Why Traditional Liturgy?

[DominvsVobiscvm]

Pax tecvm, gang.

I find myself lately having a hard time explaining to others why the Mass should be celebrated in a reverent, traditional manner. (I mean the Missa Normativa, not just the Tridentine). It seems that a lot of my “argument” employs the same sort of subjectivism that I accuse charismatics and lovers of more secularized music of posessing.

For example, I like traditional liturgy because I believe it really is more beautiful, therefore more spiritually edifying (i.e. the bells, incnese, vestments, priest facing the altar, Latin, etc.). Yet, who am I to impose my standard on others? My charismatic friends, for example, insist that ther hand-clapping, jumping up-and-down, etc. songs are very reverent and sacred, and very prayerful. They see traditional liturgy as stale.

Ditto with my fellow “Novus Ordo” Catholics who like the real tacky-sounding hymns like Eagle’s Wings and Here I Am, Lord. They claim these songs are not really tacky, and it’s just my opinion that they are.

Furthermore, even I have to admit that this type of music isn’t bad outside of Mass. For example, the orthodox Franciscan Friars of the Renewal even do Cathoilic rap! No one would argue that private devotions aren’t sacred, or that any worship of God that isn’t sacred is pleasing to him. Yet God is apparently pleased by contemporary, “secularized” Chrustian music when it is sincerely done outside of Mass, then why not at Mass?

In Heaven, do we really expect to just be kneeling and hearing and seeing Christ say “Dominvs Vobiscvm” with bells and incense?

Obviously, abuses are never permissible. But most of the problems with the Missa Normativa, as we “traditionalists” see it, is not so much abuses as it is the supposedly “irreverent” way it is celebrated. Even an abuse-free “Novus Ordo” can be tacky as heck. It’s up to each priest to celebrate it as traditionally as he feels like. Or so we say.

For my part, I’ll continue to love the Tridentine Mass and really-high Missa Normativas. But do I do so only because it gives me a spiritual high? Because it subjectively feels good to me?

It’s difficult to argue otherwise.

Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut.

 

[otm]

“Beauty is in the eye of the beholder”, so goes the old adage. I’ve seen men in love with the homeliest woman; and having met some of them, found their personalities to be at best “bland”; and yet the guy is gaga. I’ve also met a few who might be categorized as “trophy”; they are just as “bland” personality wise.

I’ve seen a lot of what is passed off for art, and it leaves me blah, for lack of a better word.

We had a revamp of our city offices, from dull, dry and boring to “post-Modern”; it went from dull to ridiculous.

I have seen awesome and beautiful Ordo Missae Masses, and not on such a rare occasion as to make them a fluke.

I love Gregorian Chant, and abhor it being sung by untrained people; and one of the worst all time examples was a funderal Mass on EWTN.

I love listening to Palestrina, but don’t want to attend another Mass where that is what is done. I don’t go to Mass for a concert and that is how I felt at the last one.

I would tend very strongly to agree with you that there is a high, but I am not so convinced that it is a spiritual high as it is an emotional one. That is not to say that an emotional high is bad. But a lot of the arguements about the liturgy might go away if we got down to what we are really saying; and I suspect that many don’t want to address that. It is much more fun to have an air of superiority; there is definitely a whiff of “I’m holier” in some of the threads about liturgy.

 

[Vincent]

It is frustrating, from time to time, isn’t it?

Eventually one comes down to Father Jim Tucker’s position:
"I have no objections in principle to the vernacular in the Mass. I don’t think Mass ‘facing the people’ is from the Devil. I don’t want to ban Marty Haugen music. I do not yearn to outlaw Communion on the hand or to force you to kneel to receive It. If a priest wants to wear those polyester horse blankets that pass for Gothic chasubles these days, more power to him. Altar girls, felt banners, and the banjo ensemble: go for it. You won’t hear me screaming objections.

“But here is what I do object to, and very strongly: the fact that, contrary to the explicit instructions of the Second Vatican Council, one can scarcely find a Mass in Latin, and even then it’s often viewed with suspicion; that Mass ad orientem, though just as licit as it has always been, is so rare as to be practically non-existent in Latin-rite churches in this country; that Gregorian chant and the polyphonic heritage of the Western Church have been so universally replaced by songs of the present day (or from the 1970s) that people don’t even have an option to worship regularly in the context of the traditional music; that the way that Communion has been received in the Western Church for over 1,000 years is now frowned upon or openly discouraged in some quarters; that vestments of more traditional design – whether Roman or Gothic – are disparaged or effectively banned for being obsolete and not up-to-date (as if *any *liturgical garment were ‘up-to-date’); that every modern option that has been introduced in the last 25 years is now obligatory for all; that every liturgical *option *that Bl. John XXIII would have recognized is now somehow retrograde and reactionary, even if current legislation continues to allow it.” I think his view is sane, and it’s one that I’m beginning to adopt myself.

 

[deogratias]

**

"In the earthly Liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that Heavenly Liturgy which is celebrated in the Holy City of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, Minister of the holies… From the Liturgy, therefore, and from the Eucharist, grace is poured forth upon us as from a fountain, and the sanctification of men in Christ and the glorification of God to which all other activities of the Church are directed, as toward their end are achieved with maximum effectiveness."

(Vatican II’s Constitution on the Sacred liturgy, nos. 8,10)​

**

I think it goes beyond personal preference. The Mass should accentuate the solemnity, dignity, majesty, and splendor with which the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass *should *be celebrated.

Cardinal Ratzinger recently referred to “the collapse of the liturgy” in the West.

The language, gesture, and music in the west he felt has become impoverished and that this causes d divisiveness in parishes because it offends the religious sensibilities of parishoners who expect better .

It does not take a rocket scientist to note how many liturgical abuses and scandals abound the current N.O.M. as many posts here and in Catholic publications note. It is this broad dissatisfaction with the manner in which the Holy Mass is celebrated in all too many parishes by Catholics who (excuse the word) traditionally sense should be a legitimate religious experience which leads them to the TLM where they find that for which they hunger … .

​

 

[Brennan_Doherty]

deogratias:

I think it goes beyond personal preference. The Mass should accentuate the solemnity, dignity, majesty, and splendor with which the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass should be celebrated.

Difficult to agree more! And I also thought the second paragraph from Father Jim Tucker in post #3 made some pertinent points.

Further, I’d like to quote from Dietrich von Hildebrand’s essay, “The Case for the Latin Mass”:

http://www.latin-mass-society.org/dietrich.htm

In no domain is reverence more important than religion. As we have seen, it profoundly affects the relation of man to God. But beyond that it pervades the entire religion, especially the worship of God. There is an intimate link between reverence and sacredness: reverence permits us to experience the sacred, to rise above the profane; irreverence blinds us to the entire world of the sacred. Reverence, including awe-indeed, fear and trembling-is the specific response to the sacred. Rudolf Otto has clearly elaborated the point in his famous study, The Idea of the Holy. Kierkegaard also calls attention to the essential role of reverence in the religious act, in the encounter with God. And did not the Jews tremble in deep awe when the priest brought the sacrifice into the sanctum sanctorum? Was Isaiah not struck with godly fear when he saw Yahweh in the temple and exclaimed, “Woe is me, I am doomed! For I am a man of unclean lips . . . yet my eyes have seen the King?” Do not the words of St. Peter after the miraculous catch of fish, “Depart from me, 0 Lord, because I am a sinner,” testify that when the reality of God breaks in upon us we are struck with fear and reverence? Cardinal Newman has shown in a stunning sermon that the man who does not fear and revere has not known the reality of God.

When St. Bonaventure writes in *Itinerarium Mentis ad Deum *that only a man of desire (such as Daniel) can understand God, he means that a certain attitude of soul must be achieved in order to understand the world of God, into which He wants to lead us.
This counsel is especially applicable to the Church’s liturgy. The sursum corda-the lifting up of our hearts-is the first requirement for real participation in the mass. Nothing could better obstruct the confrontation of man with God than the notion that we “go unto the altar of God” as we would go to a pleasant, relaxing social gathering. This is why the Latin mass with Gregorian chant, which raises us up to a sacred atmosphere, is vastly superior to a vernacular mass with popular songs, which leaves us in a profane, merely natural atmosphere.

The basic error of most of the innovations is to imagine that the new liturgy brings the holy sacrifice of the mass nearer to the faithful, that shorn of its old rituals the mass now enters into the substance of our lives. For the question is whether we better meet Christ in the mass by soaring up to Him, or by dragging Him down into our own pedestrian, workaday world. The innovators would replace holy intimacy with Christ by an unbecoming familiarity. The new liturgy actually threatens to frustrate the confrontation with Christ, for it discourages reverence in the face of mystery, precludes awe, and all but extinguishes a sense of sacredness. What really matters, surely, is not whether the faithful feel at home at mass, but whether they are drawn out of their ordinary lives into the world of Christ-whether their attitude is the response of ultimate reverence: whether they are imbued with the reality of Christ.

 

[Andreas_Hofer]

I agree that there is a very large subjective component to the argument over liturgy. But I’ve also noticed that whether much of the innovation is more/less/equally reverent does not normally come through in discussion with my friends who question my “old school” practices. When I explain that I find receiving on the tongue more reverent, the response is not, “But can’t receiving on the hand be done just as reverently?”; the normal response is, “But does it really matter?”

The problem my not be *what *is done but *how *it is done. Whether it is due to the new structure of the liturgy or simply the decision by priests to treat inject a change of focus, the current Mass fails to convey the sense of the sacred and its separation from the everyday. When laypeople dart in and out of the sanctuary at will and the priest welcomes us to the “celebration” with a joke, the transcendence of the sacred action falls by the wayside.

 

[Michael_Welter]

Andreas Hofer:

The problem my not be *what *is done but *how *it is done.

Very well put, Andreas. One of the reasons I love my parish is that there is a diverse mix of styles available for attending Mass. We have a Latin Tridentine Mass, and I love that we have that, although I don’t attend it. We have a Mass with a traditional 40 voice choir, and I love that we have that, although I don’t attend it. We have a Life Teen Mass with a worship band. That’s the Mass I attend. It is a VERY sacred and reverential Mass, and I find that music draws me closer to God. This is because the music is done in a very sacred and holy manner.

 

[katolik]

Michael Welter:

Very well put, Andreas. One of the reasons I love my parish is that there is a diverse mix of styles available for attending Mass. We have a Latin Tridentine Mass, and I love that we have that, although I don’t attend it. We have a Mass with a traditional 40 voice choir, and I love that we have that, although I don’t attend it. We have a Life Teen Mass with a worship band. That’s the Mass I attend. It is a VERY sacred and reverential Mass, and I find that music draws me closer to God. This is because the music is done in a very sacred and holy manner.

Satanists also find black masses sacred and reverent. They also think that destroying the Body and Blood of Christ is very sacred.
Perhaps we should have those at our parishes?[NEVER!!!]

 

[Crusader]

DominvsVobiscvm:

Pax tecvm, gang.

I find myself lately having a hard time explaining to others why the Mass should be celebrated in a reverent, traditional manner. (I mean the Missa Normativa, not just the Tridentine). It seems that a lot of my “argument” employs the same sort of subjectivism that I accuse charismatics and lovers of more secularized music of posessing.

For example, I like traditional liturgy because I believe it really is more beautiful, therefore more spiritually edifying (i.e. the bells, incnese, vestments, priest facing the altar, Latin, etc.). Yet, who am I to impose my standard on others? My charismatic friends, for example, insist that ther hand-clapping, jumping up-and-down, etc. songs are very reverent and sacred, and very prayerful. They see traditional liturgy as stale.

Ditto with my fellow “Novus Ordo” Catholics who like the real tacky-sounding hymns like Eagle’s Wings and Here I Am, Lord. They claim these songs are not really tacky, and it’s just my opinion that they are.

Furthermore, even I have to admit that this type of music isn’t bad outside of Mass. For example, the orthodox Franciscan Friars of the Renewal even do Cathoilic rap! No one would argue that private devotions aren’t sacred, or that any worship of God that isn’t sacred is pleasing to him. Yet God is apparently pleased by contemporary, “secularized” Chrustian music when it is sincerely done outside of Mass, then why not at Mass?

In Heaven, do we really expect to just be kneeling and hearing and seeing Christ say “Dominvs Vobiscvm” with bells and incense?

Obviously, abuses are never permissible. But most of the problems with the Missa Normativa, as we “traditionalists” see it, is not so much abuses as it is the supposedly “irreverent” way it is celebrated. Even an abuse-free “Novus Ordo” can be tacky as heck. It’s up to each priest to celebrate it as traditionally as he feels like. Or so we say.

For my part, I’ll continue to love the Tridentine Mass and really-high Missa Normativas. But do I do so only because it gives me a spiritual high? Because it subjectively feels good to me?

It’s difficult to argue otherwise.

Thanks for the (name removed by moderator)ut.

1.) The Mass may be celebrated in a reverent and *progressive *manner as well.

2.) The Novus Ordo Mass can be every bit as beautiful.

3.) You just showed some bigotry by trying to link “Novus Ordo Catholics” (yet another label!) with “real tacky-sounding hymns.” Real bad form.

4.) The “tlm” has long been celebrated in “irrevent” ways by a great many priests. The “tlm” can be celebrated in a tacky manner as well – recall the :whiz churches." Don’t try to suggest this is unique to the Novus Ordo Mass, as that’s simply more bigotry.

 

[Crusader]

Andreas Hofer:

I agree that there is a very large subjective component to the argument over liturgy. But I’ve also noticed that whether much of the innovation is more/less/equally reverent does not normally come through in discussion with my friends who question my “old school” practices. When I explain that I find receiving on the tongue more reverent, the response is not, “But can’t receiving on the hand be done just as reverently?”; the normal response is, “But does it really matter?”

The problem my not be *what *is done but *how *it is done. Whether it is due to the new structure of the liturgy or simply the decision by priests to treat inject a change of focus, the current Mass fails to convey the sense of the sacred and its separation from the everyday. When laypeople dart in and out of the sanctuary at will and the priest welcomes us to the “celebration” with a joke, the transcendence of the sacred action falls by the wayside.

The problems begin when people begin to suggest that only receiving on the tongue is reverent, and that receiving in the hand is less reverent or not reverant at all. That contravenes what the Church says as both ways are acceptable in the USA.

The real joke is that these same people are quick to point out that receiving on the tongue is NORMATIVE (which is true) yet they ignore the fact that receiving communion while standing is also NORMATIVE and that bowing and not genuflecting before receiving is also normative. Extremely ypocritical to say the least…

 

[Exporter]

DominvsVobiscvm http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/statusicon_cad/user_offline.gif vbmenu_register(“postmenu_240554”, true);
Senior Member

I agree with you 100%. We are on the same wavelength. The most glorious event on earth, The Mass, must put us in awe of what is transpiring on the alter. We are going back in time to the crusifiction and Jesus Himself is entering the Host and the wine- His Body and Blood.

Personally, I want the Mass to be like it was 1500 years ago. Why do people want to “modernise” something sacred? Talking before and during Mass, taking the Host by hand and leaving early I think, grew out of disrespect for the Mass.

Why do Preists think we have to be like Protestants? They instituted singing and shaking hands. I guess they think more people will Attend Mass if they are more Protestant. It hasn’t seemed to work, has it?

 

[Exporter]

katolik http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/statusicon_cad/user_offline.gif vbmenu_register(“postmenu_241039”, true);
Junior Member

You stated that MUSIC DRAWS YOU NEARER TO GOD. That sounds very Protestant to me!

My friend that is a statement of EMOTION. Faith , true Faith is not an emotion. Emotions are fleeting. Rock-solid faith is what carries you thru’ the tough spot.

I ask you, if you are attending your mother’s funeral would you want Rock Bands and Loud Singing during her service? Music is said by most to touch your emotions. I don’t think you will find in the Scriptures that Jesus said to worship with your emotions.:tsktsk: :tsktsk:

 

[Michael_Welter]

Exporter:

Personally, I want the Mass to be like it was 1500 years ago.

And I will vigorously support your desire for a Mass, just as it was 1500 years ago. I, personally, would not attend a Mass like that, but I love that we have that option available for you.

Why do Preists think we have to be like Protestants? They instituted singing and shaking hands.

Huh? Singing has been used in liturgy since the Old Testament. I assure you, it wasn’t the Protestants who came up with singing. However, keep in mind that Scripture says to sing a NEW song unto the Lord. This doesn’t mean only new songs, but it is clear that we are to write, and sing, new sacred music all the time.

 

[Michael_Welter]

Exporter:

I ask you, if you are attending your mother’s funeral would you want Rock Bands and Loud Singing during her service?

YES! Absolutely. And I hope that my funeral has joyous music. When I go home to heaven, I expect there will be loud music in heaven AND on earth. I intend to celebrate. I hope my friends and family do too.

Music is said by most to touch your emotions. I don’t think you will find in the Scriptures that Jesus said to worship with your emotions.:tsktsk: :tsktsk:

I worship with my entire being. Yes, music draws me closer to God, as it is a form of prayer. This is taught very strongly by our Church.

 

[Exporter]

Michael Welter,

You said,“And I will vigorously support your desire for a Mass, just as it was 1500 years ago. I, personally, would not attend a Mass like that, but I love that we have that option available for you.”

You would NOT attend a Mass like that. Are you able to specifically tell me how a Mass of 1500 years ago ( or about the year 500AD) is so different than the Mass that we had in 1955? Can you do that, or are you just guessing. I said in that original post that I’d like to have Mass as close as possible to the Mass of the early Church. I think you are guessing.

 

[Michael_Welter]

Exporter:

You would NOT attend a Mass like that. Are you able to specifically tell me how a Mass of 1500 years ago ( or about the year 500AD) is so different than the Mass that we had in 1955? Can you do that, or are you just guessing. I said in that original post that I’d like to have Mass as close as possible to the Mass of the early Church. I think you are guessing.

No, I’m not guessing. I can guarantee that the Mass 1500 years ago did not have music in today’s style. Today’s contemporary worship music helps me worship. The music of 1500 years ago does not. BTW, I have 2 degrees in music, and, yes, I do know what liturgical music was like 1500 years ago.

 

[Jim_ov_Cov]

Because this Immemorial Mass formed every saint in the calendar. It works; let’s get on with it.

 

[Crusader]

Exporter:

I agree with you 100%. We are on the same wavelength. The most glorious event on earth, The Mass, must put us in awe of what is transpiring on the alter. We are going back in time to the crusifiction and Jesus Himself is entering the Host and the wine- His Body and Blood.

Personally, I want the Mass to be like it was 1500 years ago. Why do people want to “modernise” something sacred? Talking before and during Mass, taking the Host by hand and leaving early I think, grew out of disrespect for the Mass.

Why do Preists think we have to be like Protestants? They instituted singing and shaking hands. I guess they think more people will Attend Mass if they are more Protestant. It hasn’t seemed to work, has it?

I prefer my Mass to be similar to the Mass known to the Apostles nearly 2000 years ago. In brief, the Novus Ordo Mass and not the Tridentine Mass.

 

[katolik]

katolik http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/statusicon_cad/user_offline.gif vbmenu_register(“postmenu_241039”, true);
Junior Member

You stated that MUSIC DRAWS YOU NEARER TO GOD. That sounds very Protestant to me!

My friend that is a statement of EMOTION. Faith , true Faith is not an emotion. Emotions are fleeting. Rock-solid faith is what carries you thru’ the tough spot.

I ask you, if you are attending your mother’s funeral would you want Rock Bands and Loud Singing during her service? Music is said by most to touch your emotions. I don’t think you will find in the Scriptures that Jesus said to worship with your emotions.:tsktsk: :tsktsk:

I said nothing about music,yet…

 

[katolik]

Crusader:

I prefer my Mass to be similar to the Mass known to the Apostles nearly 2000 years ago. In brief, the Novus Ordo Mass and not the Tridentine Mass.

Oh yes, and the Apostles had huge mistranslations in their Mass too. The Traditional Latin Mass is Immemorial and the Novus Ordo is new, new, new!!!