I must post this. And then I have a mind experiment for you. If you don’t have Spanish …
In 2001, Coca-Cola announced that it sold 4 times more than Pepsi. Pepsi did not respond with words. It responded with an 11-second ad that is studied today in the world’s top marketing schools.
En 2001, Coca-Cola anunció que vendía 4 veces más que Pepsi.
Pepsi no respondió con palabras.
Respondió con un anuncio de 11 segundos que se estudia hoy en las mejores escuelas de marketing del mundo. pic.twitter.com/E3cocVZBCr
— Suma Y vive (@SumaYVive) May 3, 2026
Swap out some terms in the video.
Coke is, in the video, the Novus Ordo, even celebrated well, even with all the traditional fiz and maybe some Latin.
Pepsi is, in the video, the Vetus Ordo, 99% of the time now celebrated well.
The boy is growing up, but is not yet fully grown. He has by now experienced both, Coke and Pepsi. He’s ready to pay twice to get what he now prizes and even leave the other thing behind. He even stands on the Novus to get to graduate (“step up”) to the Vetus. Pretty soon, he won’t have to do that. But now, it’s worth it.
St. Paul wrote in 1 Cor 3:2:
[Brethren, I] could not address you as spiritual men, but as men of the flesh, as babes in Christ. 2 I fed you with milk, not solid food; for you were not ready for it….
St. Paul wrote in 1 Cor 13:11:
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
Discuss.
Hint: For people in Columbia Heights, this is not about whether you like Pepsi better than Coke. If you didn’t get that before you read this, you might just read the combox.
Ok, but there are considerably more than 4 times as many NO masses than VO, and the vast majority are celebrated absolutely fine. I hate it when we dunk on any mass, I long to get back to the days of ordinary and extraordinary form, and let’s see where the mutual enrichment takes us.
I grew up with the Vetus Ordo; the liturgy was changed when I was in high school and college. Years later (in the 200o’s), I received a blurb from a publisher asking people to buy copies of their new V.O. missal; I bought one. As I leafed through it reading the prayers for the Ordinary, my immediate reaction was “How could we ever have given this up?” I began my “conversion” back to the V.O. and never looked back!
I have since spoken with some fervent 20-year olds; they all prefer the V.O. to the Novus Ordo without exception. They are not against the N.O. per se, but find it somehow lacking for their spiritual journey.
I find the commercial an apt analogy for the situation. The N.O. is idea whose time has come and gone in my opinion. This is why you have some in the hierarchy pursuing “scorched earth” tactics; they are losing, and they know it. It will take years, but I believe (and hope) in ten years or so, you find the V.O. being celebrated everywhere with greater attendance than the N.O.
Wild thought I don’t think I’ve run into elsewhere (though it may be common!): in how far is the Vetus Ordo even in its various Uses, Rites, and 1570 Pian form analogous to the history of chess as we now know it, and the Novus Ordo in both its most reverent Latin form and its wild profusion of ‘other forms’ (to put it neutrally) analogous to fantasy chess? In the long run, as fun as some fantasy chess may be, and legitimate in its degree, how many people given experience and choice of both would not largely favor chess as we know it? And, similarly…?
jhogan, I did the same thing. I picked up a traditional missal, read the mass, and I was astonished. Who stole THIS from us??? I had converted to Catholicism at age 40, and there was nothing but the novus ordo in my city in 1985. I read the traditional mass in about 2003, with ZERO history of it. I’d never seen it, never heard it, had no nostalgia for it. It was JUST BETTER. “The Latin mass” came to my city in 2004. I was at its first mass (so were about 1,000 other people) and never left. The FSSP took our congregation the next year.