I can hardly believe that on the day I attended my first Traditional Latin Mass in nearly 45 years the article I'm going to share at the end of this post was published in National Catholic Register. I hope you will read the whole thing because it perfectly captures many of my, and others, concerns since the implementation of Summorum Pontificum. Continuing to celebrate the Novus Ordo and the increased availability of the Traditional Latin Mass was never, ever meant to be a source of conflict and debate among Catholic faithful.
At all costs, the faithful must avoid temptations to compare one against the other in terms of superiority yet the faithful must be able to call out obvious liturgical abuses. For me personally, I have witnessed few liturgical abuses in my adult life at the celebration of the Novus Ordo. Many Catholics, however, have called out certain actions or practices at the Novus Ordo as abusive despite the Church firmly teaching that they are not abuses at all. And, as the article will point out far better than I can, part of the demise of the "traditional" Mass many years ago was the liturgical abuses and sloppy implementation of the rubrics.
I am so glad that I attended a Traditional Latin Mass. As I said in my post yesterday there was much I found spiritually edifying to help me give worship to God in the holy sacrifice of the Mass. It was also very obvious to me that by participating in this Mass I truly missed some aspects of the Novus Ordo.
By attending the Traditional Latin Mass yesterday, and wanting to go back again when I can, I hope to point out the desire of our Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI, who asks us to look at both Masses as one liturgy; both giving proper and due worship to God the Father. I say this because I am concerned by those who strongly and unaplogetically state one of the following: "I'll never go to the TLM, this would be going backwards" or from the other point of view: "I'll never go to the Novus Ordo because it's not the real Mass" or "it's not real worship" or something along those lines.
Catholics who are drawn to the Traditional Latin Mass should not disparage or avoid the Novus Ordo and Catholics who are drawn to the Novus Ordo should not disparage or avoid the Traditional Latin Mass. Pope Benedict XVI himself has said so. In his most recent letter promoting the wider use of the Traditional Latin Mass the Pope has cautioned about criticizing the Novus Ordo, or the reforms of Vatican II for that matter. I personally find this refreshing since I have met a few, and I stress FEW, who attend the Traditional Latin Mass because in their words: Vatican II ruined the Church, the new Mass is Protestant and even we have had no "real" Pope since Pius XII. I personally defriended someone on facebook, a seemingly devout Catholic, who on the occassion of the beatification of Pope John Paul II went on a rant about the new Blessed being a beast and the continuation of the ruination of the Church since John 23rd. Dear God; this is exactly what the Holy Father has asked us to not do.
This indeed begs for a personal confession: I had my doubts before entering Church yesterday. I barely remember the Mass in latin. What I do remember was everybody around me seemed to be praying a rosary or reading the missal instead of participating in the Mass. But that was well over 40 years ago. You can't be skeptical of something that you don't know so going to the Mass yesterday helped me to realize that I was fully particpating and worshipping God the Father in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.
I am going to follow Pope Benedict XVI on this one. He celebrates the Mass in both the Novus Ordo and the Traditonal Latin. He participated in the reforms of Vatican II and is trying to reform the abuses that come from disobedience, not the Council itself. And he begs us as faithful Catholics to celebrate the liturgy; both the Novus Ordo and the Traditional or the ordinary and extra-ordinary form of the same liturgy. And Catholics: quit carping at one another. Whatever happened to that great line from about 200 A.D. : see how those Christians love one another.
And read the article here:
At Mass, Do This
A Register editorial
It’s mystifying to watch online shouting matches between Catholics about the ordinary form and the extraordinary form of the Mass. “Picking sides,” after all, makes no sense in Catholicism.
The whole point of Pope Benedict’s new instruction on the “correct interpretation and proper application” of his 2007 motu proprio letter Summorum Pontificum, which facilitated wider use of the Traditional Latin Mass, is that there are no “sides.” Both forms are the patrimony of all.
But the past looms large and heavy over us. The fragmentation of Catholic liturgical sensibility is a direct result of the silliness of the 1960s and 1970s, because its roots are in the greatest societal problem of that epoch: accepting authority.
Should we complain about the abuses in Novus Ordo Masses nowadays? Yes, and rightly so, because some priests and liturgists assume a power that isn’t theirs.
Do the same complaints apply to the now hardly mentioned liturgical abuses of the pre-Vatican II Church, like Masses said at warp speed in barely recognizable Latin? Yes, and rightly so, because only lip service was being paid to the wishes of the Church.
Are those who deny the validity of the Mass in English wrong or studiously avoid it as less “sacred” wrong? Yes, because the Church’s authority in prescribing it — just as it has formed, reformed and re-reformed its liturgy for almost 2,000 years — isn’t being acknowledged, and because the perfect sacrifice of the Lamb, re-presented under any form authorized by the authority of the Church, is just as sacred as any other.
Any Church leader who dawdles and splits hairs in permitting local celebrations of the Mass’ extraordinary form as authorized by Pope Benedict, has an authority problem, too.
For that matter, so do those who inopportunely and single-mindedly pester their bishops or make impractical demands.
“Do this in memory of me.” Christ’s authority is at the core of the Mass — any time we’re squabbling over the Mass, we’re missing the entire point.
The liturgy is meant to shape us in Christ’s image by his command; we’re not supposed to shape our liturgy in the image we prefer. That’s, in one of Pope Benedict’s favorite expressions, the “performative” aspect of the liturgy. We are at its service, and not vice versa.
Why? Because it’s about something far greater than us. God gathers together his People in the Eucharist; in the words of the Catechism, “by the Eucharistic celebration we already unite ourselves with the heavenly liturgy and anticipate eternal life, when God will be all in all” (1326).
That heavenly unity isn’t based on taste. In heaven, there are no “sides.” True unity — God’s will for his Church — comes only through accepting and embracing the authority of the One whom we are not worthy to receive, but who has only to say a word and we shall be healed.
Read more: http://www.ncregister.com/daily-news/at-mass-do-this#ixzz1NqgI5bn0
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