GIRM Warfare

By Fr. Wilson ( articles ) | Mar 22, 2004

Check out "GIRM Warfare" on Barbara Nicolosi's excellent "Church of the Masses" blogsite.

She has a perfectly plausible, chilling account of the maddening experience of attending Mass in Los Angeles now that the new General Instruction on the Roman Missal has been implemented. Apparently, it has seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to Cardinal Mahoney that upon returning to their pews after receiving Communion, the Faithful shall STAND until everyone has received. With predictably distracting results.

And a new custom has been added to the administration of the Sacrament in the Roman Rite: the Peremptory Rebuke, barked at you if you dare genuflect before receiving. Apparently, this newfangled imitation of a dashboard bobbing doll I see everywhere now (I never thought I'd see the day when I'd struggle not to break out into a grin while administering the Eucharist) is the sole gesture of reverence acceptable in the Golden Age of Eagles' Wings.

I'm more and more thinking of Fr Rutler's comment to me that, of COURSE one can put in a communion rail nowadays. One simply calls it a handicapped access device.