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!!!!
10 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
Nick, I am fortunate. My pastor uses the Roman Canon exclusively on Sundays and major feasts.
The initial proposal for adding new anaphoras would have prescribed which one could be used on a given day.
That, obviously, did not happen--noticeably adding to the persona of the celebrant as master of the liturgy in the NO, subject to each of his whims, arising from anything between his theological prejudices and what he had for dinner the night before.
Nick
Father, the problem with the Novus Ordo is that it is entirely fabricated and-equally bad- left to the Celebrant to decide what he will include in his "style" on a given day.(Example-The Roman Canon is never used-too long.Eucharistic Prayer 2-short and sweet-especialy on weekends!) Better to give us the 1965 Missal-ad orientem as the Council Fathers intended.
Father, I like your approach in calling it the "Bugnini mass" or "Bugnini missal."
A few notes: Eucharistic prayers 2, 3, and 4 were introduced on May 23,1968, before the Advent of the Bugnini missal on November 30, 1969.
Number 2 is a revision of Hippolytus alleged anaphora. The story of it being drafted up in a restaurant by Louis Bouyer and Dom Bernard Botte is oh so edifying.
We can find earlier drafts of number three by its author Cipriano Vagaggini in his book The Canon of the Mass and the Liturgical Reform from 1966. Vagaggini's thesis was that the laity were demanding these changes, especially to the Roman Canon.
Twenty-five years ago I asked over 100 priests, nuns, silent generation and greatest generation adults if there was really a demand for a change to the Roman Canon and mass in general back in 1965-66. A judge (not a traditionalist) put it best: "Nobody asked or consulted with us laity. It was all a change from the top. Priest facing the people, no Latin, no prayers at the foot of the altar, guitars, folk songs, the mass began to lose the spirit of reverence and if you protested they patronizingly patted you on the head." This judge was an altar boy from 1952 to 1961 before he went to Georgetown. In Washington DC.
Spot on! I lived in those days and it was a big lie. A liberal friend of mine in Theology back in the 1970s said at a dinner with my wife and his girlfriend that everyone is talking about having women priests. So, I stopped him and asked my wife and his girlfriend about it. They said no one they knew was talking about women priests and they wouldn't want them. He was shattered. Hanging around your closed circle gets you into situations like this. I suspect that was the case with the liturgical deforms.
I don’t necessarily have a problem with the additional Eucharistic Prayers, although I do think there are two many. The Ordinariate’s Missal just has two, the Roman Canon, which the rubrics say should be used on Sundays and Eucharistic Prayers II, but somewhat improved over ours, “may” be used for weekday Masses. We now have the original three, plus two Reconciliation ones plus three more special themed ones and then there are the children’s Eucharistic Prayers not in the revised missal anymore but still allowed. That’s way too many and unnecessary. The only people that wanted the Mass changed and in a radical way were liturgical theologians of the last century’s “New Liturgical Movement” that may have had some interested bishops, but for the most part it was liturgical academic world. The Vatican II fathers would not have been for the most part liturgical theologians and more than likely had no clue what they would do with the Mass once the Vatican II fathers allowed them. 99% of bishops, priests, religious and clergy had no desire for a changed Mass and did not advocate for it as they thought everything in the Church was unchangeable. Vatican II turned that upside down once the Mass was changed, anything and everything could be changed and there were lobbies to bring it about—Pandora’s Box was opened and it hasn’t been shut yet.
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