Too many rules?

I was checking out a Catholic Apologetics site and came across something interesting. It was a Q and A type article of liturgical abuses, meaning abuses of rules regarding celebration of the Mass. The link is http://www.catholic.com/library/liturgical_abuses.asp. It had bunches of rules, some of which make sense, others less so. Most notably being that the Chalise (the cup used for the wine) cannot be made from clay, glass, any other breakable material, or of a metal that will deteriorate (ie rust). Now I can see the arguement that you don't want the Sacred Blood spilling everywhere if the cup breaks, but it will spill if you drop it and it doesn't break.

Anyway, it got me thinking about whether or not there are too many rules in the Catholic church. Recently, the new liturgical norms came out. There was much heartache, argueing, and wrangling by our musical groups just over the rules that applied to us. Forget all the other rules that govern how the Mass is said and that govern every day life. It reminds me of Jesus' condemnation of the Pharisees about setting all these rules for the faithful to follow but having hearts far from God. Are we concentrating too much on the rules and not enough on the faith? St. Paul told us that following the law, even to the letter, will not justify you and get you to Heaven. Faith and love were the most important things. He still had rules to follow, but they were all based on love.

Call me a rebel, but I've never been one big on rules. I tend to boil things down to the essentials. I mean, if I drink the Blood of Christ from a metal chalise or a glass goblet, does it make it less the Blood of Christ? Is the Body of Christ less so if the host isn't made of unleavened bread made from wheat? (Use of anything other than wheat to make it is prohibited.) We have a few people within our church that are these strict legalists. If the rule doesn't specifically state something can be done, it can't be. An extreme example was an arguement over whether something should be done a certain way in the Mass. The "rule" stated that this "may" be done. That got interpreted as since it may be done, that is the only option. No alternatives were possible. Now that sounds like nitpicking, but when there are several volumes to encompass the liturgical rules alone, maybe we've lost sight of what's truly important.

Anyway, I don't have any plans to become a Protestant. My personal belief is that the faith is the key. I try to live the faith and am reverent when I need to be at Mass. That's my time to recharge for the week and gain the strenght to go 7 more days. Still, I can see why many of the people around me get all bent out of shape every time we try to talk about all these liturgical changes. It's too easy to get confused when nothing gets explained and changes are implemented without any effort to educate the congregation on the changes. But that's another rant.