Vatican II liturgical reform ‘irreversible,’ pope says

[JimR-OCDS]

1. The rite of the Mass is to be revised in such a way that the intrinsic nature and purpose of its several parts, as also the connection between them, may be more clearly manifested, and that devout and active participation by the faithful may be more easily achieved.

For this purpose the rites are to be simplified, due care being taken to preserve their substance; elements which, with the passage of time, came to be duplicated, or were added with but little advantage, are now to be discarded; other elements which have suffered injury through accidents of history are now to be restored to the vigor which they had in the days of the holy Fathers, as may seem useful or necessary.

vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html

Jim

 

[edwest2]

The people who followed the missal, said the responses silently to themselves.

Many didn’t follow the missal as the priests and altar boys said the prayers so fast many couldn’t keep up anyway.

Keep in mind there weren’t always a PA systems with a microphone on the altar.

Usually the only mic was at the podium for the Gospel and homely.

Jim

That is not factual.

Ed

 

[JimR-OCDS]

That is not factual.

Ed

It’s the way it was, as I was there and went to several different parishes.

The people did not vocally respond, but silently.

The priest and altar boys said the Mass with their back to the people, i.e. Ad Orientem.

There were no microphones other than at the podium and you heard mostly the priest mumble the words and the altar boys mumbe the responses.

Even the Credo was said between them and silently by the people who may be following in the missal.

BTW, I found my old missal when I was cleaning out my house.

My niece asked if she could have it, so I gave it to her.

Jim

 

[ProVobis]

One wonders what happens when diplomats make such mistakes. Kim Jong Un and Donald Trump take note…

The book “Fail Safe” points this out as well. Despite getting the best translator available, one who had the nuances and definitions and inflections spot on, war couldn’t be avoided between the U.S. and Russia.

The Tower of Babel is alive and well.

Even with something as benign as “Dominus vobiscum” can lead one to a different theology. It’s translated as “The Lord BE with you” in the Mass but translated as “The Lord IS with you” in the Hail Mary. Seems like the Lord IS indeed with us always so why the subjunctive is probably known only to the original translator(s). Most likely this was an Anglican translation which seemed to have stuck in the minds of missal writers and the ICEL. (The Polish translation “Pan z mawi” is more literal.)

 

[ProVobis]

The NO is closer to the early Christian Church than the TLM was.

Supposedly many if not most early Church liturgies were celebrated in the catacombs.

 

[Samuel_Mary]

It’s the way it was, as I was there and went to several different parishes.

The people did not vocally respond, but silently.

The priest and altar boys said the Mass with their back to the people, i.e. Ad Orientem.

There were no microphones other than at the podium and you heard mostly the priest mumble the words and the altar boys mumbe the responses.

Even the Credo was said between them and silently by the people who may be following in the missal.

BTW, I found my old missal when I was cleaning out my house.

My niece asked if she could have it, so I gave it to her.

Jim

Yes this is exactly how it is at the Tridentine Low Masses in my area today. It’s essentially a contemplative rather than a community experience, and there isn’t really anything didactic there - epistle and gospel are only read un-amplified in Latin and there’s no homily at the weekday ones.

I like it just as an ‘extra’ in my worship life - much like going to Benediction or Adoration. It’s contemplative and watching a miracle take place on the altar in reverent silence which can be a wonderful way to spend half an hour on the way back from work (a nearby church does Wednesdays and Fridays at 6pm)

HOWEVER I can absolutely see how this would be problematic if it were the main Sunday liturgical experience of most of the world’s Catholics and can totally appreciate the deep need for liturgical reform from that point in history.

The Latin Ordinary Form Mass I attend at the local Oratory, doesn’t have pose these problems and allows for a level of conscious and active participation much more in line with Vatican II (though it has still way more Latin than I’d propose for a universal norm)

 

[billy15]

I think this is an extremely narrow view of what active participation is. It has reduced the act of “participating” to responses in the vernacular. This view also makes it seem like people aren’t intelligent enough to understand Latin

Of course it’s not your view alone, but I think you are mischaracterizing the views of the council Fathers. Your narrow view on “participatio actuosa” is not called for, or shared by, what is written in the documents of the Second Vatican Council.

Jim:

From Sacrosanctum Concilium 14, II. The Promotion of Liturgical Instruction and Active Participation…

Even very intelligent people still have to go through gymnastics understanding Latin.

Then there are people who do not have the intellectual capacity to do it at all. There are more than you think.

I totally agree with the selection you’ve posted from SC; but I have to ask, are you truly understanding what “active participation” is? Are you reducing it to the lowest common denominator, that is, external actions and responses? Could it be that the interior disposition is the main component for this active participation, this participatio actuosa?

Also, if many don’t have the intellectual capacity for saying certain parts of the Mass in Latin like the Sanctus, Agnus Dei, or Our Father, as you claim, then our culture is doomed. Happily, I’m not as pessimistic as you are, though! There are many more people than you think who have the capacity to learn a smattering of Latin, as the Council instructed be done. Whether they are willing to, or have some sort of resistance to even try to do so, is another story.

Jim:

Also from Sacrosanctum Concilium;

“34. The rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity; they should be short, clear, and unencumbered by useless repetitions; they should be within the people’s powers of comprehension, and normally should not require much explanation.”

The TLM was failing in so many ways before Vatican II, that it prompted Pope John XXIII to call for the reforms.

Again, Pope Francis calls us to look at the reasons for the reforms.

I absolutely agree with you on your last sentence. But here come the ridiculous charges of the EF not reflecting “noble simplicity” or being outside the people’s powers of comprehension. If the EF was such a failure and was so outside people’s powers of comprehension, then how in the heck was the faith passed on for centuries, and how the heck did my grandparents pass the faith on to my parents and myself… successfully?!

How much explanation does it really take to have the faithful say three or four parts of the Mass in Latin? It’s made to seem as if it’s an impossible task to even implement.

Now, I’m not denying that some reforms had to happen, but the inorganic changes that occurred in the liturgy have had deleterious effects on the faithful, both lay and clergy. Before he became pope, Benedict XVI wrote in the preface to this book:

We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it — as in a manufacturing process — with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product.

Are people’s hearts more united to God in the Blessed Sacrament than they were 50 or 60 years ago? 100 years ago? 500 years ago? The EF was basically the only way to worship in the Latin Rite during all of those times. We can at least say that today, participation by baptized Catholics in the sacramental life is at an all time low. Why is this? There are, assuredly, many factors. It may be time, as Pope Francis says, to look back at what the documents of the Council actually said and what they actually called for, because as Benedict XVI notes above, the way it was implemented and interpreted by many was not always correct.

Jim:

[To say the TLM was failing] is not to mean that the TLM is not a legitimate format, but rather, the people had far less active participation.

Like Ed, I think this charge is unfounded and incorrect, as I pointed out above and in my previous post. To quote that wonderful movie, The Princess Bride, “You keep using that phrase (“active participation” or participatio actuosa), I do not think it means what you think it means.”

Liturgical scholar and historian Dom Alcuin Reid, OSB has a much better understanding, in line with the Second Vatican Conucil’s teaching, on what “active participation” actually means:

The Council called for participatio actuosa, which is primarily our internal connection with the liturgical action—with what Jesus Christ is doing in his Church in the liturgical rites.

This participation is about where my mind and heart are. Our external actions in the liturgy serve and facilitate this. But participatio actuosa is not first and foremost external activity, or performing a particular liturgical ministry. That, unfortunately, has been a common misconception of the Council’s desire.

 

[ProVobis]

P.S. there are no different dates, and some parts are not different from one English-speaking country to another. Where are you getting this?

ewtn.com/library/liturgy/zlitur369.htm

 

[billy15]

As for “useless repetitions” and “noble simplicity”, there was a great collection of essays put out by Four Courts Press from the proceedings of the Second Fota International Liturgical Conference in 2009, summoned by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Dom Reid had another great essay in this book entitled “Noble Simplicity Revisited”. It’s a wonderful essay, but I think this is especially pertinent to the conversation here:

It is perhaps telling that the 2007 Apostolic Exhortation Sacramentum caritatis does not use “noble simplicity” when speaking of the liturgy. Rather, it speaks of the ars celebrandi and asserts that “everything related to the Eucharist must be marked by beauty”…

Perhaps, those “useless repetitions” had a purpose after all (as many priests who celebrate the usus antiquior with reverence and devotion today can testify)? Perhaps the problem was not so much with the rites, but with the formation of those who celebrated them and worshipped through them?

…But if we return to the Baroque Chapel of St. John the Baptist in portugal, and assist today at a celebration of the sacred liturgy according to the usus antiquitor… and ask whether this worship reflects the “noble simplicity” espoused by the Second Vatican Council, I submit that we are asking the wrong question. We ought to be asking whether this liturgical rite and the items that serve it in fact facilitate that actual participation in the Sacred Mysteries for which the twentieth century Liturgical Movement and Sacrosanctum concilium strove. If the answer in this instance… is indeed affirmative in spite of the Council’s preference for “noble simplicity” having been set aside, then so be it; for the salvation of souls is the supreme law.

Jim:

The NO is closer to the early Christian Church than the TLM was.

So what? Yes, some parts of the OF may be closer to the early Church; but other parts… not so much. What happened to the organic development of rites, which the TLM/EF was; an organic development of liturgy.

The sentiment quoted above is nothing more than antiquarianism. It’s also known as archaeologism, which has been condemned by several popes of the last century, particularly by Pope Pius XII. Again, from Mediator Dei Pius XII taught:

The Church is without question a living organism, and as an organism, in respect of the sacred liturgy also, she grows, matures, develops, adapts and accommodates herself to temporal needs and circumstances, provided only that the integrity of her doctrine be safeguarded. This notwithstanding, the temerity and daring of those who introduce novel liturgical practices, or call for the revival of obsolete rites out of harmony with prevailing laws and rubrics, deserve severe reproof…

The liturgy of the early ages is most certainly worthy of all veneration. But ancient usage must not be esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity…

**Assuredly it is a wise and most laudable thing to return in spirit and affection to the sources of the sacred liturgy. **For research in this field of study, by tracing it back to its origins, contributes valuable assistance towards a more thorough and careful investigation of the significance of feast-days, and of the meaning of the texts and sacred ceremonies employed on their occasion.

But it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive tableform; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in Churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer’s body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See…

This way of acting bids fair to revive the exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism to which the illegal Council of Pistoia gave rise. It likewise attempts to reinstate a series of errors which were responsible for the calling of that meeting as well as for those resulting from it, with grievous harm to souls, and which the Church, the ever watchful guardian of the “deposit of faith” committed to her charge by her divine Founder, had every right and reason to condemn.

Again, I’m all for the liturgy evolving, but we have to ask ourselves if many of the things done in the “spirit of Vatican II” were a legitimate evolution, or a “banal on-the-spot product.”

And for perspective, after reading Samuel’s recent post, the archdiocesan parish that I used to be a parishioner at always had their Sunday EF Mass done as a Dialogue Mass. If it wasn’t a Solemn High Mass, then it was a Missa Cantata. It’s the same at the FSSP parish near my current residence for Sunday Mass, although Solemn High masses are much rarer.

 

[edwest2]

“36. 1. Particular law remaining in force, the use of the Latin language is to be preserved in the Latin rites.”

“Nevertheless steps should be taken so that the faithful may also be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them.”

“116. The Church acknowledges Gregorian chant as specially suited to the Roman liturgy: therefore, other things being equal, it should be given pride of place in liturgical services.”

CONSTITUTION
ON THE SACRED LITURGY
SACROSANCTUM CONCILIUM
SOLEMNLY PROMULGATED BY
HIS HOLINESS
POPE PAUL VI
ON DECEMBER 4, 1963

AND:

vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/details/ns_lit_doc_20091117_lingua-latina_en.html

Ed

 

[Tantum_ergo]

Yes, the meaning of the word worship has evolved over the past century or so in vernacular English. I personally wouldn’t be scandalized by that translation, but many would including our Protestant brethren. Worship is now used in the sense that “adoration” was used by English speaking Catholics of yesteryear. That being said, the broader sense of the word “worship” can still be found in formal usage. For example, mayors in Anglo-Canada are properly addressed as “your worship”.

It has evolved for some.

I for one am tired of kowtowing to the demands of loud small minorities who insist that because they have narrowed the meaning of words or even changed them completely, we ‘all’ need to abide by that narrowed meaning.

Prayer is communication, asking. It is not and never was directed "to God alone’, no others, living or dead, need apply, until a small vocal minority decided that that is what it meant to THEM and the majority, in a spirit of ecumenism and an attempt to reach out to said minority decided, first, to accept that “well prayer to them means God alone so we’ll be mindful of that and not bring up that it is for all, although they know that is the long-standing meaning which remains correct”, and then second, since the minority decided that it was not ‘enough’ to have the ‘majority’ accept that this narrow definition was to be ‘tolerated’ (yes, this is an example of tolerance as the word actually means, to accept something which is NOT correct rather than to try to ‘force’ correctness, in the hope that the acceptance will lead in time to those in the wrong ultimately coming to the correct understanding), but oh no, the minority insisted that the majority must jettison the correct understanding not just when speaking with the minority, but everywhere and for all time, and that the ‘new understanding’ was now the correct and only understanding.

So now we are constantly in a point of ‘defensiveness’ every time some non-Catholic (or sadly even some brainwashed Catholics themselves) decides to go off on a rant of “you don’t pray properly”, 'look at your own works that talk about prayer to saints, you worship them". .
and don’t even start me on the narrowed and intolerant meaning of worship which, like prayer, we have chosen to accept. Falsely.

I’m tired of it. I’m a Catholic. I worship Mary and the saints in the proper way, and if your dainty ears don’t like it, tough toenails. I’m not about to abandon right worship (worth-ship) anymore than I’ll abandon calling judges in Great Britain “Your Worship”, and I’m not going to say that “I don’t pray to the saints, I ask them to pray to GOD ALONE 'with me”. I pray to the saints. Get over it. It’s too broad and expansive for some? Well, they can ‘tolerate’ me for a change. Yes they can.

And it’s about time that we Catholics grew our backbones back and started teaching and defending our real Catholic faith, respectfully, but not ‘nicely’. NICE is what has brought us to this constant whinging cringing defensiveness and repudiation of our Catholic faith, to some bland indifferent, relativistic, 'we all just love God and are NICE to each other and isn’t that what it’s all about, we don’t need to have anything ‘special’, just kick us some more over everything from rosary beads to statues to even 'forced Mass on Sunday" and I’m sure we’ll cringe and deny THEM too, in time, we’ve already started!

Rant (for now) over, but watch this space for development.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Supposedly many if not most early Church liturgies were celebrated in the catacombs.

And in homes and out in the wilderness areas.

Jim

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Yes this is exactly how it is at the Tridentine Low Masses in my area today. It’s essentially a contemplative rather than a community experience,

Contemplative doesn’t mean praying in silence necessarily.

As a Discalced Carmelite Secular, which is a contemplative order, I experience contemplative prayer at all Masses of which I attend.

Jim

 

[ProVobis]

Yes this is exactly how it is at the Tridentine Low Masses in my area today. It’s essentially a contemplative rather than a community experience, and there isn’t really anything didactic there - epistle and gospel are only read un-amplified in Latin and there’s no homily at the weekday ones.

Yes, and this was pointed out in

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-part-2.html

…
But it was an unkind fate that allowed the new mass to come to completion just when – elsewhere – the importance of non-verbal communication was being rediscovered.

This was what was missing from the Liturgical Movement. An appreciation of non-verbal communication is not incompatible with the writings of the earlier exponents, such as Guéranger, despite his emphasis on ‘understanding’. But as the movement develops, and turns into the movement to create the Novus Ordo, a blindness to non-verbal communication (and a parallel lack of interest in gestures and visual ceremonies) becomes increasingly evident and increasingly problematic.

But what was going on between the years 700 and 1930? How was it all those saints were formed by the liturgy? Contrary to the patronising assumptions of scholars like Josef Jungmann, they were participating, they were understanding, despite not hearing the words of the Canon, despite not understanding the Latin even when they did hear it. They understood it at a profound, contemplative level. This kind of engagement with the liturgy was, in fact, particularly intense, because it is not just intellectual. Don’t believe me: believe the 1992 Catechism of the Catholic Church, which was composed when non-verbal communication was beginning to creep back into theology…

 

[Don_Ruggero]

It has evolved for some.

I for one am tired of kowtowing to the demands of loud small minorities who insist that because they have narrowed the meaning of words or even changed them completely, we ‘all’ need to abide by that narrowed meaning.

Prayer is communication, asking. It is not and never was directed "to God alone’, no others, living or dead, need apply, until a small vocal minority decided that that is what it meant to THEM and the majority, in a spirit of ecumenism and an attempt to reach out to said minority decided, first, to accept that “well prayer to them means God alone so we’ll be mindful of that and not bring up that it is for all, although they know that is the long-standing meaning which remains correct”, and then second, since the minority decided that it was not ‘enough’ to have the ‘majority’ accept that this narrow definition was to be ‘tolerated’ (yes, this is an example of tolerance as the word actually means, to accept something which is NOT correct rather than to try to ‘force’ correctness, in the hope that the acceptance will lead in time to those in the wrong ultimately coming to the correct understanding), but oh no, the minority insisted that the majority must jettison the correct understanding not just when speaking with the minority, but everywhere and for all time, and that the ‘new understanding’ was now the correct and only understanding.

So now we are constantly in a point of ‘defensiveness’ every time some non-Catholic (or sadly even some brainwashed Catholics themselves) decides to go off on a rant of “you don’t pray properly”, 'look at your own works that talk about prayer to saints, you worship them". .
and don’t even start me on the narrowed and intolerant meaning of worship which, like prayer, we have chosen to accept. Falsely.

I’m tired of it. I’m a Catholic. I worship Mary and the saints in the proper way, and if your dainty ears don’t like it, tough toenails. I’m not about to abandon right worship (worth-ship) anymore than I’ll abandon calling judges in Great Britain “Your Worship”, and I’m not going to say that “I don’t pray to the saints, I ask them to pray to GOD ALONE 'with me”. I pray to the saints. Get over it. It’s too broad and expansive for some? Well, they can ‘tolerate’ me for a change. Yes they can.

And it’s about time that we Catholics grew our backbones back and started teaching and defending our real Catholic faith, respectfully, but not ‘nicely’. NICE is what has brought us to this constant whinging cringing defensiveness and repudiation of our Catholic faith, to some bland indifferent, relativistic, 'we all just love God and are NICE to each other and isn’t that what it’s all about, we don’t need to have anything ‘special’, just kick us some more over everything from rosary beads to statues to even 'forced Mass on Sunday" and I’m sure we’ll cringe and deny THEM too, in time, we’ve already started!

Rant (for now) over, but watch this space for development.

Your rant puts you in opposition to your hierarchy. There is a duty to conform one’s statements to mirror what the hierarchy articulates. The US Conference of Catholic Bishops quite well – and theologically correctly, it should go without saying – states:

How does our veneration of Mary and the saints relate to our worship of God?

The honor we give to God alone is properly called adoration, the highest honor we can give. The honor we give to Mary and the saints is called veneration. Proper veneration of the saints does not interfere with the worship due to God, but rather fosters it. “Our communion with those in heaven, provided that it is understood in the fuller light of faith according to its genuine nature, in no way weakens, but conversely, more thoroughly enriches the latreutic worship we give to God the Father, through Christ, in the Spirit.” With this understanding, we see that proper veneration of Mary does not detract from worship of God. Even as the Mother of the Savior, Mary has a place that is in every way subordinate to and dependent upon that of her Son, who is the one mediator between God and humanity. The maternal role that Mary fulfills toward us as Mother of the Church “in no wise obscures or diminishes this unique mediation of Christ, but rather shows His power.”

The Second Vatican Council explained very clearly that Mary can be said to fulfill a mediating role only in a secondary and derivative manner.

usccb.org/prayer-and-worship/prayers-and-devotions/mary/frequently-asked-questions-about-blessed-virgin-mary.cfm

It is not a matter of being nice. It is a matter of being precise so that the language we use actually reflects the very specific theological concepts that are to be articulated correctly.

That is a command of the Council Fathers too often forgotten in chapter 8 of Lumen Gentium:

Let them assiduously keep away from whatever, either by word or deed, could lead separated brethren or any other into error regarding the true doctrine of the Church.

That is why our language, theologically, has become ever more precise…to comply with the command of the entirety of the world’s bishops…to whom all Catholics owe submission and compliance.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

Yes, and this was pointed out in

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-part-2.html

You don’t have times of silence at the Novus Ordo Mass ?

Even during the Consecration, it’s the priest who is reciting the prayers verbally. We follow in silent prayer.

Then, after receiving the Eucharist, we return to our place and meditate on the gift which we just received.

Jim

 

[Don_Ruggero]

Yes, and this was pointed out in

lmschairman.org/2014/02/the-death-of-reform-of-reform-part-2.html

Frankly, Pro Vobis, anyone who would make such a negative comment about Father Josef Jungmann I would not dignify by even reading. They do not deserve it. Such is nothing short of shameful.

 

[ProVobis]

You don’t have times of silence at the Novus Ordo Mass ?

Actually there are silent prayers in the New Mass. I believe they are right before the priest’s communion where strangely enough the pre-65 formula is used. (“May the body of Christ preserve my soul into life everlasting.”)

 

[ProVobis]

Even during the Consecration, it’s the priest who is reciting the prayers verbally. We follow in silent prayer.

I thought we jump right into the Mystery of Faith.

 

[JimR-OCDS]

I thought we jump right into the Mystery of Faith.

You’re joking, right ?

Jim