Saints' Discussion Forums

Abba Pambo sent his disciple to sell his handiwork. As he told us, he was gone for ten days. At night, he slept in the narthex of the Church of the Holy Apostle Mark. Upon seeing how the services were conduced in the city Churches, and having learned various Troparia [hymns], as well, he returned to his Elder.

"My child," the Elder told him, "you seem upset. Did you perchance suffer some temptation in the city?"

"Indeed, Father," the brother replied. "We are wasting our days here in this desert, where we sing neither Canons nor Troparia. Now that I have been to Alexandria and have seen how the Chanters sing in the Church, I have become very saddened, since we do not sing Canons and Troparia."

[The chanting of prayers and Psalms by the Desert Fathers was very simple and monotonic, as their own descriptions of monastic worship in the isolated sketes of Egypt aver. They were opposed to melodic singing, to anything theatrical, and to any sense of public "performance" in their private and common worship. In parish communities and larger city Churches, a more ornate form of worship and chanting prevailed. This offended the austere piety of many of the desert dwellers. - Trans.]

The Elder answered him:

"Alas, my child. The days are coming upon us when monks will abandon the strong food given to them by the Holy Spirit and chase after songs and melodies. For what contrition, what tears, are born of standing in Church, or in one's cell, and bellowing with one's voice like an ox? For as long as we are standing before God, we must do so with compunction, our minds not being aimlessly led astray here and there. Indeed, monks have not come into this desert in order to inflate their minds, whilst standing in the presence of God, with the singing of Psalms and keeping rhythm with melodies by swinging their hands and tapping their feet. Rather, it behooves us to offer our prayers to God with fear and trembling, tears and sighs, for our voices to be sober, contrite, measured, and humble.

For I assure you, my child," Abba Pambo continued, "that the day will come in which Christians will abandon the books of the Holy Gospel, the Holy Apostles, and the God-inspired Prophets, and scrape away Holy Scripture from the parchments on which they are written, writing in their place Troparia and Greek verse. And their minds, then, will be fixed on that which distances them from the Holy Scriptures. For this reason, the Fathers have given to us -- those living the ascetic life in this desert -- a command that we not write the lives and words of the Fathers on parchment, but on paper; because the coming generation might erase the lives of the Fathers from parchment and rewrite whatever they wish. That is to say, there will be great need of these in the future."

The brother again asked Abba Pambo:

"What the? Will they change the customs and traditions of us Christians? And will there be no Priests in the Churches, that these things should happen?"

And the Elder replied: "In those times, the love of many will have become cold: and there will be no small tribulation, disputes between nations and the migration of populations, instability among kingdoms, extravagance among Priests, and laziness in monks. The Abbots will show indifference to their salvation and to their flocks. All of the monasteries will be anxious to run to the refectory; they will be quarrelsome, lazy in prayer, and eager to slander; they will be quick to find fault with the Elders and their words, neither paying them heed nor emulating them, but rather vilifying them and saying, "If we were in their age, then we would be struggling, too."

"The Bishops in those days," Abba Pambo continued, "will fear the powerful and will judge them in accordance with the donations which they receive from them They will not defend the poor, when they ask for what is rightly theirs; they will cause grief to widows; and they will oppress orphans. And among the faithful there will come disbelief, hatred, malice, envy, and contentiousness; the people will be accustomed to cheating and drunkenness."

And the brother asked anew: "And what must one do in such times?"

To this the Elder answered: "My child, in those days, let him who wishes to be saved rescue his soul, and he shall be made great in the Kingdom of Heaven."

- the writings of the Desert Fathers

One of the important notes here is the idea of the Holy Mass, the most sacred liturgy, as instead of a sacred rite of holy sacrifice, of Our Lord's Sacrifice on Calvary..

The idea of it being a place for entertainment, of theater..

This is a great evil that has been at war with the Faith from the beginning. I read once a saint speaking of how the Jews would seek to draw Christians away from the Christian churches by making their gatherings in the synagogues great theater.

And the pagans would make their rites so as well, full of dances and entertaining music.

The Holy Mass is not for our entertainment. There is nothing more to be said.

Priests are priests to offer sacrifice, they are not entertainers on a stage.

I read once a person referring to some writings saying Our Lord once told a saint that He did not institute the Holy Mass so that He would be crucified repeatedly by the sins of the priests in giving it.

Lord have mercy on us and restore the Holy Mass.  :+:
All you martyrs of the Holy Eucharist pray fo us.  :+: