From the
Introduction:
In this section, I focus solely on the traditional Latin Mass based on the Missal of 1962 which is used by most traditional priests (including the F.S.S.P. and the S.S.P.X.). After much study, I’ve come to the conclusion that, validity issues aside, the “Novus Ordo Mass” is tragically flawed, something my instincts and “common sense” have told me since I was a child. The very name of this Mass – “Novus Ordo,” i.e., “New Order” – should make anyone with a true Catholic nature cringe, and its effects are so incredibly sad it almost hurts to think about it. It has turned out to be a “New Mass” for a “New Religion” – and that religion is “not Catholic enough.”
The “Novus Ordo,” whether offered in English or Latin, is a
violent break with Tradition, directly responsible,
in part, for the great loss of faith which followed its publication. “Lex credendi legem statuat supplicandi” – let the rule of belief determine the rule of prayer" is the rule of liturgy – but the prayers of the Novus Ordo, designed to make Protestants comfortable with the Mass, express Protestant belief not by what it says, but by what it fails to say – that is, by its
omissions – and serve to lead us to believe as Protestants in that it practically nullifies the experience of the realities of the Sacrifice and the priesthood. The Novus Ordo – not so much for what it is inherently, but for what it
isn’t, for what it
lacks – appears as the “Mass of Cain,” arrogantly bringing his own works to God; the ancient Mass is the “Mass of Abel,” who humbly offered God a sacrifice – a lamb that prefigured the Passover lamb which, in turn, prefigured the Lamb Who takes away the sins of the world, Whose offering of Himself to us is eternal.
The stripping away of the signs and symbols of the Mystery, the eradication of the poetic, the intentional blurring of the line between the ordained and common priesthoods, music that ranges from the banal to the offensive, the total ignoring of Gregorian chant, the failure to retain our sacred language, the “busy-ness,” the dearth of silence, and, most of all, the almost total lack of emphasis on the Sacrifice – to not be offended by these things, especially after having studied the purpose of the Mass and our worship’s relationship to our belief, is to be either ignorant of or ill-willed toward the Catholic Faith.
Oh blow…it must be because I am at the end of the world here in rural New Zealand…
