MAKING SURE THE REFORMED ANCIENT MASS IS CELEBRATED AS WELL, AS REVERENTLY AND AS ATTENTIVELY BY BOTH THE CLERGY AND LAITY AS THE “UNREFORMED” ANCIENT LATIN MASS IS CELEBRATED!

 The Gift of Traditionis Custodes

November 1, 2021

by Blase Cardinal Cupich of Chicago who offers his insights into the implementation of

You can read it HERE.

Here’s an excerpt and how we are implementing this at Saint Anne for the Commemoration of All Souls at Our 6 pm Requiem:

Accompaniment may also mean creatively including in the Mass reformed by the Council elements which people have found nourishing in celebrating the earlier form of the Mass, which has already been an option, e.g., reverent movement and gestures,  use of Gregorian chant, Latin and incense and extended periods of silence within the liturgy.

MY COMMENTS: I want to emphasize, as I always have done, that the Second Vatican Council is normative for the entire Church and it would be schismatic to say or teach that it isn’t. But please, emphasize too that the Second Vatican Council changed the pastoral thrust of the Church and offered a path to reform but not in a dogmatic way, but a flexible way. And yes, some of the pastoral concerns of the era leading up to the 1960’s and what was happening in the world at that time are time-constrained, especially the triumphalism of believing pastoral reforms would bring about a new springtime in the Church, which to this day has only been sporadic at best and a dismal failure at worse.

I agree with the thrust of Cardinal Cupich’s letter. However, I believe he and the Holy Father are barking up the wrong tree, swatting the gnat in the Church and missing the log. The Ordinary Form Mass and less than 20% of Catholics who attend it, are in need of a greater accompaniment than Extraordinary Form Masses. Often these parishes are far from the intent of Vatican II and often have become either heterodox or post-Catholic in terms of the Mass and the faith and morals of the Church.

On November 3rd,  I will post our Requiem for All Souls doing precisely what Cardinal Cupich is suggesting,  “creatively including in the Mass reformed by the Council elements which people have found nourishing in celebrating the earlier form of the Mass!’ 

And without saying it, he is describing the “reform of the reform” because a Mass that is only 50 years old in its reform can be reformed too if a Mass with a 1,600 ethos can be reformed. 

The Requiem for All Souls will be chanted with Gregorian Chant. The entire Mass will be ad orientem except for the parts directed toward the congregation, greetings, Liturgy of the Word with the reformed Lectionary and sacred silence during the Liturgy with the Roman Canon prayed in a lower voice with double genuflections at the consecration and following the Great Amen. 

Except for the Liturgy of the Word, and the changing parts of the Mass, i.e. Collect, Prayer over the Offerings, Preface and Post Communion prayer, the Mass will be entirely in Latin. 

Communicants may either kneel or stand for the reception of Holy Communion at a row of kneelers placed in an altar railing fashion. 

When I post the Mass tomorrow, will this be what Cardinal Cupich has in mind and will this form of the Mass be the way by which this Cardinal and all bishops will accompany those who celebrate the Ordinary Form in a way not envisioned by the Second Vatican Council which is the norm for this form of the Mass?

Time will tell.