Very well put Lazlo, but I still find the argument that the Church changed just to keep up with societal change to be empty. From what i gleaned from the linked documents was that a few progressive thinking Priests pushed their ideology of the evolution of the Mass on the entire Church. . . .
I wish I had the opportunity to attend St. John Cantius. A wonderful example of how to do the Mass correctly in both forms.
I went to St. John Cantius for Law Mass last night. It was extremely pre-Conciliar: readings in Latin and completely inaudible, readings not repeated in English, no homily. Most people seemed not to have brought missals, and I think the first words I actually hear in the Mass were 90% of the way through, when I was receiving Communion (“Corpus Domini nostri Iesu Christi custodiat . . .”). Portions of the Mass directed to be spoken versus populum, such as “Dominus vobiscum,” were inaudible except as a murmur and clearly said only to the servers. One had to watch the priest carefully to see when he genuflected in order to know where in the inaudible Credo we were commemorating the Incarnation that we were celebrating. The Our Father was, of course, also inaudible.
Now, it was definitely Mass, and it was reverently done, if somewhat mechanical. I don’t think I’d ever been to a Mass before with the homily and vernacular readings omitted. It was quite an real eye-opener into the experience of so many people before the Council. No wonder people are so fiercely attached to the Leonine Prayers (now suppressed, but illicitly done; and marking the first time of the night when I heard the celebrant’s voice) after Mass – they’re pretty much the only thing you would actually say or do. I thought of then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s words:
*t must be admitted that the celebration of the old liturgy had strayed too far into a private individualism, and that communication between priest and people was insufficient. I have great respect for our forefathers who at Low Mass said the “Prayers during Mass” contained in their prayer books, but certainly one cannot consider that as the ideal of liturgical celebration! Perhaps these
reductionist forms of celebration are the real reason that the disappearance of the old liturgical books was of
no importance in many countries and caused no sorrow. One was never in contact with the liturgy itself. On the other hand, in those places where the Liturgical Movement had created a certain love for the liturgy, where the Movement had anticipated the essential ideas of the Council, such as for example, the prayerful participation of all in the liturgical action, it was those places where there was all the more distress when confronted with a liturgical reform undertaken too hastily and often limited to externals.
The notion, sometimes conceived today, that the changes after the Council were forced by a handful of heretical dissidents onto an unwilling world is pretty much a fantasy. Today, many people’s only contact with the TLM is a high Mass with incense, asperges, Gregorian chant and a Palestrina motet, and a jovial yet stern homily. Or they watch a pontifical Mass on TV with four choirs and a cappa magna. Then they think, “How did we go from
that to
this?” Tough to conceive, I know. But I’ll tell you what, it’s a lot easier to conceive how we went from the type of Mass I saw last night to what we currently have.
Was it “a few progressive thinking Priests push[ing] their ideology”? Oddly enough, the most progressive priests of all tend to be the ones who were formed and ordained in, more or less, the fifteen years 1958-73. There are still
tons of them running around. The conspiracy-theory type view that “a few evil-minded men are secretly controlling the vast majority of what goes on around you” makes it easy to dismiss opposing ideas and to hope that a relatively small “purge” would effect a sea change, but it has to be dispelled. It is certainly not a view that the Holy Father – or, to name others, Archbishop LeFebvre – ever ascribed to.
It is generally a good idea to listen to, understand, and take the best ideas from each side in a debate. People refuse to do this when they are partisans, because it will be seen as a “loss” and a concession of their entire side. So people on one side say, “We must never permit even one pontifical Mass with cappa magna, because the next thing you know everyone else will be stuck at absolutely silent, stone-facedly joyless Low Masses that they don’t understand.” On the other side, people say, “It is inconceivable to permit the lessons to be given in the vernacular instead of Latin! You might as well put on your floppy shoes and big red nose right now, because the next thing you know it will be clown Masses all around.”
Needless to say, I heartily disagree with both of those views. So, I think, does the Holy Father, who slammed two distorted views equally:
The average Christian considers it essential for the renewed liturgy to be celebrated in the vernacular and facing the people; that there be a great deal of freedom for creativity; and that the laity exercise an active role therein. On the other hand, it is considered essential for a celebration according to the old rite to be in Latin, with the priest facing the altar, strictly and precisely according to the rubrics, and that the faithful follow the Mass in private prayer with no active role. From this viewpoint, a particular set of externals [phénoménologie] is seen as essential to this or that liturgy, rather than what the liturgy itself holds to be essential. We must hope for the day when the faithful will appreciate the liturgy on the basis of visible concrete forms, and become spiritually immersed in those forms; the faithful do not easily penetrate the depths of the liturgy.*
