Eastern Cath views/feelings about Novus Ordo

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I’m curious how Eastern Catholics feel about the Novus Ordo, specifically if you’ve been to a typical one. What did you think?

Eastern Orthodox opinions welcome too, if you’ve attended a Novus Ordo.
 
I would rather not attend a Novus Ordo Mass if I can avoid it.

The ones I’ve attended recently turned me off them completely. During one of your “guitar Masses” at the Martyrs’ Shrine in Midland, I actually had to leave as I felt my stomach heaving.

Who came up with the idea of the Novus Ordo in your Church? What possessed them to want to change the beautiful ancient rites of the Romah Catholic Church to. . . that . . .?

But you can chalk this all up to my Eastern Catholic brainwashing, I mean all that emphasis on respectful composure, bowing, incense at the drop of a hat and absolute wonder before the Awesome Mystery of God glorified in the Holy Trinity.

So you really must take my musings with a grain of salt!

Alex
 
I’ve attended a Novus Ordo Mass in the past, and just couldn’t stand it. I understand that even many latin rite catholics feel the same way. There’s just so much abuse going on in some parishes. I agree with Alex, after a Divine Liturgy the Novus Ordo just seems so unreverent. I would love to attend an EF mass. I’ve seen them on EWTN and it seems very beautiful, and not so foreign from the DL. Just my opinion.
 
I prefer the Divine Liturgy but have felt myself emotionally moved at the OF Mass.

The OF Mass is my communities Mass along with the Liturgy of the Hours for our community prayer, so there is no way for me to totally get away from it.

Currently my ministry is not on the weekends so I am free to attend where I wish. I try to get to a Byzantine Divine Liturgy at least once a month (none are in a convenient place to get to) and there are times when I do not feel well enough to go out due to my treatments.

That is one thing I love about living in a Carmelite Community, we have prayer and Mass offered right in our chapel in our house, no matter how sick I am feeling I can usually make it to that.
 
I love it 👍

It nourished me for over 30 years before I made the move East 👍
 
I grew up serving the Ordinary Form of the Roman Mass. It has enriched my spiritual life to a great degree. I think if more people would stop criticizing it and focus more on actually praying it, there would be less of a problem. Of course, I understand that that can be difficult when there are so many prevalent liturgical abuses. Those, however, have no intrinsic connection to the Mass itself.

I also believe that in essentials it more closely reflects the liturgical ethos of the Byzantine East as well (when celebrated as it is supposed to be at least).
 
Not an Easterner, but whether it’s the OF or the DL, I think both sound rather disappointing in English.
 
Seamus_L said:
Not an Easterner, but whether it’s the OF or the DL, I think both sound rather disappointing in English.
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The Byzantine tradition has always been to celebrate the Liturgy in the language of the people. Hence you can hear the DL in English, Chinese, Arabic, Romanian, Greek, Ukrainian, etc. Or, if you prefer, you could just go to a Slavonic liturgy. For us the Liturgy is one of the primary tools of evangelization. If it is in a language that people don’t understand, how are we to evangelize? But this thread is not about are personal language preferences.
 
Phillip_Rolfes said:
The Byzantine tradition has always been to celebrate the Liturgy in the language of the people. Hence you can hear the DL in English, Chinese, Arabic, Romanian, Greek, Ukrainian, etc. Or, if you prefer, you could just go to a Slavonic liturgy. For us the Liturgy is one of the primary tools of evangelization. If it is in a language that people don’t understand, how are we to evangelize? But this thread is not about are personal language preferences.
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This is one of the points where Roman “Traditionalism” and Byzantine “Traditionalism” diverge.
 
I believe that Slavonic was the Byzantine tradition in Eastern Europe and the Diaspora until the 1960’s. I’ve also seen transliterations published by the UGCC and they’re just like the Latin Missals. Ukrainian on one side, English on the other. Easy enough to understand.
 
Seamus_L said:
Not an Easterner, but whether it’s the OF or the DL, I think both sound rather disappointing in English.
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What’s the deal with the language anyway? God transcends languages, I really don’t get it why people make such a fuss about it.
 
The divine liturgy is so beautiful in Ukrainian, but it sounds terrible in English. The first few times I ever went to DL at a Ukrainian church, I always went to the English liturgies. After I attended a couple Ukrainian liturgies I never cared to hear it in English again. And I could probably count the words I know in Ukrainian on my fingers.
 
I don’t know what you mean by “typical” OF Mass so I can’t speak directly to your question. The OF I attended as I was going through Confirmation training, however, was very beautiful, on par with the Byzantine Divine Liturgy IMO. There were no guitars, only chanting, there was incense at every Mass, and the parishoners were very reverent and went around kissing the statues and icons before and after the Liturgy.

In contrast, the EFs I’ve attended felt very dead and dreary. I guess they were what you’d call a Low Mass, and there was almost nothing that attracted me. To quiet, I felt like I needn’t even be there, that the priest could do the whole thing himself and it wouldn’t make a difference. I’ve also attended a Dominican High Mass which was much better than the EF Low Mass, but it still felt a little awkward and “stiff”.

So I much prefer the OF to the EF in pretty much every way. I would even go so far as to say that if the Low Mass was all that was available I’d have a difficult time becoming Catholic in the first place. :o

Peace and God bless!
 
Seamus_L said:
The divine liturgy is so beautiful in Ukrainian, but it sounds terrible in English. The first few times I ever went to DL at a Ukrainian church, I always went to the English liturgies. After I attended a couple Ukrainian liturgies I never cared to hear it in English again. And I could probably count the words I know in Ukrainian on my fingers.
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Ukrainian is easier on the reverent ears, that’s why. 🙂

The less English in the liturgy, the better for me too.
 
Alexander_Roman said:
But you can chalk this all up to my Eastern Catholic brainwashing, I mean all that emphasis on respectful composure, bowing, incense at the drop of a hat and absolute wonder before the Awesome Mystery of God glorified in the Holy Trinity.

So you really must take my musings with a grain of salt!

Alex
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No grain of salt necessary. Everything you have said is completely true and catholic in my opinion and as a traditionalist I agree with you.

The reason I asked is because I was listening to a talk by Michael Davies about the reform of the Latin liturgy and he made a point that while liberals took every effort to Protestantize the mass in hopes of drawing Protestants closer into communion (which hasn’t worked) it actually almost destroyed the likelihood of communion with the Eastern Orthodox churches with whom, prior to this, there had at least been an actual real chance of communion in the future. At one point he quoted an Orthodox person after mass having said “there’s no way anyone in there believed in the real presence.”. I was curious if such sentiment was the case.

As to your question of who concocted this protestantization:

“We must strip from our Catholic prayers and from the Catholic liturgy everything which can be the shadow of a stumbling block for our separated brethren that is for the Prostestants.”* - Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, main author of the New Mass, L’Osservatore Romano, March 19, 1965
 
Seamus_L said:
The divine liturgy is so beautiful in Ukrainian, but it sounds terrible in English. The first few times I ever went to DL at a Ukrainian church, I always went to the English liturgies. After I attended a couple Ukrainian liturgies I never cared to hear it in English again. And I could probably count the words I know in Ukrainian on my fingers.
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Perhaps the parish wasn’t using the Anthology.
 
Alexander_Roman said:
I would rather not attend a Novus Ordo Mass if I can avoid it.

The ones I’ve attended recently turned me off them completely. During one of your “guitar Masses” at the Martyrs’ Shrine in Midland, I actually had to leave as I felt my stomach heaving.

Who came up with the idea of the Novus Ordo in your Church? What possessed them to want to change the beautiful ancient rites of the Romah Catholic Church to. . . that . . .?
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I’m with you all the way on this one, Alex. 😃
Alexander_Roman said:
But you can chalk this all up to my Eastern Catholic brainwashing, I mean all that emphasis on respectful composure, bowing, incense at the drop of a hat and absolute wonder before the Awesome Mystery of God glorified in the Holy Trinity.

So you really must take my musings with a grain of salt!
Click to expand...
I haven’t attended a Roman Rite Novus Ordo Mass in years. Why bother? With the on-going and never-ending Novus Ordo-inspired neo-latinizations that are choking the life and identity out of the Maronite Church, I get it anyway. :mad:

When I have the opportunity, I do assist at the Latin Usus Antiquior. I only wish there was a Maronite one. (Yes I know, wishful thinking, but I’m ever hopeful, albeit vainly so).
 
I personally would prefer a mix of Ukrainian and English in the Liturgy based on the needs of the congregation (and dare I add Church Slavonic to the mix??).

As for the OF, I think when it is done well, it is done very well. I still find the prayers of the OF to be less then spectacular though. I think the Liturgy of the Romans would have been much better had they stuck with the 1965 missal, which was basically the EF with minor alterations in English. Though part of the problem with the EF is that it is really stiff as Ghosty mentioned. They have rubrics for every minor detail and it makes the liturgy feel less organic and more like a white washed classical statue.
 
Formosus said:
I personally would prefer a mix of Ukrainian and English in the Liturgy based on the needs of the congregation (and dare I add Church Slavonic to the mix??).
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As I learned a long time ago from a Byzantine priest friend, a little satroslavenski is always a good idea. 😉
Formosus said:
As for the OF, I think when it is done well, it is done very well. I still find the prayers of the OF to be less then spectacular though. I think the Liturgy of the Romans would have been much better had they stuck with the 1965 missal, which was basically the EF with minor alterations in English.
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While I’ve never been all that enamored with the overuse or exclusive use of (any) vernacular, yes, I can agree with that.
Formosus said:
Though part of the problem with the EF is that it is really stiff as Ghosty mentioned. They have rubrics for every minor detail and it makes the liturgy feel less organic and more like a white washed classical statue.
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For my part, I’d rather it be a little “stiff” than all “loosey-goosey” like the alternative. Those “loosey-goosey” rubrics (not to mention the absurd “options”) are part of the problem with the Novus Ordo.
 
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