TLM-Austere?

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goreyfan

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Question for anyone who attends the Latin Mass: Do you tend to find the Latin Mass… even High Mass…very austere and masculine, despite all the ceremonial and visual beauty?
 
What do you mean by masculine? The Mass has no gender. Do you mean that you don’t see altar girls and women doing readings, etc.? Thank God for that!
I find the TLM beautiful and reverent and completely genderless.
 
What I mean by masculine (despite the obvious lack of women around the altar) is that it has an economy of word and action and unsentimentality about it that we generally consider as masculine in western civilization.
 
The puppet show masses (a reference to an older thread), the homilies where the priest won’t stand for anything, the sappy music, the new agey art and architecture, and other aesthetical things like that can make men uncomfortable. Masses where the Eucharist is taken seriously- and is the focus of the Mass, where the music has lyrics that are more theological than emotional, and sacred art that looks dignified and concrete (not abstract), and where the homilies talk about tough stuff (every time- not just once in awhile).
 
No, that’s one reason that, thus far, I’ve prefered the Pauline Rite…I think that it is far more austere. I’ve never thought of the Mass in terms of “masculine.”
 
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goreyfan:
What I mean by masculine (despite the obvious lack of women around the altar) is that it has an economy of word and action and unsentimentality about it that we generally consider as masculine in western civilization.
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Do you READ the TLM Missal during the Mass?
It is GLORIOUS, BEAUTIFUL, and MUCH MUCH more ornate than any Novus Ordo!
The words are heavenly! in both English AND Latin!
(anyone who concurs - please add to thread!)
I have no idea what you are talking about.

Please explain or give example.
Thanks,
Angel
 
I find the NO when done correctly to be nice but also quite a bit “pic-nicky” kind of like the priest saying “hey everyone, lets go on a picnic and have communion after- I’ll even entertain you, I won’t mention anything TOO Catholic”. I could still pray @ a NO Mass but the spiritual connection between God and I is definitely not as strong as it is in the TLM since the priest is actually offering up the sacrifice to God towards the crucifix and not towards me. We’re all in it together, whether we’re kneeling in the pew, standing and offering the dacrifice as a priest, or assissting as an acolyte, we’re all at Calvary praying fervently below the Cross, and struck silent by the amazing thing happening before us.
 
It depends what you are comparing it to. I consider the Novus Ordo more “austere,” as in thread-bare and very concise and delibrate in its almost mechanical construction.

And yet, compared to Eastern liturgies, the Roman liturgy is considered very straight-foreward and trimmed, as it were. Even though both developed organically the Roman liturgy was pruned more, so to speak, while eastern liturgies were allowed to grow wild…which is fine. You start reading about some of the complexities of eastern ritual, and the lengthy, high sounding language of some Eastern prayers…its beautiful, but definitely more puffed-up than the streamlined Tridentine.
The puppet show masses (a reference to an older thread), the homilies where the priest won’t stand for anything, the sappy music, the new agey art and architecture, and other aesthetical things like that can make men uncomfortable. Masses where the Eucharist is taken seriously- and is the focus of the Mass, where the music has lyrics that are more theological than emotional, and sacred art that looks dignified and concrete (not abstract), and where the homilies talk about tough stuff (every time- not just once in awhile).
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I had never thought of it that way…but I guess that’s true! Although men “leaving church to the women” has been a problem for centuries, and is not just a result of the Novus Ordo, I think your analysis of how much more “masculine” the Tridentine mass is, is brilliant. Real food for thought.
 
Do you READ the TLM Missal during the Mass?
It is GLORIOUS, BEAUTIFUL, and MUCH MUCH more ornate than any Novus Ordo!
The words are heavenly! in both English AND Latin!
(anyone who concurs - please add to thread!)
I have no idea what you are talking about.
Click to expand...
Sometimes…other times I just know what is happening, generally, and let the beautiful Latin wash over me (w/o running it through the translator in my head that is growing more adept the more I study Latin…I can usually figure out what the Gospel reading is for the day from the Latin!).

I like SOME of the celebrations of the NO (esp. Papal Mass), but these are so dependent on the priest being reverent…reverence is not built into the rite in the way that it is inherent in the TLM.
 
I just found out that I could watch EWTN on the computer. I just watched Benediction. I cried my heart out. I was an altar boy before VII. Masculine? How? The good sisters were the choir. Reverent? Such reverence I have not seen in years and I am a member of a cathedral parish and sang in the cathedral choir for 18 years. Reverent is the word, not austere.
 
Servus Pio XII:
Sometimes…other times I just know what is happening, generally, and let the beautiful Latin wash over me (w/o running it through the translator in my head that is growing more adept the more I study Latin…I can usually figure out what the Gospel reading is for the day from the Latin!).

I like SOME of the celebrations of the NO (esp. Papal Mass), but these are so dependent on the priest being reverent…reverence is not built into the rite in the way that it is inherent in the TLM.
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I respectfully disagree that reverence is built into any rite. While priests may not dress up in clown costumes for a TLM Mass there are other forms of abuse.
 
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