If I had a choice between which should be mandated, ad orientem or kneeling for Holy Communion to recover in the Bugnini Mass the same reverence and ethos of the TLM, I would choose kneeling for Holy Communion.
With that said, though, apart from kneeling or ad orientem, how could the Bugnini Mass be more reverent and approximate the reverence of the TLM?
1. Chant the Propers, preferebly in Latin Gregorian Chant. Doing this follows Vatican II explicitly, giving pride of place to Gregorian Chant and maintaining, at least for the Propers, Latin!
2. The priest and congregation reads the black print and follows the red—no improvisation whatsoever, especially at the Introductory Rite, even if any or all the options are used.
3. The Introductory Rite, the Credo and Intercessions and Concluding Rite takes place at the chair, not the altar.
4. Sunday best is required for lectors or an alb! The same for Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion!
5. After the Intercessions, the chalice and paten covered with veil and burse, placed on the altar’s center prior to Mass, is unveiled, the corporal is placed at the center of the altar and the Roman Missal and other items needed for the Holy Eucharist are placed on the altar and the offerings for the Mass, bread and wine, are brought in procession to the priest and then brought to the altar.
6. All options are permissible from various prefaces to Eucharistic Prayers and all prayers are prayed without making the prayers look like they are being read to the congregation!
7. If the common chalice, pandemic causing as they may be, are used, the choreography of the Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion must be rehearsed and perfected so that Communion time and getting the right sacred things to the right people doesn’t look like a scene from a movie with the Keystone Cops!!!
If the Bugnini Mass is one expression of the two expressions of the one Roman Rite, then make sure the Bugnini Mass is celebrated as it should be just as the TLM should be celebrated as it should be! But the one Roman Rite’s reverence and ethos should be the same in both!!!!
4 comments:
Father McDonald,
I disagree with you in one respect. All of the Eucharist Prayers should be suppressed save for the Roman Canon. Otherwise, you have 4 different expressions of the Roman Rite. We had one Canon for over 1600 years and Catholicism flourished with one Canon. Moreover, the Roman Canon honors women and dispatches the big lie that the Church does not respect women.
My premise is that no changes to the Bugnini Missal is made, thus all the options are there for any priest as this is what the Bugnini rite of the One Roman Rite is. It is what it is.
So we have a multiplicity of “expressions” and the priest is still master of the liturgy and we are his subjects. Where is the “unity?”
Four? There are thirteen "canons" in the NO; four, plus four for various needs, plus two for reconciliation, plus three especially dumbed-down, you know, for the kiddies.
In France in the 1960s, there were as many as one hundred Eucharistic Prayers in (ab)use! That makes thirteen almost seem restrained.
Reading the archives from the 1960s and 1970s shows how vehemently the "reformers" despised the Roman Canon. No wonder that their "reforms" made the Roman Canon functionally disappear overnight.
Nick
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