Review article by Thomas Storck
Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis: Sacred Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and Renewal in the Church.
By Peter Kwasniewski.
Angelico Press.
212 pages.
$16.95.
Peter Kwasniewski, a professor of philosophy
and theology at Wyoming Catholic College, has written a wide-ranging
book consisting of articles, most of which originally appeared in The Latin Mass
magazine, that pin the many problems in the Catholic Church today —
indeed, over the past fifty years — on the state of the liturgy. In
question here is the Mass of the Latin Church, or Roman rite, whose
ancient liturgy was replaced in 1970 with a “new order of Mass,” or Novus Ordo Missae, which has weakened or even destroyed the sacred atmosphere or ethos that was long associated with Catholic worship.
At the beginning of his book, Kwasniewski
accurately sums up the current situation in the Church. “Since the
Second Vatican Council,” he writes, “the Roman Catholic Church has
experienced an unprecedented crisis in her very identity, extending even
to her hitherto impregnable sacred doctrine and spirituality, her
apostolic and missionary activity.” Everyone reading this is, no doubt,
aware that not only are the majority of Catholics today poorly
catechized, but a large number who are better instructed —
clergy, for example, or academics — think nothing of rejecting important
aspects of the sacred inheritance of doctrine received from our Lord
Himself and His Apostles, while the bishops, appointed guardians of
their flocks, do little or nothing about it. Many have blamed this sorry
state of affairs chiefly on the new Mass introduced by Bl. Pope Paul
VI, especially as it is typically celebrated at ordinary parishes. In
order to explain the deleterious effects the change in the Mass has
produced, or at least contributed to, commentators have tended to use
two types of arguments, and Kwasniewski does likewise.
In the first place, Kwasniewski concentrates on the actual text of the Novus Ordo,
pointing out that its wording is poorer theologically than that
codified by Pope St. Pius V in the sixteenth century. When one compares,
for example, the Offertory prayers of the Mass of Paul VI (the ordinary
form), with those of the Mass of Pius V (the extraordinary form), one
is struck by the theological depth of the latter. Since it is rare for a
priest who celebrates the Novus Ordo to use the traditional
Roman Canon (Canon I), even the Eucharistic Prayer has suffered a
definite diminution in its presentation of the mysteries of the faith.
Although this loss is certainly real, arguments of this type can be
overdrawn, for the theological richness of the extraordinary form is
contained in prayers said or sung in Latin, a language no longer
understood by most of the congregation. Moreover, the congregation does
not even hear some of the prayers in the Latin Mass (notably the
Offertory and Canon) since the celebrant prays them in a low voice.
Although most of those who attend the extraordinary form of the Roman
rite probably use a missal, and thus can profit from this theological
richness, was this true before the Council when this Mass was normative
throughout the Latin Church? I do not know, but we cannot simply assume
that what obtains at the present among the admittedly small number of
traditional Latin Mass devotees was the norm for the entire Church in an
earlier era.
Kwasniewski employs a second common line of criticism of the Novus Ordo that is by far stronger. James Hitchcock, in his 1974 book The Recovery of the Sacred,
summed up this argument: “In the actual life of the Church, most sacred
symbols are not understood by most believers in an explicit,
intellectual way, but are nonetheless apprehended as having meaning….
The total effect of these symbols is to sustain a strong belief in God,
even though specific symbols may not always convey specific religious
meanings.”
The atmosphere of the Latin Mass, especially a sung Mass, is entirely different from that of the typical Novus Ordo
Mass. The former bespeaks a sacred action, something focused on another
world, and seems to bring something from that other world into ours
now, as indeed actually occurs in the eucharistic sacrifice. But the new
Mass at best struggles to retain some of that sacred atmosphere, and at
worst has descended into a sort of religious banality. Kwasniewski is
well aware of this. “If the liturgy cannot immediately show
something meaningful to a wide-eyed child, then it has failed,” he
writes. “The bowing priest reciting the Confiteor, the acolyte swinging a
censer, the subdeacon, deacon and priest aligned hierarchically during
solemn Mass, the awesome stillness of the Roman Canon — all these things
speak directly to the heart, to the heart even of a little child…. The Novus Ordo liturgy has little to say to such souls because it only says, it does not do.”
More than once Kwasniewski hits on what he calls the “never-ending verbiage” of the Novus Ordo.
By this he means that the new Mass is deficient in symbol and
atmosphere, and instead puts a premium on words, on instruction, as if
the Church could verbally bludgeon Catholics into living the faith,
instead of presenting us here and now with an opportunity for real
participation in the heavenly liturgy, the Kingdom of God come among us —
a powerful motivation toward holiness and love of God. “The traditional
Mass exhibits the paradox of a liturgy with more text but less
verbosity than its modern counterpart,” Kwasniewski observes. “By the
books it has more prayers, there is more verbal substance to it, and yet, without a doubt, the overall impression is one of less wordiness, less ‘textiness,’ than is felt to be the case with the Novus Ordo…[which]
stipulates that nearly everything must be spoken out loud, and what is
worse, proclaimed to all the world — which can make the whole thing seem
like a pious harangue.”
It is precisely the mystical character of the traditional Latin Mass
that has appealed to so many people of different ages and places, of
varying levels of education and culture, and that has provided the
context and impetus for so much of the Catholic art and music that are
now considered the glories of the cultural patrimony of the Church, and
indeed of the whole human race.
Of course, this emphasis on the liturgy as something that creates a
sacred atmosphere does not mean that Kwasniewski is downplaying actual
instruction in Catholic doctrine. But the liturgy must not be seen as a
kind of special CCD class. In fact, one of the sad things about the
post-conciliar era is that catechetics has declined hand in hand with
the desacralization of the liturgy. We surely need more and better
teaching of the faith, but instruction (at least explicit instruction)
is not the liturgy’s chief task. That is the task of Catholic education,
and a liturgy that attempts to place before the worshiper the sacred
action of re-presenting Christ’s death on Calvary can be a powerful aid
to such explicit instruction.
Although Kwasniewski argues that the change of Mass is chiefly
responsible for the deplorable situation the Church finds herself in
today, he recognizes that other elements have likewise contributed to
our plight. He devotes a chapter to what he calls “a threefold amnesia”:
In addition to the “attenuation” of the sacred liturgy, he lists the
“downplaying of integral Catholic social teaching” and the “dismissal of
St. Thomas Aquinas as Common Teacher.” In this he is exactly correct,
and it is probable that had St. Thomas’s place as common doctor of the
Church not already been widely questioned for twenty-some years before
the Council, the kind of thinking that ultimately led to the Novus Ordo
might have had considerably less influence. Moreover, the traditional
Mass, divorced from its place within a robust reception of the Church’s
doctrinal and intellectual heritage, can become a kind of juridical or
habitual fetish, so that one becomes satisfied with a hastily said low
Mass that meets perhaps the bare requirements of Catholic tradition but
lacks the splendor and richness that Kwasniewski is at pains to contrast
with the barrenness of the Novus Ordo.
The faith that began in Christ’s liturgical action on the original
Holy Thursday was meant to extend itself to encompass all of life,
individual and social, nations and entire civilizations. In the thought
of St. Thomas, the Church found a means to integrate and order all of
this, all of reality in fact, giving due attention and weight to both
the natural and supernatural, to body and soul, to the individual person
and the community. Catholic social teaching applied this understanding
of the unity of life to the social order and recognized that man’s
political and economic activity does not exist for its own sake. As Pope
Pius XI taught in Quadragesimo Anno, “Particular economic aims,
whether of society as a body or of individuals, will be intimately
linked with the universal teleological order, and as a consequence we
shall be led by progressive stages to the final end of all, God Himself,
our highest and lasting good.” This is in part what the liturgy
symbolizes: the offering to God of all that man has made and done, in
union with the sacrifice of the cross wherein the Incarnate God offered
Himself in His human nature to the Father. Certainly the Mass, in
whatever form, does do this, but there is no reason why the outward form
of the liturgy should not contribute as much as it can to symbolizing
this offering, to giving us a visible glimpse of the heavenly liturgy,
to helping us form our souls and even our bodies in accordance with it.
This the traditional Latin Mass does in a pre-eminent manner, at least
when it is celebrated with the splendor that rightfully belongs to it.
Every Catholic who is interested in the Church’s apostolate of
conveying the Gospel to every creature will at times be perplexed about
how to appeal to the secularized man of the Western world, to the
historic cultures of Asia, and to the seemingly intractable world of
Islam. Kwasniewski is convinced that the traditional Roman liturgy can
play an important part in presenting the faith to the men and cultures
of today’s world. He points out that most cultures have traditionally
had sacred rites, even sacred languages, of their own: “All the great
religious traditions of the world have retained a sacred language…. Some
kind of sacred language seems almost to be a constitutive component of
religion as such…. The traditional liturgy is thus the chief missionary tool of the Catholic Church, her main point of contact with Jews, Muslims, Eastern Christians, Hindus, Africans, and so on.”
But this raises one more point that needs to be discussed in the
context of a book promoting and justifying the traditional Latin Mass.
Kwasniewski states that his “purpose here is not to diagnose lapses or
distortions of traditionalism, but on the contrary, to point out that
its fundamental instinct is sound.” Well and good, but in any
comprehensive discussion of the problem, we cannot ignore such “lapses
or distortions.” One of the reasons why the extraordinary form of the
Roman rite does not make more progress, does not appeal to more people
on account of its intrinsic richness and beauty, is that it is
associated in the minds of many with a perceived narrow, critical, and
rigid attitude. This perception is not entirely just, but those who
rightly call attention to the many errors and contradictions that are
rife in the Church today might consider doing so in a manner more
calculated to win friends and influence people. Moreover, many
supporters of the traditional Mass seem content with a low Mass,
sometimes said entirely silently, in violation of the rubrics. I venture
to predict, however, that the traditional Latin liturgy will never
regain its rightful place in the Church unless it is everywhere
celebrated with the solemn splendor and richness it deserves.
Kwasniewski is certainly aware of this, and more than once he states
that the extraordinary form is most fittingly celebrated in its solemn
mode.
If supporters of the traditional liturgy (among whom I count myself)
really wish to see that liturgy become widespread, then one of the most
important things to aim for is its frequent, indeed weekly, solemn
celebration. Without that, arguments that in the end are mere
comparisons of text with text will not persuade most people. As
Kwasniewski says, “If the liturgy cannot immediately show
something meaningful to a wide-eyed child, then it has failed.” In this
respect, the silent low Mass does fail, especially for the vast majority
of Catholics today who did not grow up with it.
Let Kwasniewski’s book, then, be a starting point for serious
discussion not simply about how to preserve the Latin liturgy as a kind
of relic for those who are attached to it, but about its role in
revitalizing the Church, in restoring Catholic sensibilities, Catholic
intellectual life, and even a genuine Catholic social order.
Thomas Storck has written widely on Catholic social teaching,
Catholic culture, and related topics. He recently contributed a chapter
to Radically Catholic In the Age of Francis: An Anthology of Visions for the Future(Solidarity Hall Press, 2015) and is the author of a
forthcoming book from Angelico Press, a guide to a Catholic
understanding of the creation of modernity.
The foregoing article, "Liturgy that Speaks to the Soul," was originally published in the New Oxford Review (June 2015), and is reproduced here by kind permission of New Oxford Review, 1069 Kains Ave., Berkeley, CA 94706.
3 comments:
Whether it was or wasn't the norm for Catholics at mass to know what was being said in Latin, it was certainly possible for them to know. Most missals were bilingual and made it possible to follow the mass in the vernacular. For anyone who cared to know what was being said, missals were certainly available. There was no popular movement for the mass in the vernacular of which I was aware and I was in the minor seminary at the time.
The persistent myth that the people did not understand what was being said is a propaganda coup by proponents of the Ordinary Form.
It should be remembered that most people who recall the Extraordinary Form and claim not to have understood it were under 20 when the Ordinary Form was introduced. Many of them were children. Personally, I had virtually memorized the text of the Roman Canon in English by the time I was in the third grade. That probably makes me an oddity.
While the presider sits there, slouched in his presider chair,
wistfully twirling what little is left of his wispy hair
while behemoth Betty bellows out the words of some Epistle
as though they were the bass line plucked by the Who's, Entwhistle
Remember to love the Lil' Licit Liturgy the revolution left us
as the fruit of the Council, of all of them the bestest;
the bestest council of the bestest men who modernist seminaries lived-in
our NuRite is now the way we Trads are to be shriven.
Raider,
Didn't know you were a poet to boot!
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