I Love the Tridentine Mass, But Not as Worship

by David Wesson

As some of you may remember from my previous post, I have a penchant for older forms of music, art, and architecture. I also have an affinity for the older forms of the liturgy. One cannot help but admit that the Mass of Vatican II does not come close to the majesty of the Tridentine Mass.

The vestments are better – lace-trimmed, appareled albs and amices versus loose fitting albs that look like a white polyester moo moo; embroidered damask chasubles versus tacky Muppet-colored polyester ponchos; dalmatics and tunicles that don’t look like bathrobes; miters that match the vestments…

The liturgy is more aesthetically pleasing – tunicled subdeacons proclaiming the epistle is aesthetically better than Susan Soccermom rattling and rushing through a reading, mispronouncing the names as she does so; deacons proclaiming the Gospel facing north is far more symbolic than the way it is often rushed through rather than chanted prayerfully; the genuflections and bows show more reverence toward the sacred mysteries being celebrated than a half dozen altar servers running around with sneakers and ratty jeans showing under their albs; chant, polyphony, and traditional hymnody are undeniably more beautiful than the Masses many of us endure with horrible pretend-contemporary music that is more befitting a solstice gathering at a new age commune than the Diving Liturgy.

I could go on describing why I personally like the Tridentine Mass more than the Vatican II Mass. I will summarize by saying that the Tridentine Mass, like the Eastern Liturgies, more effectively channels the heavenly liturgy that Scripture has so poetically described.

Though this is true, does this type of worship reduce liturgy to theater? Wikipedia (I know it is Wikipedia, but the definition is good) defines theater as

…a collaborative form of fine art that uses live performers to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place. The performers may communicate this experience to the audience through combinations of gesture, speech, song, music or dance. Elements of design and stagecraft are used to enhance the physicality, presence and immediacy of the experience.

When one looks at the Tridentine Mass and this definition of “theater,” it becomes abundantly clear that the Tridentine Mass, precisely because its otherworldliness and because it is in a language that very, very few in the pew understand, runs the risk of becoming a theatrical performance with the assembly becoming passive observers rather than people sharing, by virtue of their priestly nature, in the sacrifice of their redemption and fully participating in worship of the one, true God.

The Vatican II Mass may not be as aesthetically pleasing; it may be lacking the sacral drama of the Tridentine Mass; and it may represent a break from 16oo years of development and tradition; yet it does foster a deeper sense of involvement and “fully conscious, and active participation in liturgical celebrations.” This is not only because of it is allowed to be celebrated in the vernacular but also because it restores the roles of the assembly being led into worship by the presider. Gone are the days of “three-priest Masses” where an entire liturgy could be celebrated without a word spoken to the assembly or any interaction between assembly and presider. Gone are the days of the baptized being grouped into many manmade classes that only further separated them from the “clerics.” We, the People of God, are once again given equal standing in worship, as we are in the eyes of God by virtue of our baptism.

I will not go into how the Vatican II Mass could be made more heavenly, or how it could be more closely brought into continuity with historical development of Roman Rite worship. There have been plenty of people to do that. I will only state that although the Tridentine Mass is more impressive as theater, the Vatican II Mass is more theologically sound.

This is why I love the Tridentine Mass, but not as worship.

David Wesson is a freshman at St. John’s University in Collegeville, MN, where he hopes to major in theology. He sings in Fr. Anthony Ruff’s Gregorian Chant schola.

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Comments

67 responses to “I Love the Tridentine Mass, But Not as Worship”

  1. Samuel J. Howard

    So how much experience do you have as a congregational participant in the Tridentine Mass? Because there’s lots of people who’ll testify that they do participate in it, not just as spectators, but as “people sharing, by virtue of their priestly nature, in the sacrifice of their redemption and fully participating in worship of the one, true God.”

    Gone are the days of “three-priest Masses” where an entire liturgy could be celebrated without a word spoken to the assembly or any interaction between assembly and presider.

    This sentence suggests to me that you don’t have much experience. Because there is explicit interaction between the assembly and the presider at any number of points, even in a Solemn Mass.

    Gone are the days of the baptized being grouped into many manmade classes that only further separated them from the “clerics.” We, the People of God, are once again given equal standing in worship, as we are in the eyes of God by virtue of our baptism.

    This needs a lot more development. Sacrosanctum Concilium acknolwedges the hierarchical nature of the divine liturgy (and that hierarchy is not merely the baptized and the unbaptized):

    The liturgy makes distinctions between persons according to their liturgical function and sacred Orders, and there are liturgical laws providing for due honors to be given to civil authorities.

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  2. Clarence Goodwright

    This is why I love the Tridentine Mass, but not as worship.

    And that is completely your right. However, in giving your apologia you must be careful not to caracature the very thing you claim to love.

    I will not go into how the Vatican II Mass could be made more heavenly, or how it could be more closely brought into continuity with historical development of Roman Rite worship.

    The accidents that you describe as part of the Extraordinary Form of the Mass can just as easily be applied to the Ordinary Form: Beautiful vestments, Latin, chant, ministries being exercised in a dignified manner. I would point to a place such as St. John Cantius Parish in Chicago as evidence. The lack of these things in many places where the OF is celebrated evidences a poverty: either a monetary poverty that precludes purchasing/using more beautiful and dignified things, or a spiritual poverty (in a negative sense) that prefers lesser things.

    Remember that in the past, the EF had its own spiritual poverties, including mumbled Latin, rushed Masses, and a tendency toward excessive use of Low Mass. Fortunately, EF communites tend to have sought dignified and worthy celebrations of the Mass such as those you have described as being attractive.

    Also, the criticism that you lodge against the EF (that it could become “theater”) could happen with the OF Mass. You would be right to say, however, that this rarely is the case.

    I do have two critiques of your theological conclusions:

    First, you confuse a risk with a reality. Though the EF Mass has the risk of becoming a theatrical performance, the reality is that those who are spiritually nourished by it do have an understanding of what is going on; for them, it is not the ‘theatrical performance’ an outsider may see. We cannot say (and I hope you are not suggesting) that those who are silently but actively engaged in the Liturgy are somehow “passive observers” who are not “sharing, by virtue of their priestly nature, in the sacrifice and redemption and fully participating in worship of the one, true God.”

    Of course, it is up to the individual to determine whether he or she is “fully, consciously, and actively participating” in one form of the Mass or the other — that is the reason both forms are permitted.

    Second, in both forms of the Mass, the priest is drawn from the baptized, the priestly People of God — but ontologically he is something they are not, and on the Sacramental order, he does things they cannot. In this way he is their servant. Also (related to the first point), in both forms of the Mass, the celebrant leads the assembly into worship — in the OF, this has not been “restored” as much as it has been made explicit.

    P.S. To exercise precision, I would advise against the names “Tridentine Mass” and “Vatican II Mass” as both are misnomers — The so-called “Tridentine” Mass is largely identical to the Missals that came before it, and so-called “Vatican II” Mass was not called for explicitly by the Council (if anything, the 1965 or 1967 Missals would more properly be called the “Vatican II Mass”).

    Reply
    1. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
      Anthony Ruff, OSB

      @Clarence Goodwright – comment #2:
      Your PS is baloney – this claim that ’65 or ’67 are faithful to Vatican II, but ’69 is not. First of all, it’s astonishing for you to claim that the Pope erred in declaring that the 1969 missal is according to the decrees of the Second Vatican Council! This is amazing disrespect toward Pope Paul VI and his teaching authority! Second, others have pointed out the ways in which the interim missals did not yet implement everything the Council called for.

      Reply
      1. Clarence Goodwright

        @Anthony Ruff, OSB – comment #3:

        I made no claims that Paul VI “erred” in declaring anything; I’m perfectly comfortable saying that Paul VI promulgated the 1969 Missal validly and licitly in order to implement the Council.

        What I am saying is that it is imprecise to call the Mass in the Ordinary Form the “Vatican II Mass”. In various senses the term fits none, any and all of the Missals of 1962, 1965, 1967, or the MR1/2/3 (in Latin or English).

        A similar imprecision exists with calling the Missals of 1484, 1570, 1920, 1955, or 1962 the “Tridentine Mass”.

        I think the Holy Father has given us a better term for each by referring to the two forms as “Ordinary Form” and “Extraordinary Form” of the Roman Rite. When we use either of those terms, everyone in the discussion knows we are speaking of the liturgical books currently in force: for the Missal, it means we are speaking of the MR3 (in Latin or vernacular) and the MR 1962 (with the 2008 Good Friday modifications).

        Additionally, since it was the Holy Father that initially drew the distinction, “EF” and “OF” are relatively neutral terms in a way that some like “Vatican II Mass”, “Novus Ordo”, “Tridentine Mass”, “unreformed Mass”, “reformed Mass”, among others, are not.

      2. Anthony Ruff, OSB Avatar
        Anthony Ruff, OSB

        @Clarence Goodwright – comment #11:
        Here’s what my sacramentary says:
        “Revised by decree of the Second Vatican Council and published by authority of Pope Paul VI.”
        That sure sounds like the “Vatican II Mass” to me. The Pope thought (and I gather that you disagree with him) that all the successive missals after 1963 were successive implementations of Vatican II. The pope thought (and I gather that you disagree with him) that the missals between 1963 and 1969 were partial implementation in need of more revision, and that 1969 completed the decress of the Second Vatican Council.
        I will continue to call the 1969 missal the “Vatican II” missal. These, then, are my reasons – I believe I’m following the Pope on this.
        You acknwoledge it’s “valid and licit,” but that’s not quite the issue here. The Pope did more than claim it’s valid and licit – he claimed it was according to the decrees of the Second Vatican Council.
        awr

  3. Jordan Zarembo

    Thank you, David, for your article. I can appreciate why you would consider certain celebrations of sung of solemn Mass to be “theatrical” in appearance. I have been to many sung and solemn, and sometimes even pontifical EF Masses, and have often myself found that the Mass had been lost within the theatrical aspect. To be fair, I have also had similar experiences at OF Masses, particularly when the parish introduces a ceremony into the Mass which is not in the rubrics. At that point, I have often thought that a theatrical element has been introduced which interrupts the Mass.

    Maybe it’s better to say that any liturgy of the Church can either impede or encourage active participation. When persons in the assembly have no chance to take up the responses, even if they would like, then the Mass has taken on a theatrical production quality regardless of the language of the liturgy. I should say that the EF can be a participatory liturgy — I have been to not a few dialogue Masses where the assembly knows their responses and the ordinary, and also understands the meaning of what they say. Even so, that does not mean that the OF is any less edifying so long as the choir, or presider, or even a procession does not implicitly exclude active participation.

    Reply
    1. Bill Wendt

      @Jordan Zarembo – comment #4:
      Maybe EF vs. OF is the difference between good theater and bad theater.

      Reply
  4. Philip Sandstrom

    Just a thought on the phrase “3 priest Masses”. Actually as was/is practiced, that is a serious and long-term abuse of the Sacrament of Orders. Something which is/was only done in the Roman/Latin Rite and in no other part of the Church. {There is an historical justification for the practice, but that does not make it ultimately correct.] To ask a priest to dress and take the role/job of the Deacon or the Sub-Deacon is in effect the same as asking a butterfly to hide its wings and act like a caterpillar. [There is a like ‘continuity’ between the caterpillar and the butterfly going forward, but no way of reversing the growth pattern.] It confuses the ‘diakonia’ [which is the common ‘service role’ of each and all of the ministers of the Church (and the laity too)], with the particular service/job of Deacon &/or Sub-deacon.

    Reply
  5. Philip Sandstrom

    Just a thought on the phrase “3 priest Masses”. Actually, that is a serious and long-term abuse of the Sacrament of Orders. Something which is/was only done in the Roman/Latin Rite and in no other part of the Church. {There is an historical justification for the practice, but that does not make it ultimately correct.] To ask a priest to dress and take the role/job of the Deacon or the Sub-Deacon is in effect the same as asking a butterfly to hide its wings and act like a caterpillar. [There is a like ‘continuity’ between the caterpillar and the butterfly going forward, but no way of reversing the growth pattern.] It confuses the ‘diakonia’, which is the common ‘service role’ of each and all of the ministers of the Church (and the laity too), with the particular service/job of Deacon &/or Sub-deacon.

    Reply
  6. Philip Sandstrom

    Just a thought on the phrase “3 priest Masses”. Actually, that is a serious and long-term abuse of the Sacrament of Orders. Something which is/was only done in the Roman/Latin Rite and in no other part of the Church. [There is an historical justification for the practice, but that does not make it ultimately correct.] To ask a priest to dress and take the role/job of the Deacon or the Sub-Deacon is in effect the same as asking a butterfly to hide its wings and act like a caterpillar. [There is a like ‘continuity’ in change and growth between the caterpillar and the butterfly going forward, but no way of reversing the growth pattern.] It confuses the ‘diakonia’, which is the common ‘service role’ of each and all of the ministers of the Church (and the laity too), with the particular service/job of Deacon &/or Sub-deacon.

    Reply
  7. Samuel J. Howard

    Something which is/was only done in the Roman/Latin Rite and in no other part of the Church.

    Simply not true. This happened in the Byzantine rite as well. There are photographs. Now they may say it was an abuse or a latinization, but the facts are the facts.

    Your explanation is entirely insufficient for showing the inherent wrongness of this action (as opposed to its undesirability) since even today the OF rubrics allow priests to participate at Mass in roles other than that of “celebrant” or “concelebrant” such as master of ceremonies. Subdeacons we (at least now) understand have not received the sacrament of holy orders and therefore for a priest to act as subdeacon in the old rite can no more be an abuse of orders than for a priest to act as master of ceremonies in the new rite. These things may be prohibited by law if some reason presents itself e.g. to show more fully the hierarchical nature of the Church (not that that truth is admited by the article) but that doesn’t prove they are inherently wrong.

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  8. Dunstan Harding

    I’ve been fortunate to observe regularly any number of OF liturgies with plenty of pomp, mystery, solemnity, and with sung Latin common parts and propers chanted in English. All of this with communion administered reverently under both forms.

    Liturgies complete with chanted collects, a chanted Latin anaphora shared by several concelebrants, a sung gospel, sometimes in English or in Latin, the evangeliary carried in a grand procession. Masses not always according to a strict adherence to the GIRM, but, nevertheless, dignified, solemn, with ample congregational participation, with the liturgy celebrated ad orientem, and with loads of candles and lots of incense.

    I’ve yet to see a clown Mass. I’ve yet to see balloons and dancing maidens with bowls of incense floating down the aisle.

    Where can I find this fun, circus atmosphere? I”m envious of the people on the internet with their testimonies of being shocked at having clowns and the maidens, especially some of Father Z’s followers, who seem to be present at these liturgies all the time.

    Where do these people come from? Phoenix? Orange County CA?

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  9. Richard Malcolm

    “…runs the risk of becoming a theatrical performance with the assembly becoming passive observers rather than people sharing…”

    What is actuosa participatio (SC 14)? I know this question gets asked often in debates like this. Yet too often the definition is still assumed rather than spelled out.

    What did the Council Fathers intend by it? The phrase also appears in Mediator Dei, but did they have the same thing in mind as Pius XII? Progressive liturgists can point to evidence that many of the fathers really *did* desire more outward, external participation in the mass, apparently believing (not unreasonably) that this would help drive true, internal participation. At the same time, some recognized that this connection was not automatic. At one point Cardinal Spellman, cautioned against a mere generalization and a purely external participation (“cavendum est a mera divulgatione et participatione tantum externa”). (AS I/1, 316, p. 305) It’s a concern many traditionalists (and others besides) have raised over the years.

    In my view, *any* liturgy risks tending to the theatrical – albeit this can manifest itself in different ways. Likewise, passivity isn’t a risk only with the old Roman Rite, which after all could/can also be celebrated as a dialogue mass, as it often was on the Continent. There is a great deal of “physical” participation in the Divine Liturgy, for example, with many signs of the cross, chants, etc, but this may risk merely extending more roles for performers in the play. Likewise, not many priests today can have many illusions that the NO generally creates the kind of actuosa participatio they would like. Forget asking Johnny Pewsitter after mass what the collects were – how often can he even recall any of the homily?

    So David Wesson loves the Tridentine Mass, but as art, not worship. I get the danger he is pointing to, but one wonders what this says about how impoverished he thinks the Roman Rite was for sixteen centuries.

    Reply
    1. Paul Inwood

      @Richard Malcolm – comment #10:

      What is actuosa participatio (SC 14)? I know this question gets asked often in debates like this. Yet too often the definition is still assumed rather than spelled out.

      SC 30 shows how the Council Fathers thought it was to be manifested:

      30. To promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes.

      Can’t get much clearer than that.

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      1. Mgr Bruce Harbert

        @Paul Inwood – comment #18:
        Don’t forget the final sentence of SC30: ‘ And at the proper times all should observe a reverent silence’. Silence also promotes active participation.

  10. Richard Malcolm

    Hello Dunstan,

    Where can I find this fun, circus atmosphere?

    I’ll avoid the easy layup that is the LA Religious Conference (or for that matter, Call to Action conference liturgies), just to say that while I’ve never seen a “clown mass” – which I think truly are extremely rare – I have seen, at a midnight Christmas vigil mass at a major suburban parish the in Midwest, three rounds of liturgical dancing and a puppet giving the benediction, among other curiosities. (No, it wasn’t a children’s mass.) Of course, it was notable precisely because I had never seen anything quite like it before (though I was given to understand that it wasn’t atypical of masses at that parish).

    In my experience there’s a lot of rubrical, er, “liberties” in the service of relentless creativity and expression that usually don’t run to the extremes of clowns and puppets but are still noticeable – and commonplace. I also think it’s lessened somewhat in recent years, as a younger generation of priests seems more ready to (as your target priest blogger would say), “say the black and do the red.”

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  11. Bill deHaas

    Mr. Wesson – thanks for sharing your personal views and experiences; it contributes to our journey as pilgrims in this church.

    (IMO, too often some of the EF masses appear to be closer to *opera* – especially your points about another language which most don’t know; purely observing; etc.)

    OTOH – Mr. Goodwright, note that you have also written an *apologia* and that yours also has some dubious theological and liturgical statements. To which:
    – your defining of *active engagement, participation, fully, and consciously* may be true at times but it misses the council fathers’ intent and definition and directives via SC (we have already commented on the first 18 articles but you seem to interpret them your own way?)
    – this same definitional approach is disconnected or misses the fact that SC is intimately connected to ecclesiology. (your quick tour through *ontology* misses or miscontrues VII documents that clarify and define the role of presbyter, priesthood, etc.)

    Finally, your statement that the *so-called Vatican II Mass was not called for explicitly by the Council is inaccurate or splits hairs so fine that you again have missed the point of the council fathers. They called for a *reformed* mass – you seem to want to equate what Paul VI and Consilium developed as something completely separate from what the council fathers called for – that is a stretch and an uninformed opinion only. You want to substitute what you think the current pope has said – but you ignore both Paul VI, the Council, and JPII. When your whole focus is only on the current pope and his statements, lots of history, tradition, and experience gets missed and, to repeat Fr. Ruff from elsewhere, the papal statements are just that – his opinions since most are not *ex cathedra* (altho someone did offer that they could be seen as *ex cathedra* in the sense of *cathedra* as *seat of the pants*.

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  12. M. Jackson Osborn

    Many of us would agree with Mr Wesson’s characterisations of the Extra-0rdinary form as greatly desirable over what is the most common praxis in the US of the Ordinary Form. However, the supposed dichotomy is a false one. There is nothing (nothing at all!) in documents or rubrics concerning the Ordinary Form which presuppose, let alone mandate, the presumptuously folksy and tediously informal manner in which it is celebrated in our parishes. In fact, one really has to go out of one’s facetious way to find even questionable justification for it. There is everything to commend as solemn and sacral a celebration of the Mass of Paul VI. as of the ‘Tridentine’ rite. It was an absent minded, aesthetically callous, and intellectually barbaric mentality that brought us what most people mistakenly THINK is the manner in which the Council intended XX. and XXI. century liturgy to be like. On the contrary, wherever the OF is celebrated with a less holy ethos than the EF, the Council has been betrayed and the poor people dealt a bill of goods.

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  13. Fr. Jim Blue

    The unreformed mass had its day, and that day is long gone.

    I will submit the following:

    (1) mainly, the unreformed mass has been permitted because those who want it tend to be wealthy and money talks;

    (2) dioceses in which there was good catechesis after the council don’t have the problem of many unreformed masses, maybe just a couple per week in the whole 12 county (arch)diocese

    (3) places with more that a couple unreformed masses per week had poor catechesis after the council

    Reply
    1. Jack Wayne

      @Fr. Jim Blue – comment #16:
      And where on earth do your three submissions come from? Is this a wishful assumption, or based on real experience? Do you hang out at EF Masses a lot? The wealthiest congregations in my area are all exclusively OF. I’ve never heard of a rich suburban EF community, though I’m sure some probably have a few wealthy members just as many OF communities do.

      As for the original post. I think the author is entitled to his opinion, but shouldn’t assume how deeply others are participating. I know very well what is going on at an EF and audibly sing all the responses always. I think I participate more deeply at the EF – it washes over you and sweeps you up into it.

      I should also note that not all EF Masses celebrated today are a feast of rich fabrics and professionally done music. You’ll only really find those in large urban areas, or in oratories controlled by groups that exclusively celebrate the EF. Saint John Cantius has four choirs and can muster a large sumptuous feast for the senses every week, but a lot of EF communities are small with amateur choirs singing the Missa de Angeles and Rossini propers week after week without any deacons or subdeacons. I’ve even seen priests use poncho-style vestments if that was all the parish had at the time. Some priests don’t sing well. I’ve attended at least a couple High Masses where the propers were only recited quietly by the priest and not sung by the choir at all, which I’m told was a common “abuse” prior to Vatican II. There aren’t a lot of badly celebrated EFs out there, but most of them are not “theatrical” by any means.

      If you are interested in the EF, try to attend every single one in your area. I found that it was the prayers, structure, flow, calendar, and ethos of the EF that I loved. This is true even when the chant wasn’t sung very well and the vestments and church were ugly. It’s why I would probably choose an EF over a reform-of-the-reform OF Mass if both types were convenient to me. I would probably even prefer an English EF to a totally-Latin OF, but since I’ve never experienced either, it’s tough to say. I need to get to St John Cantius in Chicago for one of their Latin OFs some time and to S Clement’s Episcopal for their English EF if I’m ever in Philadelphia.

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  14. Fr. Allan J. McDonald

    I’m glad to see here that some are trying to following the Supreme Pontiff on things liturgical, whether it regards the Vatican II Missal recently revised as well as the post-Vatican II permission for the 1962 missal revised by Blessed John XXIII. We should all be respectful of the Supreme Pontiff’s authority to regulate the liturgical life of the Church including Summorum Pontificum and the excerpts I cite below:

    “…In more recent times, Vatican Council II expressed a desire that the respectful reverence due to divine worship should be renewed and adapted to the needs of our time. Moved by this desire our predecessor, the Supreme Pontiff Paul VI, approved, in 1970, reformed and partly renewed liturgical books for the Latin Church. These, translated into the various languages of the world, were willingly accepted by bishops, priests and faithful. John Paul II amended the third typical edition of the Roman Missal. Thus Roman pontiffs have operated to ensure that ‘this kind of liturgical edifice … should again appear resplendent for its dignity and harmony.’ (4)

    …Art 1. The Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI is the ordinary expression of the ‘Lex orandi’ (Law of prayer) of the Catholic Church of the Latin rite. Nonetheless, the Roman Missal promulgated by St. Pius V and reissued by Bl. John XXIII is to be considered as an extraordinary expression of that same ‘Lex orandi,’ and must be given due honour for its venerable and ancient usage. These two expressions of the Church’s Lex orandi will in no any way lead to a division in the Church’s ‘Lex credendi’ (Law of belief). They are, in fact two usages of the one Roman rite…

    It is, therefore, permissible to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass following the typical edition of the Roman Missal promulgated by Bl. John XXIII in 1962 and never abrogated, as an extraordinary form of the Liturgy of the Church…”

    As the old saying goes, “‘Roma locuta est, causa finita est’ –,” “Rome has spoken, case closed.”

    Reply
  15. Richard Malcolm

    Hello Paul,

    Paul Inwood :

    30. To promote active participation, the people should be encouraged to take part by means of acclamations, responses, psalmody, antiphons, and songs, as well as by actions, gestures, and bodily attitudes.

    ### Can’t get much clearer than that.

    Well, with respect, not quite.

    SC 30 here is talking about how to promote “active participation” (I would translate it as “actual participation,” but set that to the side). The external gestures and actions are plainly thought helpful to helping create that participation – but the language seems to recognize that they aren’t equivalent to it.

    Is it indeed possible, as Cardinal Spellman suggested, to verbally make all the responses, to sing the hymns, to undertake all the bodily gestures and actions, or even to act as lector or EMHC, and yet not really “participate,” or to be “fully conscious” (SC 14) in what one is doing?

    There’s one other hint, up in SC 11:

    But in order that the liturgy may be able to produce its full effects, it is necessary that the faithful come to it with proper dispositions, that their minds should be attuned to their voices, and that they should cooperate with divine grace lest they receive it in vain. Pastors of souls must therefore realize that, when the liturgy is celebrated, something more is required than the mere observation of the laws governing valid and licit celebration; it is their duty also to ensure that the faithful take part fully aware of what they are doing, actively engaged in the rite, and enriched by its effects.

    Again, the external actions seem to be a means to an end – not the end itself.

    I’m not trying to be tendentious. I think this is a reality that all of us who attend the mass (in whichever form or rite) have struggled with at some time or another.

    P.S. Msgr. Harbert makes an excellent point as well about the role of silence as mentioned in SC.

    Reply
    1. Paul Inwood

      @Richard Malcolm – comment #21:

      “active participation” (I would translate it as “actual participation,”

      In 1903, Pius X’s attiva [= “active”] in the Italian original was translated into Latin in the official document as actuosa.

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  16. Paul Inwood

    Mgr Bruce Harbert : @Paul Inwood – comment #18: Silence also promotes active participation.

    Indeed, as anyone who has been to Taizé can well testify.

    Reply
  17. Mgr Bruce Harbert

    Furthermore, ‘participation’ may not be the best possible translation of Latin ‘participatio’, which in Latin, including the liturgical variety, often means ‘receiving a share’. We shall have an example in the Prayer after Communion on Tuesday, ‘huius participatione mysterii’, translated ‘through our partaking in this mystery’. I shall be dealing with this in my new ‘Missal Notes’ blog.
    A couple of weeks ago I saw in the ‘Osservatore Romano’ an account of a concert at which Cardinal Levada and other cardinals were present, which was expressed in Italian as ‘hanno partecipato’. This doesn’t mean that they jumped up on the stage and sang a song, but simply that they were there.
    English commentators on SC have developed a narrow concept of ‘participatio’ based on the narrow semantic field occupied by the English word ‘participation’.

    Reply
  18. Fr. Jack Feehily

    Msgr. Harbert you make a great effort to obscure what it is clearly meant by full, active, and conscious participation. Of course this means interior as well as exterior participation, but not just interior. Did you mean to defend the egregious practice in the past of having big choirs sing classical compositions of the ordinary of the Mass while all just sit and listen, albeit enthralled? I am all for reforming the EF so that it corresponds more fully with both the desires of the Council fathers, as well as the Popes and bishops of the world in the aftermath of that council. Oh, I forgot, that’s exactly what Paul VI did in promulgating the Novus Ordo Missae.
    How the Rites are celebrated in practice has always been a problem. There is no need to try to transform the NO into the rite found in the 1962 Missal by trying to make bishops conform to the desires of the revanchists at the Vatican. The bishops should be giving directions to the Roman Curia, not the other way around. That they have failed to act in this regard as Vicars of Christ in their own dioceses leaves us with an understanding of Papal jurisdiction that even Pio Nono would have rejected. Can the successor of Peter have more authority and power than Peter himself?

    Reply
    1. Peter Haydon

      @Fr. Jack Feehily – comment #27:
      Fr Jack
      I am tempted to support Mgr Harbert by offering the translation of paragraph 30 from my CTS edition.
      To encourage the people to take an active part, their acclamations, answers, singing of psalms, antiphons and hymns, even their actions, for example gestures and attitudes of body, are to be gone into, and a holy silence should be observed at the appropriate times.

      The ‘part’ here seems closer to the ‘share’ of the Mgr than the ‘participation’ first noted above. The ‘gone into’ suggests that these actions should be considered which is not the ‘encouraged’ noted above. I see that the silence is ‘holy’ rather than ‘reverent’ which also could give us an avenue to explore.

      I think that we should wait until we get to this in the reading SC paragraph by paragraph. But it does seem to me that trying to describe one form as participation as that intended by the council risks being too narrow. Different people will benefit from different forms of participation.

      May I offer one personal illustration? As a general rule I think that participation implies paying attention to what is happening in the sanctuary. When the elder girls at my daughter’s school are doing a liturgical dance I try to read something in the missal. My daughter says “that they should do it in the theatre, not in church, especially when we can see their panties”. Besides I think that they must be cold as they have not much on and it is cold in the church in December. So I try to participate here by ignoring what is going on.

      Reply
    2. Charles Culbreth

      @Fr. Jack Feehily – comment #26:

      Did you mean to defend the egregious practice in the past of having big choirs sing classical compositions of the ordinary of the Mass while all just sit and listen, albeit enthralled?

      Fr.. Jack, as I am sympathetic to those sensibiities, and am very wary to accept, prima facie, rationales for those occasions when the schola/choir/organ/orchestra “appears” to be rendering a performance Mass for beauty’s, or the art’s sake, I never rush to judgment on the whole idiomatic practice of such. Why? For a myriad of reasons. Historical context that informed the evolution and infusion of classical composition from the monasteries to the French cathedrals of Leonin and Perotin , to early polyphony with immeasurable repetitions, devices of practice like hocket and troping, to whatever musicologist wants to ordain the golden era of “Roman” polyphony, and the rest of Grout that since Monteverdi clouded the distinction between the practice of art or worship, all that clutter still makes the contemporary choir director oft confounded. And of course, all that background noise led Fr. Ruff to hedge his own bets upon what , exactly, constitutes “sacred music” save for the legislative endorsement of chant and the more nebulous polyphonic settings of propers and ordinaries. It is no small task to risk credence capital on new settings emulative of chant and polyphony that purposefully avoid the descent into crafting and grafting diluted artistic content into gebrauchsmusick that is the contemporary idiom of MoC, the Community Mass, Mass of Light, etc. For all the enthralled congregants actively worshipping by fully listening to the choir sing the Missa Papa Marcelli, you can counter with a likely identical amount of PIPs sitting out and sitting on their vocal cords when the latest banality of a newly composed industrical setting is debuted after an NPM showcase.
      The cure for all this and all involved, humility in…

      Reply
  19. Bill deHaas

    Peter – would tend to agree with Fr. Jack’s comment – Msgr knows exactly what he is doing and it is not to shed more light on the subject nor to convey what the council fathers intended.

    Would add that his earlier comment about *silence* in response to Paul Inwood is in the same spirit or lack thereof.

    Reply
    1. Peter Haydon

      @Bill deHaas – comment #28:
      Thank you Bill.
      I know nothing of the motives of the Mgr. and assume them to be good. I merely offered a translation from a reputable source that suggested that the meaning he drew was not necessarily out of order. Let’s wait till we hit the paragraph in rereading SC before drawing too many conclusions.
      As to the silence I suggest that you watch some French films. They seem to have long silences that English language films seem to do without. As a spectator I wish that they would get on with things or edit the film. Mass, not being just a spectacle a different approach can be justified. If the Mgr was indicating that we need times of silence also that seems fair enough.
      Cheers
      Peter

      Reply
  20. Claire Mathieu

    Just today I went to a Mass in the ordinary form with a professional choir. I was happy to be at Mass, I can sing, I wanted to sing, but it was not possible except for a few short refrains: the choir did almost all the singing. Even when I knew the music, I didn’t dare join in because every one around me was sitting silently listening and the leaflet had instructions such as: “choir only for this part”. But it was frustrating. Maybe like Bartimeus I ought to have made prayerful noises anyway.

    But judging from the crowd, there are many who prefer to sit back and listen to liturgical music provided by professionals.

    Reply
  21. Jonathan Ziegler

    Regarding relative silence vs singing during worship, is there similar debate in other denominations (or religions)? The Episcopal churches I’ve been organist at had both Rite I Said services and Rite II Sung services. Both groups loved their own services and both groups got along fine. So it’s somewhat baffling to me why there is so much discussion and animosity over similar topics in the Catholic Church.

    Reply
    1. Fr. Allan J. McDonald

      @Jonathan Ziegler – comment #32:
      Jonathan, that’s a very good point and I think hits at the nature of the legalism of both the American culture and the culture of the UK. While I can’t really speak for the UK, although I had quite a legal battle with a clerk at the airport in London over a flexibility issue, in which she was quite immovable, I do know that we Americans, unlike the Italians, not only like the law, we keep it and don’t care too much for dispensations. Italians like the law, but are extremely flexible with it and certainly there are dispensations galore in canon law.
      But the point I think you are making is that so many so-called progressives in the Church who claim to have truly accepted Vatican II are really pre-Vatican II in terms of their rigidity about it. They cannot accept the liturgical diversity of having an EF Mass or an OF Mass or one that is sung or one that is not sung or one that is all Latin or a hybrid of Latin or a choir singing rather than the congregation or just the congregation singing. I suspect those of us who are more conservative are a bit rigid on contemporary stuff and instrumentation, but we are far from imposing that on anyone. So I’d say that those who want to abrogate the EF Mass permanently, make congregation activity the norm, period and can’t stand ad orientem in any way, shape or form are truly the pre-Vatican II ones in mentality demanding the imposition of a rigid uniformity within narrow bands of flexibility.

      Reply
  22. Bill deHaas

    Jonathan – another expressed view that goes beyond and deeper than Allan’s caricatures and use of a new language e.g. *….imposition of a rigid uniformity within narrow bands of flexibility*; a cute play on the hermeneutic of reform within continuity which seems to be his current mantra and a continuation of his need to categorize folks.

    From Cardinal Ravasi:

    “Traditionalists” should go back over their Latin because many of them are persistently trying to reintroduce the ancient liturgy but they ignore some fundamental aspects of the Catholic Church’s official language.

    The President of the Pontifical Council for Culture, Cardinal Gianfranco Ravasi certainly did not mince his words when criticising a certain section of the Catholic Church. Ravasi reiterated that the Pontifical Academy for Latin (just established by Benedict XVI) does not represent a return to something obsolete.

    Established last 10 November with the Apostolic Letter “Latina Lingua”, the new academy has one clear aim: “To foster deeper knowledge and a more competent use of the Latin language, both in an ecclesiastical context and in the wider world of culture.”

    Ravasi expounds further about the real reach of this initiative.

    What is the significance of the creation of this Pontifical Academy for Latin?

    “Our aim is not just to revive the great heritage of the past, which is composed of culture, literature, ideas, theology and philosophy in Latin, but to bring Latin back into the seminaries, offer seminarians the possibility to understand the original texts of core documents and possibly even a page of two from the writings of the Church Fathers. On the other hand, we would also like schools in all countries to rediscover Latin, because it helps in understanding contemporary culture, given that its structure aids thinking.”

    How is it possible to avoid this being seen as an academic exercise, a return to things that are obsolete?

    “First of all we need to start asking the so-called “traditionalists” to go over their Latin, because they often want masses to be celebrated in Latin, but it is likely they do not know the language that well. I myself have witnessed cases in which some of them did celebrate the rite of mass or the liturgy in Latin with great strength but were unable to work out certain specific aspects of the language. Western culture is based on Latin, particularly that of the Mediterranean languages. This is also the case with legal and scientific language: the names of medicines still derive from Latin today. High culture in general needs Latin in order to understand the deeper meaning of some words, of one’s own language. But, above all, the use of Latin pushes humans to use their rationality more and think in more rigorous manner.”

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  23. Jamin Herold

    I just want to put out there some thought on this after having witnessed my children at both the OF and the EF.

    I have always tried to teach my children (10, 8, 6, 3 and 1 month) about the Mass, what the parts mean, what is being done, how it is being done. I have done this while participating in both the OF and EF. What I have found interesting over time is that while I prefer the EF but enjoy the OF and my wife prefers the OF but enjoys the EF, my kids seem to participate better in the EF.

    What I see and hear from my kids (who often ask to go to the EF, we are about 50% at each) is that at the EF they sit more still, the are observing what is being done in the sanctuary, they sometimes look to the stained glass windows and the statues and seem to be studying them. They know when to kneel, stand, sit; they reverently go forward to receive the Eucharist. However, during the OF they often appear distracted, my son is often making airplanes out of his hands, they talk to each other and distract each other, and I am often having to separate them.

    In discussing Mass after the EF they can often recall much of the homily, they will tell me of the things they noticed about the stained glass windows or statues, and they talk about the prayers they said during the Canon or at other parts. At the OF they often have a hard time recalling the homily, they don’t mention the statues, they don’t recall a lot of prayer.

    My own thoughts is that they can actually enter into meditative prayer in the E). They often use their imagination to place themselves into the mystery of what is happening, rather the Cross or one of the images of the windows. At the OF they are listening to someone else, and have others directing what and how to pray and they get bored with this. They passively listen, passively speak responses, they do not enter as well into the mystery, they do not actively unite their will to the prayer going on. Now hopefully they do at some time, but I see it is easier for them to do this at the…

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  24. David Philippart

    “One cannot help but admit that the Mass of Vatican II does not come close to the majesty of the Tridentine Mass.”

    I can. This is not my experience. Not in the least. For most of my life I have participated in Masses celebrated according to the Roman Missal as reformed by the Second Vatican Council that have been reverent, beautiful, numinous–and at the appropriate times, even grand and majestic…at Our Lady Gate of Heaven Church (now closed) in Detroit, at Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Detroit, at the Abbey of Our Lady of the Genessee in Pifard, New York, Holy Rosary Chapel at the Adrian Dominican sisters’ motherhouse in Adrian, Michigan, St. Clement Church in Chicago, College Church at St. Louis University in St. Louis, St. Joseph Church in Greenwich Village in NYC, St. Henry (now closed) in Cleveland, St. Peter in Cleveland, LA’s Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels, St. Padre Serra Church, Camarillo CA, Most Holy Rosary Church, Albuquerque NM, Santa Maria de la Paz Church, Santa Fe, NM, St. Nicholas Church, Evanston IL and even the occasional stadium or convention center Mass for national ad hoc gatherings.

    I have little memory of the Tridentine Mass, but I do know a priest who told me that hidden among the candlesticks on the gradine of the altar was a small clock: The priests of his congregation were required by the superior under their vow of obedience to finish daily Mass in 15 minutes. I’ve seen a number of “beautiful traditional high altars” that were in fact plywood constructions faux-painted to look like marble, and I’ve encountered more than one antique shop with “precious metal” chalices and ciboria that were in fact tin covered with the thinnest layer of gold now well worn off.

    My experience is that dedicated lay readers–on fire with love for the Word of God–are superior in proclaiming the scriptures to those priests and deacons who rush or who are looking at the reading for the first time as they are reading it aloud in the liturgy.

    And I haven’t enough characters to…

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  25. David Philippart

    address the issue of lace. But now that I am in a new box, let me say that the contemporary vesture of +Katreen Bettencourt, still made by the Meyer Vogelpohl Company of Cincinnati, or that of Vincent Crosby, OSB, puts the lacey stuff to shame.

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  26. Samuel J. Howard

    “One cannot help but admit that the Mass of Vatican II does not come close to the majesty of the Tridentine Mass.”

    I can. This is not my experience. Not in the least. For most of my life I have participated in Masses celebrated according to the Roman Missal as reformed by the Second Vatican Council that have been reverent, beautiful, numinous–and at the appropriate times, even grand and majestic…I have little memory of the Tridentine Mass

    Err… so based on your “little memory” of the Tridentine Mass and the absuses you experienced in one place (you’ve never seen less than optimal celebrations of the novus ordo?) you tell us that the novus ordo is so definitely better?

    Reply
  27. Bill deHaas

    David – thanks; interesting list of sites. In Camarillo, did you ever have visiting Vincentians from St. John’s? Same experience for me in Santa Fe; STL University; St. Clement’s; and Evanston, IL.

    Sam – your retorts grow tedious. This is just the reverse of Allan’s constant dimissal and disparagement of anything he experienced in the 1970s (when the church liturgy went to hell in a hand basket) and his constant repeating of some of the terrible liturgies at his east coast seminary.

    We all can enumerate abuses, poor celebrants, poor liturgies in what ever decade or whatever form of the Western Rite – and it gets us where? It is the season of Advent – have hope.

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  28. Fr. Jan Michael Joncas

    I am VERY grateful to Mr Herold for his comments in #35. At another post on this blog I suggested that, anthropologically speaking, the EF makes few demands on the ritual participants outside of the sanctuary (except for physical presence and decorum), while the OF makes many demands on the ritual participants (e.g., focused linear attention as the ritual unfolds). Your anecdotal evidence tends to support my observation as at the EF your children observe decorum (“know when to kneel, stand, sit”) but are also free to follow their own prayer impulses (“looking to the stained glass windows and studying them”), in effect allowing the liturgical texts and gestures to become a background or springboard to their individual interests. At the OF, when they are expected to follow lock-step in the linear focus of the ritual, they grow restive. (I would be interested to learn how you judge that your children “passively listen” at the OF celebration; do they “actively listen” to the ritual texts [not the homily, since you have already addressed that] at the EF celebration in a way distinct from the OF celebration? And I would also like to understand what you mean when you say that they “passively speak” responses at the OF celebration; do they “actively speak” responses at the EF celebration?)

    My next comment is quite delicate and I pray that you (and other readers) will NOT take it as a negative criticism, but as an open-hearted inquiry as it moves beyond anthropological inquiry to theology and spirituality. Is the goal of liturgical worship to engender meditative prayer in individuals? To invite people to pray their own prayers while Mass is going on (“they talk about the prayers they said during the Canon or at other parts”)? The reason I ask is because I am old enough to remember that one of the slogans of the Liturgical Movement was “don’t just pray at Mass, pray the Mass.” I also believe that these practices may be COMPLETELY appropriate for the ages of your children. [further comments in…

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  29. Fr. Jan Michael Joncas

    …next box.]

    I need here to confess that as a celibate priest (though with lots of nieces and nephews) I am in AWE of the creativity and dedication of parents in handing on faith by means of ritual practices and explicit teaching correlated to the developmental stages of their children. The reason I find Mr. Herold’s comments so interesting is that they seem to supply at least one framework for why the EF may be attractive: it allows the ritual participants outside of the sanctuary the same freedom that Mr. Herold’s children have to pray as they wish while the sanctuary liturgy is going on. In fact, in my experience of the EF growing up (the only form of the Roman Rite I knew :-)), as long as one “knelt, stood, sat” at the appropriate times, it was perfectly acceptable to pray using a hand missal to follow the texts of the Mass as closely as possible, to pray using a book of devotional prayers which may or may not have been correlated to the prayers of the liturgy, to pray using a rosary, to pray by shutting one’s eyes and (presumably) entering into contemplation, or to listen attentively to the choral singing or gaze attentively on the artwork. I do believe that there has been a great shift in the expectations of at least some worshiping communities in the RC communion that “full, conscious, and active participation” means engaging the texts, gestures and silences of the liturgy by all of the ritual participants as they occur (i.e. linearly) rather than praying one’s own prayers while Mass is going on. Two thoughts immediately strike me, however: 1) This may make too great a demand upon those who are unprepared for or resistant to such linear participation (as children may be) and 2) Is this part of what Guardini was talking about when he raised the issue of the difficulty of post-Enlightenment moderns actually engaging a (communal) liturgical act?

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  30. Richard Malcolm

    Like Fr. Joncas, I would also like to thank Mr. Herold for sharing his experiences with his children at mass.

    Reply
  31. Fr. Allan J. McDonald

    I like Fr. Joncas description of the differences in how one might or might not actually participate in the Mass and had not thought about it in the way he describes. I’ve always tried to understand the differences between the two forms of the one Roman Rite as differing spiritualities and different ways of participation. The EF tends to sweep a person so inclined into the actions of the Mass and its ambiance and is not “linear.” The OF demands that the laity in effect act as a priest and pay attention to what they are doing at every moment. Of course there can be linear participation in the EF too, especially if one tries to follow the Mass verbatim from their personal missal. However, I think most people who have the EF in their blood and are comfortable with it, tend to look at and participate in this form of the Mass in broad strokes, knowing what is going on, even in the silent prayers, but not preoccupied by the literal words being prayed, but content with knowing the generalities of what is being prayed and the structure of the Mass. This is somewhat freeing and perhaps more appealing to children and some adults. I was about 13 years old when things began to change, but my recollection of the EF Mass was that I knew that there was great reverence going on, and was fascinated by the various pious reactions of the adults at Mass, some more profound than others and that Jesus was there and that I should be praying, be quiet and occupy myself with either the missal, the rosary or just looking on in awe. I still have specific recollections of specific Masses of that period and very early in my life and very positive memories, although I also recall being bored, but always quiet and reverent. And I think most of us who recall the reverence of pre-Vatican II times remember that very little noise from children in particular would be tolerated. I find this true today in our once a month EF High Mass on Sunday. The families who come are traditional families some with five to nine children each and the children are quiet, stay in the pew and no one goes to the bathroom during Mass. Compare that with a typical Ordinary Form Sunday Mass and the restlessness of children and the carefree attitude about their noises, even when babies begin to scream. And the orientation of the priest constantly beholding the congregation and what they are and aren’t doing can either be edifying or totally distracting, especially when a mother or father gets up as the words of institution are prayed to take their child to the bathroom. I suspect too that the laity, some of them anyway, know that the priest is seeing what they are or aren’t doing, but ad orientem, no one feels like the priest is also a policeman or detective in this regard. And quite frankly praying the Mass ad orientem even in the OF Mass is quite freeing for the celebrant in terms of distractions behind him.

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  32. Bruce Ludwick, Jr.

    Fr. Joncas, I see what you’re getting at, but I think the “purist” approach to external participation (!followtheritual!followtheritual!) in either form isn’t helping anyone of any age. (I realize you weren’t posting it that way, but some here do, and here is some food for thought:) It is certainly “legitimate participation” to look at a stained glass window while listening to Hebrews 12:1 (for example). Is that mode of active participation contradictory? Isn’t it possible that seeing the image in a window might enlighten the mind of the listener to a deeper meaning of the text being proclaimed? Might this especially be the case if the reader has done a mediocre job in proclaiming? We could go on with preaching or music examples, but you get the point.

    As a parent of two very young boys, I prefer to point out these physical representations in the church rather than feed the kids snacks in the pews (a more common way to pacify them nowadays!) However, at home, they can readily talk to me about something while seeing (and understanding) a fairly advanced concept on Sesame Street. They are, at this developmental stage, much more visual and manual in approach to the world. I confess I am the same way: if I don’t write a note for something I want to remember later or (often) have the reading I’m hearing in a missal in front of me, it is difficult for me to recall it in a meaningful way later on that day or week: in short, to make the prayer of the liturgy that of my daily life. I would say this (a different mode of trying to follow the ritual) is very gravely different than praying a devotional prayer, etc., in the middle of the liturgy.

    Anyhow, you have a good insight, I think on ad orientem as regards being “policeman”: I don’t think that’s ever conscious on either part, but maybe is subliminal.

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  33. Bill deHaas

    Fr. Michael – if my understanding of your *linear* reference is somewhere close to what you mean, would suggest a couple of other directions:

    Reformed Ritual Principle:
    – study of the thinkers behind VII and council fathers’ statements would suggest that they chose to reform around primary idea of communal participation (active, full e.g. dialogue…..this also moves away from seeing eucharist as “spirituality* rather as a communal ritual that builds up the community and its mission)
    – this appears to change the older, perceived EF/TLM ritual which was more clerical and individualistic with a focus on individual spirituality

    Children and Learning Process
    – you have articulated an area that always created tension and discussion – the reformed liturgy was geared to adults; thus, what about children at various ages?
    – kids learn at different speeds, ways, etc. It is difficult to make sweeping generalizations (EF vs. OF)
    – so, the development of the EPs for Children that was based upon increased sung responses; simpler language. The use of music geared to kids; some parishes offered separate liturgy of the word/homilies
    – there were choirs for kids e.g. bells, etc.
    – these methods seem to support the *linear* approach

    Question – what is the best approach…..let folks get what they can from ritual (so, more individualistic – yes, some adults will only stay at the level of some kids and this happens in both EF & OF)
    OR….continue to focus on ritual that is communal, fosters active participation via sung responses/dialogue; supports a more linear participation (e.g. better liturgy of the word, better homilies; more connection between word and eucharistic table, inclusion of other sacraments, RCIA, etc.)
    (fact – adults & kids require today a more visual and manual approach to ritual. Bruce – your story about glass windows would work in either approach – EF or OF. and poor ritual, ministers, acoustics, music can happen anywhere)

    My choice as parent was to focus on communal participation; involvement in roles; participation based upon their ages and appropriate levels of understanding. Kids can sing at an early age; kids can read a kids’ bible, etc. Not sure that the individualistic approach is the best way to go to achieve the VII liturgical principles.

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  34. Fr. Jan Michael Joncas

    Re: Mr. Ludwick at comment #44. Thanks so much for your contribution.

    I think my training in semiotics makes me especially attentive to the multitude of sign systems operating in any celebration of the EF or the OF. To take the example of stained glass: some church architecture is adorned with a series of windows whose figurative art can be “read” according to a narrative program around the walls; others provide a series of “portraits” of saints who are usually identified by particular attributes; still others may enshrine particular shapes and colors in a non-figurative set of patterns, etc. Let’s posit that one’s attention is caught by stained glass art while the Eucharistic Prayer is being prayed. Some figurative art might “reinforce” the message proclaimed in the text (e.g., ranks of angels and saints praising God while the eschatocol of the Preface and the Holy, Holy, Holy are being sung or a Last Supper tableau while the Institution Narrative is proclaimed); some figurative art might evoke the saints with whom we join in worship (as well as those donors whose sacrifices made this worship space possible) when the Prayer intercedes for the living and the dead; some non-figurative art might provide a visual milieu for the praying of the Eucharistic Prayer, an ambience connecting earthly and heavenly worship by its transformation of the quality of light in the sanctuary. Of course this presumes that one knows the text being proclaimed, either because it is in the vernacular or has a general sense of where it is in the ritual. Yet it also seems possible that other visual sign systems could distract from the texts being proclaimed and the liturgical actions being performed, much as when I see parents giving their children picture books (with no discernible connection to our liturgical prayer) to keep them “occupied” during Mass.

    I’d like to comment on Mr. deHaas’ remarks and then make a suggestion to further the discussion begun here.

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  35. Fr. Jan Michael Joncas

    Re: Mr. deHaas at comment #45. I think you are raising in different words what I meant by calling our attention to Guardini’s address to the German bishops about the difficulty of post-Enlightenment folks to posit a genuine liturgical act. I think we fear the liturgical act becoming either: 1) a hodgepodge of individual prayer acts undertaken while the priest is praying officially (“I foster my personal relationship with Jesus in my own way kneeling next to you fostering your personal relationship with Jesus in your own way, etc., throughout the church building for the length of the liturgy”) and therefore no one should “intrude on” my personal prayer by, e.g., asking me to sing a Responsorial Psalm refrain or bow at a set of words during the recitation of the Creed; or 2) a fascist, totalitarian act in which individual sensibility is crushed by mob thinking, feeling and acting. From a theological perspective, the guarantee that liturgy is neither comes from the Holy Spirit, whose action in the liturgy as in the Church is analogous to the Spirit’s action in the Trinity: both differentiating and unifying. I do believe that at least some of the Council Fathers wanted to enrich and temper the individualistic spirituality that had marked Roman Catholicism since at least the devotio moderna with spirituality’s source and goal in the communal liturgical prayer of the Church. How to do that — how to both respond to the Spirit’s re-shaping of what could and should be re-shaped in the Church’s life and structures AND to the Spirit’s impetus to engage the world with the good news of the Gospel — has had profound consequences for liturgical restoration/renewal/reform.

    New topic: I had the great privilege of meeting Sofia Cavaletti at her atrium in Rome and being introduced to the “Catechesis of the Good Shepherd” as a way in which children were drawn into the Church’s life through Montessori techniques. Could someone start a thread on this?

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  36. John Ainslie

    This has been an important and thought-provoking blog.

    Following Msgr Harbert’s suggestion, I have just consulted my Italian dictionary and find that it confirms my suspicion that ‘partecipare’ means to SHARE. Now to say ‘I have shared Mass’ begs an indirect object answering the question ‘with whom?’ It is inescapably communitarian.

    That leads me to suggest that OF invites one to be drawn into the liturgical action and become, together with the priest and other members of the assembled people of God present, an actor/performer/participant/sharer of/in the ritual – what Bernard Huijbers called ‘The Performing Audience’.

    But this comes at a price: it is much harder work, despite the use of the vernacular language. You are a member of the crew, not a passenger! That is why EF, as pointed out by a number of contributors to this blog, is easier for children – and adults too – because being a spectator is less demanding. And in our entertainment-loving society, that’s a well-practised option!

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  37. Richard Malcolm

    Hello John,

    What you’re implying, in effect, is that for sixteen centuries and more, Catholics in the Roman Rite were merely spectators, not worshipers, at the mass.

    Makes me wonder how it survived as long as it did.

    Reply
    1. Fr. Allan J. McDonald

      @Richard Malcolm – comment #49:
      I agree that there has to be a better way to promote the Ordinary Form Mass without denigrating the Extraordinary Form. The hermeneutic of denigration to bring our people along with what Vatican II taught was based on the old advertising gimmick that the old was old and awful and the new, is new and improved.
      There’s got to be a better way to promote renewal without these cliches. I think the Holy Father’s ministry in this regard has been most helpful. We’re speaking here not of products but of faith realities and that people attend to these faith realities by “receiving a share” in what they experience by their real presence at Mass, whether old and archaic or supposedly new and improved or not so improved.

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  38. Bill deHaas

    Richard – he did not say that. You are interpreting and skewing his comment to make a point. Sorry – it would be more accurate to say that all folks have been worshippers for centuries; then, you begin to drill down and qualify the act of worship – thus, some examples would be that some worshippers choose and are more comfortable in some version of being a spectator; others choose and are more comfortable in being more participatory. Obviously, these two terms are binary and our experience as church and as worshippers is on a continuum filled with nuance, differences, diversity, spiritualities, etc.

    And if you read folks such as Congar, Rahner – they were concerned about the church’s liturgy and its survival and thus pushed for SC and is vision of liturgy that is full, active, and participatory.

    Allan – denigration works both ways – don’t think that he denigrated the EF; you chose to interpret it that way. Getting defensive? Would suggest that Fr. Michael was trying to use different categories and apprroaches rather than to fall back on the incessant EF vs. OF mantra.

    Reply
    1. Father Allan J. McDonald

      @Bill deHaas – comment #51:
      The law of prayer is the law of belief and between the two forms of the Roman Rite there is no division in this regard as long as either form is celebrated as intended with the various options allowed both.

      Reply
  39. Richard Malcolm

    Hello Bill,

    Richard – he did not say that. You are interpreting and skewing his comment to make a point.

    Well, John can speak for himself.

    But let us postulate that he thinks one can be a “spectator” at the mass and still be worshiping.

    That is still a pejorative scenario. It’s clear that, for John – and perhaps most progressive liturgists – this is an inferior manner of worship. After all, you are “only a passenger,” not a member of the crew! That, in the EF , you are *not* “drawn into the liturgical action and become, together with the priest and other members of the assembled people of God present, an actor/performer/participant/sharer of/in the ritual.” In short, the result is that, even if Roman Rite lay worshipers from Late Antiquity (at the least) to the 1960’s were worshiping, they were doing so in an inferior, impoverished way. To be more blunt, we must believe that, for most of its history, the Roman Rite was a seriously defective rite. Somehow, the Western Church managed to get the most central act of its existence profoundly wrong for almost all of its history.

    Kind of makes me wonder why I’d believe the Catholic Church’s claims in the first place.

    At any rate, I question the premise. I have attended plenty of masses in both forms in my life. I may have to “do more” in the OF than is typical in the EF (at least in non-dialogue EF) masses, but that doesn’t always mean I’m as focused or attentive to what is going on. I have found – speaking for myself – that the more passive posture and use of Latin requires me to work harder to pay attention to what is going in the sanctuary.

    And if you read folks such as Congar, Rahner – they were concerned about the church’s liturgy and its survival and thus pushed for SC and is vision of liturgy that is full, active, and participatory.

    I don’t dispute that point. I also agree that there were grounds for concern with the state of the Roman Rite’s liturgical life, at least as…

    Reply
  40. Richard Malcolm

    …at least as it was experienced at the time in most places. There are plenty of papal documents in the 20th century to testify to that concern.

    But that was a shared concern across most of the theological spectrum, going back to Gueranger. The question was how to improve it. We have seen the Consilium’s response, obviously. But that wasn’t the only road being offered on the table.

    Reply
  41. Bill deHaas

    Thanks, Richard….see your point. Appreciate your response as opposed to the usual Allan mantra again (as if his comment means anything…(lex orandi, lex credendi)….or by stating it over and over everthing is explained.

    Reply
  42. Fr. Allan J. McDonald

    I would suggest you substitute “Allan” with “Bill” and more than likely you’ll have the complete truth. 🙂

    Reply
  43. Jamin Herold

    Let me answer a couple of the questions about what I said.

    Though the kids might not be engaged with the words of the Mass at the EF, they are engaged with what we are participating in at Mass. At the readings those who are able to read will read in English what the readings are. For the younger we have read them in advance and they are “learning” from the environment. (I know the readings are not strictly a time of learning, but that discussion can go on at another time). They are praying and open to “hearing” God speak to them. As they stand, sit, kneel they know why they are doing that (they do at the OF as well) and it gives them the opportunity to change their prayer and mindset. from listening to God or learning through visuals, to offering their lives of the past week during the offertory, to thinking about and “seeing” (through their minds and imagination) the Crucifixion during the canon. They are elevated to “seeing” what is happening in the heavenly liturgy, and can “feel” like they are in heaven with the saints.

    As far as the passivity of responses at the OF: I know when my children are actively responding to something, such as Dora when she asks them during a show a question. They are engaged, they speak with excitement. I also know when they respond passively, just giving an answer they know they must. Such as, when they say “thank you” in response to me giving them milk. They do it all the time, they are trained to do it. Most of the time it is a passive response to the milk being put in front of them for lunch. It is a much different “thank you” when soda or juice is put in front of them. The same when they say “I am sorry” to their sibling because the are told to, vs when they really feel bad. In the OF for whatever reason, most of the time the response is more of that passive, this is what I say now response. Often, only if Mom or Dad are near enough to hear them, and while still trying to play games with their hands, making shadow puppets or using them as…

    Reply
  44. Jamin Herold

    [Continued]

    All in all, I don’t think that to actively participate means to “do your own thing”. I think that there is an easy ability at and EF Mass to be disengaged from what is happening, to be in attendance but be focused on something else. Like at a football game, but watching a different game on your phone. However, the responses and actions at an OF Mass do not automatically elicit an active participation. I was using my experience of my children to show that. One can go and say the responses, half heartily sing the songs, hear the canon prayed and never participate. Like my 10 year old that is too old for Dora and now passively watches Dora with her 3 year old sister who is actively participating with the show. We can and often are just as distracted during an OF Mass, thinking about anything other then what is really and truly happening in the sanctuary. Thus, we hear, “I am not being fed”, at a parish with a less then dynamic priest. We become bored at what is going on, if it is not entertaining enough. This leads to the music needing to be a performance. Because we are there but not engaged just like someone doing their own thing at an EF Mass.

    I often think I just have not done enough to explain the my kids what and how to pray at the OF Mass. I am not sure why it is so much harder for them to meditate on the mystery of the Crucifixion during the canon. I have often talked to them about it. My thought has been that they try to be engaged with what is being prayed and it is not appealing to them. It is not that the words of the Canon are bad, and they have been to “children’s” masses with the EP for children. It is not the language. It is that there is a prayer being offered up to the Father, not an explanation of what is happening. And the EP should be a prayer offered up to the Father. Fr. Pfleger did a Holy Thursday Mass where he made up the EP and made it more of a story, it was widely criticized by both sides of the aisle, but he was trying to get at what people…

    Reply
  45. Jamin Herold

    hungry for. To enter into the mystery. At ever document that the Church calls for Active participation, it states that this starts with helping people understand the mystery.

    How to pray the Mass needs to be taught. For those who are more inclined to pray in a contemplative and meditative means, the EF does wonders for them. They are able to meditate upon the Mass and where we truly are, heaven. At the OF (in my experience) this meditation and contemplation are disrupted by the liturgy itself. by trying to direct how the meditation and contemplation should be said and directed to God.

    My final thought is this. Liturgy is work. If we do not work at liturgy, if we do not struggle with ourselves to make our own experience deeper and better, then it does not matter which Mass we go to. Both are valid, both have strengths and weaknesses. But the greatest weakness of both is our own disposition, what we bring to the table. When we work at prayer, both can and do bring us closer to God. When we go to be entertained neither work very well. I think my kids assume they are to be entertained at the OF and feel they need to work at the EF. Maybe it is my own prejudices coming through to them. For this I will work harder for them to enter into the mystery at the OF.

    Reply
  46. Richard Malcolm

    Hello Bill,

    At root, this really does go to what we mean by participation.

    I think that you and I and Fr. Ruff and Paul Inwood would all agree that the Council Father clearly wanted more *external* participation – Paul helpfully points us to SC 30. They wanted lay Catholics doing more, externally, in the celebration of the mass. There is no getting around that.

    Where there’s some disagreement seems to be in what that meant, and why they wanted it. I would like to think that it should be apparent that external gestures and vocalizations are really just that – physical actions. A Buddhist can come into an OF mass, say all the responses, make the appropriate gestures, perhaps even act as lector, but it wouldn’t mean that he actually believes any of it, or that he has a true participation in the prayer that the mass is. The Council Fathers, not unreasonably, *did* think that exterior participation would be more likely to lead to interior participation by the laity. And traditionalists must concede that this idea isn’t alien to the ancient liturgical tradition. This kind of exterior participation pervades the Divine Liturgy and many other eastern rites (most derived from it in any case), and even in the Roman Rite, the practice of the dialogue mass goes back well before the 20th century.

    The question for us now is whether the manner in which vigorous exterior participation has been implemented in the Pauline missal really does achieve the interior participation that the Council Fathers hoped to inculcate. I think the observations offered by Mr. Herold and Mr. Ludwick, while anecdotal, are good fodder for examining whether that’s been the case. For my part, I have my doubts whether the principles of reform enunciated in SC on this point really were prudent, without even getting into how they were implemented in the N.O. (which I think more obviously problematic).

    All that said, what John had in mind when he wrote what he did – I leave to him to clarify.

    Reply
  47. John Ainslie

    I do not – ever – wish to judge. There were/are people, like myself at one time, who did/do their best to enter into an EF Mass and take part in it as best they can. Participation requires an interior disposition, which is impossible to define or measure.

    That being said, (1) the Ritus Servandus, which provided the rubrics in the pre-V2 Missal, mentions the people, but only as passive attendees; (2) the emphasis of SC on fostering active participation suggests that the Council fathers saw something that needed at the very least some considerable improvement on practice hitherto.

    So yes, it is easier to be a spectator at an EF Mass because this form of the Roman rite historically did not provide for active participation by the people. The rite is complete without their involvement (or even presence, give or take a single server). OF Mass ‘with a congregation’, on the other hand, is defined as ‘a Mass celebrated with the participation of the faithful’ (GIRM 115). Their taking part is expected – and that might and perhaps should be found more challenging to those present than the minimal requirement of ‘attendance’ at an EF Mass. That is not to say that taking part in Latin in an EF Mass is impossible, but it is a different kind of challenge.

    Reply
  48. Fr. Jan Michael Joncas

    I again thank Mr. Herold for his extended comments at ##57-59. I profoundly agree with him about the need for catechesis and mystagogy in praying the Mass. To further this discussion, I’d like to continue our focus on prayer during the proclamation of the Canon/Eucharistic Prayer. Where we might possibly part company is that while Mr. Herold would want his children to think about the Crucifixion while the prayer is being prayed, I would want them to engage the progress of thought of the prayer itself (e.g., lift up their hearts in the opening dialogue, join in the particular reasons for praising and thanking God articulated in the Preface, join with the angels and saints in singing God’s praises in the Sanctus/Holy, Holy, Holy, join the priest in petitioning the Father to send the Holy Spirit upon the gifts of bread and wine for their consecratory transformation, join the priest in recounting God’s wondrous deeds, most especially the Paschal Mystery of Christ signified in the Last Supper and embodied in Christ’s Passion, Death, Resurrection and Ascension (and at the OF declare this in the Memorial Acclamation), join their self-offering to that of Christ proclaimed by the priest, intercede for the various needs of the living and the dead, and conclude with praise of the Triune God.) Now I KNOW that that level of cognitive appreciation for the the progress of thought of the prayer (what I’ve been calling “linear engagement”) demands a high level of cognitive development and a lot of attention and, frankly, most of the adults I know haven’t read the GIRM’s analysis of the Eucharistic Prayer to appreciate its structure and progress of thought. What I hope is that gradually children (and all of us) come to pray the Mass (meaning its texts and rites) rather than praying at Mass. I think we could have an interesting parallel discussion (on another thread :-)) about allegorical interpretations of liturgical rituals as another mode of meaning-making.

    Reply
    1. Jeffrey Pinyan

      @Fr. Jan Michael Joncas – comment #62:
      that level of cognitive appreciation for the the progress of thought of the prayer … demands a high level of cognitive development and a lot of attention and, frankly, most of the adults I know haven’t read the GIRM’s analysis of the Eucharistic Prayer to appreciate its structure and progress of thought. What I hope is that gradually children (and all of us) come to pray the Mass (meaning its texts and rites) rather than praying at Mass.

      I agree with you completely here, Father. That’s been my desired goal in the liturgical catechesis I undertook starting back in 2008 when I heard there would be a new translation of the Mass: to understand the prayers of the Mass so that we can do more than just say them, we can pray them (and thus mean them). I’m working on a volume on the Eucharistic Prayers to help examine the “structure and progress of thought” of each EP (and of the EP in general).

      This sort of cognitive participation in the prayers of the Mass also seems to be a desire of Ratzinger/Benedict, although he brings it up in a manner than most liturgists would consider out of the question. In Feast of Faith, he writes:

      “I must add, though it conflicts with the accepted view, that it is not essential for the entire canon of the Mass to be recited aloud on every occasion. The idea that it must rests on a misunderstanding of its nature as proclamation. Where a community has {72} undergone the requisite process of liturgical education, the congregation is well acquainted with the component parts of the Church’s eucharistic prayer. In such a case it is only necessary to pray aloud the first few words of each section of the prayer — the headings, as it were; in this way the congregation’s participation (and hence the quality of proclamation) will be often far greater than when its internal appropriation of the words is stifled by an uninterrupted loud recitation.” (pp. 71-72)

      The benefit of the silence in the rest of the Eucharistic Prayer (apart from the “headings”) is that the individual members of the congregation can express their unity with the priest’s intentions without necessarily being “restricted” to (or distracted by) the words of the particular EP — not that those particular words are detriments; indeed, for some, the very choice of words in one EP as opposed to another may have great spiritual import.

      For myself, at least, I find that it is hard to formulate a mental intention of my own while listening to (and at least subconsciously paying attention to) the words of the EP spoken aloud by the priest.

      But this is all in the realm of speculative liturgy.

      Reply
  49. Mgr Bruce Harbert

    I was talking this afternoon with an Italian priest who has come to work in our area, and he was describing a very well-attended Eucharistic procession at which he had been present. There was, he said, ‘una partecipazione enorme’ – an enormous participation. He didn’t mean that everybody was singing loudly, or praying attentively, but simply that there were a lot of people there. This is another example of Pius X’s word ‘partecipazione’ not meaning what ‘participation’ means in English.

    Reply
  50. Jamin Herold

    To John Comment # 61

    I ask for a quote that shows the Ritus Servandus refers to the people being passive at the Mass. I have found at least twice where it refers to the people offering adoration to the Eucharist, which I would find to be far from being passive.

    I also don’t doubt or argue that many worshiped in the Pre Vatican Mass in a passive way. SC was not the first document to speak of providing a full, active, conscience participation. My argument would be that the OF has not fostered that, but created new ways that people can and are passive during the Mass.

    Both OF and EF offer viable ways to be active and passive, the knowledge of the Liturgy and the training of how to pray Mass will do more to create the full, conscience active participation.

    I agree with Fr. Joncas in the parts of the EP to pray. I believe I do that at an EF Mass and I try to teach my children that. Yet, that is something that takes time. My oldest does it better, not just meditating on the crucifixion, but meditating on it at the right time (as well as the resurrection, really the whole of the paschal mystery). They do unite prayers for the dead etc. I would agree with Jeffery Pinyan that it is beneficial to have opportunities of silence during the canon to speak these prayers in our words instead of focusing on hearing and then trying to unite myself to the words used by the priest. I do believe I have been taught that the priest gathers the prayers of the faithful and offers them to the Lord, and as thus I want to be able to pray knowing my prayers are not that of the priest, but are mine and they are united into one prayer, offered by the Church through the priest.

    Reply
    1. John Ainslie

      @Jamin Herold – comment #65:
      To be more precise, the Ritus Servandus states that the priest shows the host and chalice to the people for their adoration (‘adorandam/um’). I still maintain that the Council fathers considered that the participation in the liturgy to be made available to the people should be enhanced. Underpinning this was a new appreciation of the rights and responsibilities of the people of God.

      IMHO, OF offers a better opportunity for active participation in the Mass for the majority of people present at it. It responds to, albeit not perfectly, the requirements of Sacrosanctum concilium.

      Reply
      1. Jamin Herold

        @John Ainslie – comment #66:
        To require attendance of a congregation in the OF does not equate to active participation. A rubric could be added to Ritus Servandus that changed to the need of a congregation and it would not have equated to active participation in the EF.

        If one is to attend an EF Mass, they either ignore what is going on, or they must participate to know what is going on. Where as in the OF one might come to watch, listen, just as one might a play or show. Much like an opera one might sit bored not understanding the language, just witnessing what is going on, or they might actively read the movements, see the story in action and in a since participate with their will. Or one might go to a modern play and just watch listening to what is happening or they may relate to a character or involve themselves in the plot.

        Yes the OF was contrived from SC so it does address some of the requests of that document. If it has succeeded in the result I think is up for debate. I think over the next 50 years we will see an influence of both the OF and the EF and the pendulum will land somewhere that gives the best opportunity for participation.

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