LOL! You don’t know some of us very well at all! That’s an extraordinary statement. You’ve no idea why some of us are attached to the Pauline Rite. AND the last paragraph does nothing at all to dissuade anyone that many TLM adherants are not elitist, not to mention arrogant. Anyone who wanted to know what the TLM was like in English would simply have to read it from the translation. I think it’s quite lovely.
And the Mass of Paul VI is very “Eucharistic centered.”
I want to start out by saying I do enjoy reading your posts and find you one of the few people attached to the Novus Ordo that is not against the Tridentine Mass. While you have your preference for the Novus Ordo, you aren’t someone who wants to force those who love the Tridentine Mass to attend the Novus Ordo. You also don’t look on all of us who love the Tridentine Mass as schismatic.
Now, having said that, I will take exception with two of your statements. The first is calling me elitist and arrogant. I understand you are a convert to Catholicism, which may be the reason you read the statement about those attached to the Novus Ordo have a problem with the theology behind the Mass.
Let’s take a look at some of the differences between the Novus Ordo and Tridentine Masses:
Tridentine Mass begins with prayers at the foot of the altar. The priest recites the confeitor
before ascending to the altar.
The Novus Ordo begins with the priest at the sedelia. The priest doesn’t need to be at the altar because the Novus Ordo separates the “Liturgy of the Word” from the “Liturgy of the Eucharist” which diminshes the sacrificial nature of the Mass.
The Tridentine Mass has specific rubrics to signify the life of Christ on earth. The center of the altar represents Jerusalem, where Christ was sacrificed. The priest, facing east, ascends to the center of the altar and kisses it. He then moves to the south to read the introit, which is the first prayer that changes in the Mass. He moves south because Bethlehem, where Christ was born, is south of Jerusalem. The priest faces east when he reads the prayer. The reason the priest moves south for the first changeable prayer is because it signifies the beginning of the Mass of the day. It is a the “birth” of a new Mass, just as Christ was born in Bethlehem.
The priest returns to the center for the
Kyrie and
Gloria. Christ gave glory to the Father and poured out his mercy for us in Jerusalem, which is why the priest returns to the center.
The priest the reads the collect and epistle at the south end of the altar, again to signify the birth of Christ. The collect is just as it sounds, the priest offering the prayer for the people to the Father. The epistle is a reading from the Old or New Testament which compliments the Gospel reading of the day.
When the priest finishes the epistle, he returns to the center to say the
munda cor, which he asks God to “purify his lips to proclaim the Gospel.” This corresponds again to Christ’s sacrifice on the cross in Jerusalem to purify us from our sins.
The priest then moves north to proclaim the Gospel. The reason for this is because Nazareth, where Jesus lived for the first 30 years of His life, is north of Jerusalem. Jesus began his mission to preach the Gospel from Nazareth, which is why the priest reads the Gospel at the north end of the altar.
All of this was eliminated from the Novus Ordo Mass. The priest doesn’t even read the epistle readings. The Gospel is read from the ambo, as well as the epistle readings and the repsonsorial psalm. The priest hasn’t even approached the altar at this point in the Novus Ordo Mass.
Continued in the next post.
