Sustained, Stirred, Renewed

Sustained, Stirred, Renewed,

Sunday upon Sunday,

in
the Gathering,

the Entrance,
the Liturgy of the Word,

the Liturgy of the Eucharist,
Holy Communion 
to the Concluding Rites

Going Out to Give Christian Witness

in

Sunday's Eucharist....,
.... a Joyful, Festive Experience!

This vision, from the website of the Irish diocese of Cloyne's Commission for Liturgical Formation, is as striking as the cacophany of color that leaps off the pages of their site at unsuspecting browsers.

Their liturgical vision belongs to a certain period of history, not so long ago. Today it is oh-so-dated. It is hardly the vision of the Catholic Church of the twenty-first century, in the reign of Pope Benedict XVI, post-Sacramentum Caritatis and post-Summorum Pontificum. It looks backwards, not forwards.

There are lots of "coming soon's" on the site. The featured artist is yet to arrive (watch that space) and they seem to be having trouble finding explanations for what they call "Church vocabulary". Not much about the new English translation seems to have arrived, and the link to liturgical music seems to suggest that in Cloyne, that sort of thing is for the birds. Never mind, the Pimpernel is sure that the Cloyne Commission for Liturgical Formation could always manage a rousing rendition of "O Danny boy".

Truly sustained, stirred and renewed.

Perhaps the most telling feature of this site is the picture of Seattle's cathedral in its re-ordered form side by side with its vision. 

It's telling because it was Cloyne's former bishop and his liturgy director (who's still around peddling his tired ideas) who tried so long and hard to have much the same thing done to their own magnificient Pugin-style cathedral in Cobh a few years ago.

They achieved a spectacular and public failure thanks to the heroic efforts of the locals who organised themselves into the "Friends of Saint Colman's Cathedral". You can find all the details of the case here.

Saint Colman's Cathedral, Cobh, Co. Cork, stands tall today amongst the cathdrals of Ireland as the sole Irish survivor of the ideological iconnoclasm of the past forty years. 

Have a look at the pictures and compare them with the Seattle model promoted by Cloyne's Commission for Liturgical Formation. If that doesn't tell you more than enough about what they really hope is "coming soon" nothing will.