Where is the Problem in our Liturgy?

What do you see as the BIGGEST problem with the Mass today?

  • Overly Lose Rules

    Votes: 2 40.0%
  • Alterations of Prayers or Rubrics

    Votes: 1 20.0%
  • Abuses

    Votes: 2 40.0%

  • Total voters
    5

Hamlet7768

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Pax et bonum, omnes.

I've been thinking for a while about the liturgical travails that we have endured both before and since the 1970s, how far we have come, and how far we may have to go. One thing I have wondered, being a relative new-comer to the traditional side of Catholicism, is where people see the greatest problems with the post-conciliar liturgy.

Let me state some things outright: I am not interested in debating the validity of the Second Vatican Council's teachings on liturgy or anything else. I accept Vatican II as a valid council of the Catholic Church. While the Ordinary Form Mass may not be what St John XXIII had in mind when he called the council, it is a valid and licit Mass that can be celebrated reverently. But there's the issue: Mass should always be celebrated reverently, right? So is the problem with the Mass, or with the priests?

Now, permit me also to explain what I mean in the poll answers. Please feel free to specify further in a response. I understand there are problems in each of these fields, but pick only the one you think would give the most benefit towards restoring reverence in the Liturgy.

Overly Loose Rules: The rubrics for the New Mass are too loose, permitting irreverent actions or not promoting a spirit of absolute reverence (communion in the hand; the paten, chalice veil, and amice being optional; etc). So is the biggest problem that the Ordinary Form Mass is too easy to say badly?

Alterations of Prayers and Rubrics: I believe many of the traditional Collects have been restored in recent years, as have the Lenten Prayers over the People, but I have heard much grief over the different Offertory prayers, for example. So is the biggest problem that things were changed with no just cause?

Abuses: Even within the sometimes-ambiguous wordings of the GIRM, there are things that are beyond the pale. A layperson reading the Gospel, overuse of Extraordinary Ministers, ad-libbing prayers, these things are not envisioned in Bl Paul VI's Mass, but they happened. Is the biggest problem that people thought they knew better than the Pope in how to renew the Mass, and have strayed from Mother Church's instruction?

Perhaps another way to think about it is this: If the Ordinary Form were always celebrated reverently, would there still be controversy about what it may or may not permit, or whether this prayer or that should have been changed?
 
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tz620q

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Pax et bonum, omnes.

I've been thinking for a while about the liturgical travails that we have endured both before and since the 1970s, how far we have come, and how far we may have to go. One thing I have wondered, being a relative new-comer to the traditional side of Catholicism, is where people see the greatest problems with the post-conciliar liturgy.

Let me state some things outright: I am not interested in debating the validity of the Second Vatican Council's teachings on liturgy or anything else. I accept Vatican II as a valid council of the Catholic Church. While the Ordinary Form Mass may not be what St John XXIII had in mind when he called the council, it is a valid and licit Mass that can be celebrated reverently. But there's the issue: Mass should always be celebrated reverently, right? So is the problem with the Mass, or with the priests?

Now, permit me also to explain what I mean in the poll answers. Please feel free to specify further in a response. I understand there are problems in each of these fields, but pick only the one you think would give the most benefit towards restoring reverence in the Liturgy.

Overly Loose Rules: The rubrics for the New Mass are too loose, permitting irreverent actions or not promoting a spirit of absolute reverence (communion in the hand; the paten, chalice veil, and amice being optional; etc). So is the biggest problem that the Ordinary Form Mass is too easy to say badly?

Alterations of Prayers and Rubrics: I believe many of the traditional Collects have been restored in recent years, as have the Lenten Prayers over the People, but I have heard much grief over the different Offertory prayers, for example. So is the biggest problem that things were changed with no just cause?

Abuses: Even within the sometimes-ambiguous wordings of the GIRM, there are things that are beyond the pale. A layperson reading the Gospel, overuse of Extraordinary Ministers, ad-libbing prayers, these things are not envisioned in Bl Paul VI's Mass, but they happened. Is the biggest problem that people thought they knew better than the Pope in how to renew the Mass, and have strayed from Mother Church's instruction?

Perhaps another way to think about it is this: If the Ordinary Form were always celebrated reverently, would there still be controversy about what it may or may not permit, or whether this prayer or that should have been changed?
I don't think you should concentrate on form and forget function. The function of the Mass is to show us a right relationship to God and how right worship moves us closer to that relationship. That function can be fulfilled in many forms and should be the ultimate goal. An example that struck me was the removal of the striking of the breast three times during the confiteor. An older Catholic did this once next to me and I saw that this symbolic gesture represented an act of humility and contrition that just saying the words lacked. It has the benefit of jolting us into thinking about the words we are saying. Form fitting function.

But all form should fit with the function, which is to engage the participant in worship. So any form that is more engaging is usually better (assuming that it is centered around valid theology). The participatory nature of the N.O. Mass can, and I stress CAN, be more engaging. It really depends on how the worshipper readies their heart for worship and how well they know the theology behind what they are doing. So poorly catechized Catholics would see Mass as a duty and go through the motions. We hope that something will engage them and draw them deeper. Maybe that something is the Holy Spirit, maybe it is just a friendly face before or after the Mass. I don't think we should fault the form when some don't engage actively in it, if it represents what we belief and is reverent and sacred.
 
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Virgil the Roman

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The lax or rather loose rubrics of the Novus Ordo Missae and variability (the over-plethora of options and prayer-variations) lends itself to liturgical innovation, irreverence, innovation, and lack of predictability. Compared to the Tridentine rite, wherein the rubrics are tight and the options are few (the Communicantes, prefaces, and even the readings are tightly regulated). Furthermore, there is only one canon for the Tridentine rite; whereas, the Novus Ordo has four primary ones and perhaps 5-8 alternative ones. The laity need stability and predicability with respect to the liturgy (which is meant to be inculcated, memorised, and deepened with each passing year and re-reading and re-praying).
 
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tz620q

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The lax or rather loose rubrics of the Novus Ordo Missae and variability (the over-plethora of options and prayer-variations) lends itself to liturgical innovation, irreverence, innovation, and lack of predictability. Compared to the Tridentine rite, wherein the rubrics are tight and the options are few (the Communicantes, prefaces, and even the readings are tightly regulated). Furthermore, there is only one canon for the Tridentine rite; whereas, the Novus Ordo has four primary ones and perhaps 5-8 alternative ones. The laity need stability and predicability with respect to the liturgy (which is meant to be inculcated, memorised, and deepened with each passing year and re-reading and re-praying).
I completely disagree with you. Controlled variation, like in the optional prayers, is no more lax in theology than any liturgy. This, of course, is assuming that the priest is actually using the prayers from the Sacramentary and not just making something up. It also allows the prayers to be tailored more to the theme of the readings of the day, which promotes more reverence and participation in worship and a better, tighter liturgy. This idea that variability is automatically bad has led the defenders of the Tridentine rite, which I do not dismiss as a valid rite, to promote a single legitimate rite mentality, that has never existed in a multi-rite Catholic Church. Now if you want to have a discussion of the good and bad points of each rite, that would be grand; but it has to start with both of us acknowledging that both rites are valid.
 
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Hamlet7768

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Well well! I completely forgot about this thread, partly because I stopped getting notifications from ChristianForums when I changed emails. Good to see some discussion going on.

If I may try to find a middle ground between your two positions, tz620q and Virgil, I think the problem can lie in the variability allowing the priest to go with the minimum option, regardless of what is appropriate. The classic example of this would be using EP2, the shortest option, all the time. There's nothing wrong with EP2 in itself (though I wish they'd kept the longer intro to the Institution Narrative from the original Anaphora of the Apostolic Tradition), but even Bugnini (so far as we can tell) only envisioned using EP2 on weekday Masses, never on Sunday. Yet I have seen priests who will pray nothing but that, to keep their Masses within that magic hour's time. That is regrettable.

However, to bring this to a definite middle, I don't think it would be necessary to tighten the Mass back into the Tridentine rigidity. One doesn't have to strip a tree down to one set of branches in order to properly trim it! But some trimming couldn't hurt.
 
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Virgil the Roman

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Well, I think transitioning the Roman rite back into the Tridentine liturgy is probably going to be the "future" of the Roman rite; or something rather close but modified Tridentine rite. The Novus Ordo could have its rubrics tightened, all other canons save the Roman Canon suppressed, a restoration of the Offertory prayers . . . , restoration of mandatory Latin to the canon along with a returning to a sotto voce or quiet-canon AND a restoration of silence as His Emminence, Robert Cardinal Sarah so admonished us along with communion kneeling and on the tongue
 
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