Do you think an order for historical liturgies will ever exist?

[bben15]

We should bring back the Sarum rite.

 

[EphelDuath]

I am not well-studied about western liturgical histories, but it is my understanding that there were significant differences between the 8th and 18th Centuries.

Not really anything life-changing. (Not counting Propers, since these are always shifting based on the calendar.)

Between Trent and now, nothing big has changed aside from the Holy Week revision of 1955, and a handful of minor tiny changes, like St. Joseph’s name in the Roman Canon. Trent itself didn’t change much either, suppressing a handful of local additions and overly tedious sequences and tracts, but nothing in the Ordo. And then between Trent and Gregory’s time, the celebration of the Low Mass surfaced, but nothing substantial changed in the Solemn High Mass – the most notable perhaps being that the recitation of Psalm 42 became a pre-Mass altar prayer when it was originally a vesting prayer.

 

[TimothyH]

There’s a difference between a community integrating this hymn or that musical notation into their practice because it suits their needs and a community being built to whole cloth construct an ancient liturgy and use that as the foundation for their community life.

This is an important point.

One does not join a community or an order because of the form of the Mass, or because of any other specific prayer or style. One joins a community to be a brother or sister, and one joins an order because the charism of that order matches the gifts that God has give them and matches their calling from God, their vocation. One joins an order because God calls them to be more perfectly obedient, or to be more porfectly poor, or to be more perfectly converted. God calls them to perfection.

The Catholic Encyclopedia explains it well:

He also taught certain principles which He expressly stated were not to be considered as binding upon all, or as necessary conditions without which heaven could not be attained, but rather as counsels for those who desired to do more than the minimum and to aim at Christian perfection, so far as that can be obtained here upon earth. Thus (Matthew 19:16 sq.) when the young man asked Him what he should do to obtain eternal life, Christ bade him to “keep the commandments”. That was all that was necessary in the strict sense of the word, and by thus keeping the commands which God had given eternal life could be obtained. But when the young man pressed further, Christ told him: “If thou wilt be perfect, go sell what thou hast, and give to the poor”. So again, in the same chapter, He speaks of “eunuchs who have made themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of heaven”, and added, “He that can receive it, let him receive it”. Read More…

One joins an order and a community to be, not to do.

The form of the Mass renders worship to God because “it is right, and just.” It also helps the members of the community attain perfection. Which form of the Mass a community chooses is based on how well it helps those in the community attain perfection, how well it helps the members of the community live the evangelical councels.

-Tim-

 

[EphelDuath]

One does not join a community or an order because of the form of the Mass, or because of any other specific prayer or style. One joins a community to be a brother or sister, and one joins an order because the charism of that order matches the gifts that God has give them and matches their calling from God, their vocation. One joins an order because God calls them to be more perfectly obedient, or to be more porfectly poor, or to be more perfectly converted. God calls them to perfection.

So what does that say about the FSSP and IoCtK then?

 

[CDB1718]

CDB1718:

I am not well-studied about western liturgical histories, but it is my understanding that there were significant differences between the 8th and 18th Centuries.

Not really anything life-changing.

As I was studying the age and order of reception of the sacraments of initiation, the architecture, and the culture associated with the liturgy, I’d consider the changes that developed to encompass significant life-changing alterations. Another discussion I’m involved in is at 16 pages and growing and comes directly from those changes. Should the Confirmation age be lowered?

It sounds like you’re focusing on language, rubrics and music. I haven’t studied those aspects to know if there were significant changes so I’ll take your word that there weren’t. I know that the rubrics were not being followed and there was a lot of variation and abuse which led to the call for reform that led to the Vatican II changes to the order of the Mass, which then led to many abuses of the reform.

The lived reality is quite different from the promulgated text. Trying to read a book and act out a liturgy is not the way we worship. We’re taught by living it in a community. Timothy worded it well. We can see the difficulty and division created from the Vatican II reforms and the abuses of it and how differently they were taken than the resent more organic changes that were a response to need.

Putting individuals in charge of being the inventors and arbiters of the people’s liturgy is going to crash. It doesn’t matter if that’s letting priests interpret Novus Ordo reforms loosely or broadly or if it is giving that authority to a traditionally-minded person to invent a modern pre-Tridentine community. It’s going to reflect the individual’s weaknesses in a way that organically growing the liturgy through and with a living community focused on Christ will not experience.

 

[CDB1718]

So what does that say about the FSSP and IoCtK then?

Those are not religious orders, they’re priestly fraternities/societies. Their purpose is to provide education and support to priests who are serving living communities. It’s not the same as what was proposed by the OP.

 

[EphelDuath]

The lived reality is quite different from the promulgated text. Trying to read a book and act out a liturgy is not the way we worship. We’re taught by living it in a community.

Then it makes sense that I’m advocating that a community do this, doesn’t it?

Putting individuals in charge of being the inventors and arbiters of the people’s liturgy is going to crash. It doesn’t matter if that’s letting priests interpret Novus Ordo reforms loosely or broadly or if it is giving that authority to a traditionally-minded person to invent a modern pre-Tridentine community. It’s going to reflect the individual’s weaknesses in a way that organically growing the liturgy through and with a living community focused on Christ will not experience.

“Putting individuals in charge of being the inventors and arbiters of the people’s liturgy is going to crash”? That’s how every liturgical reform in the history of the Church was done. You realize that it was a small committee of experts who composed the Tridentine Mass, and the Mass of Paul VI, right?

It really sounds like you’re grasping for criticisms here. A religious order or society that is given Papal permission to celebrate using older texts is not “going to reflect the individual’s weaknesses” any more than any ordinary priest celebrating the OF is. Furthermore, I have absolutely no clue why you assume that this society will not be “a living community focused on Christ”.

Those are not religious orders, they’re priestly fraternities/societies. Their purpose is to provide education and support to priests who are serving living communities. It’s not the same as what was proposed by the OP.

I am the OP, and you need not take my loose proposal too literally. Whether it be monastics or a prelature do this, is not really that important.

 

[CDB1718]

Then it makes sense that I’m advocating that a community do this, doesn’t it?

The problem is where they’d learn to live it. If there is no extant community that’s preserved it and they have no cultural connection to the time and place, they’re reading books and re-enacting. To then form a religious community on study and entertainment through re-enactment looses sight of the point of religious communities and of liturgy, meaning their people and their work are not centered on God.

The fact that I do not have academic words to describe that this is in opposition to the aim of liturgy and religious life does not mean I am wrong or that I’m grasping at straws. Timothy’s quotes give my concerns a proper academic framework and support my point.

 

[EphelDuath]

The problem is where they’d learn to live it. If there is no extant community that’s preserved it and they have no cultural connection to the time and place, they’re reading books and re-enacting.

Okay then. So if a priest that was trained in the EF joined this community, and now had to learn from an older book that he should pray Psalm 42 while vesting rather than on the altar, and pray a Collect with mildly different words, and sing a sequence that he hasn’t sang before, he’s lost his cultural connection to the Mass and thus gone from a worshiper to a re-enactor of novelties.

This is your argument, correct?

Doesn’t this, by implication, seem to suggest that the Capuchins should really never have existed to begin with, since that order is based off of a stricter and older interpretation of the Rule of St. Francis? They had “no cultural connection to the time and place” of the original Franciscans and thus are just medieval re-enactors, yes?

To then form a religious community on study and entertainment through re-enactment looses sight of the point of religious communities and of liturgy, meaning their people and their work are not centered on God.

Why can’t one be centered on God by valuing a lost treasure? Why are you so sure the primary purpose here is “study and entertainment”, rather than what I said it should be, which is a liturgical community devoted to bringing to light the (minor differences in) the way ancient Christians have celebrated the Mass?

 

[CDB1718]

Okay then. So if a priest that was trained in the EF joined this community, and now had to learn from an older book that he should pray Psalm 42 while vesting rather than on the altar, and pray a Collect with mildly different words, and sing a sequence that he hasn’t sang before, he’s lost his cultural connection to the Mass and thus gone from a worshiper to a re-enactor of novelties.

This is your argument, correct?

No. My argument is that what’s written in books is at best incomplete because it does not show the culture of the people or the liturgy in which those rubrics and orders were spiritually beneficial. There’s a disconnect. Our discussion here highlights that. You point to the stability of the liturgy for centuries saying nothing life-altering changed. I point to the massive cultural changes that took place within the context of the liturgy which leads to life-altering changes in the sacramental disciplines and the basic theology. Little changes, organic at the time, have grown to the point of some people even believing heresies because they’re trying to apply the book knowledge outside the cultural practice.

Doesn’t this, by implication, seem to suggest that the Capuchins should really never have existed to begin with, since that order is based off of a stricter and older interpretation of the Rule of St. Francis? They had “no cultural connection to the time and place” of the original Franciscans and thus are just medieval re-enactors, yes?

There’s a living community from whom they were able to learn the fundamentals of Franciscan thought, culture, and life. Applying stricter rules to meet their spiritual needs was an organic development within the community, not a re-enactment.

Why can’t one be centered on God by valuing a lost treasure? Why are you so sure the primary purpose here is “study and entertainment”, rather than what I said it should be, which is a liturgical community devoted to bringing to light the (minor differences in) the way ancient Christians have celebrated the Mass?

One can surely be centered on God and can value a lost treasure. Placing that treasure at the center of one’s purpose can only be done by displacing God. It has to be secondary to one’s purpose and organically developed to meet spiritual needs. It has to flow from God and service to Him, not the other way around.

There’s nothing wrong with loving tradition. If it is all book knowledge, it is study. If it is a person applying book knowledge on his own, it is re-enactment. If it is a formed and grounded community centered on God learning and living their own tradition and culture, it is rightly ordered.

The proposed idea cannot, to my knowledge, grow in the necessary way because there is not an extant community from which the culture and community can teach the seekers how to understand and live the book knowledge of rubrics. The 8th Century Church looked very different from the 18th Century Church even if the rubrics changed little to none. If one wishes to live as an 8th Century Catholic, one has to find a community that has preserved that culture that can pass it on.

 

[liturgyluver]

I recently experinced two wonderful recreations that were one-offs. The first was a celebration of Lady Day according to the Sarum Use in Salisbury Cathedral. The second was a recreation of the 1539 liturgy for St Peter and Paul in St Barts Anglican Church. Both were fascinating and awe-inspiring.

 

[EphelDuath]

CDB1718 I’m sorry, but we must agree to disagree. I find none of your criticisms to be compelling in the slightest, and I also find it wildly absurd to think that one is displacing God if the Pope gave him permission to use a slightly different text and older song for the express purpose of showing the laity that their Church has an un-ruptured liturgical tradition.

God bless.