Father Paul Turner, a famous liturgist, maybe a bit older than me, hits the nail on the head in terms of the disaster that the post Vatican II Mass is. But he doesn’t recognize that, he thinks that the way to celebrate the Modern Mass is for the priest to become an actor and use acting skills to pull the laity into the Modern Mass.
You can read his article HERE, although there might be a paywall.
You have to read his article to understand what I am about to write. But here is the problem with the post-Vatican II Mass—it turns the priest into an actor, rather than a priest.
For example, when I was first ordained, I did feel like an actor on a stage performing a show for the audience before me, by trying to engage them into my acting gig so they would feel a part of it.
This Sunday, January 14th, I celebrated both forms of the one Mass of the Latin Rite. The 9 AM Mass in Bluffton, South Carolina was the post-Vatican II Mass. It was beautiful, but I felt like an actor facing the congregation, praying prayers in a way that they felt included and pulled into the action of the Liturgy. If I do say so myself, I am a fine actor and should be nominated for an academy award for my liturgical style and abilities. Thank you very much.
At 1 PM, I traveled to Savannah to celebrate their weekly TLM. No actor am I at this Mass. I am a priest in the clear theological meaning of the word priest.
It isn’t the Latin that makes it so.
It’s ad orientem and with this important codicil. The Roman Cannon is spoken in a low voice. No acting here!
The Modern Post-Vatican II Mass could recover the priestliness of the Mass with ad orientem and a low voice canon.
The pope and bishops of the future will have to decide, do they want a drama with a priest-actor, or do they want a Sacrifice with an actual priest acting as a priest, not an actor.
Time will tell.
10 comments:
The pope and bishops of the future should ask themselves, is the current model working? It seems the Roman Church is getting down to retention - shouldn't the experience and all peripherals make believers want to remain?
What do I know, but, it seems to me that the "look" of the SSPX post that follows this one would help immeasurably. Noble simplicity at its finest.
Deleting one of my comments. Blogger did something crazy when I posted the first time with error messages. Didn't realize it grabbed my comment twice.
"If I do say so myself, I am a fine actor and should be nominated for an academy award for my liturgical style and abilities."
Father, you could have been Robert Vaughn's double.
Pax.
Mark Thomas
I knew we had a problem back when Phil Donahue was all the rage and parish priests started mimicking his style during the homily - walking around the sanctuary and "preaching" in a conversational style. Now it seems too many thing they are Fr. Jimmy Kimmel. The best part is that nothing from V2 ever required the pro populo orientation - just another lie from the various bishop's conferences.
To make matters worse, having (almost) all of the Novus Ordo spoken in a loud, often-amplified voice means many priests insist on pronouncing the prayers as "meaningfully" as possible, usually to poor results.
ByzRus, it seems that Blogger is getting buggier with comments. More often than not, I get an error message after hitting submit--but the comment goes through. Resulting in duplicate or triplicate comments if one keeps hitting submit in hopes of not getting the error message.
Nick
A fallen away friend of mine use to serve at the cathedral that Fr. Turner is at. My friend was never too enamored with his liturgical style. I remember his story of the constant flux in altar candles that would occur when the bishop was the celebrant versus just a priest. They were heavy and evidently the extra candles aren't needed for a 'normal' Mass. Of course if the cathedral had an altar with a gradine for a set of candles this would be a mute point. I have attended Mass there before and it's nothing crazy, but just not my cup of tea.
Regarding a priest mimicking an actor on stage, that's really not the point of Mass.
I have never encountered a priest mimicking an actor.
Priests do have personalities. Jesus had one, as well. So, if the priest is acting in the person of Jesus Christ, his - the priest's - personality should be evident. The notion that the priest should disappear or become invisible while on the altar is an insult to the person who was ordained. And it is something of an insult to the theology of ordination. The person - Allan McDonald, Martin Fox, Michael Kavanaugh - was ordained. That rite doesn't suppress and certainly doesn't obliterate the man's personality.
Men with personalities, not blank-faced humanoids, are ordained. They come with their personal styles: some are gregarious, some are more introverted. Some are academically oriented, some less so.
Readings and prayers have meaning. A priest could "read" the mass with little or no inflection, little or no emphasis on words and/or phrases, and it would be, IMnsHO, deadly. We had a professor in seminary who, though being an extremely well-educated and who was quite personable off the altar, read his homilies in a voice that barely changed from word to word, phrase to phrase, paragraph to paragraph.
Making the prayers/readings meaningful starts with understanding what the text is saying. The phrase "I don't think he should get that job" can have at least eight meanings, depending on which word is emphasized.
And we have priests who vote for the baby killer Party. Too bad the auto de fe is gone
Post a Comment