HAVE YOU EVER WONDERED WHAT THE CONGREGATION FOR DIVINE WORSHIP DOES THESE DAYS AT THE VATICAN? STOP WONDERING AND READ

Anglican Use Catholic Mass:

The Chant Cafe is reporting on some significant developments at the Vatican's Congregation for Divine Worship as it regards music and chant for the Mass. It sounds like an examination of conscience for the last 50 years since Sacrosanctum Concilium and that perhaps this Vatican Congregation for Divine Worship will strive actually to implement SC which has not actually been done according to its letter for the past 50 years. You can read their article Here.

The supposed outgoing head of this congregation, Cardinal Canizares Llovera said the following:

"With regard to “gratitude” and “commitment”, the prelate added, “We must, indeed, thank God for this first fruit of the Council … not only for the Constitution itself, but also for the renewing dynamism of the Church that it has given rise to, and continues to provide. At the same time, urgent commitment on our part to the continuation and deepening of the liturgical renewal hoped for by the Vatican Council II is now called for. It is true that much has been done, but there remains much still to do”.

I've written this before and I'll write it again. Pope Francis is going to allow the Congregation for Divine Worship to proceed in continuity with what it has thus far accomplished and the ground work it has laid for future accomplishments, the "much has been done, but there remains much still to do." 

Part of what the new initiative that the Chant Cafe reports will certainly revolve around the recovery of the Official Chants of the Mass, meaning not only Gregorian and Polyphony, in Latin or the vernacular, but also the Entrance Chant (Introit) and Offertory and Communion Antiphons. To mandate these as in the EF Mass will solve a whole host of silly problems currently experienced in the OF's music at these times!

We know for a fact that this Congregation along with the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has worked together to present to the Holy Father for his approval, and it was the approval of Pope Francis, not Pope Benedict, the revision of the Roman Missal for the Anglican Ordinariate.

This revised Anglican Use Roman Missal brings their missal closer to the Ordinary Form of the Mass although allowing for many Anglican adaptations that do not go against the Roman tradition of the Mass.

But most peculiar and greatly appreciated is what is in the Appendix of this new Roman Missal for the Anglican Ordinariate. And here it is again!

1. The restoration of the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar as an option, with its corresponding revision of the order of the Introductory Rite making it exactly the same as the EF's order for this.

2. The option of using the EF's Offertory Rite including the psalm for incensing the altar, the prayer for infusing blessed water into the wine and the longer prayer for the washing of the hands, not to mention the actual Offertory Prayers--this is mind-blowing to say the least and a bombshell!

3. The allowance of the somewhat modified EF's rubrics for the praying of the Roman Canon (in an audible voice, as the exception) but with the other more complicated rubrics!

4. The option of the Last Gospel

As I have written before and write again, this is what Pope Benedict envisioned for the Ordinary Form of the Mass when he issued Summorum Pontificum allowing for the generous celebration of the EF Mass as one of the two forms of the Latin Rite.

Apart from the issue of the Latin and vernacular, if the Ordinary Form's Mass was celebrated entirely in English with the options of the EF's parts of the Mass included as listed above, the Ordinary Form would look and feel like the Extraordinary Form. The differences only being in the English (vernacular) language, the Liturgy of the Word and the simplified "Rite of Holy Communion" of the Ordinary Form.

Allow for kneeling at Holy Communion (and this alone without any of the more radical allowances of the EF influences, would restore sanctity and sanity to the reception of Holy Communion and the reverence due our Risen Lord at this time of Mass) and there would be almost no difference!

AND NOW FOR MY CLAIRVOYANCE! I BELIEVE THE CONGREGATION FOR DIVINE WORSHIP WILL REVISE THE APPENDIX OF THE CURRENT ORDINARY FORM'S MISSAL TO ALLOW FOR ALL OF THE ABOVE. I WILL GO ONE STEP FURTHER, THE OLD ENGLISH WILL BE ALLOWED IN THE ORDINARY FORM OF THE MASS AS AN OPTION AS WELL!

WHEN WILL THIS HAPPEN? WITHIN THE NEXT THREE YEARS!

The genius of this revision of the Appendix to allow for these EF options in the Ordinary Form's current Roman Missal is that it will undercut the objections of the left-wing liturgical progressives in that they will still be able to have the Ordinary form as it is in the main body of the Missal.


Thus those of us who are progressive with an "organic renewal" of the OF Mass without tossing out the good work of the last 50 years along with the bathwater, will be able to use these EF options at our normal Ordinary Form Sunday Mass and bring about a truly organic development of the Ordinary Form Roman Missal in the next 50 years without tossing out the current Ordinary Roman Missal altogether, but simply developing it along the lines of the EF Mass. This is simply genius! And this should be the goal of the "reform of the reform!"