Ever since TC came out, rad trads (I am not one, btw) have pointed out the obvious with ample evidence from live-streamed Masses from around the world, how horribly and distorted the Modern Roman Missal is celebrated in such diverse ways as to be a different rite not only from parish to parish and diocese to diocese, but even in the same parish.
Where is the unity in this modern Roman Missal and how can it unify the Church????
Some of the depictions of the Modern Mass appear sacrilegious to me and many others. These are far from what even Pope Paul VI intended for the Roman Missal His Holiness approved which was a concoction of various rites, novel and ancient.
For those who love the Modern Roman Missal, just how much tinkering is going to be allowed before there is another crackdown from Rome and its centralizing micro-management of bishops and institutions in their dioceses?
Let me make a few recommendations already mentioned too many times on this blog. But how kosher are these or some of these and can these be allowed?????
1. Chant the propers from the Graduale Romanum of 1974 which are prescribed for the Mass. Why these became optional in the new Mass is beyond me. Even in the 1962 Missal, I think a vernacular traditional metrical hymn could have been sung as a processional prior to the Introit if a parish desired this. But it was never to replace the official Introit. And certainly the Offertory and Communion antiphons had to be chanted or said even if additional motets or hymns were chosen at the offertory and Communion. What is so difficult about this?
2. Celebrate the Introductory Rite (Penitential Act) at the foot of the altar, using only the Confiteor. After the absolution ascend to the altar either ad orientem or toward the nave for the Kyrie and Gloria as well as the Collect. An option for these to be at the chair works for me too.
3. Kneel for Holy Communion at an altar railing.
Just these three things would enhance the Modern Roman Missal’s celebration and placate to a certain extent the rad trads or will it?
12 comments:
What do you call OF fanatics?
In the words of Father Fox , the problem with the OF is “no one likes it, “ hence the constant toying with it by iconoclastic narcissist priests who are the masters of the liturgy rather than its servant.
To fix the OF and promote unity all options need to be suppressed: Only the Roman Canon may be used and the introductory Rites revised to include the simplified version of the PATFOTA. The Propers must be used. If the Mass is chanted then no Hymns, there is more than enough “participation” if the people sing the Mass. If the Mass is not sung allow hymns AFTER the Propers are said or sung. Lastly restore the altar rails and ban Holy Communion in the paw!
Oh heck, why not just go back to the EF!
If the same mentality before and after Vatican II concerning the Mass and reverence as well as Catholic spirituality had been brought to the new Mass and universally, I think we would not have had all the liturgy wars we have had and which Pope Francis has brought back with his desire to return us to the 1970's.
As a teenager, I remember quite well the mantra that we in the congregation had to speak our parts and sing like Protestants do. They were held up as the model for us. But we were not really taught to sing the Mass, but to sing new metrical hymns, those from Protestantism and those newly composed, especially home-made composed ones. How many remember homemade "hymnals" with copied music which Chicago was sued for and it then became a national policy not to infringe on copy-righted music.
Thus, the mantra was we had to sing hymns of all kinds and the modern stuff was unsingable.
And think of the parts of the Mass we were asked to sing often times not even the old English translation of the Mass found in the Missal but improvisations that someone thought would be cool to do or hymns to replace the Holy, Holy, the Agnus Dei and the Responsorial Psalm. What a mess and we still experience so much of this today.
Father McDonald,
My pre-Vatican II experience was radically different than yours, perhaps because I grew up attending Mass at the Basilica at the University of Notre Dame and a parish connected to the University. I heard the very best chant and polphony, sung by the Moreau Seminary Choir. The Nuns at our Catholic grade schoo, STARTING in first grade, taught us how to sing the Latin responses (I guess people were smarter in those days) because our daily grade school Mass was a Missa Cantata. We all had our St. Joseph Daily Missal: talk about simplicity! Of course, the wheels came off fairly quickly after the Council, even there, with sappy music and inane anctics.
But once trained in the best, I NEVER settled for second best. My patience has been rewarded by the younger clergy. FYI, there is still a daily EF at the University of Notre Dame, which would pain Santita. The choirs there do Gregorian Chant, polyphony, and only the very best vernacular music. When my daugther was married at the Basilica 14 years ago, a four-part Mass, the Missa L'Hora Passa by Ludovico Di Vidiana was sung. The Holy Cross Fathers, whom I would say, never went to the extremes, with only a few notable exceptions, use Latin chants at their ordinations and funerals, and the younger priests have gone back to wearing their religious habits with some regularity. Liberalism, if that is what you want to call it, is a spent force in Catholicism, and the Age of Hubris will likely pass with Pope Francis. Of course we could have one more papacy like his, given his appointments to the College of Cardinals, but their worldview is simply not found among the ranks of men even 10-15 years younger than them, e.g. Archbishops Cordileone and Sample. Some day, these sorts of men will be in control. The Church will then begin to recover what was lost due to arrogance and hubris. Deo Gratias!
Father McDonald said..."...I think we would not have had all the liturgy wars we have had and which Pope Francis has brought back with his desire to return us to the 1970's."
Liturgical wars within the Church raged decades prior to Pope Francis' reign in Rome. Said war(s) has not been close to having ended.
The Church's liturgical war has raged for decades...even prior to Vatican II.
Pope Francis inherited an awful situation in regard to the Liturgical War.
Prior to, and during, Pope Francis' Pontificate, "traditionalists" waged war against Pope Benedict XVI and his attempt to have established liturgical peace between the TLM and Novus Ordo.
Speaking generally...
"Traditionalists" have insisted that liturgical peace between the TLM (the "true" Mass), and the Novus Ordo Mass (the "imposter" Mass...Peter Kwasniewski's term...the "Protestant/Masonic" Mass) is impossible.
"Traditionalists" have insisted that Pope Benedict XVI's liturgical peace plan has featured "muddled" thinking...and was built upon false, unsustainable teachings.
Examples:
-- Pope Benedict XVI insisted the the TLM and Novus Ordo are two forms of the one Roman Rite.
-- The Novus Ordo can enrich the TLM.
-- There is not any contradiction between the two Missals in question.
-- TLM communities cannot "as a matter of principle, exclude celebrating according to the new books. The total exclusion of the new rite would not in fact be consistent with the recognition of its value and holiness."
Speaking generally, "traditionalists" have trashed all of the above.
Then there is the liturgical war that liberals have waged for decades against the TLM.
Said folks are not "live and let live" in regard to liturgy. They despise the TLM...and have attacked the TLM relentlessly.
Nevertheless, Pope Francis tolerated "traditionalists." He rejected calls from liberals to have waged war against the TLM...against the SSPX, FSSP...against RadTrads.
Pope Francis tried to move forward with Pope Benedict XVI's liturgical peace plan.
Unfortunately, liberals and "traditionalists" had rejected said peace plan years prior to Pope Francis' reign.
The Church's two extreme wings, not Pope Francis, have made the situation in question intolerable beyond belief.
Pax.
Mark Thomas
The reason why the 1974 GR Propers (Introit, Gradual, Alleluia/Tract, Offertory, Communion) are optional is two-fold; you need a competent schola to chant them, which most parishes do not have, and more to the point, they would normally be used in the context of a sung or solemn Mass celebrated for the most part in Latin, a concept alien to most practising Catholics.
Mark Thomas,
The cut and paste method of discourse does not work with the sentient. Traditionis Custodes is a cruel, non pastoral and vicious document. It is also likely ultra vires which contradicts centuries of tradition and Summorum Pontificem issued by Pipe Benedict. For anyone with eyes to see it was issued by a geriatric who has lost the argument who reacted with brute force rather than reason. When a successor to PF rescinds TC formally or allows it to lapse, what will you do. Commit hari kari?
John, I don’t buy that parishes can’t find someone to chant the parts of the Mass. In my first parish, in pre-Vatican II times, there was a schola, a small one, which chanted the pre-Vatican II Mass. The army chapel of the 1950’s that our family attended was capable of chanting a high Mass each Sunday and for high solemnities.
I am not an expert on chant, but there is plain chant and the more complicated versions. Most parishes could learn plain chant.
Father McDonald,
I agree most parishes can field a choir that could master the simple chant tones. I was actually pleasantly surprised that in my little country parish the Congregation sang the Missa de Angelis well even though the range is broader than many of the chant ordinaries and a bit more complicated. Our organist is skilled in chant and sang the sequence, in Latin, for Pentecost. So a good cantor can add a lot if there is not the time to train a schola to perform the more complicated chants.
TJM and Fr McDonald
The specific reference was to the Propers of the 1974 Graduale Romanum, not any simplified versions such as Fr Rossini's which just psalm-tones them. The popularity of the Missa de Angelis (Mass VIII) - in my boyhood parish of the 1950s it was done to death - is because the Kyrie and Gloria, both very late compositions, are in the key of F major and so are in the comfort zone of congregations unused to the modality of Gregorian chant. The same applies to the ubiquitous Credo III. Ironically their appeal is actually due to the fact that they are not authentically Gregorian.
I recall the congregation belting out the Asperges but the Vidi Aquam was deemed too difficult and the version by Samuel Webbe (1740-1816) was used. It's a splendid piece and I can still remember it well, although I last heard it at Easter 1959.
The Sequence Veni Sancte Spiritus is a simple enough chant, but Webbe set this also, and his version is still frequently heard on Pentecost Sunday, usually in the English version by Edward Caswall, a nineteenth-century Oratorian.
This, the 'Golden Sequence' is attributed to Cardinal Stephen Langton, Archbishop of Canterbury from 1207 to 1228, and one of those responsible for drawing up Magna Carta.
John Nolan,
Thank you for this information. Our parish when it used the Missa de Angelis did not have it in the key of F major (comfortable for me) but strangely in a higher key. I pointed this out to our pastor and he had the organist switch to the key of F major with far better results. I agree the Missa de Angelis was beaten to death when I was young as was Credo III. I actually like Credo I better. The Asperges was rarely sung by the congregation in the Parishes I attended for the reasons you mention. I was in the schola and thus learned to sing it. I miss not seeing the Asperges. The English substitutes in most OF parishes are dreadful!
Father McDonald,
Off topic but have you seen this before and after. Quite tastefully done!
https://www.liturgicalartsjournal.com/2022/05/before-and-after-st-louis-church-in.html
Greetings, Father:
I'm afraid the firm adherents of the prior form will not be mollified and will accept no less than what's impossible: the return to pre-Vatican II Mass and rituals.
With the exception of some small groups in the developed world and a few down south, the vast majority in the Church does not wish to return to the previous use. That's the reality, recalcitrant souls notwithstanding.
You're on the right track. Elevating the ordinary form to its rightful level is the way to go, not to mollify the naysayers, but to worship God and united the Church in worship and liturgy.
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