St Philip Neri on not asking for trouble

"A man should not ask tribulations of God, presuming on his being able to bear them: there should be the greatest possible caution in this matter, for he who bears what God sends him daily does not do a small thing."

The family and the State, Pius XI

"[T]he family is more sacred than the State and that men are begotten not for the earth and for time, but for Heaven and eternity."

- Pope Pius XI, Casti Connubii

The Hokey Cokey

... or Hokey Pokey, as it's known elsewhere.

(This post is apropos nothing topical, just something I've long pondered on.)

When I was young, my dad told me the Hokey Cokey mocked the Mass. The words Hokey Cokey being based on "Hoc est enim Corpus Meum" ("This is My Body"). That seems to be a well known theory, although it has been denied (for example, here).

It might all be an urban legend, but...

When I started attending Traditional Latin Masses half my life (so far) ago, it started making sense.

You put your right hand in... out, shake it all about.
- Perhaps a parody of the priest making the sign of the cross over the host and chalice at the Offertory.

You do the Hokey Cokey
- As per the famous theory, as mentioned already, about it being a parody of "Hoc est emim Corpus Meum."

And you turn around
- Priest turns to congregation and says "Dominus vobiscum."

Knees bend
- Genuflection.

Arms stretch
- Elevation.

Rah rah rah!
- Bells rung thrice.

Can those similarities really have come about just by accident?

Things prophets haven't said

Traditionalist (and I number myself among them) often quote this:

We are what you once were.
We believe what you once believed.
We worship as you once worshipped.
If you were right then, we are right now.
If we are wrong now, you were wrong then.

But is it all that persuasive really?

There can't be many people who have difficulty conceding that they used to be wrong but that they're right now. If I were a modernist, and a traditionalist used that motto in a discussion with me, I'd probably respond, "Yes, I was wrong then. Now, I've seen the light!"

What might be a more persuasive argument?

Perhaps the fact that we have been warned to beware of novelties, in scripture for a start:

For there shall be a time, when they will not endure sound doctrine; but, according to their own desires, they will heap to themselves teachers, having itching ears: And will indeed turn away their hearing from the truth, but will be turned unto fables... - 2 Timothy 4:3-4

Notice the chronology. Truth first, being abandoned in favour of error. Not the other way round. 

In fact, I don't think I've ever seen any prediction that says that one day the Church will start getting things right after having been wrong for so long. Not that anyone has to believe in private revelations, but when none of them predicts that things are just going to keep getting better in the Church, it should make one think.

These days, I'm more interested in what prophecies don't say than what they do. Things like, "There will be a great Council, that will open the Church up to the influence of the world, and there will be a new springtime!" And, "The Church's liturgy will undergo immense improvements, allowing more participation by the people, and more involvement of women, who have been neglected for so long." Not forgetting, "Church buildings will be greatly improved by the removal of altar rails, statues, and the relocation of tabernacles to a less central position."

So on the one hand, we've had warnings that things will become very bad (a diabolical disorientation, as Sr Lucy put it), and on the other we've had no predictions that things will get better (except after a chastisement of some kind). Our Lady's Immaculate Heart will triumph eventually, but meanwhile there will be trouble.

Whose preference?

The subject of the liturgy is often reduced to being a mere matter of preference, but isn't how we worship more significant than that?

One might prefer burger and fries to salad, but does that make it superior?
One could prefer the Beatles to Beethoven, while still acknowledging the superiority of the latter.

So, while one may "prefer" the New Mass or the Traditional Mass, which one is superior?

This post from last year might provide a clue.

Pomp need not come into it though. I maintain that a Traditional Mass, offered in the humblest of surroundings, without music, is still superior to a reverent New Mass in a cathedral.

(The Divine Liturgy is also superior. I often think of detergent adverts:
We washed the Latin Rite in new improved Vatican II, but we used the original formula on the 
Eastern Rites. Let's see how they turned out!)

The changes matter. They matter to those who protest against them, and they matter to those who introduced them, otherwise they wouldn't have introduced them, imposing the new and suppressing the old.

The only preference which counts is God's preference. He "preferred" Abel's sacrifice to Cain's.

C S Lewis on Divine Goodness

... What would really satisfy us would be a God who said of anything we happened to like doing, "What does it matter so long as they are contented?" We want, in fact, not so much a Father in Heaven as a grandfather in heaven--a senile benevolence who, as they say, "liked to see young people enjoying themselves" and whose plan for the universe was simply that it might be truly said at the end of each day, "a good time was had by all". Not many people, I admit, would formulate a theology in precisely those terms: but a conception not very different lurks at the back of many minds. I do not claim to be an exception: I should very much like to live in a universe which was governed on such lines. But since it is abundantly clear that I don't, and since I have reason to believe, nevertheless, that, God is Love, I conclude that my conception of love needs correction.

The Problem of Pain