by a Conservative Catholic Liturgy Blogger, Papal Expert, Holder of a Doctorate Degree of the Definitions of Modest Women’s Dress, and Professional Cribbage Player from St. Mary’s, Kansas
I went to the Byzantine Divine Liturgy today. Not because I wanted to. Obviously I would have gone to the Latin Mass but the woke bishop in the diocese I was visiting today believes that he needs to trim down Latin emissions to fight climate change in his diocese. So I can’t.
And so, I went to the local Byzantine Divine Liturgy, because I had heard positive things about it from a few friends. Of course it was never going to be as good as even a Low Mass, but I had pretty high hopes.
Well, I was shocked by what I saw.
Byzantines are more woke than your worst OF church.
For starts, I walked in and there were no Holy Water fonts. Don’t these buckaroos know about Sacramentals?
Well, maybe that could be forgiven, I thought, remembering that I had luckily brought along my own little bottle. At this point, I noticed that there was also no altar rail or high altar. I couldn’t even see the altar as a matter of fact. They had cordoned it off in an entirely separate room. (By the way, you won’t find an adoration chapel in Byzantine churches, either, I found that out later today.) Typical far-left progressives, I thought.
But it got worse. Mass or liturgy (Why are they afraid to use the word Mass, by the way?) hadn’t started yet, but rather than a reverential silence, the priest was chanting psalms IN ENGLISH as people slowly trickled into the Church. What sort of seminary education did that priest receive? Doesn’t he know that the vernacular is the root of all evil? Genesis 11. Tower of Babel. Take that baby.
Well, then the Liturgy, Mass, whatever they call it, started. It wasn’t even clear that it had started, there were too many children milling about. Don’t you know that pews keep good order, discipline, and respect. Well, they sure didn’t. It was like a mob in there with no pews. And there didn’t seem to be much difference between whatever they were doing with Psalms beforehand and the Liturgy itself. I could barely tell the difference.
The noise and the milling about never stopped. There was no time for me to pray. And most people had their shoes off! Barbaric! Don’t they know that cleanliness is next to Godliness? Again, they didn’t. I was noticing a pattern here, not only a lack of respect for TRADITIONTM but there was an utter lack of civilized behavior of any kind.
But things still continued to get worse. Next, I discovered that there were in fact women in the choir. Do they not know the words of St. Paul that in the Church women should be seen and not heard?
But then, I noticed something even more blatantly treacherous. In the creed there was no “filioque”! Traitors! Heretics! SCHISMATICS! Such blatant disregard for Roman supremacy.
Also, there was a use of the A-word: “alleluia”. DURING LENT!
And they invoked the wrong bishop. Who is this guy, Benedict, I had never heard him. Perhaps, I thought to myself briefly, there were referring rather to Benedict XV, the last true, real pope, but then I realized that if they were showing that sort of respect they wouldn’t be heretics, so this was obviously further treason.
When the time to came to receive Holy Communion, nevermind the fact that I was hopelessly lost, as it seemed they had put the one and only proper structure of the Mass into a blender, I learned that I was to be required to receive Holy Communion under BOTH species. And, again, I was reminded that there was no communion rail.
But the worst of the worst of my many terrible discoveries came after Mass. The priest was MARRIED? What sort of an institution was this?
I got into my 15-passenger with my 18 kids, shook the dust out of my sandals, and, vowing to never return to this terrible place, set of on a course to the nearest SSPX chapel five hours away, to finally fulfill my Sunday obligation, hopefully still to make it back home in time for my nightly cribbage game and cigar.
Byzantines are woke.