Summorum Pontificum Opinion

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That wouldn’t be very important to me, really. I’m just there for the Body and Blood of Christ. 🤷‍♂️
 
CradleRC58 said:
Why this " we don’t need the TLM in order to have reverent Masses" ? That is true, but why the need mention it repeatedly ?
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I can’t remember the last time I saw a statement like that out of the blue - I normally only see it in response to something along the lines of “The TLM is inherently more reverent”.
 
CapitalistCatholic said:
That wouldn’t be very important to me, really. I’m just there for the Body and Blood of Christ.
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To each their own, I like to hear what’s going on, even in Latin if need be, as I have a rudimentary understanding of it.

Edit: I’ll also add that none of the 20-25 minute weekday Masses I’ve ever been to were “speed read”. They were recited at a normal (and audible and understandable) pace. I’ve heard from more than one person who went to the EF Mass, that it would be sped through. My spiritual adviser, a Benedictine monk (80 y.o.) said that when he was young, he would chant the responses and the priest would read through the Mass as he did so as was the case in the day. He’d be finishing the chanting of the Sanctus and the priest had already finished the Consecration.

If that isn’t a “liturgical abuse”, I don’t know what is…
 
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sj1611 said:
One thing I don’t like about the EF is that I have to read (rather than hear) and guess where the priest is up to. I often find myself thinking “What? We’re already up to the Sanctus?”
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The priest isn’t addressing you at those moments. He’s addressing God. Why would you be upset (can’t think of a better word) if you couldn’t hear something that wasn’t being addressed to you.
 
I know that the priest is addressing God. My point is that I want to join with him in those prayers. The prayers are so beautiful and transformative - I want to pray them too. I can do that myself reading the missal, but I want to do it with him. Otherwise I may as well sit outside and pray from the missal.
 
No, not audibly, obviously. I want to offer the prayers in union with the priest, silently but intentionally. Why else have a missal at all? Am I to be a mere spectator watching someone pray on my behalf?
 
Well, you can certainly follow along in the Missal if you would like, but another way we can pray the mass is by offering yourself and your intentions to God in union with the priest offering the sacrifice. In fact, this is what’s understood to be active participation in the Liturgy.
 
I suppose being so used to liturgy in the vernacular has accustomed me to wanting more specificity with respect to the priest’s particular prayers. It’s a matter of personal preference, but that is why I persist with the missal.

Still, I’ve only been attending the EF for about a month now, and already I’ve become much better at following where the liturgy is up to. No doubt that will continue as I become more familiar with it.

I prefer the EF overall for many reasons, which it would take too long to list. The disadvantage I mentioned is the only drawback from my perspective. Clearly though, it’s not a “deal breaker”.
 
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ioannes_pius said:
In fact, this is what’s understood to be active participation in the Liturgy.
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Sacrosanctum Concilium doesn’t appear to agree (or agree that this was adequate active participation).
  1. Mother Church earnestly desires that all the faithful should be led to that fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations which is demanded by the very nature of the liturgy. Such participation by the Christian people as "a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a redeemed people (1 Pet. 2:9; cf. 2:4-5), is their right and duty by reason of their baptism.
In the restoration and promotion of the sacred liturgy, this full and active participation by all the people is the aim to be considered before all else; for it is the primary and indispensable source from which the faithful are to derive the true Christian spirit; and therefore pastors of souls must zealously strive to achieve it, by means of the necessary instruction, in all their pastoral work.
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27. It is to be stressed that whenever rites, according to their specific nature, make provision for communal celebration involving the presence and active participation of the faithful, this way of celebrating them is to be preferred, so far as possible, to a celebration that is individual and quasi-private.
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30. To promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes. And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence.
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My bold. Clearly the mind of the Church is no longer the type of “active” participation (which sounds rather passive to me…) that you describe.

The EF continues to exist for those who prefer silent participation, but the OF was designed around the collective mind of the bishops at the Second Vatican Council that the laity should actively participate in song, responses, etc., and that requires that the laity be able to hear the Mass in order to know when to respond!
 
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Yes, that is granted. I was speaking about the Latin mass.
OraLabora said:
which sounds rather passive to me…
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I beg to differ. I don’t see how it’s possible to passively offer oneself and one’s intentions to God in union with the priest.
 
ioannes_pius said:
I beg to differ. I don’t see how it’s possible to passively offer oneself and one’s intentions to God in union with the priest.
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I can agree that it is participation, but I guess we have a different notion of what “active” consists of. Having the priest do the heavy lifting, and associating ourselves to his prayer, does sound rather passive to me.

Active participation to my mind means we actually do something in the liturgy, not just associate ourselves to it.

I can choose to get from point A to point B by driving myself to my destination. Or I can take a taxi. In the first case, I am actively driving the car. In the second, I am sitting passively as a passenger. In both cases I am participating in my travel to the destination. But in one case, beyond hailing the taxi, I am a passenger along for the ride and relying on the driver to take me to my destination.

Both are participation, and both are valid means of arriving at my destination, but in the first case I am taking an active role in reaching my destination safely, and in the second case, I am putting my trust in someone else to do it for me.

Both are valid means of arriving at my destination. Some prefer to drive themselves (I am like that), some prefer to be driven.

The Church, wisely, makes both means available to us. But she clearly favours, in modern times, the active approach, without invalidating the passive one.
 
Once again, I fail to see how offering the Divine Victim in union with the priest as was as offering oneself to God is passive, given that this is exactly what is described as ‘active participation’ in Fr. Stedman’s “My Sunday Missal.” But to each his own, I suppose.
 
CradleRC58 said:
It’s a rare occasion that a weekday OF Mass exceeds 20 minutes at any parish where I live.
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Interesting.

Where I live only weekday Communion Service (presided by a deacon) clocks in around 20 minutes. Regular weekday Masses (with no music) are usually about 30 minutes long, sometimes longer or maybe a little bit shorter (25 minutes) depending on the length of the homily. At my home parish, the priests homilies for weekday Masses are usually about 10 minutes long, sometimes longer and the weekday Masses are usually about 35 minutes long. The weekday Mass at other nearby parishes are usually about five minuter shorter because the their priests usually have shorter homilies during a weekday Mass.
 
I disagree. And so to, it appears, did the Church Fathers at the Council, otherwise they wouldn’t have written what they did in Sacrosanctum Concilium.

Fr. Stedman is entitled to his opinion, as are you and I.

Let’s just leave it at “we disagree”. Or perhaps we can agree that the OF allows a fuller participation in the liturgy.
 
You still haven’t really explained how offering yourself to God is passive, but sure. I guess we can agree to disagree.
 
CilladeRoma said:
Most of the people I know who attend the EF exclusively are younger, (20’s &30’s)who never experienced it as the ordinary form Mass but now see it as some type of panacea against modernism.
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Personally as a man in his 20s I just prefer it because the Holy Mass has 1) more chanting from the priest, 2) the responses are chanted which is hard to find in my local area, 3) Gregorian chant, 4) Ad-orientem posture and greater emphasis on outward, aesthetic liturgical beauty.

You’re right, there are some who think that, but I think most people who go to the Extraordinary High Mass are in my camp.
 
But I like how Pope Francis has said that there will be no reform of the reform.
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The Holy Mass has been reformed hundreds of times in the past 2000 years and it will be again - even if it’s the most minute of changes. To think otherwise is insane. Pope Francis aint gonna be Pope forever.
 
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Yes, there have been many amendments to the mass over the centuries, but none really to the extent that happened with Paul VIs Novus Ordo Missae. That’s why many trads have qualms with it.
 
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