HAPPY MOTHERS’ DAY!!!
Posted by frjcmaximilian on May 13th, 2007
["The Virgin Mother and Child, with St Dominic and St. Thomas Aquinas" by Fra Angelico]
What more need be said? A blessing to all our mothers, especially for the gift of life and for sharing the Faith in Jesus Christ with us.
May 14th, 2007 at 9:31 am
Father,
I just stumbled upon your blog and found it of great interest. Four years ago, I moved to Bordentown from Syracuse, New York, and duly registered with the local Catholic parish. I have long been an advocate for what many Catholics call a “new liturgical movement” or “reform of the reform” of Catholic liturgy, including a better translation of the Missal, a return to traditional Catholic music, particularly chant, and a more solemn and traditional approach to liturgy: no miked cantors, no lay Eucharistic ministers, use of the altar rail for Communion, occasional propers and parts of the Ordinary in Latin, and a recovery of the public recitation of Sunday Vespers. I found the local parishes to be really abysmal in regard to liturgy, so much so that after a while I found myself skipping Mass more often than not. I eventually found my way into an “Anglo-Catholic” parish in the Episcopal Church, which is my wife’s lifelong church. While I appreciate the Episcopal parish very much, I do hope to end my exile from Mother Church as soon as possible, especially considering the current crisis in the Episcopal Church.
Moreover, I have a daughter, and another child on the way, and in order to eventually register them for CCD and preparation for the Sacraments, I will need to register in a parish sooner than later.
I write, then, to ask if you are familiar with any liturgically sound parishes reasonably close to the Trenton or Princeton area. I have corresponded a few times with Fr. Sirianni at the Diocesan Offices about any parishes in the Diocese of Trenton that have reformed their liturgy and ceremonial along the lines I describe above, and his response has been to tell me that all of the parishes in the Diocese now conform to GIRM standards. I appreciate his position but was hoping for a parish with more than a minimalist approach to GIRM. Any assistance you might offer would be greatly appreciated.
I will gladly take my answer “off the air,” as they say on talk radio.