Lex orandi lex creandi

[catholicstudent]

I’m new here & hoping you can help. I am a student in the Lay Pastoral Ministry Program. I missed part of a class a couple of weeks ago where lex orandi lex creandi was explained. I read others notes, but don’t get it. I understand that the law of prayer leads to the law of belief, but what does that mean & how do I figure it out. He said he will give us prayers from the Sacramentary on our mid-term & we have to pick out the lex orandi lex creani. Can someone please help me? (Note: my classmate’s notes didn’t help)

 

[Just_Lurking]

Wikipedia has an article on this (see here) with external references.

 

[benedictgal]

I wouldn’t necessarily trust Wikipedia. Here is how the Prefect Emeritus of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Francis Cardinal Arinze, explained it:

1. Lex orandi, lex credendi
   The sacraments sanctify people, build up the Body of Christ and give worship to God. Because they are signs, they also instruct. They not only presuppose faith, but by words and objects they also nourish, strengthen and express it. That is why they are called “sacraments of faith”. (cf SC 59)

The faith of the Church has expressed itself in how the Church prays and especially in how she celebrates the Holy Eucharist and the other sacraments. There are words and concepts which have acquired a deep meaning in the Church’s life, faith and prayer along the centuries. Examples are person, trinity, divine majesty, incarnation, passion, resurrection, salvation, merit, grace, intercession, redemption, sin, repentance, forgiveness, propitiation, mercy, penance, reconciliation, communion and service. There are gestures and postures which help to express what the Church believes. Examples are the Sign of the Cross, bowing, kneeling, standing, listening and going in procession.

“The Church’s faith precedes the faith of the believer who is invited to adhere to it. When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith received from the apostles”. (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC] 1124) This is a strong argument in favor of great care in the wording, gestures and norms of liturgical celebrations.

The relation between the faith of the Church and her liturgical celebration has been encapsulated in the ancient saying, lex orandi, lex credendi (the law of prayer is the law of faith), or legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi (let the law of prayer determine the norm of faith). This statement of Catholic faith is credited to Prosper of Aquitaine of the 5th century. (Ep. 8) It is quoted in the Indiculus or the Pseudo-Celestine Chapters. Pope Celestine reigned from 422 to 432. (cf Ds 246)

The Church believes as she prays. The liturgy is a constitutive element of the holy and living tradition of the Church. (cf Dei Verbum 8) That is why the Church does not allow the minister or the community to modify or manipulate any sacramental or even general liturgical rite. “Even the supreme authority in the Church may not change the liturgy arbitrarily, but only in the obedience of faith and with religious respect for the mystery of the liturgy”. (CCC 1125)

Redemptionis Sacramentum is strong on this point: “The Church herself has no power over those things which were established by Christ Himself and which constitute an unchangeable part of the liturgy. Indeed, if the bond were to be broken which the sacraments have with Christ Himself who instituted them, and with the events of the Church’s founding, it would not be beneficial to the faithful but rather would do them grave harm. For the Sacred Liturgy is quite intimately connected with principles of doctrine, so that the use of unapproved texts and rites necessarily leads either to the attenuation or to the disappearance of that necessary link between the lex orandi and the lex credendi”. (RS 10)

I hope this helps.

 

[catholicstudent]

This is very helpful & I think I’m starting to understand it. I guess my biggest concern is on my mid-term exam he said he will put the prayer & we will have to pick out the belief. It seems easy, but reading the examples from my classmate’s notes, I’m thinking I just don’t get it. Is there a way of figuring out what the belief is in every prayer?

 

[FrDavid96]

Ok. It can mean related things at the same time.

1. When we ask ourselves “what do we believe?” we answer that question by saying that we believe what the Church has always believed and prayed. The most obvious example is that of the early Church asking itself “is the Holy Spirit God?” They realized that they had been praying the Trinitarian formula and therefore since the Law of Prayer says that the Holy Spirit IS God, then the Law of Belief follows from that.
2. It means that we must pray as we believe. How and what we pray cannot be arbitrary or superficial, but the prayers themselves must accurately reflect the beliefs which we hold.
3. It can also mean that the Liturgy of the Church is itself a teaching method–we don’t just “pray” but we have phrases within those prayers which re-inforce our beliefs. Christmas day Mass at dawn “your Son who became man” means that God Himself was actually born in human form (ie not an illusion, not a man who later became God, but God Who became a man). We don’t merely say the words, but we believe what those words say. In contrast, we don’t say “a man Who became Your Son.”

It seems like the question on your exam can be a relatively easy one if you let it be. Just look for anything “theological sounding” in the prayers your prof. provides, and say a few words about the theology expressed by those words. Any mention of the Blessed Trinity would be a no-brainer here.

The Exsultet contains the words “this is the night…” and “this is our Passover” teaches us that at the Easter Vigil we are not merely “remembering” an event of the past, but that we are participants in that event, which is real for us here-and-now.

Again, this can be a very easy one if you let it, just look for the theology in the prayers.

 

[catholicstudent]

Thank you Fr. David. It was like a lightbulb went off in my head after reading your answer. Maybe I’ll get the Sacramentary & see if I can figure some out before my exam next week. Thanks again!

 

[bpbasilphx]

Again, this can be a very easy one if you let it, just look for the theology in the prayers.

**Keep in mind that this is talking about the liturgical prayers: Mass, Divine Office, the Sacraments, et al.

Some private devotional prayers (even in approved prayer books) can get pretty wooly at times and should be approached with caution.**

 

[puzzleannie]

another way to say this is “the Church prays as the Church believes” for examples, read carefully at least the first 4 Eucharistic prayers and see what they actually say about our beliefs

 

[FrDavid96]

Thank you Fr. David. It was like a lightbulb went off in my head after reading your answer. Maybe I’ll get the Sacramentary & see if I can figure some out before my exam next week. Thanks again!

Glad it helped. I might venture a guess here and anticipate that he’ll use some of the prayers from major feast days. Let’s say the Immaculate Conception for example. Just look for the theology in the prayer and you’ve got it in the bag. You might even throw in a few comments like “there is a reason why the prayer says THIS and not THAT”

 

[ASD]

another way to say this is “the Church prays as the Church believes”…

Maybe you’re making a particular point, puzzleannie. But, generally speaking, isn’t it the other way around? Cf. CCC 1124: The law of prayer is the law of faith: the Church believes as she prays.

The important idea, I think, is that our liturgy determines in large measure how we understand ourselves as Catholics. I mean, isnt’ that why we’re buttin’ heads on the CA Liturgy and Sacraments forum?

However, confusingly, it appears that this hasn’t always been an orthodox conception. The following, from Mediator Dei (Pius XII, 1943), seems closer to what puzzleannie said:

1. On this subject We judge it Our duty to rectify an attitude with which you are doubtless familiar, Venerable Brethren. We refer to the error and fallacious reasoning of those who have claimed that the sacred liturgy is a kind of proving ground for the truths to be held of faith, meaning by this that the Church is obliged to declare such a doctrine sound when it is found to have produced fruits of piety and sanctity through the sacred rites of the liturgy, and to reject it otherwise. Hence the epigram, “Lex orandi, lex credendi” - the law for prayer is the law for faith.

1. But this is not what the Church teaches and enjoins. The worship she offers to God, all good and great, is a continuous profession of Catholic faith and a continuous exercise of hope and charity, as Augustine puts it tersely. “God is to be worshipped,” he says, “by faith, hope and charity.”[44] In the sacred liturgy we profess the Catholic faith explicitly and openly, not only by the celebration of the mysteries, and by offering the holy sacrifice and administering the sacraments, but also by saying or singing the credo or Symbol of the faith - it is indeed the sign and badge, as it were, of the Christian - along with other texts, and likewise by the reading of holy scripture, written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The entire liturgy, therefore, has the Catholic faith for its content, inasmuch as it bears public witness to the faith of the Church.

I don’t understand this very well. I read it as P12 pushing back against so-called Liturgical Movement of 1st half of 20th century. But, those guys carried the day at VII. Unclear.

…for examples, read carefully at least the first 4 Eucharistic prayers and see what they actually say about our beliefs

Right. Thus, many people aren’t thrilled about, e.g., EP II, which isn’t explicit or clear about the central action of the Mass: making the sacrifice of Calvary really present.

They worry, justifiably I think, that if that’s how we pray, then that’s how we’ll understand Catholicism; we’ll end up with an impoverished understanding of the Mass. Doubt it? Try quizzing some OF folk about what’s actually happening at Mass.

ASD​

CCC 1124 or Mediator Dei?

 

[Aramis]

The latin as used supports both interpretations. Latin is nasty-full of double-related meanings.

 

[Lazerlike42]

They worry, justifiably I think, that if that’s how we pray, then that’s how we’ll understand Catholicism; we’ll end up with an impoverished understanding of the Mass. Doubt it? Try quizzing some OF folk about what’s actually happening at Mass.

This is true to some degree, but I really don’t think that the Ordinary Form is to blame for this. I am no fan of Eucharistic Prayer II, of course, but I believe there is more to it than simply this. For example, Father Cipriano Vagaggini, a soundly orthodox priest, writing before the revision of the Liturgy made the same sort of statement about the EF as you have just made about the OF:

The disordered insistence upon the idea of the offering of the oblata obscures the idea that what we offer above all in the Mass is Christ our Lord himself, and ourselves with him. We lose sight of the fact that the real and primary offering of the Mass takes place after the institution with the Unde et memores. I do not say that there is no such idea in the canon; on the contrary, it is an underlying one throughout, but it is given no prominence and is therefore not easily seen, notwithstanding its primary importance. Convincing proof of this lies in the well-known fact that our people have sadly lost the essential idea of the offertory.

• Father Cipriano Vagaggini, “The Canon of the Mass and Liturgical Reform"

Personally, I prefer the fourth Eucharistic prayer, which in my mind expresses the idea of the sacrificial nature of the Mass better than the Roman Canon.

In any case, just some musings.

 

[japhy]

Mediator Dei 46-47 must be read with 48 as well:
46. On this subject We judge it Our duty to rectify an attitude with which you are doubtless familiar, Venerable Brethren. We refer to the error and fallacious reasoning of those who have claimed that the sacred liturgy is a kind of proving ground for the truths to be held of faith, meaning by this that the Church is obliged to declare such a doctrine sound when it is found to have produced fruits of piety and sanctity through the sacred rites of the liturgy, and to reject it otherwise. Hence the epigram, “Lex orandi, lex credendi” - the law for prayer is the law for faith.

1. But this is not what the Church teaches and enjoins. The worship she offers to God, all good and great, is a continuous profession of Catholic faith and a continuous exercise of hope and charity, as Augustine puts it tersely. “God is to be worshipped,” he says, “by faith, hope and charity.” In the sacred liturgy we profess the Catholic faith explicitly and openly, not only by the celebration of the mysteries, and by offering the holy sacrifice and administering the sacraments, but also by saying or singing the credo or Symbol of the faith - it is indeed the sign and badge, as it were, of the Christian - along with other texts, and likewise by the reading of holy scripture, written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The entire liturgy, therefore, has the Catholic faith for its content, inasmuch as it bears public witness to the faith of the Church.
2. For this reason, whenever there was question of defining a truth revealed by God, the Sovereign Pontiff and the Councils in their recourse to the “theological sources,” as they are called, have not seldom drawn many an argument from this sacred science of the liturgy. For an example in point, Our predecessor of immortal memory, Pius IX, so argued when he proclaimed the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. Similarly during the discussion of a doubtful or controversial truth, the Church and the Holy Fathers have not failed to look to the age-old and age-honored sacred rites for enlightenment. Hence the well-known and venerable maxim, “Legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi” - let the rule for prayer determine the rule of belief.

The sacred liturgy, consequently, does not decide or determine independently and of itself what is of Catholic faith. More properly, since the liturgy is also a profession of eternal truths, and subject, as such, to the supreme teaching authority of the Church, it can supply proofs and testimony, quite clearly, of no little value, towards the determination of a particular point of Christian doctrine. But if one desires to differentiate and describe the relationship between faith and the sacred liturgy in absolute and general terms, it is perfectly correct to say, “Lex credendi legem statuat supplicandi” - let the rule of belief determine the rule of prayer. The same holds true for the other theological virtues also, “In . . . fide, spe, caritate continuato desiderio semper oramus” - we pray always, with constant yearning in faith, hope and charity.
I guess the error that Pope Pius XII was getting at is that error by which one assumes the liturgy is the sole determiner of the faith?

 

[japhy]

The disordered insistence upon the idea of the offering of the oblata obscures the idea that what we offer above all in the Mass is Christ our Lord himself, and ourselves with him. We lose sight of the fact that the real and primary offering of the Mass takes place after the institution with the Unde et memores. I do not say that there is no such idea in the canon; on the contrary, it is an underlying one throughout, but it is given no prominence and is therefore not easily seen, notwithstanding its primary importance. Convincing proof of this lies in the well-known fact that our people have sadly lost the essential idea of the offertory.

• Father Cipriano Vagaggini, “The Canon of the Mass and Liturgical Reform"

The Roman Canon (and the offertory prayers of the E.F. of the Mass) have a goodly amount of anticipatory language: the bread and wine are spoken of in glowing terms (“spotless host”, “chalice of salvation”) before the consecration. But just because the primary offering of the Mass is after the consecration, that does not mean we aren’t offering anything else. The text of the Mass should make it clear that we (through the priest) are offering the bread and wine to God so that He will return it to us as the Eucharist so that the priest can then offer it to him. And what is more, we are offering ourselves to Him symbolically by that bread and wine, and then offering ourselves to Him with the Eucharist.

The Latin text makes this clear, I believe. The current English translation does not always. For instance, when the priest says “Pray, brethren, that our sacrifice may be acceptable…”, he should be saying “Pray, brethren that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable…” This would highlight the distinction between what the priest offers in his hands and what we offer mystically of ourselves.

 

[benedictgal]

The Latin text makes this clear, I believe. The current English translation does not always. For instance, when the priest says “Pray, brethren, that our sacrifice may be acceptable…”, he should be saying “Pray, brethren that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable…” This would highlight the distinction between what the priest offers in his hands and what we offer mystically of ourselves.

That is why my PV says the prayer in this manner, as well. In fact, that is how it appears in Spanish.

 

[Lazerlike42]

The Roman Canon (and the offertory prayers of the E.F. of the Mass) have a goodly amount of anticipatory language: the bread and wine are spoken of in glowing terms (“spotless host”, “chalice of salvation”) before the consecration. But just because the primary offering of the Mass is after the consecration, that does not mean we aren’t offering anything else. The text of the Mass should make it clear that we (through the priest) are offering the bread and wine to God so that He will return it to us as the Eucharist so that the priest can then offer it to him. And what is more, we are offering ourselves to Him symbolically by that bread and wine, and then offering ourselves to Him with the Eucharist.

The Latin text makes this clear, I believe. The current English translation does not always. For instance, when the priest says “Pray, brethren, that our sacrifice may be acceptable…”, he should be saying “Pray, brethren that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable…” This would highlight the distinction between what the priest offers in his hands and what we offer mystically of ourselves.

Fr. Vagaggini’s point, which I personally held as my opinion long before I ever read what he had to say on the subject, is that the particular way that the Offertory in the Extraordinary Form (which was, of course, the only form at the time of his writing) makes use of these anticipatory prayers could be obscure to the congregation the idea of just what the primary offering was: the true body and blood of Christ. We’re talking in this thread here about the fact that as we pray, so we believe, which is really his point.

The Roman Canon along with the EF Offertory has 12 of these anticipatory references to the sacrifice, and in fact some of them use language that seems to indicate that the primary offering is just the bread and wine which is on the altar, and then after the consecration there are only 4 references to the sacrifice, and so 75% of the sacrificial language in it is anticipatory. I understand your point that we, as the congregation, are offering the bread and wine to God, and it’s actually one thing I like about the Ordinary Form over the EF: I believe that it more clearly makes clear the fact that we offer God the bread and wine, and that then the priest offers God the true Body and Blood of Christ. (For the record, I like many things about the EF over the OF, as well)

Now I really don’t want to debate this particular point. It’s certainly a worthwhile discussion, but it’s not the point right now. I’m just clarifying what Fr. Vagaggini was talking about. More importantl is Fr. Vagaggini’s point that it was considered well-known in the 60s that the faithful didn’t grasp what the offertory was about. I brought it up because it goes to the “we believe what we pray” idea. It was well known (he wrote) that prior to Vatican II, the faithful lost this idea, and he in his writing was presenting as one of the reasons for this the 75% discrepency I mentioned (although he didn’t put it in purely quantified terms like that - and for good reason, as numbers can be misleading; I express it this way merely to help illustrate the point).

 

[ASD]

This is true to some degree, but I really don’t think that the Ordinary Form is to blame for this…For example, Father Cipriano Vagaggini, a soundly orthodox priest, writing before the revision of the Liturgy made the same sort of statement about the EF as you have just made about the OF:

The disordered insistence upon the idea of the offering of the oblata…people have sadly lost the essential idea of the offertory

Fair point: Some things about TLM/EF, like placement of Offertory, can be confusing, too. I’m familiar with some old criticisms of Offertory by the Liturgical Movement. But, obviously, that issue wasn’t solved by liturgical changes; as I’m sure you’re aware, that critique applies equally to NO/OF now.

So, it seems to go something like this:

1. Liturgical Movement pointed out that people didn’t understand everything about the Mass.
2. So, we appointed a committee to simplify and streamline it. While they were at it, they muted some stuff that bugs Protestants.
3. Now here we are 40 years later and people don’t understand everything (much of anything?) about the Mass.
4. So, what do we do this time?

Well, if we’re honest, I think we’ll admit that the “fix it” approach to liturgy seems to have been a complete failure, on its own terms.

Specifically, I can’t see that vernacular, versus populum, pop music, etc, have increased real participation or understanding at all. Obviously, that’s an empirical claim. But, hey, the changes weren’t my idea. I think the men who forced them on us should be accountable, they should face a reckoning. Why shouldn’t we demand: OK, you said you were doing this for our sake, to accomplish X, Y and Z. So, how did it go? What do you have to show for yourself?

Personally, I prefer the fourth Eucharistic prayer, which in my mind expresses the idea of the sacrificial nature of the Mass better than the Roman Canon.

I just read through it, but I’m not sure what you mean?

ASD​

Traditional Latin Mass: Translation and Grammar

 

[Lazerlike42]

Fair point: Some things about TLM/EF, like placement of Offertory, can be confusing…

Well, I agree with you in part. On the other hand, I also think that many of the problems you’ve pointed out have had more to with abuse and poor implementation of the reform than the reform itself.

I agree as regards the versus populum. If I were to pick one aspect of the reform that I think has actually caused the most harm, it would be allowing the option of this. Actually, I think that the idea was good insofar as some parts of the Mass are concerned; the problem is they extended it to the entire thing. Reading the Epistle, for example, ad orientem, makes simply no sense to me, and in all the many conversations with TLM fans I haven’t been able to get any good explanation for doing so. In fact, I’ve even had some of the more “radical traditionalists” agree that it’s pretty silly, which says something. On the other hand, once you hit the Liturgy of the Eucharist, the priest ought to be celebrating ad orientem.

Pop music is, as I see it, more of an abuse. Admittedly, the language that some of the Conciliar and post-Conciliar documents used has been ambiguous regarding music and seems to allow a very broad choice. I think that the problem is that it’s very hard to speak about something like musical styles without either being too rigid or ambiguous. In other words, I think there was something they were trying to do with allowing more varied sorts of music, but they couldn’t find a way to put this into writing that didn’t open the way to some of the music we have today. That being said, specific things like Gregorian chant having pride of place, and polyphony and the organ being most appropriate as well, have been ignored. The idea was to allow different sorts of music in unique situations requiring it for pastoral reasons; that idea hasn’t been followed.

Now, the key point: I am of the opinion that these things actually have increased understanding insofar as they have been properly done. In other words, where the Ordinary Form has been celebrated even somewhat properly and somewhat well and in the hands of orthodox clergy, it’s led to greater understanding. As a Protestant convert, I have a particular appreciation for this. The fact that the Mass is available in the vernacular has allowed me to find the Church. If it were all in Latin, I would never have been open enough to consider the Church. I know that sitting in Mass and listening to all the language and hearing the theology of it and all of the Scripture in the various parts of it played a major role in Scott Hahn’s conversion as well.

To this people often say either that people should not make their decisions about the truth based on things like that, or that conversion is by Grace and God would have done it even apart from the English, but the way I see it is that the English was by the Grace of God. Christ is about reaching out to man and eliminating the barriers… that’s one of the reasons many saints have said He became man: so that we could relate to Him. He could have done it some other way, but part of the Grace of God was in becoming like us so we could feel more comfortable approaching Him. I see the vernacular in the Mass as yet another extension of the Incarnation - His walking past the barriers, whether the barriers were real or not, and even if the barriers were of our own making (for example, one’s not being open to the Church due to Latin).

That’s really part of a more general belief I have. It’s an entirely different discussion, but I believe that apart from the reform and other aspects of Vatican II, things would have gotten far worse than they did. I think that we would see even lesser attendance, for example, than we do now. I have well thought out reasons for all of this I won’t get into here, but basically it comes down to the fact that in the 50 years before the Council, the world changed more than in the 500, or maybe even 1,000 before that. In the past, the Church - without compromise - adjusted to changes in the world, but the changes were smaller and the adjustments were smaller and slower. In the 20th century, the changes were greater and faster, and so the adjustments were as well. My belief is that the Holy Spirit did not abandon the Church, and that the Holy Spirit did guide Her and lead Her in the Council to doing things that helped to keep Her safe from many of the cultural, technological, political, and other sorts of shifts that happened in the past 40 years.

I just read through it, but I’m not sure what you mean?

What I mean is that Eucharistic Prayer IV, in my opinion, very nicely spells out what is going on in the Mass, and I think it does a better job than the Roman Canon. It begins with a very nice history of mankind - that he was created by God, that he sinned, that God did not abandon him, etc. It has some of the same anticipatory language that the Roman Canon does, making clear before the Consecration that what we are doing here is we are going to offer God a sacrifice, but it doesn’t have some of the confusing statements like the Roman Canon does, which can be misunderstood to say that the offering we’re making to God is only the unconsecrated bread and wine. Then, after the Consecration, it very explicitly expresses that we are offering to God the Body and Blood of Christ as a sacrifice, and it explicitly mentions that the Sacrifice is being offered for the dead, etc. The Roman Canon does this too, but some of the allegedly “excessive” - in some’s opinions - anticipatory language, the criticisms of which you seem to be familiar, in my opinion detracts from this… it muddies the water. I just think EP 4 does a very good job expressing the Sacrificial stuff that the Roman Canon does, but without the potentially confusing parts.

 

[FrDavid96]

I’m new here & hoping you can help. I am a student in the Lay Pastoral Ministry Program. I missed part of a class a couple of weeks ago where lex orandi lex creandi was explained. I read others notes, but don’t get it. I understand that the law of prayer leads to the law of belief, but what does that mean & how do I figure it out. He said he will give us prayers from the Sacramentary on our mid-term & we have to pick out the lex orandi lex creani. Can someone please help me? (Note: my classmate’s notes didn’t help)

By the way, if you don’t mind, I’m sure that more than a few of us here are curious to know which texts your prof. chooses.

 

[ASD]

Reading the Epistle, for example, ad orientem, makes simply no sense to me, and in all the many conversations with TLM fans I haven’t been able to get any good explanation for doing so. In fact, I’ve even had some of the more “radical traditionalists” agree that it’s pretty silly, which says something.

We’ve gone pretty far afield, for which I apologize. But I really want to step into the breach on this point.

Reading Epistle and Gospel ad orientam is perfectly appropriate, and it does make sense, if one keeps in mind what’s going on. Whenever a question like this comes up, we should recall that it’s all about the altar of sacrifice, not a Bible preacher’s pulpit. (Don’t get me wrong. I dig good Bible preaching in appropriate context.)

I think the old idea was that all the propers, Introit, Collect, Gradual, etc, as well as the Epistle and Gospel, were like incense at the altar: Beautiful old prayers going up from the altar to God.

Viewed that way, nobody ever imagined it would make sense for a Priest engaged in a sacrifice at the altar to stop in the middle of what he’s doing, turn around, step forward and conduct a little Bible study session. If one is thinking in terms of sacrificial altar rather than pulpit, then that seems, well, silly. (I reiterate: I’m as interested in Bible study as any Catholic you’ll meet; but I don’t think the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is a good time for it. FWIW, I posted some related snark the other day.)

Here’s the devastating point: in NO/OF, the pulpit, the Liturgy of the Word (LOW), a little Bible study session, seldom of especially high quality but easy to absorb passively, makes people forget that it’s about the sacrificial altar. That’s a terrible loss. And, to be frank, I can’t see that we got much in return; most Catholics are still pretty ignorant of Bible. So, again, NO/OF changes failed, on their own terms.

Now, back to the topic . . …

ASD​

Traditional Latin Mass: Translation and Grammar