"For he that is not against you is for you"- or do I really need to start smacking heads?

37 John answered him, saying: Master, we saw one casting out devils in your name, who follows not us: and we forbade him. 38 But Jesus said: Do not forbid him. For there is no man that does a miracle in my name and can soon speak ill of me. 39 For he that is not against you is for you. 40 For whosoever shall give you to drink a cup of water in my name, because you belong to Christ: amen I say to you, he shall not lose his reward. (John 9:37-40) from http://www.newadvent.org/bible/mar009.htm

I have read some posts and articles regarding the labeling that so many just love to do, such as conservative, traditional/trad/traddie, neo-con.... Sometimes (often) it makes me want to start knocking heads together in hopes that will knock some sense into others. I am thinking of a recent article I read that was critical of those who were judged to be conservative but not traditional.

Everyone is not going to be formed in the same way and that is good. You want diversity (yes the d-word) in the good sense which means there will be variations in speech, opinions, ideas because your environment, your family, your ethnicity etc. can and will influence you. Read St. Thomas Aquinas especially in the area of temperance. What is suitable for one person given their state of life might not be appropriate to others. Even in the TLM mass, speaking with those who attended prior to the changes, there were those who experienced a low mass for almost every mass and those who learned the ordinary and propers and who attended many sung masses as well as vespers services etc.

So the relevance is we are in a culture that is actively working against the church on many levels. We need active catechises including more priests not afraid to preach on what the church holds, teaches and believes, even though much is counter to what society says.

Yes, there are hymns that are earwigs to me and which I would love to gather into a pod and jetison into space forever (though they are so bad it could start an inter-stellar war if there were ever found to be life on another planet). I cringe to see guitars and drum kits at mass, the social mixer "kiss of peace" and numerous other additions. I also understand and know, that the people I know who do like that style and who are on the front lines with me in Germantown and who are and will be in Annapolis (or other capital cities) and DC, are not the enemy and I don't need to concentrate on changing them. The enemy is "prowling about the world seeking the ruin of souls".