What exactly does Novus Ordo mean? I assume ordo stands for order. Also why does it seem to bring out such negative responses from people?
The word
novus means “new”. Hence, the English words “novelty” and “novice”, among others.
The phrase
novus ordo means “[a] new order”. It’s out of context, honestly. The part of the Mass that is the same day-to-day is called the “ordinary” or the “order of Mass”; in Latin, that’s the
ordo missae. In 1969, the order of the Mass was reformed in such a way that it really was a
new order of the Mass: things got moved around, removed, shortened, replaced, added, etc. The new Order of the Mass doesn’t look like the old Order of the Mass the way the 1962 liturgy resembled the 1951 liturgy or the 1850 liturgy or the 1750 liturgy or the 1650 liturgy, etc.
The 1969 Order of the Mass truly is a
new Order of the Mass.
But the phrase “new order” is a loaded phrase. “New World Order” comes to many people’s minds.
Pertaining to the EF Mass what is wrong with calling it the TLM? Until recently I have heard or seen it referred to as the TLM and now more and more the EF.
There’s nothing
wrong about calling the E.F. the “Traditional Latin Mass”, since that is very much what it is. It’s just that there’s no similarly-named non-polemical way of speaking of the revised Mass. People don’t call it the “Innovative Vernacular Mass” or the “Revised Latin-or-Vernacular Mass”, etc.
The names “Ordinary Form” and “Extraordinary Form” are relatively neutral and are not misleading. The Ordinary Form
can be celebrated in Latin. Vatican II expected the reformed liturgy to be prayed mostly in Latin.
It would be much nicer if posters instead of jumping all over people who use terms/words they dislike would in a Christian manner explain what is wrong with the use and if it is the incorrect usage to explain why it is.
I hope I wasn’t perceived as rude. All the smileys were meant to avoid that exact problem.