Two interpretations of the Novus-Novus Ordo

Here is a tale of two contrasting interpretations of the NEW Roman Missal (now the 3rd edition of the Novus Ordo Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI four decades ago):

• Fr. Dwight Longenecker, "Is the New Translation More Reverent?" (Standing on my Head, February 2, 2011)
• Jeffrey A. Tucker, "Down to the Wire on New Missal" (New Liturgical Movement, November 15, 2011)

Both pieces make very good points.

The first, while appreciative of the improvements in translation, is doubtful that these changes alone will make Catholic worship more reverent. What is more important than the words, says Fr. Longenecker, is how the Mass is celebrated by both the priest and the people:

I am quite sure that when the new Mass is introduced that Fr. Folkmass will still celebrate Mass in his usual game show host style while other priests will celebrate the Mass casually and carelessly. Many Americans will still shuffle into Mass late wearing shorts and flip flops. Comfort hymns and crooners with hand held microphones will still lead the music and politically correct former nuns will still bully everyone into singing protest anthems instead of hymns.

Mass isn't reverent simply because you start using lofty language that 'sounds religious'. True reverence is the fruit of a condition of heart. Reverence in worship is a by product of a certain type of Catholic mindset. It is not the automatic product of a particular form of words.

This is why I am not that optimistic about the new translation making Catholic worship more reverent. To understand the irreverence in much Catholic worship we have to probe much deeper than the form of words we use for worship. Catholic worship is too often irreverent because Catholics (priests and people) have stopped really believing the Catholic faith.

I'm sorry to call a spade a spade, but far too many Catholics don't actually believe in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. They believe in the fellowship meal. They don't believe in transubstantiation. They believe in 'the real presence' (a vague and flexible term which can mean practically anything)....

The second piece is more hopeful and more detailed in its analysis. Tucker acknowledges that the new translation is "serious, solemn, dignified, and even a bit remote in the way that mysterious and awesome things really should be," and that the sentence formulations, unlike typical vernacular, are elevated without being affected. The language, however, is not the most significant part of the new Missal, he claims:

The biggest evidence of this change concerns the music. There is a long history in the Catholic Church of missteps in this regard. The people who produce the Missals don’t think much about the music question.... There is a tendency to focus on the words alone while forgetting that the Roman Rite really is a sung ritual and has been since the beginning.

The people involved in the production of the English version of the Third Edition of the Roman Missal got it right. They embedded the music as part of the text. You can hardly turn a page in this Missal without bumping into musical notation. This is just fantastic because it establishes a norm for both tunes and for the preferred style of the music to be used at Mass. This style is call[ed] chant. The prayers are all chant. The people’s parts are chanted. There is a provision for all the parts of the Mass to be sung from beginning to end. We won’t have to wait 50 years or 300 years for the music question to be settled. It is already settled with the printing of the Missal itself.

This is just great because it solves a serious and major problem that currently exists within the Catholic Church: the music that is commonly employed in the liturgy works at cross purposes with the ritual itself. The establishment of a new (actually old) musical norm will have a gradual effect on the choices that the musicians make in the future. Pop music will not fit in well with a chanted Mass. There will be a gravitational pull toward making the entire Mass a chanted event, thereby fulfilling one of the goals of the Second Vatican Council to grant chant “first place” at Mass.

After reading these two reflections on the new Novus Ordo Missal, I was appreciative of the insights of each writer, as different as they are. Each also provoked a number of questions for further thought.

Fr. Longenecker's piece raised the question: What if Fr. Folkmass continued "to celebrate Mass in his usual game show host style," but the parishioners hearts were miraculously converted to embrace the Gospel? Wouldn't there still be a problem? Is it not also of some significance that the form of worship is reverent and that the liturgy is recognizably Catholic?

Jeffrey Tucker's piece raised the question, once raised by one of my commentators: Isn't a Ford Pinto, even with a shiny new coat of paint, still a Ford Pinto? Is it not, as the Holy Father himself has suggested more than once, the product of a hijacked liturgical reform that was animated by a hermeneutic of rupture from Catholic liturgical tradition?

Your thoughts?

[Hat tip to J.M.]