Background of the Tridentine Form

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

I am not as familiar with the history of the Franciscans as you are. I do know that the entire church used this Mass, though, not just the Franciscans.

Prior to the Council of Trent each diocese had its own Missal. While some (maybe many) of them were alike they were not all identical.

This was one of the reasons that Trent codified a single Missal for the whole of the Latin Rite.

 

[wasserfall]

Didn’t Saint Paul say the Latin mass, while he was writing the King Jame’s version of the bible of course?

Thanks for the snark. I was running low.
Do you dispute the facts in the previous posts of this thread?

 

[tabycat]

Prior to Trent, the Latin Mass existed in similar, but slightly differing forms. There were slight variations int he rubrics or the specific words that were said. One area of a country would be slightly different from another, which differed again (slightly) by what was done in yet another area.

Trent condified the way it was done in Rome, so that all other areas\countries then followed the Roman texts and rubrics.

But even then, the changes were minor. The changes the English speaking world went through with the new translations were larger than the ones, say in France or Spain, went throught when the Tridentine Mass was promulgated.

The Romen Rite was consider the standerd for the Latin Rite because of its age.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Fr Adrian Fortesue, in his “The Mass: A study of the Roman Liturgy” explains how the Mass of the Roman Rite is, at least in its basic structure and some of the prayers, is the most venerable(ancient)of all the Catholic liturgies. All true rites are to be respected and loved, but as to the oldest, the evidence points to the Roman Rite.

CB

That is strange that Fr Fortesue would make such a claim as some of the Eastern Eucharistic Liturgies date from the 5th century and earlier. The Divine Liturgy of St James of Jerusalem dates from the 1st century.

 

[ThatOneGuy92]

Fr Adrian Fortesue, in his “The Mass: A study of the Roman Liturgy” explains how the Mass of the Roman Rite is, at least in its basic structure and some of the prayers, is the most venerable(ancient)of all the Catholic liturgies. All true rites are to be respected and loved, but as to the oldest, the evidence points to the Roman Rite.

CB

Considering the fact that Christianity spread from the East (and therefore something of the Roman liturgy would have come from the East), and that there was a great deal of liturgical cross-pollination that went on, I don’t think this claim can be true.

 

[OraLabora]

It would be helpful to use more precise terminology. Do you mean saying the Mass in Latin? Then a very long time indeed. Certainly since the time of St Ambrose and St Jerome (4th century) and the Vulgate Bible. The main corpus of Gregorian chant seems to have been composed between the 10th and 13th centuries. Gregorian chant is of course in Latin with some Greek and Hebrew. Others with more historical knowledge than I would be able to be more precise. Suffices to say, at least 1500 years.

If by “Latin Mass” you mean the Tridentine Rite, then since 1570. However that’s an inaccurate term as Latin has bee in official use from well before Trent to the present day. That includes the post-Vatican II Mass (Ordinary Form), as it is still the official language of all current liturgies in the Church. The difference is that for the Ordinary Form, it is no longer the exclusive language.

 

[ThatOneGuy92]

It would be helpful to use more precise terminology. Do you mean saying the Mass in Latin? Then a very long time indeed. Certainly since the time of St Ambrose and St Jerome (4th century) and the Vulgate Bible. The main corpus of Gregorian chant seems to have been composed between the 10th and 13th centuries. Gregorian chant is of course in Latin with some Greek and Hebrew. Others with more historical knowledge than I would be able to be more precise. Suffices to say, at least 1500 years.

If by “Latin Mass” you mean the Tridentine Rite, then since 1570. However that’s an inaccurate term as Latin has bee in official use from well before Trent to the present day. That includes the post-Vatican II Mass (Ordinary Form), as it is still the official language of all current liturgies in the Church. The difference is that for the Ordinary Form, it is no longer the exclusive language.

 

[Cristiano]

If you are referring to the Latin Mass as any Mass that was celebrated in the Latin Church then you go back to the end of first century. If you are referring to the present Extraordinary Form of the Mass, then it goes back to 1962 to be exact. If you are not including some “lesser” variations then it goes back to just after the Council of Trent. People will tell you that it goes further back and that is both a true and a bogus statement. It is true because it was instituted by Christ himself and we can see the first descriptions of the template in the bible. It is bogus because just the rubrics adopted across the city of Rome before Trent would make someone yell “liturgical abuse” because of the difference from church to church.

If you want to inform yourself there are a lot of really good books. I would encourage you to read what I would consider a good and cheap starter: A Short History of the Western Liturgy you can buy a used one online for $5. The first edition was written in 1949.

 

[JReducation]

Br JR, I have never heard these facts before anywhere. Can you give some backup for what you are posting?

Here is the actual story of what we know today as the Tridentine Mass taken from the Franciscan archives in Assisi, which date back 800 years to Brother Elias, who founded the archives after the death of the Holy Father Francis.

franciscan-archive.org/liturgicale.html
*
St. Francis of Assisi can be rightly regarded as the “savior” of the Ancient Roman Rite, since, at the time of the foundation of his Order, on account of his desire to live the same religious life that the Apostles lived with Christ Jesus, the three years before He was Crucified and Died for our salvation, he petitioned Pope Innocent III to take as the rite of his Order, the ancient Rite of the Roman Church, which was held to be the “Rite of St. Peter the Apostle”. During the reign of Innocent III, this rite was only used on the Feast of the Chair of St. Peter, in the private papal Chapel, for the so-called Gallican Rite was universally employed in the Diocese of Rome. In addition only 3 known copies of the liturgical books of this ancient rite were still extant in 1215, one of which was falling to pieces. Pope Innocent III granted St. Francis’ request and gave him one of the good, still extant copies of the Sacramentum, Lectionary, Rituale and other books.
*

A bit off-topic, but as I’ve said before, while I’ve known many religious of various orders and congregations over the years, I’ve had little interaction with Franciscans of any stripe.

That said in preamble, please allow me a few questions:

(1) I have a copy (somewhere) of the pre-conciliar Breviarium Seraphicum OFM Cap. How much does that differ from the OFM beyond the kalendar?

They do not differ at all. The entire Franciscan family uses only one breviary, one missal and one calendar. Our liturgical life is governed by a joint commission known as the Franciscan Liturgical Commission. The Commission presents everything to the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship before publication. The chief liturgists on the commission come from the 112 branches of the Franciscan family. Only the four Ministers General have the authority to approve the sacred books and calendar before going to the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship.

The Minister General also define the rubrics for the Franciscan Missal, the EF and the OF used in the Franciscan family. For that reason, you will see things happening or not happening at a mass celebrated by a friar that you would not see at a mass celebrated by a secular priest of one of the ED institutes. They must follow the rubrics as they are in the missal. Friars are not bound by those rubrics for the mass or the breviary. We have our own Ordo for mass and office. The ordo contains the rubrics and the liturgical calendar.

(2) How many other versions exist and how much do they differ beyond the kalendar?

There is only one version of the Seraphic Missal and Breviary. The Seraphic Missal and Breviary was abrogated by Pope Paul VI in 1970, never to be celebrated again. It’s not covered by the SP. SP only covers the Tridentine Mass, which was never abrogated. Our mass was abrogated. Pope Benedict has not resurrected it.

(3) I presume that the Caps had one, but just how many versions were there of the Missale Seraphicum and how do they differ from one another, again, beyond the kalendar?

Because we are one family with one father, we have only one missal. More than one would violate Franciscan Succession. It is very important to protect the succession. The differences are going to be by regions and by individual houses, not by obediences. All of the obediences used the same books. For example, the Americans were much closer to the secular than were the Europeans, because the Church in the USA was run by secular clergy. Most friars grew up in secular run parishes and were taught by sisters who knew nothing about the Franciscan liturgical tradition. When these men entered any of the Franciscan obediences, they brought with them their American Secular Catholic liturgical customs. These blended with the Franciscan customs. You could see this in little things like kneeling during the consecration or kneeling at the communion rail. This was not done in the European regions that were governed by regular bishops instead of secular bishops. We’ve always had few regular clergy in the USA.

(4) Assuming that they weren’t all destroyed in the post-conciliar purge, where might I get a copy of one? Perhaps you have a link to an on-line PDF?

They were not destroyed and they are not available to the public. Only a male Franciscan can get his hands on one. They are very rare, because they were not printed after the late 1960s. Most communities of sisters gave them away. The friars kept theirs. They are usually kept at motherhouses, novitiates, formation houses and theologate libraries. We have one in our small community. It is under lock and key in my cell. If they are damaged by human touch (oil, dirt, sweat, etc) they cannot be replaced. I learned to protect it the hard way. I had a personal copy that I lent to an outsider and I never saw it again. He moved and never gave it back.

Superiors, librarians and formation directors do not let them out of our sight, in a manner of speaking. I don’t open that box everyday to look at it. I just make sure that the box does not leave my cell. Even our novices have never seen it. They’ve asked to see it and I promised them that they will have the privilege of seeing it on the day that they make solemn vows.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV

 

[Rich_C]

I disagree with your conclusion, Christiano. The Masses of the Roman rite still possessed enough unity before the Council of Trent codified the Roman Missal, that they all had the Roman Canon, something we no longer say about celebrations of the Ordinary Form even, with it’s options. Speculating about how people would react to it after centuries of greater uniformity doesn’t take away from the fact the various Masses of late antiquity and the Middle Ages are really part of the formation of the 1962 missal. It’s a great tradition that’s been handed down lovingly and carefully to us for about 15 centuries, or about 50 generations, not an invention of Bl. Pope John XXIII or even Pope Pius V.

 

[Brooklyn]

If you are referring to the Latin Mass as any Mass that was celebrated in the Latin Church then you go back to the end of first century. If you are referring to the present Extraordinary Form of the Mass, then it goes back to 1962 to be exact. If you are not including some “lesser” variations then it goes back to just after the Council of Trent. People will tell you that it goes further back and that is both a true and a bogus statement. It is true because it was instituted by Christ himself and we can see the first descriptions of the template in the bible. It is bogus because just the rubrics adopted across the city of Rome before Trent would make someone yell “liturgical abuse” because of the difference from church to church.

If you want to inform yourself there are a lot of really good books. I would encourage you to read what I would consider a good and cheap starter: A Short History of the Western Liturgy you can buy a used one online for $5. The first edition was written in 1949.

Where do you get your facts from? What we call the Extraordinary Form goes back 1500 years. There were organic changes and additions such as feasts and saints. It was codified at the Council of Trent, but it has existed from the time of St. Gregory the Great. You’re saying it goes back to 1962? I don’t think we’re talking about the same Mass.

This is what Cardinal Raymond Burke said about the Latin Mass:

“The celebration of the Mass in the extraordinary form is now less and less contested,” he noted, "and people are seeing the great beauty of the rite as it was celebrated practically since the time of Pope Gregory the Great" in the sixth century.

 

[archangel04]

Didn’t Saint Paul say the Latin mass, while he was writing the King Jame’s version of the bible of course?

Who didn’t see this coming? Oh I forgot it’s open season on EF lovers, silly me!

 

[JReducation]

PS. This may be a rumor. There is a Friar of the Immaculate who is an expert liturgist. That part is not rumor. He is. The rumor is that he is working on modifying the existing EF to fist the Franciscans.

The Franciscan family is very pro preserving the EF. However, there is a big conflict between some superiors and the SSPX. They insist on using the old calendar and are adamant that the new calendar is a NO NO. Well, that’s fine for them, because their priests are secular Catholics. That does not work for religious Catholics.

Religious cannot have one community on two different calendars. Imagine a house where someone is celebrating the 3rd Sunday of Pentecost and another is celebrating the 11th Sunday of Ordinary Time, or a house where the feast of St. Francis is a minor feast, while the rest of the order celebrates it as a Solemnity with all the bells and whistles of the Easter Triduum?

That’s a wonderful example. The current EF does not have a triduum for St. Francis of Assisi. It’s a third class feast. The current OF has St. Francis as a memorial. In the Roman - Franciscan Form and Missal, St. Francis is a solemnity, holy day of obligation and it is a three day liturgical celebration that follows the same rhythm as the Easter Triduum. There is the mass that introduces the solemnity. The second day is the Transitus, which is not a mass. It is the same liturgical form as the Good Friday liturgy with the proclamation of the Word, the proclamation of the passing of St. Francis, the veneration of the relic and the distribution of Holy Communion. On the third day is the entrance of St. Francis into Glory, which is the solemn mass of St. Francis with all the bells and whistles of the Easter mass. It has three readings, a sequence, Gloria, white vestments, incense, enough candles to trigger the fire alarm and all the pomp and circumstance that we can muster, depending on how much money we have and how large the community. Even the simplest celebration overshadows a low mass in the EF or a memorial mass in the OF.

What superiors do is to grant permission to use the EF, with the OF calendar. Certain days, such as St. Francis, St. Clare and St. Dominic, which are first class feasts on the EF and solemnities on the OF, we have to tinker with the Tridentine missal to make it fit our pastoral needs or use the current Roman - Franciscan Missal and Breviary. The old Seraphic Missal had all of this built into it. You didn’t have to circumnavigate. It had the propers, readings, and rubrics for the day as did the breviary.

It’s funny, because it kind of takes us back to the prelature business. There is one of the major reasons why an order would never want to be a prelature. Orders have this kind of freedom that prelatures do not have. Superiors in a prelature are governed by the statutes of the prelature. Superiors of an order are governed by the statutes of the order and by the founder of the order, not by the Vatican, local bishop or any other authority. We govern with the consent of the Vatican; but the Vatican does not look over our shoulders nor do we have to report to the Vatican on a regular basis as do prelatures and dioceses. Once they approve the constitutions, we’re good to go. Constitutions are not revised frequently.

Fraternally,

Br. JR, FFV

 

[Brooklyn]

Here is the actual story of what we know today as the Tridentine Mass taken from the Franciscan archives in Assisi, which date back 800 years to Brother Elias, who founded the archives after the death of the Holy Father Francis.

franciscan-archive.org/liturgicale.html

 

[Cristiano]

Where do you get your facts from? What we call the Extraordinary Form goes back 1500 years. There were organic changes and additions such as feasts and saints. It was codified at the Council of Trent, but it has existed from the time of St. Gregory the Great. You’re saying it goes back to 1962? I don’t think we’re talking about the same Mass.

This is what Cardinal Raymond Burke said about the Latin Mass:

“The celebration of the Mass in the extraordinary form is now less and less contested,” he noted, "and people are seeing the great beauty of the rite as it was celebrated practically since the time if Pope Gregory the Great" in the sixth century.

Then if I follow your logic then the OF goes back 1500 years too. While a respect Cardinal Burke opinions those are only opinions based on his personal definition of “practically”.

Please read the book that I quoted in my post and then we can move forward to more references.

 

[JReducation]

What am I missing?

 

[Brooklyn]

Then if I follow your logic then the OF goes back 1500 years too. While a respect Cardinal Burke opinions those are only opinions based on his personal definition of “practically”.

Please read the book that I quoted in my post and then we can move forward to more references.

Um, I don’t think it’s the Cardinal’s “opinion” that the Latin Mass goes back to St. Gregory the Great. One doesn’t have “opinions” about facts. I don’t think the Cardinal means 1962, as you say, when he says the Mass has been “celebrated practically since the time if Pope Gregory the Great” in the sixth century."

Afraid I don’t have time to read your book while responding in this post. You’ll have to find something else to back up what you’re saying, because everywhere else your facts are disputed.

 

[Brooklyn]

Then if I follow your logic then the OF goes back 1500 years too. While a respect Cardinal Burke opinions those are only opinions based on his personal definition of “practically”.

Please read the book that I quoted in my post and then we can move forward to more references.

How does the OF go back 1500 years? You’ve completely lost me.

 

[Friar_David_O.Carm]

Um, I don’t think it’s the Cardinal’s “opinion” that the Latin Mass goes back to St. Gregory the Great. One doesn’t have “opinions” about facts. I don’t think the Cardinal means 1962, as you say, when he says the Mass has been “celebrated practically since the time if Pope Gregory the Great” in the sixth century."

When speaking about facts. . .

“The celebration of the Mass in the extraordinary form is now less and less contested,” he noted, “and people are seeing the great beauty of the rite as it was celebrated practically since the time of Pope Gregory the Great” in the sixth century.

. . .one does not use the word practically.

How does the OF go back 1500 years? You’ve completely lost me.

Elements within the OF, such as the Roman Canon, go back practically 1500 years.

 

[Cristiano]

Um, I don’t think it’s the Cardinal’s “opinion” that the Latin Mass goes back to St. Gregory the Great. One doesn’t have “opinions” about facts. I don’t think the Cardinal means 1962, as you say, when he says the Mass has been “celebrated practically since the time if Pope Gregory the Great” in the sixth century."

Afraid I don’t have time to read your book while responding in this post. You’ll have to find something else to back up what you’re saying, because everywhere else your facts are disputed.

I gave you a reference and you refuse to look at it. You quote a statement that is not a fact but a simple sentence based on a strong qualifier that is not defined. I gave you a reference and if you are not willing to study it it is your problem, I am not going to do your work for you. People learn history by reading books and not through a couple of posts on an internet forum. You generalized statement that “everywhere else my facts are disputed” is a common fallacy that does not add anything.