For you who regularly use Italian or are in Italy.
There is a new Messale ordinario tradizionale. Testo latino a fronte.
The descriptive blurb:
Il Messale perpetuo non solo per i fedeli della Santa Messa Tradizionale detta di San Pio V, ma dal 14 settembre 2007 anche per tutte le parrocchie e i sacerdoti in seguito alla liberalizzazione della messa in latino ad opera di Papa Benedetto XVI, rieditato in forma elegantissima per tutte le parrocchie, da mettere sui banchi in chiesa. 64 pagine, copertina in simil tela con impressioni in oro, immagini sacre, facilita’ di consultazione, qualita’ grafica. Uno strumento indispensabile per chi vuole partecipare con profitto al Santo Sacrificio. Un’opera realizzata con elevatissima qualita’ artistica.
Nota Breve : Messalino economico da uso comune, da mettere sui banchi delle parrocchie.
In an interview with Zenit, Giovanni Zenone, editorial director of Fede & Cultura stated that the older rite "brings us closer again to Orthodox Christians".
This is a very good point. Our liturgy and our identity are bound up with each other. Thus, like the liturgy did for the Orthodox in many places, it protected the identity of the people from ungodly attacks of materialist atheists or fundamentalist religious extremists. In the West, we need that sort of bulwark against the encroaching relativism we are experiencing. However, having a rite that is more stable and in continuity with the past also gives us common groud for dialogue with the Orthodox. Perhaps we can win their respect again, on the liturgical front, through a use of our own traditional liturgical expresssions.
The new messale and the "pew version" for churches, has a preface by Card. Castrillon of the PCED.
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I heartily agree that the TLM brings us closer to the Orthodox (is it any wonder that the Moscow Patriarch congratulated Benedict for Summorum Pontificum?). As a matter of fact, I only feel comfortable in a TLM or an Eastern Rite Divine Liturgy anymore.
I discovered the TLM and Divine Liturgy of St John Chrysostom at the same time (in the Ukranian Catholic use). Even though one’s in Latin and the other (occasionally) in Ukranian/Slavonic they both make perfect sense.
We should also note that Benedict’s been spending alot of time in a short time with Patriarch Bartholomew. I recall a Greek Deacon proclaiming the Gospel after a Roman cleric at one Mass in Bartholomew’s presence. After this Benedict and Bartholomew both blessed the congregation with their respective Gospels. Doesn’t this harken back to Papal Liturgies with a Byzantine deacon?
The EF does indeed bring us closer to the Eastern Orthodox. The OF, so I’m told, was conceived to bring us closer to … Lutherans; and, so I’m told, some Lutherans had a hand in its development. But the Lutheran and Reformed Churches in Europe, and the Liberal Protestant denominations in America, are dying, at least in their classical forms; they may be already dead. Thus one wonders if to “draw closer” to these kinds of Protestants and to “dialogue” with them seem analogous to a kind of séance or Ouija board.
Going by an Orthodox priest of my acquaintance (he is a friend of a friend) the Orthodox have more in common with traditional Catholics than traditionalists have in common with cafeteria Catholics.
For example, we recently had our annual ecumenical service between the Orthodox and Catholic communities in our area. (Incidentally someone got approval from Rome for this). It was interesting and rather embarrassing to see the Catholic priests in shabby gothic vestments and the Orthodox Father Irat looking like the Pope in elegant brocade. Their music was also the Eastern version of chant in Greek.
Why we’ve wasted 40 years and been on a fools errand trying to be ecumenical with the Anglicans, Lutherans, and Methodists. They are left-wing loon social organizations, hardly religions. I’d move closer to the Orthodox if I were the Vatican. We have much, much, more in common, theologically and liturgically. I shouldn’t offer advice to as wise a man as Benedict XVI, but I will anyway for my mental health. Tell the Anglicans, Lutherans, and Methodists to pound sand. Tom
Interesting, only 7 euro. Is that a Sunday Missal, or is it like those red booklets here that have only the Ordinary? Can’t see it being a complete one at that price & page numbers I’m going to Italy in a while, perhaps I will see these in action!
O yes, it brings us much closer together. Both Byzantine Liturgy and the TLM are in their different ways one: they are a worship of God, a Holy Sacrifice. The NO, as it is usually done, is a worship of man, frequently a jolly good party.
After a long absence from parish I went last Sunday. The priest, after usual introduction, asked us to turn to each other “with a smile”. There is no limit to inventiveness of these puerile characters when it comes to make us “feel well”. And the pure parishioners smile, some presumably because they think they have to: Father says so; others enthusiastically, and find it “so meaningful”. Presumably, they attended a course for nuns in a “liturgical” dance. The priests think they must be “relevant”, “interesting”, “entertaining”; and have managed to persuade themselves that they indeed are.
I have seen one moving his head right and left while reading or speaking facing people, and I thought: whether all his bricks were in place. He reminded me of that dummy tiger in the midst of chimps, with a fitted machine, which was moving his head right and left. And that made the chips excited. But then I read a quote from one of the liturgical guru-s, who had recommended that the “president” had to establish an “eye contact” with the congregation – the clue to the puzzle of those head movements.
I have also seen one who, having just come from a rumble in shorts and tennis shoes, quickly put on liturgical vestments, and marched through the nave with a bunch of flowers, which he put on the altar. What was significance of this? When the “sign of peace” came, he lept in his tennis shoes down the stairs to offer it to few, with smile of course, lept back, picked that bunch, lept down the stairs again and down the nave, to give the bunch to a joung lady of his choice, and returned smiling.
Now, I am not saying that the NO cannot be tridentized, and made decent; and the Oratorians in particular are trying along these lines to the point that the Communion in the hand, and casual behaviour of many communicans apart, one has no reason to complain. But that is so atypical, that if the average NO Mass is to be taken as a standard, this tridentized variant has to be categorized as an abuse. It is, simply said, not what the NO is all about, even in Rome.
There’s nothing shabby about these Gothic vestments:
http://img376.imageshack.us/img376/8913/dsc01683nt5.jpg
I don’t think TJM meant that Gothic = ugly but rather that the typical “Gothic” vestments used in many parishes are horrid polyester ponchos that pose a striking contrast to the silk brocades that I’m sure the Eastern Orthodox priest was wearing.
Yes, we definately should focus on bringing the EO back into communion with Rome as they are practically the only corporately sane non-Catholic Christians left. Liturgy is a big deal to them (and it should be for them as it should be for us) and it is understandable that they would hesitate to take us seriously when even if the Pope and some pockets here and there are trying to get serious about liturgy again while many places simply are not. If an EO bishop (or priest or layman for that matter) were to visit even many a Catholic cathedral for Mass, they would be rightly shocked at what they would see. It is somewhat similar to what a High Church liturgical Protestant has to brace themselves for if they convert to Catholicism. Chances are (unless there is a TLM or traditional NO parish around) they will go from fairly beautiful liturgy with good music etc. to pretty banal liturgy with horrid music when they swim the Tiber. It should not be that way and it was not that way at one time.
I’ve experienced something similar in my relationship with the local Byzantine (Ukranian Rite) parish-there is a lot more in common between them and the TLM parish in town than with anything else. Talking to the parishoners, I feel like I’m talking to the TLM parishoners and they share many of the same concerns as well as a few other unfortunate ones specific to their situation. Some of them harbor a certain ire towards the NO parishes because so many of their younger parishoners who have fallen away or have grown lax in the practice of the faith but still go to Mass on Sunday (thank God) will avoid their Byzantine Rite church for a quickie Saturday NO. They also realize that what they have is very beautiful and profound but it takes a certain commitment of time and effort on a Sunday morning. Lastly, the priest actually preaches on subjects of substance. Last homily I heard of his was about the need for us to work towards preaching the Gospel to and for the conversion of Jews to the True Faith and about the ideas of the Fathers that this would happen towards the end of time. You’d be hard pressed to hear something like that preached in the rest of the Catholic world outside of the TLM churches.
One last point, I remember visiting an Eastern Catholic cathedral and finding in the vestibule some leaflets explaining to the faithful some of the differences between the Eastern Rite and the modern Latin Rite and how, yes, the modern Latin Rite is still Catholic. Its tone was almost begging the reader to allow for the fact that while the modern Latin Rite can be very banal and lack all of the beauty found in the Eastern DL, its still Catholic!
As an Eastern Orthodox priest I can assure you that most Orthodox Christians are most pleased with the efforts of His Holiness, Pope Benedict. We respect his in depth grasp of theology, his humble demeanor, his ability to teach and confront the modern world, and, of course. his faithfulness to the true and the beautiful. My prayer is that His holiness Patriarch Alexei will soon meet with him. Yes, of course, there are issues that divide us, but then love and the desire to be faithful to the commands of the Lord bridges a great part of the gulf. Let us act as brothers so that the fraternity of churches can be reestablished as the Lord Jesus Christ directs us through the power of the Holy Spirit.
Hieromonk Gregory,
Those are very lovely and encouraging words. I hope some day soon Catholics and the Orthodox will once again share a common Eucharist.