I attended the only Roman Catholic Mass available on the entire planet from the late 1940’s right up until the changes brought about by the revolution of Vatican II. I can say without credible contradiction that all of the pre-Vatican II Masses were done exactly the same. THAT WAS THE WHOLE POINT! IT WAS CATHOLIC (as in universal, right?) It did not matter whether you were in the Paraguay or in the Philippines, in Australia or Alaska—you knew that this was exactly the same Mass as was said in your home parish.
I too grew up with this Mass from the very early 50’s and while it may have had a universal form it most assuredly was NOT celebrated in the same way universally. To begin with, it too had numerous forms, from low Mass to Missa Cantata to High Mass to Solemn High Mass and if you walked into a parish not your own you never knew which one you might get. Yes, the content was the same but the method of celebration was quite different.
The Masses then were also filled with irreverent people simply “fulfilling their Sunday obligation”. They may not have been chatting but in my experience an awful lot of them weren’t praying either. And in my experience very few of them were engaged in the Mass other than looking up when the bells rang.
And of course there is the problem that many of the priests that I served with were just going through the motions and getting in and out as quickly as possible. There were prayers left out, words changed (including the consecration at times), sermons left out and other abuses every bit as serious, if not more so in some cases, than what occurs in some OF Masses today. To make a case that the TLM is somehow immune to abuse is to be totally disingenous and dishonest. I personally served at many of them that were loaded with abuse, along with many that were presided over by priests who were either inebriated or so hungover they were barely more than just present.
I most assuredly would not characterize today’s TLM as looking like that since those celebrating it now do so out of love for that form. But it most surely did exist in deplorable fashion in many places prior to Vatican II.
BTW, I don’t remember hearing anyone anywhere back then complaining about the unvarying nature of the TLM worldwide, althought I’m sure someone will try to make the case that there was at that time universal clamoring for change (Wait! Someone has already tried to make that case—AT THE “COUNCIL!”).
LOL, I have yet to meet one of the older priests who celebrated both before and after that wasn’t overjoyed to finally be able to say Mass in the vernacular. I’m sure there are some but my contact with dozens of them has not produced a single one who was opposed or who want to go back. I’m quite sure that if it had been put to a vote among the faithful to continue with that Mass or go to a vernacular Mass, even a vernacular version of the TLM, that it would have been a landslide. In those days of “pray, pay and obey” though, even asking the laity would not have been a consideration.
Both forms can be beautifully and reverently celebrated and I have been to some on both sides. Both sides can be abused, and I have seen abuses on both sides. In the end though, the Church has said that they are equal forms of the same rite while trying to eliminate anything that might take away the reverence that should be present. Why we have to continue to have this “my Mass is better than your Mass” stuff just boggles my mind. If you don’t like the OF Mass, by all means go to the EF, or vice versa. Just please though stop with the superiority complexes and thinking that there aren’t devoted and holy people on both “sides” who just happen to say their prayers differently. Different does not not equate to wrong; it simply speaks to the fact that God created us differently and we respond to His call differently. It has been so since the beginning of the Church and likely will be until the second coming. The Body of Christ cannot be divided though and to to engage in this “I follow the TLM” and “I follow the OF” as the basis of defining one’s–or someone else’s–Catholicism is to encourage the very division that Paul so warned us against.
I just don’t believe that Jesus died so we could fight over how to say our prayers.
