Published: July 22, 2007
Do the Old Rite Right
The return of the Tridentine Mass is the reemergence of the stern, old Patriarch just when we were beginning to have fun
Notes from a Cultural Madhouse
By Christopher Zehnder
Since Pope Benedict XVI freed up the celebration of the traditional Latin Mass in his Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum, I’ve heard oft-repeated the comforting assurance, “The Tridentine Mass only appeals to a very small percentage of Catholics. Most Catholics are happy with the rite of the Mass celebrated in the vernacular.” [This is The Party’s line.]
I call this an “assurance” and “comforting” because one of the greatest fears of “progressive” Catholics is the return of the Bad Old Days before Vatican II —the days when the “Spirit” did not dash about the Church as freely as It does today. The “Tridentine” Mass, of course, is for many the symbol of that oppressive past, just as wisecracking celebrants, “Glory and Praise,” altar girls, and liturgical dance routines are of the age of liberation. [An exaggeration to make a point? I think in most places Mass was simply not very interesting, especially on account of the lousy translations.] The return of the Tridentine Mass is the reemergence of the stern, old Patriarch just when we were beginning to have fun.
I don’t mean to spoil anyone’s party, but it is, perhaps, premature to say that most Catholics are happy with their typical parish Masses, especially when they’ve never experienced anything else. Anyone who has been condemned for a time to eat institutional food knows that, after a while, one’s initial disgust with it wears off. One may even begin to enjoy the slop. What of those who have never known better food? [The food analogy has been used on WDTPRS many times.] What would happen if, instead of greasy chicken-fried steak, they were suddenly presented with a well-cooked cut of beef? Some, of course, may want to stick with what they’ve been used to, but others – many others – may find they like good food and come to regard the old fare with a species of disgust. [My home parish was St. Agnes in St. Paul (MN – USA). I can assure you that the way the Novus Ordo was celebrated there makes most (not all!) of the celebrations of the older Mass I have seem less than splendid.]
This has, indeed, been the case for many Catholics whose only experience of the Mass has been through the “liturgical renewal” that began in the late ‘60s. It’s not just Old Folks who attend the Tridentine Masses. The number of young people who come to prefer the Old Rite might increase when and if it becomes more widely available – especially since most younger people who remain in the Church tend to be devoted to “old-fashioned” orthodoxy. [I sure hope this is the case. I wonder if this is so?]
The number of younger people attending the Tridentine Mass might continue to grow, if devotees of the rite and the priests that serve them carefully cultivate its beauties and draw from it the richness that is found in Catholic Tradition. [Could that not also be said of the Novus Ordo? Isn’t that really an important point of the M.P.? All Masses should be celebrated that way.]
I myself am not what one would call a doctrinaire devotee of the Tridentine Mass. I prefer, in fact, the Byzantine Divine Liturgy, which I attend on Sundays. I have even [?] assisted at celebrations of the Novus Ordo – said in Latin, with incense and Gregorian Chant – that I would choose over many a Tridentine Mass I’ve attended. [My point, above.] And I have been to many Tridentine Masses—Solemn High Masses, High Masses, Missae Cantatae, and low Masses. I have witnessed profoundly beautiful celebrations of the Old Rite – more beautiful, I admit, than anything comparable in the New Rite – so I know just how exquisite the Tridentine Mass can be. I have even [?] attended low Masses in the rite that have been quietly moving.
If such celebrations became common, I fear the worries of progressives about the liberalization of the Old Latin Mass might prove quite well-founded. [It seems to me that this makes the point in a backward way, but he is right.] But my experience of most of the celebrations of the Old Rite leads me to fear that richly beautiful celebrations of it may prove to be few and far between, at least in California and other states.
For the most part, the Tridentine Masses I’ve been to have been low Masses, hurriedly said and sloppily executed. The priests seem to make it a point to get through the ritual as quickly as they can and the people – despite the Pope John XXIII’s permission of the dialogue Mass – do not make the responses which belong to them. [Okay… here is where the real marrow of the piece is found. This writer has a serious concern and I share it. In some places I have been, the "dialogue Mass" is the style while in other places, if people in the pews make responses (as Holy Popes and pre-Conciliar legislation prompted, they are glared down by the hardened vets of the "and choir servers only" school. That has to stop. I consider that to be a serious mistake and one which could prove to be harmful for the spread of the use of the older form. My reasons for this ought to be obvious.] At one church with the indult, the Gloria is often not sung, only the Kyrie – presumably because it would make the Mass last too long. And by the time the Kyrie is finished, the priest is well into the Epistle. [Well… that is just the way it goes with the older form sometimes.] Thus, the people are able corporately to express their longing for God but not their praise for Him in that glorious hymn. [Does the writer errs, like most liberals do, in thinking that you cannot participate actively by listening?] At another parish that had the indult back East, the priest admitted to me he did not speak the words of the canon, but read them silently to himself. When I expressed my surprise, he quipped, “but that’s the way it was done before the Council!” Presumably he knew, for he had said the Mass before the council. [Yah… presumably he knew! That’s right! Priests interested in these things actually do find out how things were done, rightly or wrongly.]
Poor celebratons of the Tridentine Mass, it seems, characterize illicit celebrations of the rite as well as those under the indult. [If you are wondering what this means, and you had to read it a few times, I think the point is that the SSPXer don’t do any better.] Some years ago, I attended a Requiem Mass for a relative said by a priest who had refused to say the Mass of Paul VI when it came out and had, ever since, been celebrating the Tridentine Rite at various locations in Southern California. I expected that a priest who had rebelled over the Mass would understand its beauty and celebrate it accordingly. I was wrong. His Mass was like an magical incantation done slapdash. A Druid priest, I think, would have blushed to pronounce his spells the way that priest read the Dies Irae. [The writer makes a good point. People in the congregation, and the sacred ministers, must be able to see the priest’s love of the sacred action in his words and gestures. However, that doesn’t not mean that the priest must try to wring every possible drop of meaning out of every word and motion. How intolerably precious that would be? I have seen priests and deacons and lectors and cantors, etc. do that in the newer Mass for years. It is like drowning in maple syrup, like being squeezed to death by an overly perfumed aunt.There is a balance between just reading the words and letting the words be effective and, ton the other hand,he priest enhancing them for the sake of greater comprehension. If the priest is well-formed and he is imbued with the Baptist’s sense of "He must increase, I must decrease" his enhancements will be judicious. This is what the last Synod’s reflections and the Pope’s post-Synodal Exhoration focused on: ars celebrandi. As St. Augustine described about preachers in De doctrina christiana, there are preachers who have brilliant talent , for whom speaking and teaching comes naturally, others who are not naturals whose holiness comes through. When you have those with both talents and holiness, people have a great gift. Training can improve both the gifted and the less gifted. But Augustine prefers those who are holy and less eloquent to those with great talents and no holiness.]
Those who love the Tridentine Mass often call it “the most beautiful thing this side of heaven.” Though a Byzantine or a Coptic Catholic might dispute this, his refutation would not come by the way I’ve seen the Tridentine Mass so often said. The Tridentine Mass is indeed beautiful, but like anything done, its beauty is only revealed by a careful attention to the way it’s done. The Tridentine Mass has beauty, but it is a delicate beauty that requires the cultivation of devotion. [Repetitious, but accurate.]
Those who love the Tridentine Mass, I think, have to lay aside any preferences arising from memory or personal predilection [Excellent!] and seek out what the Church has required of the liturgy since the days of Pope St. Pius X. Some Catholics, for instance, seem to treat the Mass as an avenue for private devotion and so object to congregational responses or singing. But the congregation of the faithful at Mass is not a chance gathering of individuals but the worship of the Church, the Body of Christ, through its Head. The fullest expression of this as a sign comes through corporate responses to prayers and the singing, at least, of the ordinary chants – the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus and the Agnus Dei. [I am on board with making the responses. I am also on board at times having congregational singing when it can be done… and it can be! At St, Agnes in St. Paul there developed over time a Saturday morning Mass sung in Latin, in Gregorian chant, wherein the congregation sang the Ordinary with the schola. People have their Kyriales and it works.] Private devotion, of course, is necessary, but it’s best when it is expressed through personal engagement in the prayers and ritual of the Mass. Though Pope Pius XII reminded us that exceptions can be allowed, [how gracious] the normal means for devotion is the missal, not the rosary.
Corporate, external worship is what, of course, Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium called for; and, it is important to remember that the Council fathers had the Tridentine Mass, not the Mass of Paul VI, in mind when they approved that Constitution. [Exactly!] If we want the Tridentine Mass to be something more than a haven for the disaffected, as its opponents claim it is; if we want it to spread its leaven throughout the entire Church; if, in a word, we want it to be missionary – we must learn to see it through the real liturgical reform that, beginning with Pius X, includes Sacrosanctum Concilium. [Well put!]
The Council called for “full and active participation of all the people” in the liturgy. This, of course, does not mean primarily external gestures, but internal devotion. But being, as we are, creatures of body as well as soul, external actions – praying and singing aloud, crossing oneself, kneeling, standing where appropriate – are not only the natural expressions of interior devotion; they inspire it. [I hope he got all this from WDTPRS! o{];¬)] More importantly, external participation in the liturgy serves as a sign of the Church, which has Christ as her head and the people as her members. We are, after all, a “royal priesthood, a kingdom of priests and a holy people." [Joseph Ratzinger’s constant point in his liturgical writings.]
Priests who say the Mass have to themselves, as the Council says, “become fully imbued with the spirit and power of the liturgy.” But so do we laymen. We, together with the clergy, have to open ourselves to accept the liturgy’s full potential as a sacrament of Christ’s love for mankind. And if we do, I’m convinced that the Tridentine Mass could become a powerful, if not the most powerful, means by which the Holy Spirit works to reform and renew the Latin Church. And, who knows, a renewed Tridentine Mass, celebrated according to the fullness of tradition, cleansed of the novelties of the 1960s (and the 1950s), might even end up drawing in those who most fear and hate it. The liturgy, after all, is a very powerful grace. [Is there any other kind?]
A very good offering from a sincere layman. There are sincere reflections here, based on his personal experience, which all lay people who attend the older Mass – and the priests who attend to them – would do well to ponder.
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