Okay, I get it.
I so totally get it.
I finally understand why people hate the Novus Ordo mass. On a visit to an unfamiliar parish while on vacation, I caught a glimpse of the terror felt by, for lack of a better word, traditionalists who prefer the old Tridentine mass to the new mass promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970.
At the same time I understood why Pope Francis in his Traditionis Custodes expressed a fear that the same traditionalists would somehow try to undermine the Novus Ordo by claiming that it is not a valid mass. And why, in the same document, Pope Francis severely restricted the celebration of the old mass.
This is the third and final installment about a letter that was leaked from the office of the Most Rev. Michael Martin, OFM Conv., bishop of the Roman Catholic Diocese of Charlotte. This letter, which, to remind my two readers, was never published, was addressed to the priests of the Charlotte diocese and would have established liturgical norms largely intended to differentiate the Novus Ordo from the Tridentine mass.
In earlier installments we traced the history of the mass and looked at the reforms to the mass called for by the Second Vatican Council in 1963. The Council called for full, active participation in the mass by the laity, specifically by way of exercising their "common priesthood" by offering the Eucharistic sacrifice of the body and blood of Jesus along with the priest, though not in the same way as he exercises his ministerial priesthood. The reforms in the Novus Ordo take steps to accomplish this.
At the beginning of the 1962 mass, the priest and his server would make a general confession of their sins to one another and pray for God's forgiveness for one another. Because the laity now participates in the sacrifice of the mass, this general confession is now recited in unison by all present, rather than only by the ministers at the altar. The line "may almighty God forgive us our sins" is prayed solely by the priest on behalf of everyone because of his unique ministerial priesthood.
A major improvement over the old mass is the lectionary. Not only are the scripture readings in the vernacular, for everyone to hear (rather than the priest whispering the gospel in Latin to a box on the back wall), but the readings are now on a three-year cycle for Sundays. By going to mass every Sunday and holy day, one could hear roughly 75%-80% of the bible. And lay ministers may read the Old Testament and non-gospel New Testament readings. Because the gospel is either about Jesus or contains his spoken words, reading the gospel is reserved to the deacon or priest, his ministerial representatives. By hearing the readings clearly in a language which they speak, and lay ministers reading, the faithful can once again participate fully in the Word.
Something ancient which has been restored is the prayers of the faithful. After the homily/sermon and recitation of the Creed (by everyone), everyone prays together for the Church, the world, the public authorities, the community, the sick, and the dead (among other things). As the laity respond to each petition, they offer the prayers together with the priest.
Also of note—Latin has remained the official language of the mass. When Pope Leo XIV, an American, offers mass at St. Peter's in the Vatican, he says it in Latin. And he has a giant missal stand on the altar (which ironically the bishop's letter objects to). Vatican II did open up the possibility for use of the vernacular in some cases, and this is one area where the reform went farther than the council intended. In most parishes in the U.S., English is the norm for the entire mass. In parishes with a larger Latino population, there may be masses in Spanish in addition to the English masses. High holy days (e.g. Holy Thursday, Good Friday, the Easter Vigil) may sometimes be bilingual, half of it said in English, half in Spanish. And just outside of downtown High Point, NC there is a mass every Sunday morning in Vietnamese.
Possibly the most meaningful change, one that truly reflects the common priesthood of the faithful, is at the beginning of the Eucharistic liturgy, when the priest addresses the congregation and says, "Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours, may be acceptable to God the Father almighty" (emphasis added).
These are but a few examples, and I could cite more, of the faithful now participating more fully in offering the sacrifice of the mass as intended by Vatican II.
So why do people hate the Novus Ordo?
Because of priests like... well... let's call him Father Bob.
While out of town on vacation, my family and I attended mass on Sunday morning like we're supposed to. The building was huge but quite lovely, and full of people by the time we arrived. But the ushers and greeters did their best to help us find a spot and were incredibly friendly given the size of the crowd. Then Fr. Bob showed up to start the mass and immediately deviated from the text in the book. I mean, he didn't even look at the book.
My two non-catholic readers, I'm sure, are dying to know what's wrong with doing things differently than what's in the book. Well, from the 30,000-foot level, we are the Catholic—meaning "universal"—Church.
We are not Pastor Tim's evangelical, non-denominational, storefront church situated between the laundromat and the Krispy Kreme. And we don't believe the same stuff as Pastor Stan's nondenominational evangelical free church which is just across the street in the old abandoned Harris Teeter building, separate from Pastor Tim's church, mind you, because they don't agree on the interpretation of Exodus 4:24-26. And please don't get us started on Pastor Jim's church that just split off from the Methodists because of something about lesbians getting ordained as ministers.
You get the idea.
Because we are universal, we standardize. We standardize because the mass is not about Fr. Bob and pastors Tim, Stan, or Jim. The mass is about hearing the Word of the Gospel proclaimed and offering the Eucharistic sacrifice of the body and blood of Christ to God the Father in atonement for our sins, and those of the whole world. And that, ladies and gentlemen is a shining example of a B.F.D. We do not accept improvisation when B.F.D.'s are on the line.
We read the standard text from the book also because words have meaning, and the ones in the book have been carefully chosen to express a certain idea clearly. "Brothers and sisters, let us acknowledge our sins and so prepare ourselves to celebrate the sacred mysteries" is a lot different than "My brothers and sisters, here we are before God and our family. Let us admit our imperfections before coming to the table of the Lord." For one thing, sin is not equivalent to imperfection. For another, we might be family, but we're not just sitting down for a picnic at Aunt Ruth's 97th birthday party. We will be acting out our common priesthood along with the ministerial priest to celebrate a sacrifice. Might be good to mention it.
In the book, the missal, are printed two basic types of sentences: 1) instructions, called "rubrics" because they are printed in red type, and 2) dialogue which is printed in black. So the general rule when talking about liturgical instructions is: "Say the black, do the red!" 'Tis a very simple concept that should be covered on Day One of seminary.
But on our particular day, what Fr. Bob said wasn't written in black. In fact it appears nowhere in the book. The book says:
The priest genuflects. Taking the host, he raises it slightly over the paten and facing the people says aloud: Behold the Lamb of God. Behold him who takes away the sins of the world. Blessed are those called to the supper of the Lamb.
Fr. Bob did the red but instead of saying the black he made up his own: "As we approach the family meal, let us remember that we become what we eat."
You are what you eat.
F.F's.S.
What physical or mental ailments prevent this nut from doing his job properly? And where is his bishop? The Most Rev. Whomever of should be slapping wrists and taking names.
Even though Fr. Bob ad lib.'d his way through most of the rest of mass, this is not by any means the worst case of liturgical abuse ever. This just happens to be the one that hit home to me. It clicked. I finally understood deep within the recesses of my wretched soul why there exists controversy over Old vs. New. And especially over Latin.
If Fr. Bob had said this mass in Latin, there is an extremely low possibility he would have said "Es quod edis" instead of "Ecce agnus Dei". Most priests, I imagine, have not the skills in Latin to pull off something like that on the spur of the moment. He would most likely have had to plan it out and, hopefully, in preparing for his modification to the mass, he would have realized how stupid it sounded.
Given that a) it's in Latin, leaving less room for verbal improvisation, and b) because it's more physically complex for the priest and server, there is far less opportunity for dumb shit like this in the old mass than the new. And many people have gravitated to the old mass because they just don't want to see dumb shit like this. (And, yes, dumb shit is a liturgically technical term.)
But, because the new mass is New, the gravitation toward the old mass, threatens the New because the New might not turn out to be good enough. It might be defective. It might not even be a valid mass. Pope Francis certainly seemed to fear that the Novus Ordo had a serious case of impostor syndrome: One of these days they're going to find out I'm not really any good at being a mass... So Francis severely restricted the old mass, to prevent those who prefer the old mass from talking bad about the new. The letter leaked from the office of the Bishop of Charlotte expressed the same concerns. The liturgical norms proposed in the letter sound downright conventional (with a couple of minor, odd exceptions). But its assertion that we have to drastically differentiate the New from the Old because people might see the New as inferior is 1) silly, and 2) originates with fear.
So there is fear of the Ordinary Form by, for lack of a better word, traditionalists, and fear of the Extraordinary Form by, for lack of a better word, progressives. Fear does not originate with the God we worship at mass. As St. John told us, "God is love" and "perfect love drives out fear." So a division that comes from fear does not come from God, no matter how much the prelates on either side of the debate would like to believe it. And if fear doesn't come from God, does it come from that other guy?
Fear would dissipate on both sides if the bishops would get their Novus Ordo guys in line, not necessarily worrying about placement of the candles, but about actually using the missal and following the rubrics (for which our leaked letter is strong on both counts). If the Novus Ordo were celebrated reverently, according to the books, the traditionalists would have less to fear. The progressives (again, for lack of a better word) would also have less to fear from the traditionalists because they wouldn't get the impression that Fr. Bob's improvisation came directly from the great Satan hisself. But first, we have to approach each other in love. Because perfect love drives out fear. (For more information on love, read St. Paul's first letter to the Corinthians, chapter 13.)
I like the 1962 mass.
I like the Novus Ordo mass.
I even like the Novus Ordo mass in English.
I like the Novus Ordo in English with the Kyrie sung in Greek, and the Gloria, Sanctus, Angus Dei, and Pater Noster sung in Latin because the melodies are heavenly (that's the point, right?) but are hard to pull off in English. I'm okay with the whole thing in Latin because I think that, in agreement with Vatican II but in contradiction to the bishop's letter, the Catholic faithful around the world are smart enough to learn a few lines of Latin to actively participate in the mass.
I have had the privilege of attending a few high and low masses according to the 1962 Tridentine missal. The high masses with the schola singing the Gloria, etc. are heavenly (that's the point, right?). I also got to see why the Council wanted reform. Getting rid of the 19 signs of the cross over the gifts was a good call. More importantly, after seeing the old mass I understood the new much more deeply. I knew enough of the Latin that when I saw the priest turn his head toward the servers and the faithful and say "Orate, fratres..." I knew we were at the beginning of the eucharistic liturgy: "Pray, brothers and sisters, that my sacrifice and yours...." And suddenly, for me, there was a connection. A continuity. Not a rupture.
Pope Bendict XVI also saw a continuity between old and new, and in his 2007 apostolic letter Summorum Pontificum, removed nearly all restrictions from the celebration of the Old Mass, yet clearly established that the Novus Ordo was the ordinary form of the mass for the Latin Church, and that the Tridentine mass, celebrated according to the 1962 Roman Missal, was the extraordinary form of the same mass. They are "two usages of the one Roman rite." Not two masses. Not an old mass and a new mass. The same mass. Two sets of instructions.
I wonder if the two forms, allowed to be celebrated alongside each other could influence each other and give us in the end a mass better than both 1962 and the Novus Ordo. Even if it remains that we have two forms of the mass, or if some Pope of the future finally abrogates the 1962 missal, we still have only one mass.
The same mass to celebrate Jesus in his Word and in the Eucharist, as he offers himself as an eternal sacrifice made present through the priesthood of his One, Holy, Catholic, and Apostolic Church, to the almighty Father through the Holy Spirit. One God, one Lord, one Spirit, one mass.
Want to celebrate the mass? Pick a book. Then say the black, and do the red.
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