I know everyone will miss hearing "On Eagle's Wings", "Be Not Afraid" and "Here I Am Lord" not to mention for Irish funeral "O Danny Boy!" But, that's the way it is.
This is the Mass of Vatican II and oh how so many wish the pope would encourage this and accompany those who wish to lead the Church in this direction!
This is the first time that our post-Vatican II Saint Anne Choir has ever offered Gregorian Chant for the propers and an all Latin Ordinary Form Requiem. I was particularly pleased with the ability to chant the Dies Irae. What a shame this Sequence is never heard in modern Celebration of Life Requiems. Oh my!
As an aside, how delicious is it that the Atlanta Braves won the World Series after Atlanta was canceled for the All Stars' Game by that political party that promotes the cancel culture and to add the icing on the cake Virginia's new governor will be one who defeated the Cancel Culture Political Party. This Requiem is for you!
6 comments:
"Reformed".
I'd be VERY careful about using that word. Its very use begs the question of its necessity.
Jerome, If you read some of my previous posts, I have been trying to redeem the two terms "reformed" and "unreformed" and give both a positive twist just as the LGBTQ++++ community has redeemed the word "queer" and made it a positive expression.
With that said, I do think we need to be intellectually responsible about what Sacrosanctum Concilium attempted to do even if we don't like what Pope Paul VI's committee did to manufacture a new Liturgy.
They wanted the true meaning of the Mass, as taught by the Church prior to the Council, to be better understood and comprehended by the majority of laity so that they would "actually" participate in the Mass, meaning following the Mass and having interior and exterior responses, the latter according to their role in the Mass, but also attentiveness to all that was being offered to God by way of prayer.
I feel that the Mass I post with the Collect, Prayer over the Offerings, Preface and Post Communion Prayer in English is a wonderful example of maintaining Latin while having some English.
The Liturgy of the Word from the new Lectionary was done according to the Ordinary Form and the Gradual and Sequence from the 1974 Graduale.
There was an Alleluia for the Requiem. I wish there would be the Lenten Response for that.
Also, the Agnus Dei was without the Requiem conclusions, but I think it would be completely kosher to have it in this Ordinary Form Requiem.
Dear McDonald,
All that you do regarding the Mass and the liturgy of the Church is admirable. You are a role model for your brother priests. You are working to recover the good that was lost and dispel some of the weird notions about the Mass that flowed from the “Spirit of Vatican II.”
I think the “reform” of the EF, as it was implemented, was a disaster of the highest magnitude. From my own experience, I was already actively participating due to the marvelous training I received from the Sisters: the meaning of the Mass, how to use the Missal and chant the Mass. My training in the early 1960s was far better than the training my parents and grandparents received. That may explain why they were more receptive (initially) to some of the changes whereas I did not see the need. If the type of training I had received been given another 10 years, the whole “reform” issue might have died a natural death . I really foresee a day when what we have left is a remnant of dedicated Catholics who worship more along the lines of the EF than the unstable and unpredictable OF.
If you read Cardinal Cupich letter on the Pope's desire to curtail the spread of the EF Mass, he indicates implicitly that those who prefer the EF Mass can have an OF Mass with EF sensibilities (I am greatly paraphrasing). In fact, it is an implicit endorsement of reform in continuity or the reform of the reform that Pope Benedict desired and I think Benedict eventually wanted one Missal again for the Latin Rite and more like the EF in its celebration than the OF as experienced in so many places. Once again, the ethos of the Ordinariate's Missal is the template for our very own and not much would have to be done to the OF Missal to make it more like the Ordinariate's which, although in archaic English, is more like the EF Mass than our own OF Mass it. Odd.
Thus, what Pope Francis has done may well force those who prefer a more traditional Mass to make the OF Mass more like what I celebrated and posted above. That would reach more Catholics!
Father McDonald,
I understand your point, but EF Catholics should not be denied the EF to make clergy/liturgists who have failed us happy. The Mass should not be a vanity project.
The OF is the problem, not the EF. People who attend the EF believe what the Church teaches regarding the Real Presence (Transubstantiation), whereas the majority of OF attendees do not. Ergo, leave the EF alone and fix the deficient OF to be much more like the EF in form and externals.
If you travel a great deal as I do, and an EF cannot be found, you experience how unstable and unpredictable the OF is. Unfortunately there are not enough St. John Cantius style liturgies in the US. I have attended the Latin OF there and it is very spiritually and esthetically satisfying. I think a start in fixing the OF would be to suppress the multiple Eucharistic Prayers and mandate the Roman Canon. At least the most essential portion of the Mass would not be left to the whims of a particular celebrant.
The only "reform" of the EF that made sense to me as a practical matter was the suppression of the Last Gospel following the dismissal rite.
The last gospel was added to counter the Albigensian heresies. I read this someplace but can't remember where now.
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