Celebrating the Latin Mass

[Don_Ruggero]

But it was the intention of Vatican II that monastic orders return to their founders’ Rule particularly with regards to ranking of monks.

You have written well, as usual. I was so grateful for the abolition of those distinctions.

Although – and for purpose – you have written of this as an issue for the monks, it affected the abbeys of nuns as well.

 

[ProVobis]

I mean, I agree with you. I am just thinking that at least in theory, there was an underlying sense of obedience, on the part of most priests to their bishops, in dispensing with the Latin Mass in favor of the Novus Ordo when it came out, and that this obedience was/is a good thing. I’m sure that not a few priests did so without any intention of irreverence or rupture with the past.

I see what you mean. You’re probably right on the obedience issue and I’ll leave it at that.

 

[bobballen_18]

My concern is that they become a distraction from the primary focus, not that one cannot understand why they are there. As someone attracted to monastic spirituality as you appear to be I also like simplicity; but that is a personal aesthetic.

I’m rather hoping to enter Clear Creek. I will say, the Solemn High Mass (in the Extraordinary Form) that I attended while I was there was the most simple one I had ever been to, and it was wonderful. Did not seem too “complex” or “burdensome” to me, nor to any of the monks there, at all! I could be totally off the mark on this, but I am quite sure there is much more to “monastic simplicity” than preferring “simple” liturgies.

At the time of St. Benedict, the calendar was far simpler with far fewer saints; the chant was far simpler; remember Gregorian chant hadn’t even been invented yet.

No doubt there was a simpler calendar, but I’m not entirely sure your information about chant and the Liturgy of the 5th century is entirely correct. I can agree that chant may have been simpler at that time, though I think it is misleading to say that Gregorian chant hadn’t been invented yet. Of course it hadn’t been given the name of St. Gregory yet but the chants he “codified” had already been around for quite some time. In any case, I highly doubt the Liturgy was much simpler, even as early as the 5th century, than say, at the time of Trent or the current EF Mass (1962 missal that is). Maybe I’m just in denial.

…By the time of Cluny, the liturgy and its accompanying chant had become so complex that monks were divided into choir monks and lay brothers. … The liturgy was nearly a full-time job.

These things you mention - i.e. illiterate monks, different professions for choir monks vs. lay monks, vote in chapter - these may have been true at one time. Were they the norm in monasteries at the time of Vatican II?

I’ll have to ask the monks at CC how much time they spend on the chants outside of Mass and their Offices. I don’t think it’s that much. I understand that I am an exception in terms of musical abilities, but still, I think the difficulty and “complexity” of Gregorian chant is overblown/exaggerated. How difficult can it be for monks who chant every day?

…I am not sure if the the monks of Clear Creek have the distinction but their website talks about entering their “choir noviciate” so they quite possibly do. It is their affair.

But it was the intention of Vatican II that monastic orders return to their founders’ Rule particularly with regards to ranking of monks.

Yes, the monks at Clear Creek have some sort of “distinction” with regard to choir monks and “regular” monks. However, I think it is inaccurate to view this as a difference in rank, and and so this distinction is not a problem. As far as I am aware, all of Clear Creek’s monks make the same profession - i.e., there is no difference of professions for “lay monks” vs. “choir monks”. I am curious, do you think that monasteries such as Clear Creek and Norcia, because they only celebrate the EF at their monasteries, are not being faithful to the Council? (Or any communities that exclusively celebrate the EF, FSSP, etc, for that matter?)

I’ll have to read the VII document on the religious life. I don’t know, Perfectae Caritatis may have talked about abolishing “ranks” but as I just mentioned above, I do not think it is correct to view a “choir monk” as a certain “rank”, much less that he is “higher” or “superior” to any other monk in the community by virtue of this title. It is only in some sense a descriptor of his duties and his role in the community - which, unless you are trying to suggest that every single monk in a community have the exact same duties and exact same role, is perfectly fine. As far as I’m aware, at Clear Creek, each monk is known as “Brother ______” no matter whether he is a choir monk or lay monk.

So to sum on that point, I see nothing contrary to the rule of St. Benedict in having different names for monks according to their duties. They are each equally essential to the community and they are not inherently by their respective names given a separate “class” (found that word in a very, very quick scan of the VII document).

In any case, I don’t know about other Benedictine monasteries, but Clear Creek is doing wonderfully with vocations (13 or so original monks in 1999, now around 55), despite all of these burdensome Liturgies and Offices of theirs. Maybe it’s just a place for “Liturgical Police” to congregate. They have told me that their focuses (perhaps “charisms”) are “solemn liturgy, lectio divina, family life, and manual labor”. I mean, I’m probably biased (I have family connections to its founding) but Clear Creek seems to me to be doing very well in aiding each and every member of its community (and its surrounding community, for that matter) into every more complete union with God, through imitation of Jesus, and by having found God themselves, can serve others in the best way according to their state of life.

 

[bobballen_18]

I apologize, with my last post I probably took the thread off topic and, aside from the topic of the role of rubrics, it certainly isn’t really answering the OP anymore. Just got excited there talking about monasteries.

 

[ProVobis]

I apologize, with my last post I probably took the thread off topic and, aside from the topic of the role of rubrics, it certainly isn’t really answering the OP anymore. Just got excited there talking about monasteries.

Clear Creek is right on topic.

 

[OraLabora]

I apologize, with my last post I probably took the thread off topic and, aside from the topic of the role of rubrics, it certainly isn’t really answering the OP anymore. Just got excited there talking about monasteries.

It’s a fascinating topic, The Abbey I’m arrached to is in the same congregation as Clear Creek, so I’m sure CC takes the liturgy very seriously indeed.

However I must point out that indeed Gregorian chant didn’t exist in St. Benedict’s time. There was chant no doubt, but not Gregorian which evolved about 3-4 centuries later, mostly from the time of Charlemagne and from Gallican chant and with many similarities and same texts as Old Roman Chant, which also is much later than St. Benedict’s time. St Gregory, a contemporary (or nearly so) lived about 4 centuries prior to the chant attributed to him.

The development of chant is very complex and it’s hard to say what chant St. Benedict used. He was one of the first to put hymns in the Divine Office, and these were of Ambrosian origin. Whether he used a precursor to Roman chant, or Beneventan chant which was found near the abbey he founded at Montecassino isn’t altogether clear.

In any event what we sing today as Gregorian chant is based on Solesmes’ 19th century reconstitution and so is really an approximation based on the study of ancient graduals and antiphonaries. Even between the 2005 Monastic Antiphonary and the 2010 Roman Antiphonary some antiphon melodies were changed, so it is clearly a field of ongoing study at The palaeographic studio at Solesmes.

 

[Psalitte]

Indeed it should not be, given what Sacrosanctum Concilium says needed to be fixed in the vetus ordo.

Well it has, so deal with it.

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Well it has, so deal with it.

No.

In point of fact, what I answered in my previous comment is correct. The 1962 missal is assuredly NOT an option of the Ordinary Form. Which was precisely the point of my comment.

The 1962 missal, as with the pre-conciliar rites of the sacraments, blessings, institution of sacramentals and the breviary, is segregated as the Extraordinary Form – and is separate and distinct from the Novus Ordo for the Mass, the sacraments, the liturgy of the hours, the rites of blessing and the institution of sacramentals…all renewed and reformed according to the mandates of Sacrosanctum Concilium.

And as a priest who was a professor of liturgy, I am happy to explain exactly why the vetus ordo is properly termed, by the Pope’s own formulation, as something that is, on many levels, formam extraordinariam Liturgiae Ecclesiae – a form existing outside of the Church’s ordinary liturgical expression.

There is nothing for me to “deal with.”

But…It is, in fact, the attitude your comment expresses – and does so incorrectly and contemptuously – that speaks volumes to bishops and priests who receive petitions for a vetus ordo liturgy. That is something worthy of reflection.

 

[Michael_Francis]

Thread closed pending review by Moderator Thomas Casey.