the building of "churches of the future," and the introduction of all kinds of novelties from cappuccino bars to trendy and irreverent christo-pop to labyrinth-walking to the promotion of cremation instead of burial. The point is that what is at stake here is not even the closure of churches and the opening of new ones, but the closure of churches and the replacement of said churches with something altogether different. Like Fr. Grubb, Bishop Galante and Company ought to be asking themselves, "What kind of converts will we make with all these novelties? What, in the end, is the point of all this?" Fr. Grubb's answer was, "To lead them [the people] to God." This is not only the role of a good shepherd, but of the physical church, the Sacred Mass, and Holy Mother Church herself.
He also began to notice that his congregation was drifting not just out of his Mass, but out of the Church. Young people especially, who made up most of his following, were abandoning the Faith in droves, preferring the easier religion of drugs and sex. Most, he believes, never returned: "They married outside of the Church, I'm sure"--if they bothered to marry at all. He even began to doubt what sort of converts he had made, which at one point had been many. "I'm not sure what they were converted to," he says today. "I rather think they were converted to me."
But many of us grew up in churches where many of the means of being led to God--those sure, tried-and-true ways passed down through the centuries--were altogether absent. Even in the church I grew up in, which was built after I was baptized (in the late 70s), there were almost no statues and I'd never even heard of benediction, Eucharistic adoration, communion rails, most traditional Catholic hymns, Gregorian chant, a "morning offering," the Angelus, votive candles, an "examination of conscience," or any myriad number of other things. I don't remember being taught how to say the rosary, for that matter. My home parish was far from radical in the vast scheme of things, and my mother, though a product of her generation, was certainly a devout Catholic. These many rich means of growing closer to Our Lord--mostly traditional Catholic sacramentals--were effectively deprived the people in my parish, and particularly those in my generation--because they were seen as unnecessary and perhaps even embarrassing. One of the things we did have in my parish, and to the best of my knowledge it still exists, was a "guitar group" and quite a few "Eucharistic Ministers." Don't get me wrong, I have many fond memories of my home parish and certainly of our good and true pastor, but even our seemingly staid parish had its novelties.
Well, I took the long way around just to say that it happened before and it will happen again. Many look in vain for "novelty," and sometimes for all the best intentions. But truly there is nothing new under the sun. The only thing that will truly gain people's attention and keep it is God Himself.
From article, "The Prodigal Priest," by Jeffrey Rubin in Latin Mass Magazine Special Edition, 1993.