Saturday, October 28, 2006
Thoughts on the Tridentine Mass
Let me first begin by saying that I accept that the Pauline Mass-Novus Ordo- is a valid Mass, and hold the opinion that it is not heretical as claimed by the Society of Pius X.
The Novus Ordo of Pope Paul VI is much loved by many people but many priests who know both rites far prefer the new. Nevertheless, for the unwary, I think, it may have unsuspected dangers. Little by little it may allow them to have an understanding of the faith more Protestant than Catholic.
Protestantism, after all, is only Catholicism with some of the bones taken out. Remove our teaching on Purgatory and the papacy, on Our Lady and the Holy Eucharist. and what are we left with? A very respectable Protestantism.
And a danger is that if we fail to recognise it as such we may well think Protestantism more pleasing than our own faith. Why? Because we have a fallen nature, and a Protestant lifestyle makes life easier for us, It makes fewer demands on our faith. It enables us to live lower down the mountain of God. Contraception and divorce, for instance, can find their place in a devout Protestants life. A good Protestant does not have to make the total submission of intellect and will that God requires of His rational creatures, "the obedience of faith" St Paul speaks of.
An added danger for cradle Catholics is that, with perhaps centuries of Catholic ancestry behind them, it does not occur to then, that they could possibly lose their faith. And so they, can graduallv come to have a totally Protestant understanding of our religion and still be convinced they are true Catholics. They are unaware that the doctrines they have so easily grasped and so happily embraced are Protestant doctrines. And of course if they are priests they can have an almost messianic zeal in trying to convert their fellow-priests and the laity to their point of view.
Losing the faith is no more self-evident than losing a baby. A woman may not realise what has happened till the heart-break of a still-birth, and not till someone finds they no longer believe in God may they realise they must have lost the faith.
The trouble is that people with only a book knowledge of Protestantism can fail to recognise it when they see it. Some of you may know that during World War II, the poison gas- phosgene- smelled like a field of rotting cabbages. If I’d been caught in such a gas attack, I doubt if I would have thought, "Ah! Rotting cabbages! It must be a phosgene gas attack." I'd only have realised what it was and started putting on my gas mask when my throat started burning. On the other hand, if ever I’d once been caught in such an attack for the rest of my life I’m sure that at the very first whiff of phosgene I’d have realised, "This is lethal".
People who have never before smelled phosgene would at first perhaps think it a pleasantly sweet smell, Catholics with only a theoretical knowledge of Protestantism might well think, "This is very attractive. Why was it all made to look so difficult before? This is easy to understad and easy to live with."
But let me get back to the Mass. The rubrics in the old rite were detailed and demanding, with many genuflections, many signs of the cross, many kissings of the altar. It is as though the holiness of the old rite is a built-in feature of the rite itself. Those genuflections were not without their value. Each genuflection expressed and reinforced the faith of the priest. And they served to reinforce the faith of the laity too, espeoially if they noticed how much each genuflection cost their old and rheumaticky priest.
Another less obvious difference between Catholic and Protestant liturgy is that Catholic liturgy is sacramental. Christ operates personally in each of the sacraments, and in the sacramental sacrifice of the Mass He is always the principal Celebrant, Protestant liturgy, on the other hand, is non-sacramental. 'ex opere Operantis', as they say, not 'ex opere operate', that is, depending on the good dispositions of the worshipper rather than on the built-in efficacy of the sacrament.
For Catholics, the whole attraction of the Mass is what happens on the altar: the fact that Christ our Lord, at the bidding of one of His priests, takes the place of the bread and wine, and asks us to offer ourselves together with Him to the Father in the one, perftct Sacrifice. As St Robert Bellarmine put it, the Mass is the sacrifice in which the entire Church, in union with her Divine Head, offers herself to the Father.
Protestant liturgy, in the absence of the Divine Sacrifice, offers God the sacrifice of praise, the sacrifice of a humble and contrite heart, the offering of devout hymns, of an inspiring sermon - but it is no substitute for the Sacrifice that God has asked us to offer in memory of Him.
Then again, the new rite with its many options allows the celebrant to move the style of the liturgy in a Protestant direction.
That is to say, the more correctly our new liturgy is carried out, the more it can outwardly resemble good Protestant liturgy.
I do try to understand the point of view of people who like the Charismatic sort of Mass. They say it allows them "participation in the liturgy". But what do they understand by "participation"?
Who of the redeemed has best offered this holy Sacrifice? Who participated most perfectly? Surely it was our Blessed Lady on Calvary! No creature has ever offered the Divine Victim to the Father better than she did on that day. And what was she doing? Shaking hands with the centurion? The only people who shook hands on Calvary were the Pharisees, they reckoned they had done a good job. Our Lady stood there in silence, her heart united with the Heart of her Son, offering Him to the Father and herself in union with Him, Her participation was perfect, and it was a participation of the heart, of the will. In this, as in all else, she is our model.
And if we now ask ourselves at which rite Our Lady would feel more at home: a Mass in the old rite, at which she could take her place with the devout and silent layfolk and do exactly what she once did on Calvary, only now without the heartache? or a Novus Ordo Mass in which she would need to "participate" with enthusiasm? surely, we have only to ask the question to know the answer.
... given the tendency of our fallen human nature to go for what is easier, our liturgy, in the hands of the ill-instructed or unwary, will often tend to a Protestant interpretation. And a protestantised liturgy may well incline Catholics towards a Protestant understanding of their faith. I know Catholic priests who are now Protestant pastors and do not seem to be aware that they have lost anything.
There is a further danger in the new rite that sometimes makes me anxious: it can blur the sacramental distinction between the priest and the laity.
Priests may well be less holy less learned, less articulate than their parishioners, but they are priests and we are are not. God has set them apart for His service. Their vestments, the communion rail, and the sanctuary itself all spoke of their unique vocation.
But now, with no communion rail, with the sanctuary being common ground for all, and with the laity giving out Holy Communion - all this is a far cry from the traditional practice in the Church. The story is told of St Ambrose that the Emperor Theodosius, having brought his offering to the altar during Mass, remained within the rails of the sanctuary. St Ambrose asked if he wanted anything. The Emperor said that he stayed to assist at the Holy Mysteries and to communicate. Ambrose replied "My lord, it is lawful for none but the sacred ministers to remain within the sanctuary. Be pleased therefore to go out and stand with the rest. The purple robe makes princes, but not priests." Theodosius apologised and answered that he thought the custom was the same at Milan as at Constantinople, where his place was in the sanctuary; and after having thanked the bishop for his instruction he went and took his place among the laity. He would say that Ambrose was the only bishop he knew who was worthy of the name.
... Why did God allow Nebuchadnezzar to destroy Jerusalem and the Temple, so that for seventy years there was no true sacrifice offered anywhere? He allowed it because He was angry with most of the Jews and their priests -as you can read for yourself in Jeremiah and Malachi and other prophets. They were not worthy to be counted as His People. But Daniel did not give way to depression. He knew just why all this had happened. He fasted and prayed to the Lord: "We have sinned and done wrong and acted wickedly and rebelled, turning aside from thy commandments and ordinances". Daniel did not blame Nebuchadnezzar for the destruction of the Temple. He knew that it was God Himself who had used Nebuchadnezzar to chastise His People for their sins and bring them to a better frame of mind.
We do not have many Daniels around nowadays.
And again, in those days before the Second Vatican Council, did Catholics really love the Mass their ancestors had died for?
Over the past three decades we have witnessed a vast and tragic tailing-away from the practice of the faith, in some places almost a mass apostasy. Maybe once more God’s winnowing-fan is in His hand, separating wheat from chaff.
This is something He has done before. Only eight persons survived the Flood. Only two of the men who left Egypt with Moses actually entered the Promised Land, From the Babylonian exile only a remnant returned to rebuild the holy city. After the first wave of converts, few Jews entered the Church. In the sixth century, all Asia Minor and north Africa were Christian. In the 14th century, all Scandinavia and Germany were Catholic. It is as though God looks on His Church and sees that some people are there more from convenience than personal conviction, more from social convention than real faith in Him. And He allows a Mohammed or a Luther to act as His winnowing-fan....
Labels: Liturgy, Thoughts, Traditionalism
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