The recovery of mystery, spirituality, ritual and ecclesiology in the Ordinary Form of the Mass (YES! THIS IS THE ORDINARY FORM OF THE MASS!):
I wrote the following article for our Diocesan Newspaper, The Southern Cross, in 2003. Father Paul Cioffi who died sometime after this article was written, was a Jesuit Liturgist, which seems to be two words in conflict, but he really was an expert in the Liturgy and sacraments and a wonderful speaker. I had attended a workshop with him in West Palm Beach Florida in January of 2003. This article was inspired by what he taught us (at the end of this reprint, I have my current editorializing comments:
Father Paul Cioffi the preeminent Jesuit liturgist (and no that’s not an oxymoron) in evaluating the last 40 years of liturgical renewal has come to the conclusion that the renewal of the Mass has been a “mixed bag.” He states that the unambiguous successes of the past forty years include the restoration of the Rite of Christian Initiation of Adults, the reform of the lectionary and Liturgy of the Word, the development of liturgical ministries, more frequent Holy Communion at Mass and allowing the Chalice to be given to the laity.
But he warns that there have been “unambiguous failures” as well these past forty years. Church leaders have not adequately catechized the laity on the need or the value of the reforms of the Mass and its theological and devotional impact. Priests and seminarians have not been well trained in the area of catechetics, homiletics or presiding at Mass. In fact he states that only 10% of priests are capable of presiding well.
Fr. Cioffi maintains that in the last forty years, apart from a few exceptions, we have only had reform but not renewal of the Mass. He states, “we changed texts and translation and moved furniture without changing minds or moving hearts.” Catechesis concerning the new theology of celebrating the Mass, its spirituality and ecclesiology has been so lacking that very few grasped the meaning of the reforms and thus feel that the reforms seem to be “much ado about nothing.”
For the most part, the Sunday experience of Mass throughout our country fails to nourish our need for mystery and the transcendent. The main culprit in this failure is that many liturgists and liturgical architects rushed to an uncritical horizontal/communitarian approach to celebrating Mass so much so that it has overshadowed the vertical/transcendent. Fr. Cioffi states that new Liturgical forms “did not sufficiently reinforce awareness that we are in another story and on Someone else’s agenda”—God’s agenda. To an outsider the Mass appears to be merely a humanistic feast.
We have forgotten that we are not just a community; we are a forgiven community with a forgiveness, which comes from God’s intervention in the human community and more importantly in the lives of individuals. We have tried to produce at Mass a sense of a fellowship of joy and warm feelings whereas God’s intervention in the gathered community and in the individuals celebrating Mass produces exultation.
Fr. Cioffi states that the “notion of sin was lost” also. We can only appreciate our salvation and justification in Jesus Christ to the extent that we recognize the “wretchedness” of our sinfulness and how our sin is responsible for the one sacrifice of Jesus, his shedding of his blood on the cross, his death and his glorious resurrection. If sin and redemption are trivialized in the celebration of Mass, as they have been over that last few decades, then the central Christian experience of being forgiven and being a “wretch” in need of forgiveness will be trivialized as well. Only the one who truly understands the need for forgiveness will hunger and thirst for the body, blood, soul and divinity of Jesus Christ.
Fr. Cioffi states that “we have carried the principle of variability of ritual and musical forms to a degree which destroys the very concept of ritual whose nature is to be the same.” Without contemplation created by “silence, sameness, repetition, and precision in the ritual,” there is the unfortunate tendency to keep improvising which then destroys the essence of ritual.
For example, many believe that we have too much new music of poor musical and theological quality constantly thrown to congregations today. Paperback hymnals and missalettes, which are replaced on a regular basis with new music constantly added, destroys ritual that needs to be the same. In addition, songs in which Biblical texts are set in a secular musical style reminiscent of musical theater or current pop music violate liturgical guidelines stated by Pope Pius X in 1903 and affirmed by the Second Vatican Council. Many songs composed in the recent past which admittedly have become popular at Catholic Masses unfortunately fall into this category.
Fr. Cioffi also points out that we have failed to “pay enough attention to the non-verbal and non-rational elements of worship, nor to the value of silence, repetition, precision, and music that point to another world. Liturgies became too busy, creative, and wordy.” In other words, our Mass for the most part as well as our art and architecture have failed to inspire and lift us into the eternal heavenly banquet of the Lamb slain for our salvation.
Someone has once said that if we celebrated our Masses as intended by the Church, we would be so caught up in the beauty, splendor and contemplation of mystery that if the Second Coming of Christ were to occur we would not know the difference.
Fr. Cioffi laments the fact that the “liturgical bus stalled. No one will get back on until they are assured it is fixed. We must go back to the original vision that inspired the reform. We must infuse heart into the institutional reform.” We must abandon forever the notion that reform by itself will automatically produce renewal in the lives of our people.
Furthermore, Fr. Cioffi emphasizes that “reform without a renewal of spirituality was a terrible mistake. The original vision was not a mistake. The common enemy is liturgy without a sense of mystery; too variable, sloppy and busy; not yet integrated with subjective piety; lack of leadership and priests not capable of presiding and preaching.”
We must begin anew states Fr. Cioffi to bring about reform and renewal in the Mass. It will not be as exciting the second time around, but it must be done. He states, “Let’s do the truth in love.”
MY NEW COMMENTS: I wrote this in 2003 before Pope Benedict's election as pope. What Father Cioffi is describing is what Pope Benedict has ushered into the Church's liturgical life, "The Reform of the Reform of the Ordinary Form of the Mass" with in the Hermeneutic of Liturgical Continuity."
Where so many who comment here miss the liturgical bus is trying to negate what Sacrosanctum Concilium desired for liturgical renewal in the Church and what was implemented that is actual the good fruit of Vatican II. I fear too many here want to throw out the baby with the bath water of post Vatican II liturgical renewal.
For example, Fr. Cioffi says that the best part of Vatican II is the reform of the Lectionary and the Liturgy of the Word, which as most here know, I wholeheartedly endorse. He also says the restoration of the Precious Blood to the congregation is a marvelous renewal too. I agree. I see to reason to prevent the laity from receiving the Precious Blood. Those who disagree with me sound like Scrooge.
But Fr. Cioffi does agree that the horizontal developments within the Mass were not foreseen by Vatican II and have been deleterious to the Liturgy.
He agrees that there has been a loss of spirituality renewal in the Mass, meaning a deep and abiding faith that Jesus Christ is truly present for our exultation, for our redemption from sin and death. This is not a secular get together simply to form friendships and community--that can be done in so many other ways, secular or religious.
He laments the miserable state of affairs in liturgical music and the loss of continuity, spirituality that has occurred and the banality of so much that is sung in the Church.
Finally, he states that the majority of priests do not know the art of celebrating the revised liturgy and this has contributed to the dissatisfaction so many experience. I think many commenting here feel that also, that from priest to priest there is such diversity in terms of how the Mass is celebrated that it all hinges on how the priest celebrates it and often this leads to the cult of the personality rather than the cult of Jesus Christ, cult meaning "worship."
So I would recommend not denigrating the revised lectionary or Liturgy of the Word, but to work for the proper art of celebrating the Mass by both the priest and the congregation and appreciating the gift of the restoration of the Precious Blood for the laity to receive our Risen Lord under that form, like the Eastern Rite and Eastern Orthodox have always had and we had for the for eight or nine centuries of the Mass.
But the recovery of chant, Latin or English, and the recovery of ritual repetition and the awesome sense of mystery are necessary and I've already given my clairvoyant vision of what that will be.
16 comments:
Am I wrong, Fr. McDonald, while remaining open to the fruits and benefits of Vatican II, to sense a reluctance on your part to assess the recommendations of Sacrosanctum Concilium as anyone would normally gauge the efficacy of any set of past recommendations in the light of a half century of subsequent experience, and accumulated evidence of what worked and what did not?
Realizing that Sacrosanctum Concilium and its implementation were crafted and managed almost entirely by liturgical academics and activists with little pastoral experience--and accepted by bishops who were assured of revitalization in continuity with tradition--while a mountain of pastoral experience with their work is now available. So why an apparent determination--seemingly bordering on denial of the obvious--to regard the concilium as sacrosanct, when in the light of hindsight it so clearly was fallible?
In short, why not a forthright commitment to righting the mistakes and misjudgments of the past, rather than an apparent obsession with somehow justifying them?
As one who was there in the seventies at major protestant Divinity and grad schools and seminaries, and who served as a protestant pastor for many years and who has been a theology student all his life...Vatican II was designed and conceived to be more open and conciliatory to protestantism. That is how we were taught it and how the major Divinity Schools understood it. The prot answer to Vat II was this abomination called COCU...Committee on Church Union...we called it Coo Coo. We were required, required I say, to attend all the seminars and conferences which were led by Priests, nuns, and major protestant professors and writers. This was to be the sine qua non, the non plus ultra of ecumenical bliss and feel-good churchiness. These seminars were horribly boring, completely self-congratulatory on the part of the participants, and totally disgusting. The only upside was all the fairly good looking (if they had dressed in something besides jeans and sweatshirts and used makeup) easy women theology and divinity students. Apparently, these big ecumenical orgies are conducive to venery on every level.
Anyway, these things were heavily attended by Priests and nuns in street clothes, and were often accompanied by "communion" with loaf bread from a bakery and a jug of Gallo red. The Priests took part, often distributing to everyone there, prot, Catholic, agnostic, and Sons of the Yellow Dog. Even then I was appalled.
Now, after seven years as a Catholic and student of Catholic theology, I am appalled by the efforts to justify Vat II...the Church should admit that it was an error of the worst magnitude, destroying Catholic identity for two generations of Catholics, erasing women's vocations, and sowing dissent and division everywhere. The legacy is Priests like Ignotus and the pitiful Jesuits I met at Chicago who were totally detached from the Church, studying protestant theology, and several of whom were cohabiting with coeds. I do not jest. Now, how anyone can paint this in a positive light is beyond me. The Church erred...it happens. Get over it and move on...back to true Catholic worship and identity.
Isn't it interesting that the French translation of the GIRM is promulgated as a book titled "L'art de célébrer la messe" (The Art of Celebrating Mass)?
That is interesting. To say the least, something is lost in translation from the French to the English!
Does this mean that, until we see the real reform actualized, are we better off with the old Mass?
No, we need to celebrate the OF as best as we can by the rubrics, with a good art of celebrating it and doing what is allowed to make it in continuity with the EF Mass, the EF Mass should remain extraordinary, not Ordinary.
"Furthermore, Fr. Cioffi emphasizes that “reform without a renewal of spirituality was a terrible mistake."
Dang. Who'd a thought the Mass needed to guide people spiritually? FrAJm your support of the OF is proper and correct, but is it possible this is a well intended brick on the road to hell?
With your devotion to constructive liturgical reform, Fr. McDonald, you have more reason than most to regret Vatican II. Organic renewal was snowballing before the Council, with non-morning liturgy approved in 1953, Holy Week liturgy renewed in 1955, Musica Sacra and active participation in 1958, simplification of the calendar in 1960, the revised and corresponding simplification of missal in 1962.
Most everything in the liturgy that you probably identify now as a positive consequence of Vatican II was, instead, already in the pipeline before Vatican II, will the recommendations in Sacrosanctum Concilium predating the Council.
So it is eminently arguable that the liturgical effect of Vatican II was enable the hijacking of the constructive liturgical reform that was underway during the half century preceding the Council, and to replace it with the disintegration and liturgical chaos we now observe. Along with the unfathomable loss of faith that has accompanied the collapse of worship and moral discipline.
The net effect may have been to delay for a century--until at least a half century from now--the achievement of the organic renewal in continuity with tradition that likely would otherwise have proceeded in the natural course on the basis of the groundwork that had been laid.
But I must agree now the Church little practical choice but to begin organic reform of the existing normative liturgy with the traditional liturgy as an anchor and target. I, for one, am confident that any better alternative that's available would have already been put forward by our Holy Father.
Father, given your support of Vatican II what do you think of this article....http://www.americamagazine.org/content/article.cfm?article_id=2810 and what the extraordinary synod of 1985 had to say about the Council? http://www.ewtn.com/library/CURIA/SYNFINAL.HTM
Actually, the second picture is not the Ordinary Form of the Mass. It is a Pontifical High Mass in the Usus Antiquior. Note the coped Assistant Priest and the subdeacon holding the paten in a humeral veil. There are no altar cards since they are not used at a Pontifical Mass.
I do not see the altar cards, so I thought that gave it away as an Ordinary Form Mass, although there's nothing stopping an Ordinary Form Mass from looking like this Mass.
Another sign that this is an EF Mass is the thurifer at the Epistle side of the altar (as specified in the rubrics). Although I'm not sure it's specifically required, the thurifer at an OF Mass incenses the elevated Host from front center of the altar.
@Gene
"Vatican II was designed and conceived to be more open and conciliatory to protestantism"
One needs to look no further than the fact the post-Vatican II mass, the Novus Ordo, inserts the protestant part of the Our Father, which before, was never used at mass. One need to llok no further than the churches built after Vatican II, and the sanctualries that went through renovation after Vatican II, looks plain, simple, and quite protestant, with all Catholic identity removed.
While substantially and internally, the Catholic Church is the same, exteriorly and stylistically, the post Vatican II church is clearly a different religion from the pre-Vatican II church. No resonable person can deny that.
Jake, I'm not even sure we can say that the Catholic Church is "substantially and internally the same," depending upon how we define that. The changes have been more than stylistic...external appearances are often founded upon deeper causes. Versus Populum and the "meal" interpretation of the Eucharist reflect a major shift in theological thinking. They are an outer reflection of an inner condition.
Fr. McD;
You state, "No, we need to celebrate the OF as best as we can by the rubrics, with a good art of celebrating it and doing what is allowed to make it in continuity with the EF Mass, the EF Mass should remain extraordinary, not Ordinary."
As best we can.
That is the crux of this whole problem and I see it as multi-faceted. I will be viewed as a 40 year old Scrooge, most likely, but to be honest, I don't care. I like Scrooge.
The first issue. "WE" don't celebrate the Mass, YOU do. We assist. We have no right to assume that we are celebrants along with you in that regard. Whether you meant it to be the clergy or not, that is not how it came across. The faithful have been confused these last 50 years by the erroneous notion that "we" celebrate the Mass. Most simply put, we don't.
Second issue. As best we can. Why not "as the Church expects?" The Mass is not a subjective action. Let me rephrase..the Mass SHOULD NOT be a subjective action. Sadly, with the Novus Ordo, it is. There is no liturgical law dictating what is and what is not. The rubrics of the Mass are 100% subjective. The options have been expanded ad nauseam, they have been taken from directive to suggestive, etc...Why can't the priest celebrate the Mass the way the Church intends? The answer is that the Church hasn't decided how the Mass should be celebrated. And this lends itself to the idea that the OF should really be the EF and vice versa. I will speak to that later.
Third issue. Doing what is allowed to make it in continuity with the EF. What does that mean? How can that objectively be applied across the board? It is an issue, because the OF has no clear direction. And I believe that is by design, from the Consilium.
Fourth issue. The EF should remain extraordinary...No, dear Father; it should not. The Mass is a directed action which is the vehicle to confect a sacrament. The Eucharist is the source and summit of our faith. We are not based, as Catholics, on a subjective notion of biblical worship. We are based upon a liturgical ideal which is not only objective in nature, but guided by laws. It is guided by liturgical and canon law. Because liturgical law was stripped from the Novus Ordo in favor of suggestion, we are left with "as best we can." That is not good enough. With the TLM, we have legal recourse within the Church to hold our priests accountable to their actions. Because this structure is so very key to the notion of Catholic worship, the TLM should be the Ordinary Form until such time as the Novus Ordo is brought into legal certainty with regard to her ceremony.
It was a "suggestion" of the Protestant observers to loosen the rubrics from the objective to the subjective and it was adopted. So the language of the rubrics did change. And the Mass is yet again undermined.
This is all very complex, but a systematic view will show that until the Novus Ordo is not only in need of theological reform, but also in need of legal reform. The Mass is not a subjective biblical notion, but rather it is an objective liturgical notion.
And priests and modern liturgical theologians have either lost sight of that or willfully ignore it.
Post a Comment