When I first started attending mass, I became a little confused because one parishioner asked me if I knew the fasting rules and I said, Yes. No eating or drinking besides water and meds one hour before receiving communion. She said, “That’s for the Novus Ordo. We follow the three hour rule”.
I realize now she was confused because I have not heard anyone else say that. They may say, “Well it used to be 3 hours but Vatican II changed it to 1.” But they don’t say those who attend the EF should fast for 3 hours.
I believe that this is a good example that people’s hearts are in the right place, but they don’t always understand the subtlies of law. SP is only about the mass. It does exactly what it says. I releases secular priests to celebrate it for their congregation whenever they wish to do so and for religious superiors to grant the same permission to their ordained members, if it’s consistent with the laws of the their institute. End of story.
Things like the fast, that Saturday night mass, even the style of the vestments themselves are not regulated by SP. The rubrics do not trump the law. They were never intended to do that. The ruibrics are intended to guide the celebrant and the congregation through each step of the mass.
I know that I threw in there the vestments, so hold on. Even the fiddleback chasuble that many people love is no required by the rubrics of the missal of 1962. There were many styles of chasuble in the history of the Church. The Roman cut, I believe that’s the proper name of the style that is currently used, is one of many. OK, don’t ask me the names of these things, because I don’t keep up with the fashions. I have a hard time keeping up with which habit we’re wearing.
My point is that people, with their heart in the right place, are making some legal mistakes. They don’t know that the rules that govern things that are not part of the ritual have changed and those rules apply as they are. You can have a Saturday night mass in the Extraordinary Form. You can have permanent deacons. You can eat one hour before Holy Communion. If the priest has two masses on the same morning, he’s not bound to the fast for the second mass. He can eat between the two masses, which was not allowed prior to 1983. CAN, does not mean that anyone is going to force you to do it. You can fast a week before Holy Communion, if you want to do so. At the least, you must fast one hour. Even that is waved for people who have health problems. I’m one of them. I’m diabetic. When I need to eat, I need to eat. However, the rule does not say that I can’t receive Holy Communion because I had a sandwich five minutes before mass.
Current rules, outside of the ritual and common sense sill apply. I have never heard any priest or bishop who supports the EF tell people anything different. My guess is that some people assume that since this is the missal of 1962, we follow the rules that were in place in 1962. That is not what SP says, but many people who attend the EF and OF have never read SP. We can’t really blame that on the bishops either, because many people who attend the OF have never read the GIRM either. I guess that I’m trying to say is that most people don’t like to read. They just want to go to mass and they follow the rules as they imagine them to be.
All that being said, I agree with the poster who said that the party had no right to ask you if you knew the rules. That’s what makes some people look more Catholic than the pope and it puts the congregant on the spot. Suppose you had not known or suppose you had been thin skinned, that may have made you feel uncomfortable, as if you have to pass some kind of screening to attend an EF mass.
That’s why I recently told a woman who came to me all upset because she was called out by a congregant for wearing slacks to an EF mass and no veil, I said, “Poppycock. That’s not in the rubrics and you were attending mass at a Franciscan chapel, not a parish. When at the Franciscan chapel you follow the friars’ regulations, not another congregant. At a parish, you follow the pastor’s rules.”
I’m not sure how to help people separate the form from the rules. It’s the same problem with Vatican II and the Code of Canon Law. Many things were changed by the Code of Canon Law, not Vatican II. The Code came almost 20 years later, though Pope Paul VI had been working on it before he died. The final edition for the Latin Church came out in 1983. Why say, “Vatican II changed that”? Vatican II did no such thing. The law changed. It would have changed with or without Vatican II. It’s not the first time or the last that Canon Law is revised. It was revised in 1917 and there was no council in 1917. Do you see what I mean? People make connections that don’t exist. The form of the mass does not bother me. Making rules that don’t exist, for either form, that does bother me. That’s either a person who wants to control or a person who does not know. The former needs to back down. The latter needs education.
Fraternally,
Br. JR, OSF
