Kudos to Bishop Seratelli

Ever so slowly the tide is turning. Each day, if one looks properly, the signs are readily apparent.

As just one more example, the Most Reverend Arthur J. Serratelli, Bishop of Patterson, has recently begun a series of articles exploring the "loss and the recovery of the sense of the sacred in Catholic life."

His Excellency says:

Even within the most sacred precincts of the Church, we witness a loss of the sense of the sacred. With the enthusiasm that followed the Second Vatican Council, there was a well-intentioned effort to make the liturgy modern. It became commonplace to say that the liturgy had to be relevant to the worshipper. Old songs were jettisoned. The guitar replaced the organ. Some priests even began to walk down the road of liturgical innovation, only to discover it was a dead end. And all the while, the awareness of entering into something sacred that has been given to us from above and draws us out of ourselves and into the mystery of God was gone. [more]

This first installment is quite good; do read it in its totality. Fr. Z. adds his own comments here.

It is interesting to compare Bishop Serratelli's thoughts with those of Bishop Trautman.