The Middle Road : A possiblity?

Many times in my life I have been asked to take the middle road. My first true spiritual director told me that maybe I was being asked to "Stand in the GAP" I took these words to my heart and still hold them close. None of us actually know God's plan for us, but we want to be perfect servants. Don't we? So I spend hours and hours meditating on these sort of things.
Getting back to the post. I have to say I was allowed to travel both roads. At the time of spiritual awakening, with my newly recognized faith, I jumped head on into every activity allowed in my parish and the surrounding parishes. I felt that was what God wanted of me at the time. My desire to understand His truths was ravenous, and so I went way beyond what I might consider the average Catholic might do. I spent many sleepless nights reading everything I could get my hands on, and I was a person who never ever read anything. As I studied more I traveled up the Novus Ordo road and ended up TRADITIONAL. I felt really scandalized by what I had been taught for the past forty something years. That is the only way I can explain the grief I felt.

I have been trying to follow St. Francis’ rule of 1221. At one point I contacted different Franciscan priests seeing if any one of them might consider directing a group of people who want to revert to something closer to Saint Francis’ original rule. More than once I was told I had to stand more in the middle combining the two. NO, I don’t believe this is physically possible unless a person wants to be torn in two.

Standing in the middle highlights : We have two different spiritualties. The differences are greater than the similarities. I couldn’t figure it out until I started studying documents. We follow a different catechism whether anyone wants to admit it or not. What is an absolute no no for us is perfectly allowed for them. Again let me say I stood in that church for years. I stood in the sanctuary as cantor and visited the sick as a Eucharistic minister. I loved it all. The Novus Ordo church made me quite happy and what I thought was fulfilled. Then I read the documents. The ones that people don’t read explaining how ministers of Holy Communion should be in extraordinary circumstances. How Priests hands were consecrated and that is why they were allowed to touch and hold the sacred vessels. I noticed how the altar servers were all male at the TLM and that if at any time they had to touch the sacred vessels they held them with their surplice. How if the tabernacle was to be opened a bell would ring and ALL would genuflect. I saw no of this during my life time going to the Novus Ordo mass. It is not healthy to pray and act a certain way at the TLM and then take off the Mantilla and long skirt and remove all the rules of sacredness. If and when I questioned why things are so different it created friction. Even if it was asked in humility. My conclusion is we have two churches, two theologies, and I think two priesthoods.

I can’t explain why Our Holy Father teaches the way he teaches. I do know that when I was in the church he favors I was a grievous sinner and really didn’t understand. I committed so many sins through what I want to blame on complete ignorance, but really it was probably lack of desire to understand my faith. I separated myself from grace by my own sinfulness and I couldn’t see my way clear of it. The happiness I found in the church I attended was only a costume I put on. I changed myself outwardly but not on the inside.

1. I don't think the pope's daily fervorini are a good idea. Despite their nature he is the universal pastor, which means whatever he says takes on a status beyond that of a fervorino.

2. Further, the stren.gth of Jesuits is their concrete approach to everything. The weakness of this is that they seldom deliver a balanced message. To use a doctrinal example years ago they often emphasized the Oneness of the Church at the expense of the Catholicity. Now it's the other way around.

NB: One of the things God does know is what a Jesuit has said after he has spoken.

3. Medjugorje is not a Marian event just because certain people claim it is--or believe those claims.

3. IMHO, the jump in the article from Medjurgorje to Fatima, Lourdes, etc., makes no sense.

4. Further, one of the objections to Medjugorje is that there seems to be a certain neutrality toward other religions. That would refute the author's contention that the pope's objection to Medjugorje is that it undermines Ecumenism.

Dr. Bobus, I have so little interest in the Medjgorje events that I avoid reading about them. However, it is, qua its classification, a Marian event, i.e., generically considered. The author of the article was impressed by Pp Francis's comments that seem to indicate his GENERIC dislike of such type of events--ones usually very offensive to Protestants. What does "generic" dislike mean, logically speaking?

It means that any concrete Marian event is to be disliked if it fits the Pope's generic dislike. The author did not claim that the pope said anything negative about Fatima, only that he did not mention it at all. Given the pope's generic expressions justifying his dislike of the Medjugorje apparition, supposed or REAL (and it may have really taken place), it is not false to speculate about other possible concrete events of dislike. The impression that Pope Francis makes, generically considered, would seem to justify the author. Or?

I have been to Fatima twice, Lourdes, and at least 50 times to mass at Sant Andrea della Fratte in Rome (site of the Ratisbonne Marian appariation).

I have little use for the events in Medjugorje.