The only way to understand the post-Vatican II revision of the Mass is to know and understand its roots, the Mass prior to the Second Vatican Council's revision of the Mass.
Sacrosanctum Concilium did not actually require a radical transformation of the Mass, but many say the seeds of that radical transformation are implicit in the document and that the post-Vatican II committee that manufactured new elements of the Mass obviously thought that SC did call for a radical readjustment. Pope Paul VI agreed with this manufactured ideology.
But if one simply looks at what is said about revising the liturgies of the Church, one notes a noble sobriety about it. It doesn't call for radical changes in the doctrine or dogma of the Mass at all, in fact it calls for no changes in dogma or doctrine.
Neither does SC request that the Mass be a symbol of anything but what the Mass is meant to be. It isn't an ideological statement about the Church or about participation or about singing or any of that. It is what the Mass has always been.
The greatest concern was to make the Mass more intelligible to those who gathered with the priest for the Holy Sacrifice. It called for "noble simplicity" and for better inward and outward actual participation. It also called for the elimination of "useless" repetition.
So lets look at both forms in terms of what was altered or changed.
1. The Prayers at the Foot of the altar technically belong to the clergy and their representatives as private prayers prior to the actual celebration of the Mass. Some have called these "sacristy" prayers. Given that the sung Mass should be the norm, these prayers were recited quietly after the priest approached the altar and while the Introit was being sung. The laity were not invited to be a part of this, but they certainly could participate in the chanting of the Introit if they were so inclined and in many places where liturgical renewal was taking place prior to the Council in the early 1900's congregations were chanting the Introit with the choir/schola.
Since the Prayers at the Foot of the altar were seen as private, sacristy type prayers, these were eliminated in the revised Mass in favor of a "Penitential Act" for everyone, not just the clergy. This penitential Act was streamlined and has many options. Unfortunately, the free standing Kyrie was lumped into the Penitential Act. Whereas in the 1962 Missal it is not seen as such. It simply started after the Introit was chanted as prelude to the Gloria.
In fact, all private prayers of the priest were eliminated for the most part or severely truncated in the revised Mass. Was this necessary? No, not really.
2. The Order of the Mass was slightly adjusted. With the Prayers at the Foot of the altar removed and a Penitential Act inserted, how would one begin the Mass? Well, the priest goes directly to the altar while the Entrance Chant is sung, reverences it and kisses it but with no private prayers and then goes to his chair. Then facing the people he begins with the sign of the Cross and greeting with the introduction to the penitential act.
In the 1962 missal, after the prayers at the foot of the altar, there is no sign of the cross to begin the actual Mass. It begins with the Introit, Kyrie, Gloria and then the greeting and then the collect.
3. The Liturgy of the Word is basically the same in both Masses apart from different lectionaries and the use of the Gradual in the 1962 missal and the Responsorial Psalm in the revised Missal. The difference though is where these readings are read, at the ambo and toward the people and that SC called for more lavish use of Scripture, thus more old Testament readings and a cycle of reads over three years.
4. After the homily, the Credo remains in tact but there is the addition of the Universal Prayer in the revised Mass.
5. Then the Offertory rite is completely changed except for the Orate Fratres. Theologians who won the day in terms of the new offertory prayers thought the 1962 version was too much like the Eucharistic Prayer itself and had "consecratory" elements in it and thus made the actual Eucharistic Prayer look redundant. There is some validity to this, but one wonders if a radical reworking of the Offertory was necessary.
6. The Prayer over the Gifts (Secret) to the Preface dialogue, and preface and Sanctus remain in tact as does the Eucharistic Prayer, but now the Roman Canon becomes one choice amongst many other canons. The rubrics for the Roman Canon are simplified and the other canons mimic this simplification.
7. The Rite of Holy Communion is streamlined as well. There is no longer the communion of the priest with its private "Lord I am not worthy" three times and then the people reciting the same prior to their Holy Communion. Of all of the revisions in the Mass, this one revision is the one that I appreciate the most now that I celebrate both forms of the Mass and the Ordinary Form ad orientem for one of our Masses each Sunday. I much prefer the revised version of this part of the Mass to the Extraordinary Form's.
8. After Holy Communion there is the Prayer after Holy Communion, the same format for both forms of the Mass.
9. The order of Blessing and dismissal is revised and I much prefer the Ordinary Form's Blessing and then Dismissal compared to the EF's Dismissal and then blessing with the Last Gospel that follows.
10. Then there are the changes that SC did not request: 1. The option of replacing official chants with songs; 2. the stripping of churches and the reorientation of sanctuaries; 3. Mass facing the people; 4. standing for Holy Communion.
Oddly enough, for people my age and older, #10 was shoved down our throats as what Vatican II wanted when Vatican II said nothing about these things and presumed these would not be changed. In fact Vatican II emphasized more than any other Council the pride of place for Gregorian Chant, especially for the propers.
The biggest difference in the two forms of the sung Mass is style of music, and an uncalled for making the Mass casual and folksy. These reforms are not to be found in SC or the revised Missal at all--these are accretions added to the revised Mass unofficially that have made it appear to be completely different than the EF Mass in terms of reverence and ethos.
18 comments:
So, it seems the 1965 revision of the 1962 Missal is what SC called for, and it fufills the requrements accurately. The Novus Ordo of Bugnini was never needed. Perhaps its time it be phased out, and the 1965 Missal be phased back in as the "Ordinary Form", albeit adapted to the current Lectionary of 3 year cycles (unless you advocate a new Lectionary based on the one the Anglican Ordinariates are getting).
As I've alluded to before, it appears that in our neighboring Diocese of Charleston, S.C., there are at least two parishes (Prince of Peace and St. Mary's) where they are celebrating the Ordinary Form without those uncalled for things which were "shoved down our throats." At Prince of Peace, the Ordinary Form Mass is regularly celebrated versus apsidem and Communion kneeling at the rail (even in the OF) is the norm. They sing the propers at OF Masses.
There is a very good "National Catholic Register" article on the bi-formal Prince of Peace parish in the Greenville, S.C. area and I have also saved some online bulletin inserts from St. Mary's, Greenville (entitled "What's New at St. Mary's") in which their pastor explains "Turning Towards the Lord" (ad orientem, or versus apsidem, as an option in the Ordinary Form). Obviously, good things are going on in the Greenville, S.C. area and the bishop, apparently, is allowing these things to continue.
If only these practices could be established more regularly in the Diocese of Savannah. We need to "get with the program!"
Realistically, I don't see us going back exclusively to either the 1962 Missal or the 1965 missal. I think the missal we have will be it with no modifications.
The only thing we could hope for from the Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship is something very similar to their recent mandate to insert St. Joseph into the other Eucharistic Prayers, and that would be the eleimination of the option in the GIRM of a hymn for the Introit, Offertory and Communion Antiphons. But when I say this, I still think, as in the EF Mass, additional anthems can be sung for the Offertory and Communion times as filler. I happen to like the Vatican's current practice of a hymn to accompany the papal procession and then when the Pope gets to the foot of the altar, it transitions to the Introit of the Day. I see nothing wrong with this.
In terms of the current missal, the same Congregation could make it explicit that the options of ad orientem and kneeling for Holy Communion cannot be eliminated as an option by bishops.
To think that something as simple, age-old, beautiful and theologically correct as the EF has been tortured, twisted, redacted, de-constructed, and pretty much made irrelevant is astonishing. All of the discussion on this and other blogs about how the Mass can be revised, altered, re-covered, re-varnished, or whatever only serves to prove how the Church is wandering in a Liturgical wilderness with no idea how to fix anything. The ambivalence, indecision, and dissension regarding the Mass, not to mention the inconsistency with which it is celebrated, all indicate that Vat II and its so-called "spirit," if not the work of the Devil, were certainly a convenient avenue for his depredations. I believe all of this is a sign of the Church's precarious position vis a vis secularism, humanism, and her enemies.
All of this discussion of the various ways in which the Mass might be "fixed" reminds me of those John Cleese/Monty Python routines where he is completely ambivalent or indecisive to the point of absurdity. Then, there was "Eric the Half-Bee" in which the song attempts to explain at what point a bee is no longer truly a bee. Perhaps we can adapt the song to the Mass, "NO the Half-Mass." This would all be quite laughable it it were not so tragic...
Actually, under the current GIRM, the option of kneeling for Communion is up to the individual communicant and the part requiring catechesis to such communicants (to get them to see the "error" of their ways) has been eliminated. This suggests that Rome doesn't want priests and bishops trying to discourage kneeling for Communion, regardless of any national "norm" for Communion standing.
Recently, my pastor eliminated the use of the optional kneeler which our previous pastor had started. He then said that he was doing this with the bishop's approval, and, in so many words (from the pulpit) threw our previous pastor "under the bus." Respectfully, I think that he was wrong to do what he did (given the new instruction) and, if the bishop supported his actions and this public "correction," he was wrong too.
Sorry, I'm still "smarting" from this episode and have redoubled my resolve to advocate for the establishment of practices such as we see now in place in the Greenville S.C. area. They are on the cutting edge and we are still mired up in the "Spirit of Vatican II."
With the kneeler, no one is forced to receive kneeling, but taking the kneeler away is an terrible act of inhospitality to those who desire this legitimate option!
Fr. McDonald,
It is funny that you use the word "inhospitality." Our pastor used the word "hospitality" repeatedly in his "corrective" no-kneeling for Communion speech. He said that the kneeler was violative of the norms of hospitality, or some such rot.
The Novus Ordo mass is not "manufactured," nor is it based on a "manufactured ideology." These are false ideas with no substantiation. The theology underlying the NO mass is as old as the Church and is not, in any way, a manufactured reality. What you call "manufactured" is actually ressourcement ("renewal through return to resources.")
Bringing up "changes in dogma or doctrine" is a straw man, since no council ever called for changes in the Truths of our faith. The NO does not depend on or demand any change in dogma.
It is true that accretions to any ritual are most often found at the beginning and the end of said ritual. The Prayers at the Foot of the Altar and the "Last Gospel" are examples of such that, while not being integral in any way to the celebration of the mass were, nonetheless, appended to the beginning and end. "Sacristy prayers" are rightly prayed in the sacristy, not in a ritualized appendage to the mass itself.
To say "Ite missa est" and then to continue the "missa" with addictional readings and/or prayers is nonsensical. This "Last Gospel" vestige was rightly removed.
The elimination of the "private" prayers of the mass IS necessary if the mass is understood to be an action in which four actors (not one - the priest - are integrally involved. Christ, Church, Priest, Congregation. What is "private" is not really proper to that which is designed to be communitarian.
There are MANY things that SC "did not request." But this is another straw argument. SC gave the principles and "called for" very little - if anything - specifically. The specifics came from other legitimate bodies, all authorized by the pope and the Church to carry out this work.
Fr. McDonald,
Additionally, our pastor told us that kneeling for Communion was only for the "Tridentine" Mass (I think that his use of "Tridentine" as opposed to "Extraordinary Form" is telling, especially since I know that he on record as being unhappy with the new English Missal for the OF).
PI, how does your private prayers argument work? Because if you extend your suggestion, it necessarily means that everyone must be doing everything at the same time. But that is not what you mean, surely. Having private prayers at this or that part of the Mass no more eliminates "participation" of the faithful than the priest's not responding to his own Dominus Vobiscums (in the OF) somehow strips him of his "participation."
To suggest that private prayers deprives anyone of anything is ridiculous. It is not like half the Mass is private prayers.
I fail to qualify as a "traditionalist", because I am not only open to but enthusiastic about celebrations of Holy Mass in either from that truly reflect the heavenly liturgy, and are focused on worship of God rather than edification of man. I actually love both forms of the Roman Missal, and welcome mutual enrichment textually (both ways). However, I find the discussions of what Sacrosancum Concilium really "intended" as a basis for "fixing" the Mass stifling and tedious beyond continued endurance.
SC did not "intend" anything. It does not represent any sort of consensus of the bishops of Vatican II, few of whom had any part in its drafting, which was largely the work of an activist group hardly representing itself the positive goals of the pre-Vatican II liturgical movement, salted with conservative nods to engender votes of approval by bishops who had not read it but could be persuaded that nothing radical was forthcoming. Then this same radical activist group was handed full control of the post-conciliar liturgical reform, and managed to persuade Paul VI to accept not whatever they or he thought SC said or intended, but what they had planned before the Council even convened.
As a result, I know of no single document in the history of the Church that arguably has lead directly to greater disintegration of both private devotion and public worship, and to such unfathomable loss of faith and belief. Can we not be done with it, and turn to the future rather than to a past that is discredited by forty years of disastrous experience, and is therefore best forgotten?
ytc - The mass is essentially an action of the Church, modeled on the liturgy of the Church in heaven. Not individuals in the Church, but the Church. Hence, when a priest is celebrating mass with ONLY males present, he does not say "Pray, brothers..." but "Pray, brothers and sisters..." because it is not only those present who are being called to pray, but the whole Church. We have also the "great cloud of witnesses" that surrounds us at mass to consider...
And if, in heaven, God is all in all, then the notion of this or that worshipper acting privately is not the model we should be following.
Of course, people pray "privately" during the mass. I have no doubt that some of those prayers might include, "Dear God, not ANOTHER spoonful of incense, please!" or "Great God Almighty, this homily has already lasted 27 minutes - PLEASE make him stop soon!" or some such.
But the priest holds a unique spot and does not act for/by/of himself - ever - in celebrating mass. Hence, the "private" prayers "of the priest" really don't align with the communion nature of the celebration.
On a lighter note, check out Jeffrey Tucker's article on New Liturgical Movement about the liturgical role of a giant red flying fish puppet which was used to lead a liturgical procession and almost got its fin set alight by the Paschal candle.
Apparently more sane-minded people are trying to slowly turn around the organization that sponsored this liturgy by performing a "liturgical detox" on the baby-boomers who concoct such ideas (puppet liturgies).
Pater, I generally think what you say is good and true and I agree with you here.
However, I really am baffled by the idea that private prayers at Mass by the priest (or deacon or whoever) are somehow not in the spirit of liturgy or whatever.
What is it? Is it that only the priest/deacon says it that bothers you, or is it that it is in a low voice that bothers you? Certainly it can't be the former since the great majority of the words of Mass are said only by the priest. So it must be the latter. Surely you don't need to be reminded that low voice prayers are protected in principle by Trent with an anathema.
Would you rather have the Offertory prayers aloud all the time, even when an Offertory chant is being sung? Would you rather have the Lavabo aloud? Would you rather have the people join in with the priest's Corpus before he administers himself Communion?
Pater Ignotus, I think you are right up to a point, but 'ressourcement' raises its own problems. Firstly, our evidence on liturgical practice in the early church is fragmentary at best. The Mass described by Justin Martyr in the second century changed considerably in the following centuries, so the Roman Rite by the end of the sixth century incorporated earlier elements but was very different, as was the whole situation of the Church. Secondly, the assumption that the earliest practices are necessarily the best was condemned by Pius XII as 'archaeologism'. The 16th century protestant reformers claimed that they were returning to the practice of the primitive Church, but in fact were incorporating into their liturgies a new theology. Cranmer's BCP is not something the primitive Church would have recognized.
Thirdly, historical and liturgical scholarship is continually evolving and many of the assumptions of the 1940s, 1950s and 1960s have been challenged. For example, a common orientation of priest and people for the Liturgy of the Eucharist is now held by scholars to have been normative in the early Church; the bishop, with his sedia at the apsidal end did indeed 'preside' but the idea (explicit in the 1964 document Inter Oecumenici of Bugnini's Consilium) that the priest 'presides' over the assembly at Mass, facing the congregation, has little historical justification.
Fourthly, elements of the Novus Ordo are clearly "manufactured". Many 20th century liturgists had reservations about the Roman Canon, despite its antiquity (it antedates the anaphoras in the eastern Church). EP III has all the elements of what, in the eyes of the liturgical reformers, an ideal anaphora should have; however, it was written in the
1960s by Fr Cipriano Vaggagini. It's a fine prayer, and to me sums up the ethos of the Novus Ordo, but it's hardly 'ressourcement'. EP II, we were told, is the Canon of Hippolytus, a third century anti-pope. In fact, it is only loosely based on Hippolytus's text, is a good deal shorter, and most liturgists now no longer believe the original was ever intended as an anaphora.
People far more expert than I have analysed the NO and while acknowledging that it does indeed restore some older elements, have come to the conclusion that in both form and intent (not to mention the ars celebrandi and music that usually accompany it) it indeed represents a new departure.
This single post has given me the single greatest epiphany regarding the current liturgy wars: the rubrics (especially the original ones in 1570) were strict so as to prevent abuse. Essentially, refusing to give an inch.
#10 especially proves that many will take a mile given an inch.
I don't know why, but after what seemed like an eternity of struggling to decipher a few Ancient Greek sentences, this one epiphany has erased all of my frustration. Or maybe I've finally gone off the deep end.
IF the 1570 rubrics were followed..... Rules do not make for good behavior.
True, but at least there's no whiney arguing about "pastoralishness" or, "I thought it said...," if the rubrics are strict.
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