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VociMike
Guest
What do you think, is the TLM in full accord with Vatican II?
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CatholicNick
Guest
Yes.
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Malcolm_McLean
Guest
Let’s give you a couple of analogies.
A railway network decides to convert its locomatives from steam to diesel. This doesn’t mean that every single last steam engine must be scrapped. If they keep one behind to give occasional trips for schoolchildren you wouldn’t say that the policy has not been followed.
A software comany decides to move from the C language to Lisp. Lisp is a very different language to C. Even though in the long run Lisp may offer advantages, you would expect some mistakes in the initial stages, as programmers retrain and learn the new paradigm.
We’ve got both the first case and the second case. Except that some people would say that in the second case the problems are so severe that it was a mistake ever to move to Lisp at all.
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parvenu74
Guest
I don’t think these analogies work.
Whereas businesses have, as a general rule, the stated goal of making of money for their shareholders, when technological advances allow for greater productivity, lower costs, and greater profits, it’s objectively “bad” or “contrary to the mission statement” to not to switch to the newer technologies.
The Church, however, isn’t affected by human advances because it’s based on Divinely revealed Truth. While our understanding of the Truth can change throughout time, the Truth itself remains unchanged. With regard to the Mass, the question of one liturgy versus another is measured in it’s correspondence to Divine Truth and the mission of the Church, which is to get souls to heaven. Whichever liturgy is the most conducive to the sanctification of souls is the best liturgy.
(Please note that I didn’t make any statements about which liturgy is the best, nor did I make any statement in favor of or against Vatican II, nor did I make any concrete comparisons of liturgies as such statements aren’t allowed in this place.)
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jmcrae
Guest
Why wouldn’t it be? The Pauline Mass didn’t come out until five years later.
I like both of them, for different reasons. Both are very beautiful when celebrated reverently.
I have also seen both of them celebrated irreverently, and it’s difficult to decide which is more painful to sit through.
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parvenu74
Guest
Yes. To say otherwise is to contradict the council:
Art. 4 - “. . . Holy Mother Church holds all lawfully recognized rites to be of equal right and dignity; that she wishes to preserve them in the future and to foster them in every way.” – Sacrosanctum Concilium
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BobP123
Guest
Yes, otherwise why would they have it said before every session.
In examining the documents and motivation deeper, one could see that Vatican II reinforced much of what was already in place, Latin, chant, etc. Vatican II agreed with all liturgical traditions but also tried to expand the Catholic base with missionary gestures like introducing parts of the Mass in the vernacular, etc. At the time, it did seem like a breath of fresh air.
However, as Malcolm best put it, too many thought the changes should have never been implemented (or something to that effect). But then what changes were they really talking about?
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VociMike
Guest
So is it the opinion here that the Council Fathers envisioned no changes at all to the TLM? Not arguing, just asking.
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palmas85
Guest
I think personally that they envisioned and wanted some changes but not the wholescale destruction of the rite itself and the horrific results that the changes have brought about. I don’t completely blame the Pauline Rite itself, tempting and as easy as that may be, but rather I blame the liberal social gospel attitude that has prevailed and flourished in the wake of the council.
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VociMike
Guest
I’m inclined to agree. What then might the “TLM of Vatican II” have been intended to look like?
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UKcatholicGuy
Guest
Of which the Pauline Mass is a manifestation, so it is to blame, at least the way it’s celebrated in 99.9% of parishes around the world. That is, facing the people, tables instead of altars, no tabernacle on the altar itself, English instead of Latin, EMHC’s, altar girls, etc.
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VociMike
Guest
Please, let’s not have this thread wandering into banned territory by going after the NO. I’d like to keep this solely about the TLM, past, present and future.
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dessert
Guest
More than likely what it is like on EWTN mass now.
Dessert
I want to do what you ask of me; in the way you ask for as long as you ask because you ask it. Pope St. Clement XI
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BobP123
Guest
Hard to say. You had quite a few voting on the matter on a yes-no basis so it’s hard to say what they all collectively would have really wanted. All we really have are the documents which hopefully were the consensus (read, what all could live with) of the Council Fathers.
EWTN does have as an objective the spread of the Word in a missionary style so it’s probably as close to what the Council Fathers might have collectively accepted had they known what was to come. Not only the Mass but the overall theme of the network.
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rescath
Guest
Question should be whether the Novus Ordo Missae in full accord with Vatican II. Not the way I read the Council. From what I read, the Council Fathers envisioned no radical changes but just for vernacular in some parts of the Mass and for some hymns.
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Andreas_Hofer
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I don’t think the TLM is what Vatican II expected the Mass to be because those documents obviously expect some sort of change, no matter how small it might be. The TLM, on the other hand, remains exactly as in force in 1962. That said, it’s hard to say exactly how different the liturgy should have become based on Sacrosanctum Concilium because it makes hardly any definite provision, using lots of “can” and “may” language without necessarily mandating. Many people think the 1965 missal was the Mass envisioned by many council fathers because it pruned away some later accretions that were originally private devotion and introduced the possibility of vernacular.
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Goblin_Taters
Guest
I agree with Andreas Hofer. It’s difficult to determine the intention of Vatican II, for one reason because the intentions of the bishops were so varied. Many of the intentions of certain bishops were vehemently opposed by other bishops and never found their way into the text. I think, however, that more than not the TLM was not intended as the envisioned “restored” liturgy. There is a two-fold goal discerned in the tendencies of documents of VII pertaining to the Liturgy: 1) of restoring those liturgical practices that long have been in disuse, many of which have only recently been re-discovered and studied, and which may benefit understanding in the Church; and 2) of adapting liturgical practices to the needs of the age. Both these are very noble and good when properly understood. However, the problems after Vatican II arose because this two-fold goal was oftentimes followed to the exclusion of the TLM heritage. When one looks back at the early Church, one realizes that the Mass was not necessarily always offered in Latin, but in Greek or the vernacular language of the people as well. In looking back at the early Church, in the West at least, one sees a simplicity of liturgical worship that can easily be contrasted to the ornate worship of the TLM. What begins in Sacrosanctum Concilium as an opening up of the vernacular for the sacraments, readings and other parts of the Mass deemed for the good of the people, becomes gradually, in practice, the elimination of Latin from the Liturgy. The “noble simplicity” likewise becomes misinterpretted as a call to remove high altars, altar rails, statues and anything else that are seen as misguided accretions. Of course, how the call to adapt to the present age is interpretted also affects all of this. One characteristic of the modern Western “age” at the time of Vatican II (or rather, one idea widely bandied about) was that man has dialectically advanced in his knowledge of himself and of the world. In some sense this idea is true: man has made many scientific, cultural, linguistic, social and other advances over the ages. However, when taken too far, this idea means that the present era has an eagle’s eye view of all reality of which previous Catholics were more or less ignorant. A sense of antiquarianism sets in, and much of the Latin heritage is viewed as “medieval” and not as developed or advanced as modern methods, and therefore is dropped.
The immanentism of modern spirituality (which focuses on the personal experience of God within) tends to view liturgical objects and art as only the unfolding outward expressions of this experience of faith within during a given period, rather than as integral to the Catholic Christian faith. Simple modern man (constituting about 93.5% of all modern men) cannot be expected to understand much less spiritually relate to all the liturgical superfluity that exists with the TLM. Even after attending the same Mass for twenty, thirty years, modern man never arrives at an understanding and therefore cannot worship what he does not understand. But the interior experience of God upon which modern man centers his religious life dictates that many of the objective but non-personal expressions of the Catholic faith are superfluities (they don’t proceed from his inner faith experience) and that what really matters is worship of God in spirit and truth, which means for many people today the visible, inter-active, outward expression of the inner experience of faith. If the personal experience of God says that true worship should be in the vernacular and with as few liturgical restrictions as possible to this true worship, then who is to judge even when this outward expression of worship proceeding from an inner experience goes against the liturgical norms established by the Church? Sound familiar?
The immanentism of modern spirituality (which focuses on the personal experience of God within) tends to view liturgical objects and art as only the unfolding outward expressions of this experience of faith within during a given period, rather than as integral to the Catholic Christian faith. Simple modern man (constituting about 93.5% of all modern men) cannot be expected to understand much less spiritually relate to all the liturgical superfluity that exists with the TLM. Even after attending the same Mass for twenty, thirty years, modern man never arrives at an understanding and therefore cannot worship what he does not understand. But the interior experience of God upon which modern man centers his religious life dictates that many of the objective but non-personal expressions of the Catholic faith are superfluities (they don’t proceed from his inner faith experience) and that what really matters is worship of God in spirit and truth, which means for many people today the visible, inter-active, outward expression of the inner experience of faith. If the personal experience of God says that true worship should be in the vernacular and with as few liturgical restrictions as possible to this true worship, then who is to judge even when this outward expression of worship proceeding from an inner experience goes against the liturgical norms established by the Church? Sound familiar?
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palmas85
Guest
Good question. Great question in fact:thumbsup: It is a pity that we will in all likilihood never know the answer
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Unfinished
Guest
Personally, I think it was supposed to look like the TLM of 1962.
Except, everything but the propers and the commons would be in English. The propers and commons would remain in Latin. And a few changes like adding the third reading. (Maybe I am getting my time periods mixed up? I forget when they added the third reading. 69 I assume).
If only we had been so lucky…
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Titus
Guest
I would say that the Mass of Vatican II was the 1965 Missal (here- coreyzelinski.8m.com/1965_Mass/). This followed the letter of Sacrosanctum Concilium, and allowed for the vernacular in parts and removed the Last Gospel.
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