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Saturday 30 March 2013

All change is bad - Father F.W. Faber, Cong. Orat.



All change is bad from its very nature. It is full of evil; it unsettles and disturbs; it is full of the world; it is the very spirit of the world; and nothing worse can be said of it. Whenever we are tempted to change any thing, we must not only be quite sure that the old system contained evils, but also that those evils were more numerous and more important, than the ones we must inevitably bring in by change. So cautious, so slow, so meek must we be; so different from those rash and headstrong men who are for changing every thing, though they are not certain that they know all the hidden uses of that which they attack. But change in religion is of all things most perilous. We all of us feel how intimately our spiritual life is bound up in little things, and how change of time and place and company is always putting us wrong. It dislocates our religious habits; our religious ways of thinking, and acting, and speaking. This is the great reason why we should oppose all changes in our ancient Liturgy. It would disturb and unsettle the people." Father F. W. Faber, Cong. Orat. Credo, 1840

1 comment:

Barona said...

Newman also was greatly concerned about the corruption of Anglican liturgy (this, during his gradual discernment that the C of E was untenable). Newman's thesis was that the change in litrugy marked possibly a change in doctrine.

Certainly, liturgical changes always mark a change in psychological perception. A stark example of this, is the granting of an indult for reception of Holy Communion in the had. let us abstract for a moment from the illicit manner it was hoisted on the Church by dissident bishops and a vacillating and weak Pope. The point being that a liturgical change was enacted; in this case with very grave consequences.

Though the institutional Church has not and cannot change Her Dogma, in the hearts and souls of millions of Catholics, understanding and belief in this Dogma has changed. Millions no longer believe understand the Real Presence - and this being the Mysterium Fidei.

THis change was bad, it was very bad: it was evil.