grassrootcatholic

Eventually you have to ask yourself whether you're more Catholic than you are "trad." There's a point at which trad ideology draws a hard line. Either you're in this small, obscure "Church within the Church" that is somehow better than 99% of all Catholics, or you're not. There's something apocalyptic about believing that 99% of Catholics are lost, fallen, wrong, demon-possessed, or whatever. It's a dark worldview that seems to have a poisonous effect on the spirit. Even if there are valid critiques to be made of the Novus Ordo, the Second Vatican Council, or the many post-council teachings that muddied the waters, this idea that the ONLY way to Christ is through a handful of scattered Latin Mass communities cuts away at the universality of the one true Church. It also distracts from the reality that so many non-TLM, ordinary run-of-the-mill Parishes are experiencing a genuine revival in the Liturgy. I travel constantly and am constantly at Novus Ordo Masses -- more and more people are receiving on the knee, on the tongue, more and more young Priests are saying parts of the Mass in Latin, using incense, even doing Ad Orientem. This is the direction that everyday Catholicism is heading, and it can be hard to see it from within the trad TLM world. Nothing wrong with preferring the Latin Mass at all. But to ever be so trad that you'd deny the validity of the Novus Ordo, speak ill of the Pope, or have this doom-and-gloom mentality about the state of the Church? This is usually not good, not warranted, and I invite those who feel that way to come out into the wider Church to see the amazing changes taking place. If the average trad were to visit 25 random Novus Ordo Churches around the country, I think they'd be surprised at what they'd see. It may not look quite like LifeSiteNews would say it'd look -- and it definitely wouldn't look the way it did 15 or even 5 years ago.

What's it mean when over half the people in Mass don't participate or say the responses?

I'm off. When I return I will officially be Catholic. ✝️📿🇻🇦