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James Martin, S.J.January 06, 2010

Things liturgical have a way of raising Catholic hackles (Cackles?), even here at "In All Things."  Maybe that's as it should be: the Mass is the "source and summit" of Catholic worship, so Catholics should take the celebration of the Mass (and the other sacraments and other things liturgical) seriously.  With that in mind, here's a brand-new blog called "Pray Tell," a joint venture of Liturgical Press and St. John's School of Theology and Seminary in Collegeville, Minn., historically one of the centers for liturgical research, renewal and scholarship in this country.  The blog chiefs quote from the first issue of Orate, Fratres, one of the great liturgical magazines (now Worship) that helped foster the liturgical renewal that led to the Second Vatican Council's document Sacrosanctum Concilium.  "Our general aim is develop a better understanding of the spiritual import of the liturgy. … [We hope] that many persons may find in the liturgy the first answer to the intimate need of their souls for a closer contact and union with the spiritual and the divine.”  The new blog, the progeny of Orate, Fratres, is nothing if not candid:

Some will ask, Is this to be a liberal blog? Well, what else would you expect from Collegeville?! But more needs to be said than that. If liberal means open-minded, self-questioning, ecumenical, attentive to contemporary culture, and avoidant of romantic nostalgia, then we surely hope to be liberal. But if liberal means yesterday’s progressivism, yesterday’s ideals as if the culture and the churches haven’t changed dramatically since the 1970s or 1980s, then we hope to be not at all liberal. Those in the “old guard,” if there be such, can expect to be challenged and engaged.

Sounds like something worth checking into, fratres, and sistres, too

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Robert Burke
15 years 5 months ago
Sorry, Fr. Jim ... I appear to have poked a bit too hard.
 
In any event, as one who has been flamed at for being critical of those excited about bringing back such things as maniples at one or two Very Special Parishes while ignoring the needs of better music and preaching in all parishes, I think this new weblog has potential. Fr. Ruff, for one, was one of the organizers of the group that led to the Snowbird Statement on Liturgical Music, which was very critical of 1990s trends, even as he rightly defends liturgical reform since Vatican II. 
MARY JO LILLY
15 years 5 months ago
Will do, Jim, but that expression of hope that "many", instead of "all" persons find that first answer has a disturbingly familiar ring to it.......
Robert Burke
15 years 5 months ago
It would be fratres et sorores, as any graduate of the Boston Latin School (and apparently not of a Jesuit seminary) could tell you. 
david power
15 years 5 months ago
Nice to be quoted. Thank you Fr Jim Keane!That said ,I am not much of a liturgy man and only feel it in my soul and cannot express it in words.I pray every day at the tomb of St Ignatius and St Francis and give thanks to god for the Jesuits and pray for them.I apologize if I offended anybody in previous posts and hope we are all one in Christ.

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