Please note that Archbishop Samples wears the maniple (horror of horrors) at this Ordinary Form Concelebrated Pontifical Mass!
This photo is what people would see if this Mass had the Benedictine Altar arrangement as the bishop faced them, which does not work well. Doesn't ad orientem work much better?
Kneeling for Holy Communion in the Ordinary Form:
MY FINAL COMMENTS: At the risk of sounding like a broken record, would not the liturgical renewal with the post-Vatican II Missal, even the banal one that has recently been replaced with the new resplendent English translation have been received much better by the Catholics who were formed in the pre-Vatican II Liturgy? Would there be less strife in the liturgical world today, if this style of celebrating the Mass even in the vernacular had been maintained and shows less of a breach in liturgical styles with the liturgy from which it was morphed?
What many people refuse to acknowledge today is what happened to traditional Catholics after the Council during the late 1960's and especially into the 1970's and little bit into the 1980's, but by the 1980's there had been irreparable harm to Catholic identity and faith that we have yet to recover.
Strong Catholics families united in the faith prior to the Council were divided by the changes after the council. Some used the new freedoms they thought they had in the post-Vatican II Mass to rub it in the face of more traditional Catholics. Ultimately a goodly number of strong Catholic families united in the faith were divided, some leaving the Church who prior to the Council were staunchly Catholic in the pre-Vatican II way.
This confusion and loss of Catholic identity passed on from the immediate 1950's generation of baby-boomer Catholics to their off-spring and a less solid Catholic formation for the baby-boomer's generation of children. Now the baby boomer's generation of children are having children with an even less Catholic mentality.
So we have arrived at only 20 percent of Catholics attending Mass on any given Sunday compared to almost 90 percent in the 1950's.
The Liturgy is where most Catholics experience the Catholic Church in community whether or not they actually participate in any meaningful way. We've lost that for about 80% of Catholics now.
Getting back to the Catholic identity of the Liturgy and the above photos capture it as in continuity with what preceded this form of the Mass is one way to bring things back into focus for the Church in the new evangelization, especially going after the 99 Catholics who have wandered from the flock seduced by secularism. Yes, many of them have become Protestants, joining Protestant denominations who have institutionally succumbed to the secular agenda and abandoned Scriptures for it.
16 comments:
I guess they didn't have enough green vestments for all of the concelebrating priests so the rest of them wore the alternative white ones. I like the fact that the green vested priests wore birettas in the procession (I guess the rest of them didn't have those either).
Again, if the Church would make ad orientem, singing the propers, and Communion on the tongue kneeling the norm I would shut up!
I just looked at larger pictures on New Liturgical Movement and noticed that the deacon also wore a biretta in procession (I just bought our new deacon a biretta for an ordination gift) and the bishop wore a maniple (although he kept it on while at the pulpit). Still, a good example of what the OF could be.
That chasuble is one of the best in the fuller "gothic" style I have ever seen. However, he might have taken a leaf out of B XVI's book and worn the pontifical dalmatic.
"Again, if the Church would make ad orientem, singing the propers, and Communion on the tongue kneeling the norm I would shut up!"
Many if not most of the OF Masses I've attended in recent years (not all that many) have satisfied your 3 conditions, some being in Latin with chanted Ordinary. Certainly hope this doesn't mean I have to shut up, too!
"the bishop wore a maniple (although he kept it on while at the pulpit)."
I believe the sermon is considered a part of the OF Mass, not an interruption to the liturgy, so keeping the maniple on seems legitimate.
I'm not sure it's worth mentioning that--whereas one one can belabor the offertory prayers, the quickie EP, etc--none of what really makes the typical Sunday parish Mass such a cross to bear, comes from the OF missal itself. Instead, the silliness and abuse comes from a generation of priests (now pastors and bishops) and liturgists malformed in the aberrant seminaries of the 1970s and 1980s.
I believe every single young priest I know--ordained since 2000, say--would prefer to celebrate Mass as shown in these pictures, satisfying Joseph's conditions, etc. So all that's necessary is to wait until the malformed generations have gone on to their final reward. Though some of those of us who suffered the longest from their abuse will have preceded them.
Archbishop Sample was also a protege of Mons. Schuler, as was I. Also, as was Fr. Zuhlsdorf.
This Mass, which I have seen a video of, is in accord with how St. Agnes celebrates their OF pontifical Masses. Maniple and all; the only difference is that the concelebrating priests would have acquiesced and sat in choir at St. Agnes.
Where did you see the video and how can I get the embedded code?
Andy, this Mass celebrated by Ab. Sample was billed in advance as a Mass in English. Wouldn't such a Mass at St. Agnes be celebrated in Latin?
Hey Fr. AJ, this comment really does not pertain to this post, but it reminded me of comments I read on another blog that deals with the OF that I was really hoping you would do a blog post detailing.
The comments were about how the OF is theologically inferior to the EF, and how all the "smalls and bells" will not fix it. Could you talk about this?
Also, is there anything that Rome could do to fix this, if it is the case, or would there have to be an entirely new missal (I was thinking of the 1965 missal).
The blog that I read the comments from is in communion with Rome, just so you know it isn't affiliated with any schismatic groups.
Even Pope Benedict when he was cardinal acknowledged that there is a different theology and spirituality to the older form of the Mass compared to the newer form but that the dogma and/or doctrine is the same. We can say the same about the various Eastern Rite Liturgies which a quite a different theology and spirituality compared to the EF or OF but nonetheless the dogma or doctrines are in continuity.
So I think one could say they like the spirituality and theology of the EF more than the OF but I would be cautious about saying the OF is inferior. Some would say it is inferior because of the slight change in the Order of the Mass, the elimination of the Prayers at the Foot of the Gospel and the elimination of the Last Gospel, as well as the reorientation of the Offertory Prayers. Others would not like lay involvement in the sanctuary for readers and Communion Ministers, especially female ones and female altar servers. I would be cautious about calling this developments inferior.
I doubt very, very seriously that Pope Francis wants to get into the liturgy wars and he seems more attuned to his particular generation of Post Vatican II Ordinands to embrace elements of the Liturgy that Pope Benedict seemed to eschew and want to purify. So, I don't see much on the liturgy front with Pope Francis and in fact he may model liturgies that we had hoped we could move away from. I doubt that he will model ad orientem at all.
Down the road, after this papacy when a bishop or cardinal ordained in the 1980's or 90's becomes pope, that might change. I don't know.
As much work that has gone into the modern rite missal, I doubt that there would ever be a wholesale rejection of it or its lectionary. I just don't see that happening realistically. But maintaining the current revised Roman Missal and using all of its collects, prefaces and Eucharistic prayers, I don't see why the 1965 Order of the Mass could not be an option for it. It would be quite easy to do, quite easy!
Fr. McDonald,
I doubt that Pope Benedict ever said precisely that "there is a different theology and spirituality in the older form of the Mass compared to the newer form". It would be good to have a reference to the actual statement you were thinking of.
Certainly the theology of the newer form--as stated for instance in Ecclesia de Eucharistia (2003)--e.g. that "It is the sacrifice of the Cross perpetuated down the ages" (#11), that "The Mass makes present the sacrifice of the Cross" (#12), etc--is not different from the theology of the older form.
Surely Pope Benedict himself celebrated the newer form with the same spirituality as he celebrated the older form as a young priest. And I feel sure that a number of the young priests I know today celebrate the older and newer forms with the same spirituality and theology. As many lay Catholics I know are devoted to both the two forms and worship at them with the same personal belief and spirituality.
I suspect a more accurate statement would be that many priests who celebrate the newer form and many who worship at it have a different personal spirituality and theology than is associated with the older form, so that with them this atmosphere or "ethos" are indeed different from the older ethos. It may well be that Pope Francis himself, formed as a priest in the theologically chaotic 1960s, shares this newer ethos (as opposed to a different theology). But in the case of such people, could it not be said that the difference is not in their Mass, but in they themselves?
Cardinal Ratzinger told a gathering or traditionalist in 1998 the following:
Different spiritual and theological emphases will certainly continue to exist, but there will no longer be two contradictory ways of being a Christian; there will instead be that richness which pertains to the same single Catholic faith.
@ Henry;
"Andy, this Mass celebrated by Ab. Sample was billed in advance as a Mass in English. Wouldn't such a Mass at St. Agnes be celebrated in Latin?"
Not necessarily. If the bishop was adamant about celebrating the Mass and was not proficient in Latin, then it would be sung in English. It happened twice while I was there.
Most of the time though, you're right, it would be in Latin. And the bishop would preside from the throne.
But like I said, I saw it happen twice. First when there was a visiting bishop from Africa and second there was a visiting bishop from Belgium, I believe, but don't hold me to that.
Father, I will work on getting you the video.
Different spiritual and theological emphases, that is, different people emphasizing different aspects of the Church's "spirituality and theology" of the Mass, yes.
But, as I suspected, he did not refer to differences in the actual spirituality and theology itself.
The Eastern Catholics have a different theology and a different spirituality. No one claims they are less Catholic because of that (well, some do, but people come to their defense).
There is room in the Church for those who want to live the so-called pre-Vatican II spiritual life, which in practice is often quite different than the Novus Ordo life, but it really shouldn't be that way. Both are lives rooted in the Sacraments and sacramentals (scapulars, Rosaries, the Divine Office).
The mistake people made is thinking the Catholic life somehow changed with Vatican II - how could it? Nothing needs to have changed! This is a false notion! But it is a popular idea, unfortunately.
Henry,
You commented earlier today that keeping the maniple on while at the pulpit was appropriate in the OF Mass as the sermon is considered a part of the OF Mass and not an interruption (Liturgy of the Word and Liturgy of the Eucharist--fair enough). Still, because of the EF practice (removing it and leaving it on the Missal at the altar before coming to the pulpit), I had associated it with the priest's service at the altar in offering Sacrifice (the Liturgy of the Eucharist in the OF).
Certainly (and for a different reason) bishops remove the mitre for service at the altar but wear it for processing and while seated (as with the biretta for priests). They also wear the mitre when preaching at the pulpit (which some priests used to do, some still do, with the biretta). Anyway, point being that certain things are worn/not worn depending on whether at the altar or pulpit and these distinctions have meaning and are part of our liturgical traditions. Why should the use of the maniple be different in the OF as opposed to the EF?
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