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Entry: Remembering WFB Link: http://www.takimag.com/blogs/article/remembering_wfb#22667 Post contents: "The priests, leaving the high altar vacant, faced the congregation throughout the eucharist, standing in a semi-circle like aimless druids, muttering light-happiness-and-peace banalities." I detect from this all too true description of what was likely a Novus Ordo Mass (priests facing the people) that Austin may be an outsider to the Roman Church and thus able to see things in a way that we insiders often do not, or are too used to seeing and thus ignore them. Her Honor, also not in the Church, had a similarly insightful observation from seeing photos of the interior of our new co-cathedral here in Houston: it is so sparely decorated, she said, that it looked like the formerly Catholic churches in Holland did in the immediate aftermath of the Reformation there. I am just starting to read now the latest number of "Modern Age", devoted to "Conservative Reflections on Neglected Questions and Ignored Problems", the first section of which is titled "In Defense of Beauty". I would highly recommend this issue of that publication to this group. One can only hope that Benedict XVI, who understands the problem, will have many productive years in Rome in order to recover the lost beauty of Roman worship. Unfortunately, by the very nature of its mission to the masses, the upcoming "apostolic voyage" to this country cannot be counted on to produce memorably beautiful public ceremonies, and so the current banality will be prolonged. Sent at: 2008 11 23