TO DATE I have seen no mention or sympathy in the arguments about the New Liturgy of those people who were most disorientated by all the changes, namely the elderly.
For some seventy years I was told that I must hear the Tridentine Mass on Sundays and Holy days under pain of mortal sin.
Suddenly it no longer existed and should I dare to have a yearnjog for the old ways.
a tiresome old rebelt,l,am. not even allowed the comfort of knowing that the Tridentine Mass will be said over my old bones when I'm taken into church for the last time.
I wonder if any of the bishops who are putting down their feet so firmly on those with nostalgic memories were even actively persecuted for their faith?
Did they ever attend a state school where staff and, other pupils treated them as outcasts? Did they ever have a crowd of hostile schoolmates running after them shouting "Roman Catholics quack, quack. quack — go to the devil and never come back."
I know one old lady, who as a child was actually tarred and leathered on her way home.from church.
Did they have to travel six miles on foot in all weather in order to hear Mass.
Fasting of course if they wished to receive Holy Communion. We had been taught "It's the Mass that matters."
In my opinion when they changed the Liturgy they took away a pearl of great price and gave us a very mediocre substitute.
„.The only time 1 can recapture the spiritual comfort of the old Mass is in the f;w short minutes I can talk quietly, to Jesus after receiving Him in Holy Communion.
But alas how quickly that holy peace is shattered. First by the second collection and then notices from the altar.
Finally by the stampede from the church the moment Mass is ended. So few people nowadays have time for thanksgiving after Communion.
By this time my head is in a whirl and I return home with a very small scrap of comfort from
my visit to Mass. D. N. Bailey Bristol