Changes to EF of the Mass?

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CatholicSooner

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I don’t want to rile anyone up, and I’m sure it has been discussed here plenty but I didn’t see any relevent threads.

I’ve gone to a couple TLM now and I’m still trying to figure out my emotions. It is a big change from what I grew up with and my wife doesn’t really understand my desire to attend Latin Mass. It seems that the OF is getting so lax and irreverent that it is very distracting to me.

So having said all of that, it seems like there is a middle ground between the OF and EF of the mass. One that keeps the form and reverence and prayers of the EF but uses the vernacular. Or one that sticks with Latin but is more audible and more dialogue with the laity making responses.

Just throwing ideas out there that I’m sure have been debated for a long time. Still trying to digest what I am feeling. My mind seems to drift a lot, so the long intervals of silence is distracting for me. However, I also know that it doesn’t really matter what I think b/c it isn’t about me.

Just trying to sort out my feelings and figure out what God is trying to tell me.
 
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That it can be, but I noticed when attending an OF Latin Mass (and not having attended one for several years), it felt kind of “jarring” — that’s the first word that comes to mind — to have the eucharistic prayer recited in Latin, in a clear voice, with the priest facing the people at the altar.

I like the idea of a “dialogue Mass” in Latin (whether OF or EF). The simple Latin used in the responses, and the Confiteor, are not (or should not be) beyond anyone’s grasp if they have taken a little time to study them, and use a hand missal if necessary.
 
I was at a Latin OF just last Thursday. The EP was chanted; perhaps that made it less jarring. That said, I’ve also been to recited private Latin Masses. I don’t find it jarring at all, perhaps because it’s what I am used to.

In any event last week’s Mass was in Gregorian chant, it was at a Benedictine nun’s abbey near Montreal. The abbey I am oblate of, uses Latin for the Propers and Ordinary, in Gregorian chant, but uses French plainchant for the rest, including the readings and the EP. It is a very beautiful and reverent Mass, exactly as Sacrosanctum Concilium intended.
 
OraLabora said:
Sacrosanctum Concilium
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OraLabora said:
I was at a Latin OF just last Thursday. The EP was chanted; perhaps that made it less jarring. That said, I’ve also been to recited private Latin Masses. I don’t find it jarring at all, perhaps because it’s what I am used to.

In any event last week’s Mass was in Gregorian chant, it was at a Benedictine nun’s abbey near Montreal. The abbey I am oblate of, uses Latin for the Propers and Ordinary, in Gregorian chant, but uses French plainchant for the rest, including the readings and the EP. It is a very beautiful and reverent Mass, exactly as Sacrosanctum Concilium intended.
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Can anyone recommend a book on how Vatican II envisioned the new mass vs how it was actually instituted?
 
Well, beyond Sacrosanctum Concilium, which is available on the Vatican website, there’s the Roman Missal itself which is the product of SC.

The OF, if carried out according to the rubrics, is as the Church intended. And it is done so, in my experience, in the vast majority of places. Now good liturgy goes beyond just following the rubrics, and that can be fairly uneven (quality of music, attitudes, etc.) but that was also the case before the Council.

The Missal is in fact how the Vatican envisioned the OF Mass. Any departure from the Missal, other than the licit options it presents, speaks for itself. Getting into the writings of reactionaries who hate Vatican II is a fool’s game that can only serve to divide the Church. I wouldn’t touch such a book with a 10 foot pole.
 
You are correct that “middle ground” masses do exist. There is parish by my house that offers a mix of NO and TLM. There is traditional altar. Priests stands facing Crucifix. He speaks in Vernacular. Everyone kneels at altar rail for communion and takes communion on tongue. There is lay readers. I heard about it when I was at my TLM parish and people told me most of them came from that parish to the TLM parish. So I went there one Sunday to check it out. I liked it, I preferred it to NO but still much preferred TLM. I can’t say parishes like this exist in most big cities. I think they say on their website “in the Anglican tradition”
 
OraLabora said:
Now good liturgy goes beyond just following the rubrics, and that can be fairly uneven (quality of music, attitudes, etc.) but that was also the case before the Council.
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One thing I can’t get used to is the clapping at Mass. This Saturday Vigil there was clapping for the Cantor between Communion an concluding rites. I have been experiencing this and other clapping at Mass more frequently the past few years.
 
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I’m not crazy about clapping either. At our abbey the organist plays a postlude, and people clap after that, but “technically” it is after the dismissal so… it is clapping in church, but not at Mass 😉
 
OraLabora said:
Well, beyond Sacrosanctum Concilium, which is available on the Vatican website, there’s the Roman Missal itself which is the product of SC.

The OF, if carried out according to the rubrics, is as the Church intended. And it is done so, in my experience, in the vast majority of places. Now good liturgy goes beyond just following the rubrics, and that can be fairly uneven (quality of music, attitudes, etc.) but that was also the case before the Council.

The Missal is in fact how the Vatican envisioned the OF Mass. Any departure from the Missal, other than the licit options it presents, speaks for itself. Getting into the writings of reactionaries who hate Vatican II is a fool’s game that can only serve to divide the Church. I wouldn’t touch such a book with a 10 foot pole.
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I am about 99% confident that facing the people was not intended by Vatican II so I’m not sure you could say that most you feel it is being followed in most places
 
Zach said:
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OraLabora:
Now good liturgy goes beyond just following the rubrics, and that can be fairly uneven (quality of music, attitudes, etc.) but that was also the case before the Council.
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One thing I can’t get used to is the clapping at Mass. This Saturday Vigil there was clapping for the Cantor between Communion an concluding rites. I have been experiencing this and other clapping at Mass more frequently the past few years.
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Yep. This bugs me quite a bit.

My main issues are clapping, the song choices, facing the people, eucharistic lay ministers, and just a lack of reverence
 
CatholicSooner said:
I am about 99% confident that facing the people was not intended by Vatican II so I’m not sure you could say that most you feel it is being followed in most places
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It is in the Missal. And yes it was intended. Notwithstanding the case that it always was permitted in some circumstances, it was tested experimentally on a wider basis in the 1940s at Sant’ Anselmo abbey in Rome where the church configuration (altar between nave and choir) allowed it.

This was always allowed in such a configuration, I have a 1935 Ceremonial to prove it.

It should be noted that SC provided the broad guidelines for the reforms. The actual reforms themselves were implemented in the Roman Missal, and there it clearly states that celebration facing the people was intended.
 
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OraLabora said:
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CatholicSooner:
I am about 99% confident that facing the people was not intended by Vatican II so I’m not sure you could say that most you feel it is being followed in most places
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It is in the Missal. And yes it was intended. Notwithstanding the case that it always was permitted in some circumstances, it was tested experimentally on a wider basis in the 1940s at Sant’ Anselmo abbey in Rome where the church configuration (altar between nave and choir) allowed it.

This was always allowed in such a configuration, I have a 1935 Ceremonial to prove it.

It should be noted that SC provided the broad guidelines for the reforms. The actual reforms themselves were implemented in the Roman Missal, and there it clearly states that celebration facing the people was intended.
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But wasn’t the Roman Missal completed years after the council ended?
What I hear by many is that the council never intended for the priest to face the people. This was something that was either added later by the group commissioned to implement the changes that the council suggested OR there was a misunderstanding.

Can you point in the missal or the SC where it is instructed for the priest to face the people since it is so clear?
 
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I’m no reactionary and we go to an OF Mass, but I’m not convinced that the changes made to the liturgy went further than prescribed by SC. I see no where in SC where it says that the Mass had to change from being celebrated ad orientem to versus populum. I don’t think it called for a wholesale change from Latin to vernacular languages. I do know SC asked for Gregorian chant to remain the primary form of music but we don’t hear any in our parish from one year to the next.

Of course, the Ordinary Form Roman Missal we have is the one that was promulgated in 1970 by St Paul VI. There have been minor changes to it with two more typical editions issued by St John Paul II. However, I do believe it went further than the fathers at the Council requested in SC.
 
CatholicSooner said:
But wasn’t the Roman Missal completed years after the council ended?
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As I mentioned, experiments in this were conducted in the 1940s. SC gave broad guidelines, not specific guidelines.
CatholicSooner said:
Can you point in the missal or the SC where it is instructed for the priest to face the people since it is so clear?
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From the GIRM:
  1. The altar should be built apart from the wall, in such a way that it is possible to walk around it easily and that Mass can be celebrated at it facing the people, which is desirable wherever possible. The altar should, moreover, be so placed as to be truly the center toward which the attention of the whole congregation of the faithful naturally turns.
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It is a bit of a sloppy translation. The original says it is desirable that the altar be apart from the wall so that the Mass can be celebrated facing the people. That said, it is clear from the GIRM that it is allowed. In fact it has always been allowed, as I mentioned above. It has not always been the norm of course, but some circumstances required it.
TomH1 said:
I do know SC asked for Gregorian chant to remain the primary form of music but we don’t hear any in our parish from one year to the next.
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It said that Gregorian chant should have “pride of place” which is not the same as saying “in every place, every time”.
  1. The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.
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And I will say it again: Gregorian chant is difficult, and requires training and effort. It won’t happen all by itself, Gregorian paratroopers are not going to drop out of the sky and start chanting at one’s parish next Sunday. If one wants Gregorian chant, someone has to step up to the plate and form a schola and train choristers. There are resources, check Musica Sacra. I joined a schola in 2002 and have been singing with them every since. It has been spiritually very rewarding.
 
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The documents of Vatican II were a “starting point” not an “end point”.

Concilium was set up to put the desired changes into practice.

One of those documents to come out of that wasInter oecumenici which states the following:

II. MAIN ALTAR
  1. The main altar should preferably be freestanding, to permit walking around it and celebration facing the people. Its location in the place of worship should be truly central so that the attention of the whole congregation naturally focuses there.
Choice of materials for the construction and adornment of the altar is to respect the prescriptions of law.

The sanctuary area is to be spacious enough to accommodate the sacred rites.
 
CatholicSooner said:
It seems that the OF is getting so lax and irreverent that it is very distracting to me.
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The OF hasn’t changed so it can’t be that the OF is “getting lax”. Perhaps you mean that you don’t like the way mass is celebrated at your particular parish?

My parish uses lots of Latin and chant. It is a great middle ground as far as I’m concerned.
 
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This diagram was in the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal, as well as the 1965 interim edition.

www.newliturgicalmovement.org

How to Incense a Freestanding Altar

Sacred liturgy and liturgical arts. Liturgical history and theology. The movements for the Usus Antiquior and Reform of the Reform.
www.newliturgicalmovement.org www.newliturgicalmovement.org
 
OraLabora said:
GIRM
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www.praytellblog.com

Disambiguating the “quod” clause in GIRM section 299 - PrayTellBlog

The Latin of a controversial rubric in the Roman Missal is inherently ambiguous. Neither a Vatican clarification nor strong comments from participants on both sides of the liturgical spectrum have made it less so.
www.praytellblog.com www.praytellblog.com

Also from Pope B16
" > To the ordinary churchgoer, the two most obvious effects of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council seem to be the disappearance of Latin and the turning of the altars towards the people. Those who read the relevant texts will be astonished to learn that neither is in fact found in the decrees of the Council. The use of the vernacular is certainly permitted, especially for the Liturgy of the Word, but the preceding general rule of the Council text says, 'Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites’ ( Sacrosanctum Concilium , 36.1).
There is nothing in the Council text about turning altars towards the people; that point is raised only in postconciliar instructions. The most important directive is found in paragraph 262 of the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani , the General Instruction of the new Roman Missal, issued in 1969. That says, 'It is better for the main altar to be constructed away from the wall so that one can easily walk around the altar and celebrate facing the people ( versus populum ).’ The General Instruction of the Missal issued in 2002 retained this text unaltered except for the addition of the subordinate clause, 'which is desirable wherever possible’. This was taken in many quarters as hardening the 1969 text to mean that there was now a general obligation to set up altars facing the people 'wherever possible’.

This interpretation, however, was rejected by the Congregation for Divine Worship on 25 September 2000, when it declared that the word 'expedit’ ('is desirable’) did not imply an obligation but only made a suggestion. The physical orientation, the Congregation says, must be distinguished from the spiritual. Even if a priest celebrates versus populum , he should always be oriented versus Deum per Iesum Christum (towards God through Jesus Christ). Rites, signs, symbols, and words can never exhaust the inner reality of the mystery of salvation. For this reason the Congregation warns against one-sided and rigid positions in this debate.

[ … ]

Recently, the atmosphere has become more relaxed so that it is possible to raise the kind of questions asked by Jungmann, Bouyer, and Gamber without at once being suspected of anti-conciliar sentiments. Historical research has made the controversy less partisan, and among the faithful there is an increasing sense of the problems inherent in an arrangement that hardly shows the liturgy to be open to the things that are above and to the world to come."
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