I have a legitimate question concerning the Ordinary Form Mass. I love the OF, and I have been wondering this for a while.
The TLM and other rites of the Church (Maronite, Melkite…etc) are all ancient, however, the Ordinary Form is not, my parents are older than the Ordinary Form. If it was made up by a group of men after Vatican II, then how is it valid if it does not stretch back to apostolic times? Is it valid just because the Church says it is? What about the extra Eucharistic Prayers that were added? No other rite in the Church has entirely scraped it’s liturgy and made up another one.
Moderators, this is not about pinning the EF vs OF, or some stuff like that. This is a legitimate question that I have been struggling with and would be really awesome if it could be answered.
What’s confusing you here is the criteria for what makes a Mass “valid.”
A Mass is valid if it has all the essential elements for validity: an ordained priest with intention, bread & wine, the proper form for the consecration, etc. etc. Validity has nothing to do with who composed it, or how old or new it is.
In theory, a valid form for the Mass might be composed entirely by atheists. If it has all the essential elements, it would be a valid form of the Mass.
The Church decides which forms of the Mass are permitted for use, and naturally one of the first questions to be asked is “is this valid?” So it’s not valid “because the Church says it is” but it’s legitimate to use that form because the Church has approved that form.
The extra Eucharistic Prayers have a history all their own. They were first used in Switzerland as illegitimate experimentation (that’s why they are sometimes called “the Swiss Canon”). They are actually one canon with 4 variations. They were valid, but illicit (ie illegal) to use. The priests using them refused to stop, and eventually, the Holy See relented and gave approval for their use. Many people, and I am one of them, do not see this as a very good precedent for the Church. In any case, at the present time, they are approved for limited use. Even here, the approval of the Church does not make them valid----they were always valid; instead, the approval means that their use is legitimate.
Finally, please understand that the Missal of Pope Paul VI is hardly an example of “No other rite in the Church has entirely scraped it’s liturgy and made up another one.” That’s not what happened at all. The Novus Ordo Mass is a revision of the Missals previously in use. The Church has been doing this throughout all of history. Further, the changes made are not as significant as many would have you believe. If you would take a small missallette from the Extraordinary Form, the kind that just has one typical Sunday Mass, instead of one that has a lot of page-turning, and simply go through the text of the Mass, you would see that the changes are not too significant. Most of the “big” changes involve eliminating elements because they were being repeated. How many times do we need to say the Confiteor in a single Mass anyway?
Before comparing the Missal of Pope Paul VI to the Eastern usage, you need to be aware that even in the Eastern Churches, their Divine Liturgies have undergone many, many changes over the years as well.
