Liturgical Rage

It's like road rage, but there's not as much of an insurance problem:

Several blogs have recently raised the question of why orthodox Catholics so often froth at the mouth when the subject of liturgical abuse is raised, why so many of us stumble out of Mass nearly sick with rage, so that we shock and repel those around us.

As a man who very often prays to be distracted during Mass so as not to take a machete to the celebrant, and as one who spreads alarm and despondency among nearly all he meets after leaving church, I feel I'm qualified to speak to the question.

Longtime readers, and those who met me in person during Holy Week, will recall, perhaps not with pleasure, my annual Good Friday Rant. I've solved the problem, of course, by ceasing to attend Good Friday services entirely. Saves wear and tear on the ticker.

That means that the departures happen for a reason. The innovator wants to jack us around for motives of his own, which he does not "covenant" with us. We almost never hear complaints about inadvertent omissions by celebrants trying to do it right; it's the deliberate changes that infuriate.

First rule of liturgical road safety: never go to a parish that uses the word "covenant" as a verb. Beware clerics who verb nouns.