How do most Catholics feel about the Novus Ordo?

[TheCunctator]

Yes it was beautiful to watch.

However, Mass isn't about watching a beautiful ritual.

Right. But it made me feel so good and I cried.

Well there will be a more faithful translation from the texts. And I understand (but still don't hold my breath in some of the parishes) Latin (still the universal language of the Church--Vatican II *never* changed that!) will sometimes be heard. (Now if only we could get rid of the guitars, fiddles, bongo drums, snare drums, muracchas--or however you spell it, tamborines,...)

Well it's impossible to keep tight control over an institution that covers over a billion people on six continents. But an official pronouncement is a good step forward.

The Divine Liturgy, like the Tridentine Mass, is beautiful--very uplifting--reminds us that we are children of God and the Liturgy is heaven on earth, shared with many who have gone before. You might attend one. And don't think that one is only relegated to the Orthodox, there are the Eastern rites of the Catholic Church.

I attended a Divine Liturgy before I attended a Tridentine Mass. The first time was beautiful, I was enraptured in it all. By the second or third time, I wept when I saw Holy Communion.

And don't be put off by following along in a missal--that's considered active participation too and as I've experienced, it's done in most Novus Ordo Masses as well--they even provide misalettes to do so. The misalettes are just totally in English instead of the Latin/English that the old missals had. The older missals had the rubrics or instructions in red on what to do as well.

Everyone has their own way of worship. I enjoy liturgy, though.

I'm very glad to hear that the Mass is being retranslated to be more faithful to the original text.

Additionally, while I love Latin, why hasn't the Tridentine Mass itself been translated into English?

 

[AMDG]

Those in the pews didn't hear what was going on

Of course not. The prayers were often said quietly in answer to the priest's to God, unless the priest turned to address the congregation--which he did several times. The people followed their missals which were in Latin *and* English. And later on in the mid-1960s (Vatican II ended around 1965 of so and the Novus Ordo wasn't even though of until the 1970s) the people were given little cards to put in their missals. The cards had the 15 responses (spelled out both in Latin and phonetically so the people knew how to pronounce the Latin--our universal language--properly.)

Have one of the cards right here. (An example might be #9--After the breaking of the Sacred Host--it's the minor elevation where we hear today, the English, "Through Him, and with Him, and in Him, is to You, God the Father Almighty, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory". The priest says: Per omnia saecula saeculorum. (World Without End.) The response is: Amen. The priest then turns to us and then says: Pax Domini sit semper vobiscum (The peace of God be always with you) To which we answer: Et cum spiritu tuo (And with your spirit--it's phonetically spelled out "Ett koom spree'ree too too'oh) It's not hard.

 

[isshinwhat]

Right. But it made me feel so good and I cried.




Well it's impossible to keep tight control over an institution that covers over a billion people on six continents. But an official pronouncement is a good step forward.



I attended a Divine Liturgy before I attended a Tridentine Mass. The first time was beautiful, I was enraptured in it all. By the second or third time, I wept when I saw Holy Communion.



Everyone has their own way of worship. I enjoy liturgy, though.

I'm very glad to hear that the Mass is being retranslated to be more faithful to the original text.

Additionally, while I love Latin, why hasn't the Tridentine Mass itself been translated into English?

Ordinary of the Mass

The 1965 edition which served as an interim between 1965-1970 was pretty close...

[Edited to add] I have enjoyed hearing about your experiences, both here and in TAW. Thank you for sharing, and may God reward your kindness.

 

[TheCunctator]

Ordinary of the Mass

The 1965 edition which served as an interim between 1965-1970 was pretty close...

[Edited to add] I have enjoyed hearing about your experiences, both here and in TAW. Thank you for sharing, and may God reward your kindness.

Thank you. Pax Christi sit semper tecum.

And thank you so much for the 1965 translation. Absolutely beautiful, reverent, and inspiring.

 

[MoNiCa4316]

But do you not think that your response is due to your image of God--distant, remote, detached, perhaps?--and that others who have a different image of God might feel separated?

Fantine, I am having difficulty understanding why you believe that to see Mass as something reverent, worshipful, etc, is to see God as Someone distant.. whenever I go to the Latin Mass, Jesus in the Eucharist seems to near, and so full of love for us and the response is to lovingly kneel before Him. Nothing distant in that

God bless

 

[MoNiCa4316]

I went to the Latin Mass today it was beautiful! even though the choir was away so it was a low Mass. At first I couldn't get used to the low Mass, but now I love the silence of it. And the high Mass is awesome of course.

 

[Colin]

Lord have mercy... The holy Mass said according to the rubrics does not approach sacrilege. You have no idea what was in the hearts of the hundreds of millions of Catholics who worshiped in the Mass you so carelessly profane.

I was referring to the way many of the priests celebrated Mass , not to the poor folk in the pews .

I have served more Masses with different priests pre-Second Vatican Council than you have had hot dinners .

I know what I am talking about . Hundreds of those Masses were celebrated shamefully .

 

[MKJ]

I was an altar server for many years prior to the Second Vatican Council .

The priest and servers were well away from those in the pews .

Those in the pews didn't hear what was going on , which was so often a mumbled , muttering , hasty recitation of words in gabbled Latin .

No wonder the Holy Spirit inspired the Council Fathers to institute reform of that which was often verging on the sacrilegious .

It has often seemed to me that there was a real difficulty that was found in the old days that you have outlined here: because people couldn't really hear the words of the Mass or understand them, it was for many people no longer a real didactic tool for learning the faith. Some people made the effort of course, but there was a kind of cultural expectation that the Mass was something the priest did, and I think you can see that as far back as the middle ages, where all kinds of things went on in the nave among the people. And even in the 20th century, there were things like very short serial masses where people just dropped in to receive, and the priests tried to put as many people through as possible.

So I think the concern that the Mass was no longer a way for the average person to learn the central mysteries of the faith was reasonable.

But the 1960's was about the worst time one could have picked to look at liturgical change - real bad luck. As Gwendolyn pointed out, there were a ton of crazy ideas found in the area of liturgical scholarship during that period, most of which have proven to be fads. A good example is the claim that the early Christians had the celebrant facing the congregation, which is probably just not true. And it was also a bad time for poetic language (or at least poetic language suitable for liturgy) and even for religious music.

And unfortunately the new liturgy, like all the ones developed during that time, fell prey to these fads in liturgical studies. My guess is that in the long term they will be replaced.

 

[MKJ]

I wish the Bible also would be directly translated to English - so many misunderstandings could be remedied.

Today our priest told us in his last parish a 10th grader took offense to Christ calling the pagan a dog.
He said if it helps, the actual translation is 'puppies' from Greek. So it wasnt so insulting as the translation makes it seem.

And i noticed MOST new Bible only churches are created in England and America where the translations are available in English.

You can get "direct" translations - people involved in certain types of work use them. They are very difficult to read and understand though.

 

[AMDG]

You can get "direct" translations - people involved in certain types of work use them. They are very difficult to read and understand though.

One can also get Bibles that have several different translations all at once so one can compare.

 

[benedictaoo]

I don't think anyone is really happy with the New Order becuase it lends itself to abuses.

The New Order done correctly is alright, but abuses are getting to be the norm and it sucks but what can you do? Can't fight city hall.

 

[TheCunctator]

It has often seemed to me that there was a real difficulty that was found in the old days that you have outlined here: because people couldn't really hear the words of the Mass or understand them, it was for many people no longer a real didactic tool for learning the faith. Some people made the effort of course, but there was a kind of cultural expectation that the Mass was something the priest did, and I think you can see that as far back as the middle ages, where all kinds of things went on in the nave among the people. And even in the 20th century, there were things like very short serial masses where people just dropped in to receive, and the priests tried to put as many people through as possible.

So I think the concern that the Mass was no longer a way for the average person to learn the central mysteries of the faith was reasonable.

But the 1960's was about the worst time one could have picked to look at liturgical change - real bad luck. As Gwendolyn pointed out, there were a ton of crazy ideas found in the area of liturgical scholarship during that period, most of which have proven to be fads. A good example is the claim that the early Christians had the celebrant facing the congregation, which is probably just not true. And it was also a bad time for poetic language (or at least poetic language suitable for liturgy) and even for religious music.

And unfortunately the new liturgy, like all the ones developed during that time, fell prey to these fads in liturgical studies. My guess is that in the long term they will be replaced.

Most Christian groups got caught up in the disaster known as the 1960s. I think that era ended up being a huge blow to the Christian Church. Evangelical churches gave up some of the rigidity they used to have, the classic traditional hymns + sermon for this crazy concert-mix they have today. Given that Vatican II was around that time, I'm not surprised at all at the results.

 

[MKJ]

Most Christian groups got caught up in the disaster known as the 1960s. I think that era ended up being a huge blow to the Christian Church. Evangelical churches gave up some of the rigidity they used to have, the classic traditional hymns + sermon for this crazy concert-mix they have today. Given that Vatican II was around that time, I'm not surprised at all at the results.

It's interesting - I think that period has some of my favorite secular music, and there were some other really interesting cultural things going on. But in the Western Christian Church in general they just sucked in the bad with the good.

And now in 2011 in the wider culture you still see some of the good stuff, but most of the bad stuff has been left behind. Except Christians seem to have returned to their natural tendency to move slowly and kept them!

 

[Erose]

I grew up in Pre-Vatican II and since have been to the Norvos Ordo in Latin.


I prefer the Novus Ordo in English.

Vatican II sought to bring the active participation of the people into the Mass and that has been accomplished.

In the TLM, the priest says the Mass in Latin, which few of the people understand, and many can barely hear at times. The altar servers mimic the responses as they been trained to memorize by rote.

Yeah, it seems more reverent in appearance, but is reverence outward appearances, or is reverence what's going on inside the person's soul, when he/she attends the Liturgy?

The Orthodox wedding I attended recently was similar to pre-Vatican II in that, the priest and cantor sang the prayers of the rite, while the people sat in the pews and some like myself, followed along with the books that were available.

Again, outwardly is was beautiful in an ascetic way, but people were kept at a distance.

I prefer the Novus Order, especially as done in the Monasteries that I've frequently attended Mass at.

Parish Masses have to be for people at all levels of faith, so will not have the style of a Mass done at a Cathedral or monastery.

Jim

Jim, I totally agree with you. What the new form does more than anything is make the mass a worship of the people and not just the people going and watching the priest worship for them. I am a convert to the Catholic faith and I believe that it would have been very difficult for me to convert to the Catholic faith if it wasn't for the ability to understand the mass and was able to pray with the mass.

People diss the newer form of the mass because it seems that it has lost alot of its reverence and that may be true. But the reverence lost is not due to the liturgy but in my opinion to the worshippers. The new mass is as reverent as the worshippers are. Also in the new mass it is an hour long and except for the listening of the homily the rest is a prayer. We come to mass and pray and worship our God for at least and hour! I didn't get that from the old form. The priest worships for over an hour and he does so in a very reverent manner, but the people don't get that opportunity.

 

[AMDG]

watching the priest worship for them.

The Tridentine Mass was not like that *at all* and I resent the implication that it was (plus seeing that this Mass was responsible for the spiritual development of thousands of Saints that came before us we can see that such a depiction is patently false.) The priest *led* the rest of the congregation in worship of God. He was not merely an emcee or the focal point of what goes on during Mass. He led the people in *our* worship. We were all worshiping God--together. He did not stand out alone or put on a display for the congregation as if he were somehow "in control" of entertainment.

 

[Erose]

The Tridentine Mass was not like that *at all* and I resent the implication that it was (plus seeing that this Mass was responsible for the spiritual development of thousands of Saints that came before us we can see that such a depiction is patently false.) The priest *led* the rest of the congregation in worship of God. He was not merely an emcee or the focal point of what goes on during Mass. He led the people in *our* worship. We were all worshiping God--together. He did not stand out alone or put on a display for the congregation as if he were somehow "in control" of entertainment.

Maybe I should have been more clear on what I was saying and I apologize for that. I am not trying to put the Tridentine mass in a negative light for it was for a few centuries the mass that all Roman Catholics used and you are right there are many 1000s of saints during this time as well.

The main problem I see with the Tridentine mass is its exclusive usage of Latin and the resistence of saying this mass in the vernacular. If the Tridentine mass was being used when I converted to Catholicism I probably wouldn't have made that leap. I'm sorry but that is the truth and probably was the truth for many non-Catholic Christians that were considering making that leap during the period between the disuse of Latin as the official commerce language of Europe and the introduction of the mass in the vernacular.

I would love to see a the Tridentine mass being said in the vernacular and I would get much more out of it. But at this time I don't understand or speak Latin, which I admit is my fault, and as such I get very little from the Tridentine mass. If I understood and spoke Latin, that would be a different story. You see my problem is that I do participate in mass. I sing the songs and say all the responses. I even bow my head when I am suppose to during the saying of the creed. I just can't do that in a language I don't understand.

I love the newer form of the mass as long as the liberals and progressives don't water it down in their parishes, which thank God seems to be isolated more in the Northeast and Pacific states in the USA. I am hoping and praying that the new translation that is coming out will help reduce the corruptions that have entered some of these parishes, that don't have the reverence that is needed for mass.

The first time I went to a Tridentine mass, the thing that stood out to me the most is that for the Eucaristic prayer the Priest prayed silently or at a whisper. I did have an English translation which I read as the priest prayed the Eucharistic prayer, but it wasn't like I could follow along with him. So I didn't get much out of the mass in the form of proper worship from me. Was the mass very reverent? Yes. I did love the knelling for the reception of the Eucharist, which should be brought back. But I just wasn't able to get into the worship as I do in the newer form.

Like I said I didn't mean to insult. It is an observation from my point of view and no other.

 

[Fantine]

In a thread filled with accusations of "abuses" and "corruption" in the Novus Ordo, one thought keeps coming into my mind:

Who makes you the experts?

A guest attending Mass in another parish is not supposed to be there as an inspector. The guest is invited to pray within a community that is, hopefully, cohesive and prayerful and inviting enough to share their hospitality with him/her, even if he/she has the bad manners to write down a laundry list of purported "abuses" and publicize them on the internet.

As a guest, you are not invited to second-guess their pastor, liturgy committee, music ministers, or lectors.

They are gracious enough to invite you to join them in their intimate prayer circle as they worship God.

If you come to them with bad manners, shame on you (this is not directed at anyone in particular....)

 

[MKJ]

The Tridentine Mass was not like that *at all* and I resent the implication that it was (plus seeing that this Mass was responsible for the spiritual development of thousands of Saints that came before us we can see that such a depiction is patently false.) The priest *led* the rest of the congregation in worship of God. He was not merely an emcee or the focal point of what goes on during Mass. He led the people in *our* worship. We were all worshiping God--together. He did not stand out alone or put on a display for the congregation as if he were somehow "in control" of entertainment.

I'm not sure that is always true though. I'm not old enough to remember the pre-NO days, but I do have lots of family that are. While many places were the way you describe, there also seems to have been quite a few of the other type as well. People just coming in to receive and then leaving, for example. And along with those descriptions of saints, you can read description of masses where people were doing all sorts of other things, as a matter of course, back quite far in history.

It has always seemed to me this could have been fixed without the whole scale change that was made though - even just by a pretty direct translation into the vernacular and audible speech.

 

[Erose]

In a thread filled with accusations of "abuses" and "corruption" in the Novus Ordo, one thought keeps coming into my mind:

Who makes you the experts?

A guest attending Mass in another parish is not supposed to be there as an inspector. The guest is invited to pray within a community that is, hopefully, cohesive and prayerful and inviting enough to share their hospitality with him/her, even if he/she has the bad manners to write down a laundry list of purported "abuses" and publicize them on the internet.

As a guest, you are not invited to second-guess their pastor, liturgy committee, music ministers, or lectors.

They are gracious enough to invite you to join them in their intimate prayer circle as they worship God.

If you come to them with bad manners, shame on you (this is not directed at anyone in particular....)

Good post! This is something that seems to get forgotten. I can understand condemning outright abuses, which I have heard of but never seen, such as the clown mass that take people away from the Spirit of the Liturgy. But there is an amount of variation between churches that reflect the personality of the priest and the people in the liturgical committees and see no problem with it and like you said who am I to judge?

I do alot of travelling in this country and some overseas and I have been to alot of different Catholic churches for mass. In all the various churches I have been into, which has probably been well over a 100 parishes, there has been only one church that I went to that I would say was very abusive. How bad? I wasn't sure that I was in a legitimate Catholic church until we prayed for Benedict our pope. This parish was on the outskirts of Cleveland, OH.

 

[AMDG]

We are *not* guests. Nor are we "Johnny Come Latelys". The Tridentine Mass was taken from us--there was no development--like there was supposed to have been. The Novus Ordo was made out of whole cloth by people who had their own agendas. And when the Novus Ordo came to be, in the 1970's, *not* directly after Vatican II (actually the Mass of 1965-1970 was closest to what Vatican II wanted, not the Novus Ordo), the older Mass was simply *forbidden*.

And as far as Latin is concerned. It *still* is our universal language. Vatican II didn't change that! (No matter how much some wish it were so.) It was a unifying language. I might hear Mass in one country and go to another and it would be the same Mass! I could still recognize it! But even back then, there were parts of the Mass that were in the vernacular and of course, just about everyone had missals to follow along at Mass and they had the Latin/Vernacular translations.

Today's more prayerful Masses (unfortunately not all are anymore) that have now included many of the changes to the Vatican has issued to avoid abuses that were so frequent, have reinstated the fact that Latin *and* the vernacular are used (just like Vatican II intended). Check out the Novus Ordo Mass on EWTN. You'll see.