Mass music: what's appropriate, what's not, and why it matters ...

• Peter Kwasniewski, "The Church’s traditions are alive and well. Catholics need to immerse themselves in them" (LifeSiteNews, October 17, 2017).
  
  
• Peter Kwasniewski, "Guitars have no place in the Catholic Mass. Here's why" (LifeSiteNews, March 20, 2018)
  
  
• John Paul Meenan, "If you want a beautiful Mass, you need beautiful liturgical music" (LifeSiteNews, March 22, 2018)
  
  
• Peter Kwasniewski, "Bob Dylan tunes with Christian lyrics can never be truly liturgical ‘sacred’ music" (LifeSiteNews, March 27, 2018).

Why young people consider liturgical 'spontaneity' soOOOoooo YESTERDAY

Remember how the 1960s and 70s considered spontaneity the definition of "authenticity"? Well, times have changed and so has the meaning of "authenticity." For many, at least. The lines dividing the two sides of the generation gap today may surprise many of us. Those pushing "spontaneity" in worship seem to be increasingly greying members of the baby boomers who grew up in the 60s and 70s and still believe that that young people will find "cool" what they liked back in the 60s and 70s. But in an ironic turn of the tables, many today seem to regard partisans of liturgical spontaneity as tiresome bores, and are even looking to the Extraordinary Form as "something new." Check out the article. See what you think.

Kathleen Pluth, "The Liturgical Generation Gap and 'Authenticity'" (Chant Café, February 19, 2018):

The following article is reprinted from 2014.

Lately I've been giving a lot of thought to the fact that more formal worship styles appeal to a surprising demographic: the young.

While many youth liturgical outreaches continue to focus on the casual and the near-secular in order to attract young people, this type of pastoral programming seems to be doing less well in many cases than those using more traditional forms.

Not long ago I visited a parish that within a couple of years had built up a large group of young servers and a sizable youth schola for the traditional Mass--celebrated on a weekday evening. And this is hardly a unique case, just in the parishes I've personally visited.

There was a time, a naive time, when it seemed there was a desire among the young for an authenticity that had as its heart a certain casualness and spontaneity. In the 60s and 70s, it was the fashion to speak one's mind, follow one's heart, and go with the flow.

I believe that it is likely that today's young people are likewise interested in authenticity--but in authenticity that has a much different character. Spontaneity is wonderful, in its place. Casualness, chattiness, hanging out--these are activities as popular among young people as they have ever been. But there seems to be a growing sensibility that not every place is the same. Mass is not the place for relaxed, casual activities. The true liturgical joys can be found by going deeper, by being more quiet, and by experiencing more and richer beauty.

When I was young there was no leadership in the Church of my experience for this kind of liturgical experience, which leads to a second and more practical reason that young people are enjoying good liturgy: it is available. If a teenager would like to attend a polyphonic Mass on a given Sunday, and if s/he is willing to travel a bit, it is available. If a family has been singing chant at home and would like to join a schola to improve their skills, it is possible--not always at the local parish, but somewhere.

I sometimes wonder why there was this enormous temporal gap in leadership of the sacred liturgy. I suppose some of the reason was political, some was a misunderstanding about the aims of the Second Vatican Council, and some was a skill vacuum of a kind that we are thankfully not likely to see again soon, if all the young people now involved in liturgy continue to persevere and serve.

Tridentine Community News - Side Effects of the Rethinking of Litúrgiam Authénticam; differences in the Dominican Rite Mass & Rosary; TLM Mass schedule

"I will go in unto the Altar of God
To God, Who giveth joy to my youth"
Tridentine Community News by Alex Begin (February 12, 2017):

February 12, 2017 – Septuagésima Sunday

Side Effects of the Rethinking of Litúrgiam Authénticam

“All the continuous tinkering in [the] name of Vatican II serves only to strengthen the movement & clamoring for the traditional Latin Mass.” – Fr. Kevin Cusick, Jan. 27, 2017

On January 11, 2017, Vatican journalist Sandro Magister reported that Pope Francis had instructed Archbishop Arthur Roche, Secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, to set up a commission to revisit the guidelines of Litúrgiam Authénticam, the 2001 instruction which established the criteria for translating the original Latin of the Ordinary Form into vernacular languages.

Widely seen as being representative of then-Cardinal Ratzinger’s thinking, this document required translations to be more faithful to the words and the meaning of the Latin. This was in contrast to the theory of “dynamic equivalence” which guided the original 1970 translation of the Ordinary Form. Those of us in English-speaking countries saw the fruits of this instruction with the new translation of the Ordinary Form Mass, introduced in 2011. One oft-cited example of the difference:

1970 excerpt from Eucharistic Prayer I: “When supper was ended, he took the cup…”.

2011 version: “In a similar way, when supper was ended, he took this precious chalice in His holy and venerable hands…”

It is now believed that Pope Francis will seek at least a partial return to the previous philosophy of translation. This development almost certainly puts the brakes on the current work to revise translations of other books and rites, such as the Ordinary Form Sacrament of Baptism. It raises a number of questions:

Will Catholics spiritually benefit from translations that are less faithful to the original Latin meaning?

How often can we expect translations to change? Who will pay for the new books that parishes will require? How will the faithful be expected to keep up?

How decentralized with the new translations become? Will, for example, Canada and the U.S. have different English translations established by their respective National Conferences of Bishops?

Will the global unity of Catholic faith and awareness of doctrine on the part of the faithful be impacted by the forthcoming changes and possible differences from country to country?

This writer believes that a not-small number of Catholics will tire of the repeated changes to Catholic worship and will find solace and refuge in the unchanging texts of the Traditional Latin Mass. Because there are no official vernacular translations of the Tridentine Mass, wording based on and similar to the hierarchical English of the Douay-Rheims Bible has long been the norm for hand missals and Propers handouts. Only a very small number of hand missals have attempted to use modern English, one example being the Maryknoll Missal. Even those still strive to employ reverent language.

While certainly not the preferred way to promote Sacred Tradition, Rome’s potential further tweaking of the Ordinary Form is more likely than not to strengthen the Extraordinary Form, so let’s not despair at the news, but instead look forward to the pleasant side effects it may very well bring.

Differences in the Dominican Rite Mass & Rosary


The traditional Dominican Rite has been getting quite of bit of press in recent years as it regains popularity in Dominican-run parishes and houses of formation. While similar to the Tridentine Mass, there are some notable differences, as seen in the adjacent photo by Gregory DiPippo of The New Liturgical Movement. At certain points in the Mass, such as during the Canon, the celebrant fully extends his hands. The altar servers wear albs instead of cassocks and surplices. A special Dominican Missal and book of chants are used.

Likewise, there is a Dominican version of the Rosary. It is traditionally believed that Our Lady revealed the prayer to St. Dominic. To this day, the Dominican Rosary is promoted in Dominican-run parishes. The differences are at the beginning and the end: The Rosary begins with the Sign of the Cross and the following: “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with Thee. Blessed art thou amongst women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. O Lord, open my lips. And my tongue will proclaim Your praise. O God, come to my assistance. O Lord, make haste to help me. Glory be to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit. As it was in the beginning, is now, and will be forever. Amen. Alleluia. [During Lent, ‘Praise be to you, O Lord, King of eternal glory.’]” The Apostles’ Creed and the initial Our Father, three Hail Marys, and Glory Be are omitted. The decades then begin as usual.

At the end, “Pray for us, O holy Mother of God” is replaced by “Queen of the Most Holy Rosary, pray for us.” At the very end is added: “May the divine assistance remain always with us. May the souls of the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace. Amen.”

Tridentine Masses This Coming Week

• Mon. 02/13 7:00 PM: Low Mass at St. Josaphat (Feria)
• Tue. 02/14 7:00 PM: Low Mass at Holy Name of Mary, Windsor (St. Valentine, Priest & Martyr)
• Sat. 02/18 8:30 AM: Low Mass at Miles Christi (St. Simeon, Bishop & Martyr)

[Comments? Please e-mail tridnews@detroitlatinmass.org. Previous columns are available at http://www.detroitlatinmass.org. This edition of Tridentine Community News, with minor editions, is from the St. Albertus (Detroit), Academy of the Sacred Heart (Bloomfield Hills), and St. Alphonsus and Holy Name of Mary Churches (Windsor) bulletin inserts for February 12, 2017. Hat tip to Alex Begin, author of the column.]

A traditional Catholic's cri de coeur over what is happening

Jimmy Fallon, Bill Murray, Sting and Bianca Jagger all lament that the Catholic Church is in all out revolution, so why is it that so many mainstream Catholics seem intent on denying that this is the case, asks Michael Matt. The Editor of the traditionalist Remnant magazine relates his experience at a recent Novus Ordo 'Gathering Rite,' and launches into a welcome rant about the appalling indifference to the Real Presence of Christ in our churches. He also asks: "What is neo-Catholicism?" and "What is the New Mass?" Hard times for Catholics who know the details of recent changes in the Church.


I bet you anything that many Catholics would find nothing at all exceptional about the 'Gathering Rite' referenced at the beginning of this video. Matt's reaction is so different because, as he says, he's never been to one of these Novus Ordo Masses. He's apprently spend his whole life in the Extraordinary Form (the Traditional Latin Mass); and his reaction is probably similar to how some of our ancestors would react in a contemporary Catholic church. What does this tell us about changes in the Church; and what should we think about this?

Ephemeral enthusiasm of the 1960s ... not aging well

Peter Kwasniewski, I was very surprised to learn, was involved at a crucial juncture in his spiritual journey in a charismatic prayer group. Wow.

He relates this and much, much more in an interview in a Czech Newspaper RC Monitor, addressing topics of Liturgy, Music, Philosophy, and Traditionalism. Via Rorate Caeli, HERE (September 27, 2016).. Excerpts:

My journey into the traditional liturgy was gentle and gradual. I grew up in a very typical suburban American parish and sang in its children’s choir and, later, adult choir. The liturgy was very “contemporary” in style, but I didn’t know that at the time.

In high school two things happened: I got involved in a charismatic prayer group, which re-animated my faith, and I took a course in philosophy that brought me into contact with Plato, Aristotle, Augustine, and Aquinas. After a couple of years, my interest in the charismatic prayer group waned, but my intellectual life soared. I began to study theology, too, and had a vague longing for a form of prayer and liturgy that would correspond to the depth and breadth of philosophy and theology. Without knowing it, I was searching for the traditional worship of the Church, which was born of the ancient Fathers, developed by the medievals, and faithfully handed down to us from Trent onwards.

I was fortunate to attend a college [Thomas Aquinas College] where the Ordinary Form of the Mass was celebrated always in Latin and with Gregorian chant. This pleased me very much because it seemed like what I had been looking for. But then, towards the end of my four years there, I had several opportunities to attend Tridentine “low Masses.” The intensity of silence, the palpable holiness, the richness of the prayers, gripped me powerfully....

.... In retrospect, I think we are in a better position to see that some of what got into the documents of the Second Vatican Council was ephemeral enthusiasm from the 1960s that is now very dated. The Constitution on the Liturgy lays down general theological principles that have permanent validity but goes on to propose many particular changes, which are not doctrinal matters but disciplinary and therefore prudential in nature. Looking back, we can ask whether, e.g., the suppression of Prime was really necessary; whether “useless repetition” is really so useless after all; whether the Church calendar really needed anything more than superficial refinements, as opposed to a massive overhaul. In other words, many pages of this Constitution have not aged well and are a bit embarrassing now to look at; they are better forgotten, along with much else from the 1960s.

[Hat tip to JM]

Liturgy: Look to the East at sunrise for my coming ...

Ad orientem ... Overcoming the hurdle of 'priest as performer' ... Relearning what was once habit ....


[Hat tip to J.E.]

Two money quotes from Henry Sire on the Mass of Paul VI and Annibale Bugnini

Pope Paul VI with Secretary of the Commission on the reform of the liturgy, Annibale Bugnini
Henry J.A. Sire, Phoenix from the Ashes: The Making, Unmaking, and Restoration of Catholic Tradition(Angelico Press, 2015):

The story of how the liturgical revolution was put through is one that hampers the historian by its very enormity; he would wish, for his own sake, to have a less unbelievable tale to tell. The partisanship in choice of agents, the contempt for law and consultation, the blind support given by Paul VI despite every abuse, the silencing of the Church's official organisms for the liturgy, the spirit of conflict in which the reform of the most sacred possession of the faithful was carried out, the advance of irreverence and impiety, the prompt discarding of principles that had been declared essential only a few years before, the discrediting and sudden departure of both the men to whom Paul VI had entrusted the reform of the liturgy, all these challenge belief. Moderation seems to demand rejection of such a story; but moderation is the wrong lens through which to judge immoderate events. That the reform of the Church's liturgical life should have been bound up with such violations seems too hard to accept, but it can be explained by two facts: the first is the initial decision of Paul VI to hand over the reform to the most extreme wing of liturgical iconoclasts, and the second is the background of Modernist clamour that existed at the time. However they chose to act, the pope and his nominees needed never to fear criticism for actions that made for change, but only for laggardness in promoting it. This noisy chorus, claiming to be the voice of the faithful, represented a milieu filled with arrogance towards the sacred and towards Christian tradition. At their demand the religious treasure house of centuries was destroyed, while the ordinary laity, under the flood of innovation, lapsed from the Church in their millions. One day it will be necessary for the Church to study with honesty the way in which its liturgical heritage was done away with and to pass the judgment that it has pronounced in the past on grave deviations from its true nature and duty. (p. 251-2)

We need to be clear that in attempting to stamp out the traditional liturgy of the Church, Pope Paul VI and the hierarchies of the world after him were following a policy of complete illegality. This assertion is not a legal quibble; it does not rest on a benign oversight in the constitution Missale Romanum. Paul VI did indeed want to consign the traditional rite to oblivion, but he knew that he was not entitled to do so. Yet even the legitimate intentions of legislation need to be expressed in legally valid form, and where the intention is legitimate there is never any difficulty in ensuring that. The failure of Pope Paul VI to abrogate the old liturgy is the consequence of the fact that it was a wholly illegitimate intention. This is merely part of a wider truth, that the entire liturgical reform is steeped in illegitimacy and illegality from beginning to end: the assumption by Bugnini and his associates of a mission beyond what the Council had authorized, the disregard that they showed for the Congregation of Rites, the ignoring of due process in the introduction of reforms, the overriding of the Synod of Bishops when it opposed the new Mass, the forcing of the new rite on the Consilium by Bugnini on the plea that it was the pope's personal will, his disobedience of the pope's direction to submit the General Instruction to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. When the new rite was brought in, the attempt to accompany its introduction with the abolition of the old was part of the same course of illegality. Hence we ought to recognize what the genuine law of the Church is at present: there is no need juridically for the restoration of the traditional rite. The only thing needed for its recovery is that the Church should return to legality. As a matter of law, there is no obligation on any priest to use the Missal of Paul VI for any celebration, and the only liturgy that has universal right in the Latin Church is the one decreed by Pope St. Pius V in the bull Quo Primum. (p. 286)

[Hat tip to Sir A.S.]

Rare Merton observations on the liturgical reform

Kenneth J. Wolfe, "Thomas Merton on post-Vatican II liturgy" (Rorate Caeli, September 20, 2016):

For Father Louis (his religious name that appears on his tombstone, above), his liturgical sensibilities began in quite the traditional manner. In his 1948 autobiography "The Seven Storey Mountain", he wrote of his love of "the warmth of Gregorian chant" and noted his first attendance at Mass (before converting) was an August 1938 Low Mass at Corpus Christi church in New York, where he was impressed by even a music-free liturgy.

... In the 1960s, Father Louis would get caught up in the spirit of Vatican II, but he also showed some misgiving. A recent article by Gregory K. Hillis, an associate professor of theology at Bellarmine University in Louisville, Kentucky, highlighted some of these quotes in the context of embracing "really groovy" Mass insanity in 1967, while writing numerous letters in the same decade opposing the reforms that led to the novus ordo (which he did not live to see). From the article:

...Merton knew that liturgical reform was risky, and in a letter to Dom Denys Rackley, a Carthusian at La Grande Chartreuse written five days after the constitution's promulgation, he expresses his reservations about the liturgical doors opened up by the council:

"Our great danger is to throw away things that are excellent, which we do not understand, and replace them with mediocre forms which seem to us to be more meaningful and which in fact are only trite. I am very much afraid that when all the dust clears we will be left with no better than we deserve, a rather silly, flashy, seemingly up-to-date series of liturgical forms that have lost the dignity and the meaning of the old ones."

"The monks cannot understand the treasure they possess, and they throw it out to look for something else ...."

... But Merton also frequently expresses frustration with the willingness with which progressives were willing to rid the liturgy of that which had timeless value. Merton's frustrations come through clearly in a 1965 letter to an Anglican:

"As I tell all my Anglican friends, 'I hope you will have the sense to maintain traditions that we are now eagerly throwing overboard'."

He is particularly concerned about the ease with which Latin and Gregorian chant were being abandoned, even in the monastery: "The monks cannot understand the treasure they possess, and they throw it out to look for something else, when seculars, who for the most part are not even Christians, are able to love this incomparable art."

"Does the USCCB letter on ad orientem establish a virtual 'indult' regime?"

Rorate reports: "Over the weekend, the liturgical website Corpus Christi Watershed posted the following letter from the USCCB's Committee on Divine Worship regarding the recent discussions on the celebration of the Novus Ordo ad orientem."


Rorate concludes: "At the same time we have the happy duty of pointing out that the easiest way right now to celebrate Mass ad orientem is by celebrating the Traditional Latin Mass. "

Is it possible even to know what sort of Mass Vatican II wanted?

The Traditional Mass on the Chartres Pilgrimage Not so off-putting to young people as Pope Paul VI imagined.
Photo by John Aaron
Joseph Shaw, "What sort of Mass did 'Vatican II' want?" (Rorate Caeli, May 24, 2016):

Liturgical conservatives and progressives argue endlessly about this. Their argument will never be resolved, both because Sacrosanctum Concilium was and the subsequent magisterium has been self-contradictory, but also because neither side in the debate is willing to be honest about the historical facts. I am sorry to be harsh, but having read the output of both sides of the debate over a number of years, it is time it was said.

First, Sacrosantum Concilium: how is it self-contradictory? It makes few concrete suggestions, but it does make some. It calls for wider use of the vernacular (63); the removal of 'useless repetition' (34), and a more 'lavish' presentation of the Scriptures in the readings, arranged 'prescribed number of years' (51). It leaves further details to local initiative and an official commission. On the other hand, it says (23): 

There must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing. 

It is perfectly obvious that the this double condition is not satisfied by the concrete suggestions the document itself makes. There is no precedent in the liturgical tradition of the Church, in any Rite, for a multi-year lectionary, and to suggest that such a thing could grow 'organically' out of a single-year lectionary is obviously absurd. There is no precedent for a mixing of Latin and the vernacular in the liturgy, or for the liturgy to be translated into dozens of vernaculars for different countries. The principle militating against 'useless repetition' is entirely foreign to the Church's liturgical tradition. And none of these changes could possibly, in advance, be said to be required 'genuinely and certainly' by the good of the Church. 

From this fundamental self-contradiction, you can draw any conclusion you like. Perhaps the 'general principle' of section 23 should control our interpretation of the specific examples of reforms; perhaps it is the other other way around. The fact is, there is no coherent programme of reform inSacrosanctum Concilium. Let's not engage in make-believe. It is a compromise document with provisions pointing in different directions.It was, however, interpreted by those appointed to interpret it, and the Novus Ordo Missae was signed off by Pope Paul VI. So what liturgical style are we guided towards by the official documents, documents of the 'living magisterium' as the conservatives like to call them, which accompanied and followed the promulgation of the new missal?Well, these documents too are mutually contradictory. The architect of the reforms, Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, made a great deal of the provision of Sacrosanctum Conciium 34: 

The rites should be distinguished by a noble simplicity; they should be short, clear, and unencumbered by useless repetitions; they should be within the people's powers of comprehension, and normally should not require much explanation. 

This is his justification for rewriting practically every Latin prayer in the Missal, and then authorising its translation into kindergarten English: projects which were, of course, officially approved and given authoritative promulgation by the Church's Supreme Legislator, the Pope. Where does the 2011 'new translation' come from? It comes from a much later document, the 2001 Instruction Liturgiam authenticam which states (27): 

If indeed, in the liturgical texts, words or expressions are sometimes employed which differ somewhat from usual and everyday speech, it is often enough by virtue of this very fact that the texts become truly memorable and capable of expressing heavenly realities The fact has to be faced: in proposing a 'hieratic', 'sacred' liturgical register, it introduces a liturgical principle for the guidance of translators which simply is not to be found inSacrosanctum Concilium or in the numerous documents of the 1970s and 1980s, documents like the toe-curling Directory for Masses with Children in 1973. There had been a massive conservative push-back in the 1990s and Liturgicam authenticam was the result. So patent was the contradiction between the two eras that Liturgicam authenticaum actually abrogated a whole raft of official guidance from before 1994:

8. The norms set forth in this Instruction are to be substituted for all norms previously published on the matter, We need to face the fact: the magisterium's own interpretation of Sacrosanctum Concilium is a moving target. It was quite different in the 1970s than it was by the mid 1990s. Who knows where it will be in ten years?

Disappointment with Louis Bouyer's Memoirs

I recently purchased Louis Bouyer's Memoirs, eager to read his perspective on the Vatican II liturgical reform. I was especially interested because of a certain ambivalence surrounding the figure of Bouyer.  On the one hand, he  was clearly disappointed by the direction the reform ultimately took; so disappointed with the whole direction of the Council and its aftermath, in fact, that he eventually wrote a booklet entitled La Décomposition du catholicisme (Paris: Aubier, 1968). On the other hand, Bouyer was also involved in some of the liturgical reforms that were themselves instrumental in undermining the integrity of the received form of the Mass, as in his shift from describing the Mass as a sacrifice to construing it as a 'communal meal'. This point is made with devastating clarity in Anthony Cekada's magisterial Work of Human Hands: A Theological Critique of the Mass of Paul VI (Philothea Press, 2010) [Advisory: Rules 7-9].  In fact, as is often the case with Protestant converts, it is sometimes difficult to tell how much his view of Catholicism is colored by the lens of his pre-Catholic Protestant commitments.

I haven't gotten around to reading Bouyer's Memoirs yet, but I was disappointed to read Amy Welborn's recent review, entitled "Bouyer's Memoirs" (Charlotte Was Both, January 14, 2016), not because of any defect in Welborn's analysis (on the contrary, it is penetrating and quite revealing), but because of her assessment that the Memoirs really don't tell us anything significantly new. In fact, her concluding sentence is almost damning: "It is almost as if what's more important in the telling is the personal slight to Bouyer in his desired direction being rejected rather than any concern for the Church as a whole."

Here's her review:

I finally got around to finishing Louis Bouyer’s memoirs – what an odd book.

Bouyer was a French scholar and priest – a convert from Protestantism – raised in some combined high church Reformed/Lutheran milieu, he was a Lutheran pastor. Two of his more well-known books that have been translated in English are Liturgical Piety and The Spirit and Forms of Protestantism.  I’ve read both, but don’t remember tons about them.

Bouyer’s memoir has been receiving some buzz mostly because of what he says about his work on commissions attached to the Second Vatican Council.  He was bitter.

I said the book was odd. Why?

Well, it is a memoir, but, in the end, a not terribly personal one.  The first few chapters which treat his childhood in and about Paris are quite lovely and evocative. But as he grows to adulthood, the book takes on the character of a list. Bouyer went here, studied these subjects with these people, got fed up or converted and then moved on.  Repeat.  Over and over again. In Europe, in the United States, encounters and friendships, a bit of teaching, some preaching….

Not, in the end, terribly interesting.

A couple of points struck me:

First, Bouyer was in Paris for most of World War II.  Perhaps he has written about that experience elsewhere in some depth, but here he does not.  You know the war is going on – he mentions it in sad terms a couple of times, but only as the faintest background to his writing and engagements with other scholars. It’s very strange – he was living in German-occupied Paris and he has nothing to say about that? I don’t care what he thought about some other Oratian in the house – I want to know what occupied Paris was like for these fellows.

And then, the Vatican II stuff.  To tell the truth there is not a lot more than what has been mentioned in reviews – his loathing of Bugnini, the composition of Eucharistic Prayer II in a Trestavere trattoria and Ratzinger’s aside about Rahner: “Another monologue about dialogue.”

Now, I do believe he did, indeed write about all of that in quite a bit more detail, so I can’t fault the memoir for only hitting the highlights (to him). But what I wondered about was not as much the content as the attitude.  Bouyer had a deeply negative assessment of the liturgical direction of Vatican II and makes clear that this direction was present long before the Council itself – for example, in the French context, there was some sort of conflict between liturgical groups in the 50’s, but so much was assumed in the telling, I found it very confusing and really never understood what was going on.  So yes, distress and even disgust – that’s clearly expressed. But what I found lacking was a consideration of the complexities of his own involvement or even distant responsibility, even the broadest sense for the direction of the post-Conciliar liturgical scene. It is this bad thing that happened, but why? It is almost as if what's more important in the telling is the personal slight to Bouyer in his desired direction being rejected rather than any concern for the Church as a whole.

[Hat tip to Guy Noir]

"Traditional Liturgy Matters" - a great discussion

An absolutely terrific discussion of the comparative distinctives of the two forms of the Latin Rite liturgy by Joseph Gonzalez and Brad Eli in "Traditional Liturgy Matters" (Church Militant, January 22, 2016). Guests also include include Fr. Michael Magiera, FSSP, and Christendom College's Director of Admissions Sam Phillips, who explore other aspects of the Catholic traditionalist movement around the world.

Interview with biographer of Pere Calmel, Dominican defender of Catholic Tradition

Fr. Roger-Thomas Calmel, O.P. (1914-1975), was a prominent French Dominican and Thomist philosopher, who made an immense contribution to the fight for Catholic Tradition through his writings and conferences. Here is a video interview with his Dominican biographer, Père Jean-Dominique Fabre, O.P.


Related: Père Jean-Dominique Fabre, O.P., Le Père Roger-Thomas Calmel (Clovis editions)

"Liturgical Counter-Revolution: The 'hushed' case of Fr. Calmel" (ConcilioVaticanoSecondo.it, February 17, 2014).

Some quotations from the Père Roger-Thomas Almel, O.P." Facebook page [disclaimer: Rules 7-9]:

• Modernism makes its victims walk under the banner of obedience, placing under the suspicion of pride any criticism whatsoever of the reforms [Vatican II], in the name of the respect which one owes to the pope, in the name of missionary zeal, of charity and of unity."
  
  
• "Tradition Will Triumph. We are at peace on this point. Whatever may be the hypocritical arms placed by modernism in the hands of the episcopal collegialities and even of the vicar of Christ, tradition will indeed triumph: solemn baptism, for example, which includes the anathemas against the accursed devil will not be excluded for long; the tradition of not absolving sins except after individual confession will not be excluded for long; the tradition of the traditional Catholic Mass, Latin and Gregorian, with the language, Canon and gestures in conformity with the Roman Missal of St. Pius V, will soon be restored to honor; the tradition of the Catechism of Trent, or of a manual exactly in conformity with it, will be restored without delay.
  
  On the major points of dogma, morals, the sacraments, the states of life, the perfection to which we are called, the tradition of the Church is known by the members of the Church whatever their rank. They hold fast to it without a bad conscience, even if the hierarchical guardians of this tradition try to intimidate them or throw them into confusion; even if they persecute them with the bitter refinements of modernist inquisitors. They are very assured that by keeping the tradition they do not cut themselves off from the visible vicar of Christ. For the visible vicar of Christ is governed by Christ in such wise that he cannot transmute the tradition of the Church, nor make it fall into oblivion. If by misfortune he should try to do it, either he or his immediate successors will be obliged to proclaim from on high what remains forever living in the Church's memory: the Apostolic tradition. The spouse of Christ stands no chance of losing her memory."
  
  
• "There is no evolution in dogma, only perversion. The Bride of Christ never loses Her memory."
  
  
• "The Virgin, Mother of God, the Virgin of the Stabat, of the Pentecost and of the miraculous intervention throughout history, the Virtin Mary coredemptrix will keep safe in the Holy Church not only the data instituted by the Lord but also the means from ecclesiastical origin by which the Spouse of Christ will unswervingly stand in the middle of men, both as mediator of salvation and home where God dwells, until the eternal day of the Parousia of our Beloved Savior."
  
  
• "The only authentic and saving encounter of the church with the world is that of the Confessors without stain, of the inflexible Doctors, of the faithful Virgins and of the invincible Martyrs, covered in the red tunic colored by the blood of the Lamb. ... We must separate ourselves from the world when we are not able to do as the world wishes without offending Christ."
  
  
• "No one in the Church, whatever his hierarchical rank, be it ever so high, no one has the power to change the Church or the Apostolic Tradition."
  
  
• "In the Catholic Mass, the priest does not preside in just any manner; he is marked with a divine character which sets him apart for all eternity and thus he acts as the minister of Christ, who performs the Mass through him; he couldnever be likened to a Protestant minister, who is delegated by the faithful to ensure the good order of the assembly. This role is obvious in the rite of Mass established by St. Pius V; it is obscured if not suppressed entirely in the new rite."
• "Some object that ... efeining and condemning is not the right method. Very well. Is there any other method that is true to the faith? In the absence of definitions you will only bring erring souls to a vague state of almost-believing. I fail to see how you can claim to be pastoral in this way, and to be seeking the good of sould -- truth for the mind, and conversion for the heart."
  
  
• "Our Lord in His church is in His death-throes ... in His death-throes because His Church is being buffeted, hindered, obstructed and resisted from within in Her prime task of bringing the Redemption to souls. Not that She is about to disappear, because the gates of hell will not prevail against Her, but that Her own sons, and amongst them leadrs of the hierarchy, are mistreating Her in so vile and wicked a fashion that She can no longer move without crashing to the ground at each step, fainting with exhaustion."
  
  
• "Why the Latin Mass ONLY? ... to receive, without risk of being deceived, the incarnate and immolated Word of God rendered truly present under the Sacred Species."
  
  
• "The Modernist is an apostate and a traitor."
  
  
• "The simple Christian who, consulting tradition on a major point known to all, would refuse to follow a priest, a bishop, an episcopal conference, or even a Pope who would ruin tradition on this point, would not, as some charge, be showing signs characteristic of private judgment or pride; for it is not pride or insubordination to discern what the tradition is on major points, or to refuse to betray them ... is not exercising private judgment; he is not a rebel. He is a faithful Catholic established in a tradition that comes from the Apostles and which no one in the Church can change. For no one in the Church, whatever his hierarchical rank, be it ever so high, no one has the power to change the Church or the Apostolic tradition."
  
  
• "The Mass belongs to the Church. The new Mass belongs only to modernism. I hold to the Mass which is Catholic, traditional, Gregorian, because it does not belong to Modernism.... Modernism is a virus. It is contagious and one must flee from it. The witness is complete. If I give witness to the Catholic Mass, it is necessary that I abstain from celebrating any other Mass. It is like the burnt incense before the idols: either one grain or nothing. Therefore, nothing."

[Hat tip to Sir A.S.]

An awkward and embarrassing juxtaposition of two liturgies

[Disclaimer: Rules 7-9]

Undoubtedly this video is 'self-serving,' 'heavy-handed,' and even (in its closing declaration) 'over-the-top.' Yet it clearly makes a fair point precisely by awkwardly juxtaposing sequences from the Ordinary and Extraordinary forms of the Latin Rite -- sequences in which adherents of each form (for better or worse) will readily recognize what is their own and what is alien to it. Amusing. Maddening. There it is. (Skip the first 12 seconds.)

The myth of active participation as a rationale for the reform of the liturgy

John R. T. Lamont, "The Traditional Latin Mass and the active participation of the laity" (Rorate Caeli, September 18, 2015). As always with Dr. Lamont, a must read.

The Kwasniewski lecture: “The Old Mass and the New Evangelization: Beyond the Long Winter of Rationalism”

The full unedited text, which is a rich feast replete with an amplitude of footnotes, can be found over at the Rorate Caeli website (HERE). For the moment, here is an excerpt (emphasis added):

Traditional liturgies, Eastern and Western, have a certain inherent density of content and meaning that demands a response from us, yet our response is never fully adequate, satisfactory, or exhaustive: we can always have prayed better, we are always being outstripped by the reality. We never get to the bottom of it, shrug our shoulders, and say: “Well, that was nice, what’s next?” In contrast, a liturgy that attempts to be totally “intelligible,” in the sense of having no opacity, impenetrability, or beyondness, is ill-suited and off-putting to man as an intellectual being. It gives him nothing to sink his teeth into; it leaves his highest faculties in the lurch; it gives precious little exercise even to his lower faculties.[23] 

The truth of the matter is quite different from what the liturgical reformers thought. To them, the liturgy had to be transparent so that we could see through it. But total transparency equals total invisibility. A window that is perfectly clean and clear is one that birds kill themselves flying into, because it has ceased to appear as a window, as a paradoxical barrier that lets the light through. In this life, we do not have full possession of the divine light, but this purifying, illuminating, and unifying light flows to us through the liturgy’s prayers, ceremonies, and symbols. If we wish to compare the liturgy to a window, it would be a stained glass window, where the colors and shapes of the glass, the stories it tells or the mysteries it evokes, are both what is seen and that through which the light is seen.  

Christ appears in our midst through the liturgy, and it is vitally important that we come up against the liturgy to experience, in a palpable way, His physicality, His resistance to our pressure, His otherness, precisely as the condition of our union with Him. You cannot marry an idea or a concept, you can only marry a person of flesh and blood who is different from you: the precondition for oneness is otherness. This is why it is extremely dangerous for human beings to think of themselves as the creators or modifiers of the liturgy and to act accordingly—whether before or after the coming of Christ. 

Speaking of the golden calf, which is the nation of Israel’s collective fall, parallel to the fall of Adam, Joseph Ratzinger writes: 

The people cannot cope with the invisible, remote, and mysterious God. They want to bring him down into their own world, into what they can see and understand. Worship is no longer going up to God, but drawing God down into one’s own world. He must be there when he is needed, and he must be the kind of God that is needed. Man is using God, and in reality, even if it is not outwardly discernible, he is placing himself above God. This gives us a clue to the second point. The worship of the golden calf is a self-generated cult. When Moses stays away for too long, and God himself becomes inaccessible, the people just fetch him back. Worship becomes a feast that the community gives itself, a festival of self-affirmation. Instead of being worship of God, it becomes a circle closed in on itself: eating, drinking, and making merry. . . . Then liturgy really does become pointless, just fooling around. Or still worse it becomes an apostasy from the living God, an apostasy in sacral disguise.[24]

To the extent that we think and act that way, we are in serious danger of hugging ourselves rather than encountering Christ, of gazing into a pool like Narcissus and falling in love with our own reflection. One cannot truly be obedient to something he himself has instituted, since it emanated from his will and remains ultimately within his power.[25] The teacher is not docile to himself, the king is not submissive to his own will. As Ratzinger often says in his writings, the true liturgy is one that comes down to us along the stream of tradition, dictates to us our (relative) place, impresses us with its own form and shapes us according to its mind—the mind of the Church collectively, not of any particular committee or even any particular pope.[26]

Cardinal Sarah's article for L'Osservatore Romano on the Traditional Missal and the Paul VI Missal

Exclusive Rorate translation HERE.

A review article by Thomas Storck: "Liturgy that Speaks to the Soul"

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.

An excellent post on the Sacra Liturgia Conference

"Binary Barrier: Sacra Liturgia Conference" (The Rad Trad, June 7, 2015):

John R has published his account of the speakers at the Sacra Liturgia conference in New York City. Conferences and other forms of controlled mob interaction allow leaders to influence their potential cliques, for the cliques to share their ideas, for prejudices to be confirmed, or for new ideas about piety and theology to be inculcated. This year's conference is interesting both for what it discussed and what it failed to discuss.

A constantly reiterated goal of this blog is to broaden conversation about the Catholic Church's liturgy beyond the duality of the "OF" and "EF" Roman books—the liturgy of Paul VI and the rite of Econe John XXIII. The 1962 liturgy is not an accurate reflection of the Roman tradition nor is the Roman tradition the only legitimate liturgy in the Latin Church, much less in the Church universal. The speakers at the Sacra Liturgia conference seem blissfully aware of this pair of simple facts. John recounts that all the speakers on the docket engaged in the same predictable and tired lecture formulae that we have heard since mid-2007: commence with turgid quotations from Sacrosanctum Concilium, explain how the glorious document was ignored, commend the reverence of the "EF", speak at length about how the "OF" can learn from the "EF," and gratuitously add that the "OF" does have a number of significant improvements that could benefit the "EF."

Every supposedly traditional liturgist has some item on the list wherein they believe that the "OF" praxis could improve the "EF", yet they never have a consensus as to what. Dom Anderson OSB favors the variety of prefaces in the Pauline rite. Other writers applaud the Pauline lectionary for "opening" Scripture to the people. The local tongue allows for greater participation. It is almost as though to baptize one's views on the "EF" one must agree that the "OF" has something to offer the Church not contained in the other rites practiced now or in history by the faithful.

Only Alcuin Reid broke beyond this binary set of numbers, and he did so because he wanted to prevent a third figure from entering his set of 1s and 0s. At the local level, priests and some laity are increasingly interested in the genuine old rite, particularly in the un-Pianized Holy Week. This past year saw a proliferation in Holy Week celebrations according to older usages, celebrations wisely un-publicized by the faithful. The diocesan bishop is unlikely to care, but the district superior of the FSSP is.

Reid spoke of the improvements wrought by Pius XII which ought not be undone. The veritas horarum meant that the "Easter Vigil" was "restored" to the right time, and hence it properly should conclude with Lauds as the liturgy welcomes the morning of the Resurrection rather than the nightfall of Vespers (one wonders if he has read any medieval accounts of Holy Week or attended the Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil the Great). Communion ought to be given on Good Friday, even if it was not done anywhere else East or West. The celebrant need not read texts already read by other ministers—as though it detracts from the celebration in some way. Reid emphasized that the "Liturgy is not frozen in amber and one cannot glorify a certain year or cut-off point for pristine Liturgy." Reid is right, but does not mean this in the same way that I would mean this. Reid is warning people not to nurture too strong an interest in the liturgy as it existed before Pacelli. He wants to preserve the binary barrier.

This is at the heart of the conference's short-comings and the defect in modern scholarship on the Roman rite. With rare exception, clerical and mainstream commentators are inextricably linked to the rite of Paul VI and of Econe John XXIII. They love one and hate the other. They love one and like the other. They are "pro-Benedict" and "anti-Francis." No one asks what the Roman liturgy actually is or why it matters. They will adumbrate their points with favorable quotations from Byzantine liturgists to reiterate the necessity of tradition without actually understanding what their liturgical heritage is.

The Roman liturgy is the liturgy used at St. Peter's basilica and by the Popes of the mid-first millennium. It consisted of the major hours of the Office to praise God throughout the day, not to "get graces," but because He is God and He deserves it. It also consisted of the Mass, served by the Pope and his ministers and centered on the ancient and venerable anaphora, the Roman Canon. Devotion and maximalism on the part of the Roman laity and monastics throughout Europe augmented the hours, added to the ritual of the Mass, and made of the tone of the Roman rite more reflective and subtle than those of its oriental counterparts. Reverence for the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles and expediency popularized its celebration throughout Europe. Ss. Gregory VII and Pius V tinkered with the ritual and with psalter a bit. It permeated the lives of the monastic and ordained faithful, many of them saints, for fourteen centuries. They did not write about it, nor did they hold conferences to debate how much of it was worth keeping. They prayed it and they lived it. Throughout those centuries, the local furnished the office with hymns, added prayers to the Mass, and created extravagant variations on the ritual. None of them dared to remove the essentials, though.

I often muse that had I entered Canterbury Cathedral during the age of Innocent III and bad king John, I could approach a monk about to celebrate his daily Mass. He would probably concede that many of the ecclesiastical issues of the day were open to debate: whether the pope was right to excommunicate John, whether the local embellishment of readings was legitimate, whether the resident cardinal or the Archbishop of Canterbury had primacy in England. He would scoff, though, at the idea he or anyone could alter the hours or the Canon of the Mass. Similarly, he would scoff at the idea every gesture at the hours or Mass was subject to regulation, either by Rome or by freestanding conferences.

Perhaps a future conference will delve into the depths of the Roman liturgy and explore what fruits it could offer to us today in our daily lives, how it can permeate the parish like it did the lives of the saints. Has anyone mentioned the simplicity of pre-1911 Compline? The same psalms and antiphons more or less every day with minimal variation? This would be an easy accommodation to the local church. Coped cantors in the sanctuary? An easy way to assimilate men into the choir who do not want to join the female clique in the loft. Octaves? A protracted celebration of the great feasts which aids us in understanding the magnificent things Christ has done for us. The old Holy Week times? Very helpful for families.

Above all, the Roman rite is not to be found in a set of particular books, but in a set of features (the kalendar system, the psalter, the Canon, and the rites for the great feasts). A deeper understanding of its origins and the near-constant veneration of it might give future speakers reason to pause before consigning portions of it to the dustbin because it does not belong to their binary number set.

[Hat tip to R.F.]

2nd Sunday after Pentecost - Holy Fear

Fr. Zuhlsdorf, with some interesting observations on holy days and prayers, as usual:

It isn’t really Corpus Christi in the traditional Roman calendar, though it is often transferred to this Sunday. It is really the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost. Corpus Christi was Thursday, the Thursday after Trinity Sunday.

Let’s see today’s quintessentially Roman style Collect for the 2nd Sunday after Pentecost in the 1962 Missale Romanum. This week’s Collect survived the slash and burn expertise of the liturgists of the Consilium to live on unscathed for the 12th Sunday of Ordinary Time in the Novus Ordo. It was already in the ancient Gelasian Sacramentary on the Sunday after the Ascension (which everyone knows is also supposed to be on a Thursday). This prayer is also prayed at the end of the Litany of the Most Holy Name of Jesus.

This is a marvelous prayer to sing in Latin! It is simultaneously stark and lavish. Its elements are carefully balanced. It is perfectly Roman.

COLLECT – (1962MR):

Sancti nominis tui, Domine, timorem pariter et amorem fac nos habere perpetuum: quia numquam tua gubernatione destituis, quos in soliditate tuae dilectionis instituis.

Your bulky editions of the Lewis & Short Dictionary contain the entry, the lemma, for timor: “fear, dread, apprehension, alarm, anxiety” and, in a good sense of “fear”, “awe, reverence, veneration”....

LITERAL ATTEMPT:

Make us to have, O Lord, constant fear and, in equal degree, love of Your Holy Name: for You never abandon with Your steering those whom You establish in the firmness of Your love.

Do you see how the concepts are balanced? Timor/amor (fear and love) and instituo/destituo (establish and abandon)? ....

Novus Ordo 12th Sunday OBSOLETE ICEL (1973):

Father, guide and protector of your people, grant us an unfailing respect for your name, and keep us always in your love.

Can you believe we had this rubbish for so many years?

Novus Ordo 12th Sunday CURRENT ICEL (2011):

Grant, O Lord, that we may always revere and love your holy name, for you never deprive of your guidance those you set firm on the foundation of your love.

[Still no "fear," but Father adds:] ... God’s Holy Name is sacred. “God fearing” men and women need not have terror of the Lord, but speaking and hearing His Holy Name will warm them with His love.