What if a new liturgy was made that was more "Catholic" than the EF?

[bpbasilphx]

** perhaps including references to more recent declarations of dogma (Immaculate Conception and Assumption)? **

**What would be the purpose of mentioning these dogmas in the Liturgy except on the feasts themselves? There faith in them is already expressed in the prayers and texts.

Catholic teaching is so broad and vast it would be impossible to mention all points in every Eucharistic sacrifice.**

 

[ethelzguy]

What kind of OF liturgy are you talking about? Does it include the use of latin? Does Gregorian Chant enjoy pride of place?

nope and nope

 

[Joannm]

The Latin grows on you. We just don’t have the proper catechism yet. As a seminarian, you’ll grasp it eventually. Besides, even being a seminarian means you are above-average intelligence!
I admire your vocation.

That isn’t necessarily so…especially if you listen to what some of their professors have to say. You don’t have to have above average intelligence to be in the seminary…you just have to be able to pass your coursework…and some do by the skin of their teeth.

 

[markadm]

That isn’t necessarily so…especially if you listen to what some of their professors have to say. You don’t have to have above average intelligence to be in the seminary…you just have to be able to pass your coursework…and some do by the skin of their teeth.

Yes, though Holy Mother Church has required average or above average intelligence of her Seminarians.

 

[Margarite]

From what I have seen thoughout my life of attending many different types of mass, from bunny Easter dance masses, to SSPX Latin masses, I have found that the most beautifully attended and said masses are the ones in the middle leaning to the Latin. The hybrid masses said reverently. EWTN is a good example of a beautiful OF mass. They incorporate the Latin for the parts that remain the same each Sunday, but then for the parts that change, they say those parts in English. The priests are always very reverent and focused, and they really draw you to pay attention. They never use Extraordinary Ministers, or altar girls, they use patons, and the music is straight out of the Adoremus hymnal. It is a beautifully said mass, and if you look at the people attending, you can tell that they are true Catholics.

Right now, I live in Vegas, there are churches here that have priests who hop down the aisle with bunny ears on Easter, there are churches with good priests and lousy musicians, lots of EM, and altar girls, and then there is one parish, the one I try to go to as often as possible. At 9:30am each Sunday, a retired priest says a hybrid mass. He is slowly (very slowly) teaching the Latin to the people. Last Sunday we just started singing the creed in Latin. It is so nice. He knows Latin inside and out, he translates all the songs without looking at anything. Every Sunday right before his sermon, he tells us something new, or reminds us about something we have learned about the Latin.
When I was young, I attended the FSSP mass in KS, so I am remembering allot of it, and my parents know the Latin, so it is a bit frustrating to us that it has taken two years before we have even been aloud to sing the creed in Latin, but we are just thankful for a sane mass to go to.
I have moved all over the US, when I lived in Birmingham, we went to EWTN for mass, when I lived in Denver, we went to Holy Ghost or the cathedral which both had sane masses. In Las Vegas, it took us a long time, but finally we found this one mass that we can go to.

This fall, I am going to Wyoming Catholic College. They have a priest who says the EF, the OF (which is a hybrid mass), and the Byzantine masses. So I will be exposed to all three for the next four years. I am excited!

It seems to me, that if we embrace the EF and the OF and make each as beautiful as they can be, and have each complement the other, it will be like what Pope John Paul II said of the Eastern and Latin rites of the mass: that they are like the two lungs of the body of the Church, each separate, but equal, and each complementing the other.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

1,000 years from now will the EF be word for word exactly the same as it is today?

 

[SJP]

1,000 years from now will the EF be word for word exactly the same as it is today?

Of course not. There will be gradual developments in the future just as there have been gradual developments in the past.

 

[ethelzguy]

Of course not. There will be gradual developments in the future just as there have been gradual developments in the past.

Nope, you can’t have “gradual developments” anymore, not with the liturgical police out every weekend searching for anything different that they can call “abuse” and posting photos and YouTube videos on forums.

 

[SJP]

Nope, you can’t have “gradual developments” anymore, not with the liturgical police out every weekend searching for anything different that they can call “abuse” and posting photos and YouTube videos on forums.

No, we Traditionalists appreciate organic development. See for yourself:

The pope is not an absolute monarch whose will is law; rather, he is the guardian of the authentic Tradition and, thereby, the premier guarantor of obedience. He cannot do as he likes, and he is thereby able to oppose those people who, for their part, want to do whatever comes into their head. His rule is not that of arbitrary power, but that of obedience in faith. ***That is why, with respect to the Liturgy, he has the task of a gardener, not that of a technician who builds new machines and throws the old ones on the junk-pile. ***The “rite”, that form of celebration and prayer which has ripened in the faith and the life of the Church, is a condensed form of living Tradition in which the sphere using that rite expresses the whole of its faith and its prayer, and thus at the same time the fellowship of generations one with another becomes something we can experience, fellowship with the people who pray before us and after us. Thus the rite is something of benefit that is given to the Church, a living form of paradosis, the handing-on of Tradition.

Cardinal Ratzinger in the Preface to The Organic Development of the Liturgy by Alcuin Reid:

 

[Sarpedon]

Your question is inherently flawed, proper Catholic liturgy cannot be “introduced” or created, not even by a Pope.:

True, but I meant as a “development” in the liturgy (i.e. like the OF). If they could “change” the mass (in some sense of the word) from the EF to the OF, they could change it from the OF to some other form.

 

[Sarpedon]

What would be the purpose of mentioning these dogmas in the Liturgy except on the feasts themselves? There faith in them is already expressed in the prayers and texts.
.

There may not be a purpose. However, traditionalists seem to believe that if a liturgy references more catholic doctrine it is superior to other forms.

 

[Sarpedon]

It seems to me, that if we embrace the EF and the OF and make each as beautiful as they can be, and have each complement the other, it will be like what Pope John Paul II said of the Eastern and Latin rites of the mass: that they are like the two lungs of the body of the Church, each separate, but equal, and each complementing the other.

Amen! This is the kind of attitude that the church needs.

 

[eelpis]

There cannot be such a thing because such a Mass would be constructed by experts as well. The EF has it’s roots in antiquity when Ceasar tried to stamp Christianity out. Some parts of the EF might come from St Peter himself. It’s the most ancient and venerable rite in Christendom. The liturgy is not something we do, or accomplish. We recieve it from tradition, from our fathers in the faith and we open ourselves to the work of God.

 

[eelpis]

To say that most Catholics prefer the OF anyday is hogwash, most Catholics don’t attend mass at all. And a lot of those who attend on Sundays do so because they know about the Sunday obligation.

 

[DL82]

I frequently hear people say that the EF is superior because it is more “explicitly” Catholic, i.e. the prayers reference more Catholic doctrine and belief than the prayers of the OF.

What if a new liturgy were to be introduced that was even more explicitly and unambiguosly Catholic than the EF? Suppose that the prayers were intentionally written to contain more doctrine than those of the EF, perhaps including references to more recent declarations of dogma (Immaculate Conception and Assumption)? Would this be opposed?

On a related point, I have prayed the Liturgy of the Hours according to the 1962 form since becoming Catholic, but was recently introduced to the post-Vatican II LOTH.

I have to say that the new form is much more theologically rich, the prayers are much deeper in their theology. It strikes me as much more a New Testament liturgy, a liturgy of the Church, while the old form was almost entirely composed of psalms with antiphons, brief collects, and repetition. In some ways, the new LOTH reminds me of the horologion of the Eastern Churches, with its’ much deeper theological hymns.

 

[DL82]

There cannot be such a thing because such a Mass would be constructed by experts as well. The EF has it’s roots in antiquity when Ceasar tried to stamp Christianity out. Some parts of the EF might come from St Peter himself. It’s the most ancient and venerable rite in Christendom. The liturgy is not something we do, or accomplish. We recieve it from tradition, from our fathers in the faith and we open ourselves to the work of God.

I think the Byzantines and Maronites, particularly any rite who still retain the Liturgy of St James, might disagree with you there.

 

[eelpis]

I think the Byzantines and Maronites, particularly any rite who still retain the Liturgy of St James, might disagree with you there.

The Roman rite is more ancient than any of the eastern liturgies.
At least that is what Jungmann and other lit. historians say.

 

[cothrige]

To say that most Catholics prefer the OF anyday is hogwash, most Catholics don’t attend mass at all. And a lot of those who attend on Sundays do so because they know about the Sunday obligation.

Good point, but I think we can see these claims are false even in regard to practicing Catholics. To use a whisky analogy, it would seem to me that saying most catholics prefer the OF over the EF would be akin to saying that most people who drink Laphroaig prefer the common 10 year expression over the very rare 30 year. The 10 year is in every local liquor store, and the 30 is in none. I have never seen a bottle and have never tasted it. So, statistically, I and everyone else must prefer the 10 year old. Bogus logic.

I can tell you that I have never been given the opportunity to attend an EF Mass, and I would guess that most are in the same boat. How can anyone really say what people even prefer at all unless you first allow everyone to form an opinion?

 

[Sarpedon]

There cannot be such a thing because such a Mass would be constructed by experts as well.

We know that the infallible church “issued” (in some sense of the word, maybe as development as opposed to creation) the OF, so she could do the same for a different form now.

 

[Jerry-Jet]

Can any of the traditionalists here cite “developments” in the 1962 missal that were improvements over past missals?