The Chants are magnificent and splendid Gregorian Chant and the Alleluia Gospel Chant was out of this world!
The Chants are in Latin all of them! The Archbishop prays the Roman Canon (in English). There are no other languages other than English and Latin! This unites all those cultures into a coherent and audible unity!
The Installation Rite prior to the beginning of the Mass, was splendid, dignified and reverent. It exhibted the sobriety of the Roman Rite both in its older, more ancient form, and also required in its modern expression.
There is no applause, hooping and hollering or a feeling that one is celebrating the person being installed rather than the Lord Jesus Christ. There is no showing of the Papal Bull by the one being installed, as though it is his precious Hiesman Trophy, parading around, like a clown, with it throughout the cathedral!
The only applause, and it was quite sober and controlled, was when Cardinal Nichols presented the new Archbishop with the Pastoral Staff, crozier.
The vestments are splendid! It is a modern Mass, with female altar servers and a woman religious as one of the lectors.
This is a Solemn Sung Mass. As such, Archbishop Moth celebrates the Mass by chanting all his parts! He chants the Collect, the Prayer over the Offerings, the Preface Dialogue and Preface and all other parts pertaining to the Celebrant! Thank you Archbishop Moth—this is an example for Pope Leo IV too!
There were some unique aspects to the Installation and I presume a tradition of this English Cathedral. One of the canons actually installs the new Archbishop and the role of the canons is pronounced, which isn’t the case in the USA.
The Papal Nuncio, without theatrics or ad-libbing, reads the Papal Bull from the parchment. He is the one that briefly shows the parchment to the canons and others but remaining in the sanctuary. The parchment is not given to the Archbishop! The Archbishop never takes it or shows it, unlike Archbishop Hicks in New York who made a spectacle of it and himself.
Archbishop Moth celebrates the Mass without any theatrics nor pandering to those in front of him or acting in a way that expresses raw emotions to others.
There is no pandering to the multiplicity of cultures in this London Archdiocese, perhaps more than that which is in New York City. There isn’t a multiplicity of languages employed or different musical expressions of the various cultures. Latin Chant and music unique to the Roman Rite are used! Latin is employed, proper to the Roman Rite! Gregorian Chant is used, proper to the Roman Rite in its revised form!
Pandering to different cultures during a Roman Rite Mass is exactly that, pandering to the laity and pleasing them and their cultural accomplishments. The Roman Rite isn’t about pandering to people and their accomplishments. It is about worshiping God! It is about pleasing and praising Him and lifting our eyes to Him. It isn’t about our narcissism.
I pray that Pope Leo writes an enclical on the Sacred Liturgy and authoritatively promoting the use of both forms of the one Roman Rite and that the revised Rite be in continuity with the older and clearly so! I pray he uses this Installation Mass as an example of how to celebrate the Modern Rite.
The only criticisms I have of the Mass, one problem which is with the revised Order of the Mass, is that after the installation rite and the various greetings offered to the Archbishop in a sober and brief way, the actual Mass begins with the Gloria. It is a mistake not to start this aspect of the ritual with the free-standing Kyrie followed immediately by the Gloria.
The other criticism is the multiplicity of people, as at the Vatican, reading the intercessions of the Universal Prayer. However, it is concluding by all asking for the intercession of Our Lady of Westminster, by praying together the “Hail Mary” which many liturgists, unlike me, would flinch!
But everyone knows that I would prefer formal, brief litanies, from the Missal, not made up, for the Universal Prayer with brief “ejaculations” for the Pope and Church, for the World and World Leaders, For the sick and suffering, the Faithful Departed and needs held silently in the hearts of the Faithful.
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