The National Chismatic Reporter has posted a number of letters to the editor concerning the EF/OF Mass wars of words. You can’t read it HERE..
Most complain about the Latin and that is what people want. Others complain about the actual verbal participation and the lack of it from the congregation at Latin Masses. Others complain about others’ actual participation that is too private and devotional.
Leave people alone in terms of how they wish to participate in either form of the Mass. We don’t need 1970’s type of micro managing the laity as to how they choose to participate. I can remember a priest in our diocese shoving a hymnal into someone’s hands as the procession began because he insisted everyone should be holding the hymnal and SINGING! Gestapo tactics!
But let me say this and let me say it clearly. It isn’t the Latin that most people who attend the EF Mass want. They would be just as pleased with an EF Mass completely in the vernacular but celebrated as any EF Mass would be celebrated in its various levels.
This past Sunday the EF Mass was celebrated at the High Altar of the Savannah Cathedral for the first time in 50 years and of course ad orientem. In the Name of God and all that is Holy, why would anyone denigrate that? Everyone there loved it, especially the hoards of tourists who participated in that Mass by accident!
They love the EF Mass, especially its Solemn High Form because it is Liturgical Dance, meaning the Mass is choreographed in a very specific way as a minuet would be. It’s choreography is art and is beautiful. The OF cannot compare with this in any way in terms of choreographed dance because in the OF Mass, silly secular style dance has to be imposed on the Mass which has nothing to do with the Mass. It’s like singing songs at the Mass rather than singing the Mass. The Mass itself is the Song! The Mass itself is the Dance! The EF Mass gets it! The OF Mass, not so much!
Those who love the EF Mass love the silences as disturbing as these are for some.
Those who love the EF Mass love the masculinity of it, its military-like regimentation and that only males are in the sanctuary as disturbing as this is to some.
And finally those who love the EF Mass love kneeling for Holy Communion and receiving Holy Communion from their priest who is their shepherd and the only time they have a person to person contact with him. Is that so horrible? NO!
I have consistently called for formal permission for the EF Mass to have the option of the vernacular for the changing parts of the Mass. Those who deride even the thought of this are shooting themselves in the foot because with more vernacular for the changing parts, more Catholics would find it palatable and more priests would not hesitate in celebrating this Mass in their parish at a regular Sunday Mass.
6 comments:
I completely agree Father. I'm watching one of my boys grow into this gradually and this is exactly why. He's even trying to say the prayers in Latin not because it is "Latin" but because, as he tells me, it makes him feel like there is "more to it all". You have hit on it!!
The "New Mass" was definitely one of the major reasons the Church started losing the interest of males and, while there has always been a certain amount of homosexuality in the clergy, it seems to have exploded after the introduction of the "New Mass". I'm not thrilled about seeing a vernacularized EF, but at the same time I heartily agree that it is not necessarily the Latin language that draws people. For me, it is the depth and gravity of the prayers, which truly teach our faith. I have a theory that those priests who are so hostile to the EF demonstrate that they insist we must have a "New Church", because they cannot accept or cope with the grave realities of the faith as transmitted by the prayers of the EF.
I disagree with your assertion about vernacular, although the other things you mentioned are likely true in many instances.
People who are attached to the traditional mass are attached to it because it is traditional. If you make it not traditional by introducing the vernacular, it loses one of its constituent principles. People who regularly assist at the mass (and some who don't) have a Latin-vernacular missal or access to the Propers in their own language. There's no need for the Propers to be in the vernacular for the people. As a priest, might it be that you want the Propers in English because you are uncomfortable with your pronunciation of Latin words that you aren't familiar with?
Anyway, Catholics who love tradition love the traditional mass. So the way to get more people to love the mass is to teach the tradition so that people may come to love it. They will then seek out the mass of their Catholic forebears.
Fr. McDonald, I also disagree about the attraction of Latin. The benefit of Latin is that it preserves the actual meaning and intent of the prayers of the Mass. I suppose it could have been any language, but Latin was, and still is often, the common language for rigorous intellectual exchanges. It developed mechanical advantages along the way as well. To some degree the ‘death’ of Latin allowed it to preserve its place because its vernacular evolution slowed as people resorted to their own vernacular languages for vulgar communication. So as young people search for the roots and heart of their Faith they find great certainty in Latin texts, whereas the vernacular Babel has introduced uncertainty and error even among the clergy. See the latest synod. QED.
In my opinion, the Catholic clergy by-and large are reluctant to accommodate the latent desire among the faithful for the TLM. Father, as you mentioned before the lesson and gospel could be/are now already read or chanted in English and with the homily the need to hear the secular language on the part of the congregation should be more than satisfied.
In addition, emphasis should be on singing the propers in Latin by a mixed male-female choir, also traditional processional and recessional hymns would be acceptable to any serious Catholic Mass participant.
I have a sneaking suspicion that Catholic clergy are less open to such a TLM program than the average pew-sitter. First, just because it involves change from the rote recitation of the significantly diminished text of the Novus Ordo liturgy. Learning Latin involves a little effort. Furthermore, turning toward the Lord means no longer being the object of attention for the congregation - a loss of status (?), a different emphasis on what it means to be a priest at Mass - offering the Mass not Presiding at the Liturgy. A whole new, to some priests formed in V-2 theology, perhaps an uncomfortable, scary concept.
I would also like to see at least one TLM said every Sunday between 9-11 AM in all major US cities as soon as possible but certainly implemented within the next 5 years. This could be the beginning of the long awaited new Springtime for the Church fearlessly forecast but not realized yet, more than 50 years after the Second Vatican Council.
IT’S NOT THE LATIN THAT MOST YOUNG CATHOLICS WHO ATTEND THE EXTRAORDINARY FORM WANT. IT IS THE REVERENCE,....`
I suggest you are quite wrong precisely because Latin is part of that reverence. That is to say, Latin is a language made sacred by its use on the Cross, and is used by the Church to address the Holy Creator of all in the most solemn way. To understand my point, go to an Anglo-Catholic or Ordinariate High Mass, and you will immediately perceive the huge difference in solemnity between using a vulgar tongue like English, and a sacred language such as Latin.
Moreover, maybe Americans are different, but there is certainly no desire to use any vernacular among the youth attending the TLM where I attend in Canada. On the contrary, Latin is what in part attracts them to the TLM.
With all due respect, I think you do not fully appreciate the TLM and still have that Modernist superficial understanding of the world that if something is not understood then it needs to be corrected. This is precisely the underlying supposition of Bugnini and his liturgists in making the liturgy fully comprehensible for the sake of some ambiguous intellectual participation. But God is beyond human words to describe, so the TLM prays to God with sacred words specifically because human words are so limited; the TLM has the heart in mind, not just the intellect.
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