THE LATIN RITE MASS: SHOULD IT BE MORE LUTHERAN IN APPEARANCE OR EASTERN ORTHODOX IN APPEARANCE?

This liturgy of the Latin Rite:

Resembles better this liturgy of the Eastern Orthodox Church:

While this liturgy of the Latin Rite:

resembles better these Protestant liturgies:

The Catholic Church sees as its ecumenical priority the healing of the Great Schism that led to the Churches of the East separating from the rule of the Bishop of Rome in 1054. Pope Benedict and now Pope Francis have ramped up that desired unity. A major breakthrough was announced yesterday.

This is from the Huffington Post:

Pope Francis and Ecumenical Patriarch Barthlomew I prayed together in Jerusalem at the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in a beautiful act of unity.

Now, they're taking a further step to heal the centuries-old schism between the Roman Catholic and Orthodox churches by holding a gathering together to commemorate the Council of Nicaea, which took place in 325. Seventeen centuries later, Francis and Bartholomew will come together in 2025 to celebrate the historic meeting, reports Vatican Insider.

"We agreed to leave as a legacy to ourselves and our successors a gathering in Nicaea in 2025, to celebrate together, after 17 centuries, the first truly ecumenical synod, where the Creed was first promulgated," Bartholomew told Asia News.

My comments:

One of the criticisms of the Second Vatican Council is that it made the Catholic liturgy more Protestant looking (and this led to erroneous theologies about the Eucharist that are more Protestant, which have since been repudiated by interpreting the Council through the lens of continuity rather than rupture).

However, what most Catholics don't realize is that our liturgical reforms spurred Protestant denominations, especially Lutherans and Anglicans to make their liturgy more like the Liturgy that Pope Paul VI reformed. Thus we think that the Catholic Liturgy is more Protestant looking when in fact the Protestant liturgy became more Catholic looking in the post-Vatican II sense after Vatican II.

But for the most part ecumenism with Protestant denominations is dead in the water except for tea and crumpets ecumenism and our ability to work together at soup kitchens and centers that help the homeless. Most historic Protestant denominations continue to move into a post-Christian stance with their theologies and this has created even more division that will be difficult to overcome. Non-liturgical evangelical Protestants tend to be more "Catholic" in their moral teachings than most mainline Protestant denominations, but they are far from us liturgically.

However, we are much, much closer to the Eastern Orthodox Churches in terms of actual Faith and Morals. The Orthodox celebrate all seven sacraments validly. They have valid Holy Orders and their Bishops are validly ordained and successors to the apostles. Their moral and ethical teachings are the same as ours although presented in a different pastoral way.

However, since Vatican II, the Latin Rite Church has drifted away from the cultural style of the liturgy that both the east and the west adopted in the immediate centuries following the conversion of Constantine. While the trajectory of liturgical and spiritual theologies diverged in valid ways, the liturgies had the same sort of ethos although differing in style of music and ceremony. Both developed very early in the post-Constantine era a sort of universal language for the liturgy. In the east it was Greek in the west a combination of Greek and Latin.  Both developed chant as the music of the liturgy although with different styles. And both adopted ad orientem. The west developed kneeling for receiving Holy Communion and a more developed theology of the Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament which actually led to kneeling while the east insisted on standing for Holy Communion and Holy Communion under both kinds for both clergy and laity. They do not have adoration of the Blessed Sacrament as the Church of the west does, but their adoration developed toward the use of icons and in a much more dogmatic way than Catholic veneration of images.

Without loosing each others authentic spiritualities and theologies that have developed over the centuries, how could the Church of Rome resemble the Church of the East in better ways liturgically?

Well, Pope Benedict in his great wisdom did so by freeing the so-called Mass of Trent from the shackles of a museum piece in allowing it to be celebrated more widely. The missal of 1962 has more in common with the East than the Missal of Pope Paul VI in 1970.

So for now, we do have a liturgy in the 1962 missal and liturgical tradition that is more eastern in ethos. And of course we have the Eastern Rite Churches in union with the Pope whose liturgy and spirituality is identical to the Eastern Orthodox. Thus the 1962 missal heals the chasm created by the 1970's missal within those already united to the Pope.

The 1970 missal is more Protestant and allows orthodox mainline Protestants who desire to keep their Protestant style of liturgy, their own valid historical patrimony when they join the Catholic Church as a group. Currently we have the Anglican Ordinariate that has done this. But we could have a Lutheran Ordinariate and also a Presbyterian one. Who knows.

The real work lies in making the 1970 missal resemble the 1962 missal in style of celebration. This means the on-going recovery of the chant modes that are historically available to us in the Latin Rite, and a rich variety, as well as a recovery of ad orientem.

The other is the removal of the clericalization of the laity during the celebration of the liturgy and more use of deacons and sub deacons. Doing this will emphasize the proper and sublime role of the laity as laity during Mass and from their pews in the nave. In the Post-Vatican II era with the clericalizaiton of the laity with liturgical ministries, especially that of Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, the laity have come to believe that actual participation in the Mass means doing a formal ministry such as reader or distributing Holy Communion rather than doing their normal parts during the Mass that actually belong to the laity, thus promoting a egalitarian participation in the Mass with the laity rather than separating some laity form others liturgically.  

For example, there is a mentality that at children's Masses, especially our school Masses, we need hoards of children doing all kinds of things, from reading the petitions and scriptures to bringing up the gifts to get as many of them actually involved in the Mass when in fact, we shouldn't focus on these things at all but elevate what all the kids are doing and to do it properly from the pews during Mass--don't create an elite group of laity for the ministries of the Mass that rightly belong to the clergy!

Sub deacons could be designated as extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion and trained and certified by the bishop for this ministry, not only liturgically but also to the sick and home-bound. We already have this with the official ministry of acolyte but few bishops invite lay men to this official ministry and still use it only as a stepping stone for ordination either to the diaconate or priesthood. What a pity!

Shouldn't, though, the two liturgies of the one Latin Rite resemble each other better and be like this?

The 1962 Missal Mass:

The 1970 Missal Mass:

I report; you decide!