Importance of Rubrics QUESTION from Pete September 20, 1999
Recently I was reading your responses to other questions and thought of a quote from JP II that I have seldom seen used, and I think that it is a very appropriate response for many of the situations that arise. I found this when I was researching an issue (abuse) in our parish. I wish that I could say it made a difference, but it didn't. Too often, many of the people responsible for so many of the abuses don't care what the documents say and just hope that you don't show them. And if you do they will ignore them. Anyway here is another response to them: The liturgy is the public worship of the Church, not the private domain of individuals or liturgical committees. Where the Church has been specific it doesn’t matter if I, or anyone else agrees. Pope John Paul II stressed: The priest cannot consider himself a proprietor who can make free use of the liturgical text and of the sacred rite as if it were his own property, in such a way as to stamp it with his own arbitrary personal style. At times this latter might seem more effective, and it may better correspond to subjective piety; nevertheless objectively it is always a betrayal of that union which should find its proper expression in the sacrament of unity. Every priest who offers the Holy Sacrifice should recall that during this Sacrifice it is not only he with his community that is praying but the whole Church, which is thus expressing in this sacrament her spiritual unity, among other ways by the use of the approved liturgical text. To call this position mere insistence on uniformity would only show ignorance of the objective requirements of authentic unity, and would be a symptom of harmful individualism.(DC 12) ANSWER by Mr. John Miskell on September 21, 1999
Dear Pete, Thanks and God bless you. John Miskell Back to Index Page