If you could, what changes if any would you make to the Ordinary Form?

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ChristMyLife said:
I would not omit anything.

I would restore…
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That’s an ambitious program, what would be your goals in doing all of this?

If you feel that this agenda would restore or establish new levels of piety, I don’t think that’s likely at all.

Remember that you will still have the same priests, some altar servers, same faithful as you do now.
 
I’ve edited my post 4 times now lol so please read it again to see my full plan…

But a major reason why I would do what I listed is because a lot of the changes made to the OF Mass were made in an effort to further ecumenical relations and restoration of communion with Protestants. It was a lofty and righteous reason for doing it, but here we are nearly 60 years later and it’s been proven removing those prayers did nothing to bring Protestants back into the sheepfold.

Two perfect examples of this was the omission of the invocations of Mary and the Saints in the Confiteor and the prayer after the Our Father.

Here is an example of what I mean.

OF Confiteor:

I confess to almighty God
and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned,
in my thoughts and in my words,
In what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault,
through my fault,
through my most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.

EF Confiteor:

I confess to almighty God, to the blessed Mary ever Virgin, blessed Michael the Archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, to all the Saints, and to you, brothers, that I have sinned exceedingly in thought, word, and deed, through my fault, through my fault, through my most grievous fault. Therefore I beseech the blessed Mary, ever Virgin, blessed Michael the Archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy Apostles Peter and Paul, all the Saints, and you, brothers, to pray to the Lord our God for me.

A compromise Confiteor where certain elements of the EF are restored could be a possibility if a full restoration of the EF Confiteor was an issue for some reason… If you compare different versions of the Confiteor (like the Ambrosian, Mozarabic, etc.) you see they all invoke the Saints but they have different elements… Now a sort of compromise Confiteor could be brought to fruition - my idea would be something like this:

My beta Confiteor:

I confess to almighty God
and to the blessed Mary ever-Virgin, to blessed Michael the Archangel, to the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul and all the Saints, and to you, my brothers and sisters,
that I have greatly sinned,
in my thoughts and in my words,
In what I have done and in what I have failed to do,
through my fault,
through my fault,
through my most grievous fault;
therefore I ask blessed Mary ever-Virgin,
blessed Michael the Archangel, the Holy Apostles Peter and Paul and all the Angels and Saints,
and you, my brothers and sisters,
to pray for me to the Lord our God.
 
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It sounds almost like you want to re-make the Ordinary form into a quasi-Tridentine form. That would be rather odd.
 
ChristMyLife said:
Essentially yes.
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Egads! Then why not simply got to a Tridentine form Mass?

This thread is about the ordinary form, not the old hat of saying the older form is better than the new. That has been done to death. Imagine someone going onto a thread about what would make the changes in the Tridentine form better, and suggesting all changes that would make it pretty much like the ordinary form. Would you approve of that type of posting?
 
pnewton said:
Then why not simply got to a Tridentine form Mass?
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Because there are elements of the OF which I find superior.

The litany of prayers after the readings. Standing in a line for Communion. The priest saying “the body of Christ” followed by Amen. The use of the vernacular tongue. The expanded cycle of readings. The carrying of the gospel and gospel procession. Facing the people for the readings. More and better homilies. Offering the chalice as well as the body.

There are tons of things in the OF which I find superior to the EF as I just illustrated.

I also prefer vernacular over Latin.

I just feel the OF could be strongly enriched by restoring certain elements of the Mass found in the EF.

At this moment, the way the OF and EF currently stand, if I had to choose to attend Mass at one or the other I would choose the OF. In other words, I personally find the OF to be superior to the EF in there current forms.

But I feel the OF could be enriched by bringing certain things found in the EF into it.
 
I think the Antiphon should be read aloud before mass begins. I also think every mass should have a Greek kyrie, the Our Father chanted at every high mass. A Latin Gloria and Agnus dei would be good.
 
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The introit and communion antiphons are still read at the Ordinary Form. Sometimes on Sundays and other days with more music, they’re replaced by hymns, but if you read the GIRM there’s a list of four different options for something at those points at the Mass and the proper antiphons are the first option. It’s what I do at daily Mass in my parish.

-Fr ACEGC
 
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pnewton said:
This thread is about the ordinary form, not the old hat of saying the older form is better than the new. That has been done to death. Imagine someone going onto a thread about what would make the changes in the Tridentine form better, and suggesting all changes that would make it pretty much like the ordinary form. Would you approve of that type of posting?
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Please read the post I just made.

I never said such a thing… You made a false judgment about me based on your own personal bias.

As the OF and EF currently stand, I much prefer the OF.

Believing the OF could be improved much by restoring certain elements of the EF does not mean I am some Latin fanatic or rad trad or anything of the sort.

It simply means I have an understanding and appreciation for the long history of the Roman Rite and I have a personal belief that the Mass could be improved if we recaptured certain elements of our ancient traditions.

Also believing something can be improved does not imply that I think the way things are now is dismal or bad or evil or anything like that. You can like something perfectly well and still believe there is room for improvement. There’s always room for improvement in just about everything in life.
 
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Thank you for taking responsibility and owning up to your honest mistake…

I do understand why you jumped to that conclusion… There ARE a lot of people that come on here and have a Latin superiority complex or think the EF is the “Mass of the ages” and the OF is modernist nonsense… I am definitely NOT one of those people. I have a deep appreciation for all forms of the Western Christian Mass - be it Tridentine, Pauline, Mozarabic, Bragan, Ambrosian - I see the positives and negatives in all the different current and defunct forms of the Holy Mass.

I think the people who think of the EF as the only “true Mass” and Latin as the only correct language are simply lacking in historical perspective. I feel most of them have little to no experience or knowledge of the vastness of the different forms the Liturgy takes in the Eastern Rites or in the ancient Church. If they did they wouldn’t be so myopic in thinking the Tridentine Mass is the only Mass.

If someone made a thread “if you could change the EF Mass in any way, what would you do” my list of ways the EF Mass could be enriched by the OF Mass would likely be just as long.
 
A lot of Protestants are very interested in Catholicism.

Often, this is because they have worked alongside Catholics in various pro-life endeavors (e.g., prayer chains, volunteer work at pregnancy life care centers, lobbying Congresspeople, etc.). As they get to know the Catholic(s), they realize that they have a deep love for and relationship with Jesus Christ, and this is intriguing to Protestants. Also, pro-life Protestants recognize that it has been the Catholics all these years since Roe vs. Wade passed that have carried the torch and done a lot of the work for the unborn.

Another reason that Protestants are interested in Catholicism and the Latin Mass is because it is so ancient and so different from what they are used to. Believe it or not, lots of Protestants don’t really like “Praise and Worship” music, or the “marketing” approach that fuels a lot of church outreach programs, or seeing a minister wearing jeans and a Woodstock t-shirt as he…or she…preaches from an empty platform (no pulpit). They are very curious about Latin and chant, kneeling, symbols (often present in abundance in Latin Mass parishes), etc.

Finally, there are Protestants who, like me and my husband, were horribly hurt by our church, and these Protestants cannot return to a place that might hurt them again. They know from their Bibles that God asks Christians to “not forsake assembling together,” and so they decide to attend a Catholic Mass out of obedience to God’s Word. It’s low commitment, not likely that anyone will come up to them and buttonhole them to join the church or get involved with anything, and they know (from pro-life work or other community service involvements) that Catholics really are Christians.

So they go, and to their surprise, they recognize much of the Mass from their Bibles! So they get interested, start studying, start asking questions on forums like this or talking to real people–and sometime they decide to check out the Latin Mass because they learn that it was around for several centuries before Vatican II. (A lot of Protestants who have been hurt are very suspicious and mistrustful of anything “new.”)

These are just some of the reasons that Protestants might be interested in Catholicism and specifically, the Latin Mass…
 
Hey now! Whoa, there, partner! 🏇

The OF Mass brought me and my husband back into the sheepfold!!! What are we, chopped sheep liver?! 😉

And we know of many other Protestants who have converted to Catholicism, and they are faithful adherents to the OF of the Mass, even though in our city, we have had access to a Latin Mass for at least two decades. (ICK, not a schismatic group)

Also, I know quite a few Catholics who have told me that they were planning to leave the Church because they hated the Latin and not being able to understand anything–and it was the “New Mass” that kept them in the Church!

I cannot speak in absolutes because I know that God can work miracles, but I will say that I am fairly certain that my husband and I would never have been back to the Mass if our first visit to a Catholic Church had been a Latin Mass. I attend Latin Mass when I play organ at that parish, and I really don’t care for it even after two years. My husband is a linguistics enthusiast, but he doesn’t care for the Latin Mass either. We would attend if we had to, but it would be strictly out of obedience. We would possibly attend a Protestant church afterwards just to hear some good music and some preaching in our own language.

I would gently suggest that you might want to be careful stating that Protestants haven’t come into the Church since the OF Mass was established. I think you might be very surprised.

I wrote this post right after your post in which you made the following statement:

" It was a lofty and righteous reason for doing it, but here we are nearly 60 years later and it’s been proven removing those prayers did nothing to bring Protestants back into the sheepfold."

So it sounds like you aren’t one of those Catholics who believes that the Latin Mass is a failure when it comes to bringing Protestants back. I’m sorry if I read that into your post.

However, I will stick by what I’ve said because I know that there are others’ involved with this thread who DO think that Protestants would come flocking to the Latin Mass. No, they wouldn’t.
 
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Do you know the meaning and the background of the comments in the New Testament that St. Paul made to the Corinthians about women covering their heads?
 
SantaMaria said:
Women wearing chapel veil and it should be a compulsory
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I don’t see that really as helping attendance that much. A lot of women don’t care to wear chapel veils- and don’t even own any. And a lot of men are in attendance because of their women.
 
The return of universal use of the altar rail would be nice. I’ve found in Anglican services it creates a division between the sanctuary and congregation that adds to the holy presence of what transpires on the altar. Also makes kneeling to receive easier for those that want to and logistically it speeds up communion in my experience while still allowing for a reverent moment by the receiving parishioner.
 
LOL - That might not go so well. I know there were people that like to wear them, though.
 
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Some Catholics think it’s vanity to wear veil. That’s why I’m so discouraged to wear it now I think it would be nice if we could all veil again for God and for God alone, to show modesty and submission to him.
 
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