What’s Wrong with the World

I should add that I haven't read all of the Vatican II documents, and perhaps there are very good reasons for their choices that I don't understand. In my attempt to explore worst cases, I came off sounding arrogant.

Jake,
You are so correct. Raised the same way in a post Vatican II world. The priest is praying with you. He is guiding you through the mass. I enjoy the tridentine mass and attend regularly. Jim

My continuing Anglican church follows all the pre-Vat II traditions in those liturgical areas, being entirely independent of the Vatican in any event. The ad orientem position of the priest seems quite important to me--we face God. The priest is praying to God, leading the people. But what would bother me even more than that (also, I gather, lost in the NO world) would be the absence of altar rails and the inability to kneel at the altar to receive Communion.

What came to mind me as I read the article was the image of a rock concert in which it would be considered a great insult to the narcissistic audience for the performer to turn his back on them. The Church seems to have welcomed idolatry and iconoclast, in the name of "innovation", after Vatican II. Thanks be to God, there seems to be a small, but growing, reaction.

I certainly must have attended the traditional, Tridentine, mass many times as a young boy, but for some reason I don't remember them distinctly. I first was explicitly taught about the mass with the brand new Novus Ordo, and for some reason the differences in what I was taught compared to what I had already seen before did not stand out as greatly important. Perhaps my teachers did not care to let the differences stand out? I cannot say.

I attended, for the first time ever, the Novus Ordo mass said in Latin, and with the priest facing "ad orientem" (with the people) as a young man at college. I was shocked at first by the difference of having the priest not facing us, but I immediately felt the rightness of his facing God WITH us. He stood before us praying to God because, as Christ, he stands as mediator to God on our behalf. A mediator to a third party doesn't stand facing those whom he represents, he stands facing the third party to whom he is doing the representing.

I did not find the Latin to be a significant barrier: within much less than 1 year I had all the common parts down pat both in speaking and in comprehending.

I first encountered the traditional Latin mass (within memory) as an adult in my late 20's, and was slightly bewildered by the lack of spoken cues as to where the priest was in his prayers. However, it is far more clear in that Mass than in the Novus Ordo that the priest is doing something on my behalf that I am not, that I cannot do, he is performing an active priestly role whereas I (as a baptized Christian) participate in Christ's priestly office only in a passive mode. My active assisting at mass is then my willing assent in that priestly act. There is no doubt in my mind that the Tridentine model is clearer at the core meaning of the mass.

I wonder what the bishops of Vatican II understood correctly or badly

The official intention in Vatican II documents calling for change to the mass was to reform the mass, not alter it beyond recognition. According to some, that reform has not yet been truly undertaken (a position that Benedict XVI, before he was pope, was somewhat willing to consider).

As my sensibilities were mostly (at least so far as my clear memories go) formed by the Novus Ordo, I can see places where I think the Fathers of Vatican II would rightly say "this is a defect or at least an imperfection that can be improved" about the old mass. For instance, one of the hallmarks of the Latin liturgy is (as Giordano Bruno says) "noble simplicity". With regard to noble simplicity, repetition is a mark against, and excess repetition is an actual defect. So, having the priest recite the "Lord I am not worthy..." prayer 3 times before his own reception of communion, and then again 3 more times on behalf of the faithful before the congregation receives, cannot but be excess repetition.

Even more, it is my hypothesis that the near complete silence of the traditional mass, with most of the spoken prayers only recited between the priest and the alter boys, is due ONLY to the loss of Latin as the vernacular, that in the original usage the priest said those prayers aloud and the congregation responded as a whole. This is an accretion that need not stand - every congregation now can learn the meaning of the Latin responses for the common prayers and give them. Which is proven by the simple fact that in my own parish the congregation has readily learned the Latin for the Agnus Dei, the Gloria, etc. And it seems to me a plausible case that there is no particular point to the canon being said quietly, if my active participation at mass consists in my assenting to what the priest is doing.

In almost an opposite vein, it seems nearly irrational that the priest say the readings and Gospel in Latin, and then repeat them in English: these are not prayers he is speaking to God, these are God speaking to US. The unnecessary preliminary of reciting these in Latin is not valuable, as far as I can tell, it merely drags us down, lets the attention wander.

These, then, were ripe for reform, in my opinion. Changing almost the entirety of the prayers leading up to the canon, and introducing many new variants of the canon, were probably the farthest things from the Council Fathers' minds. Along with dis-orienting the priest so as to face the people. I have heard that the official rubrics for saying the mass retain places where the priest is required to "turn and face the people" (before he says "the Lord be with you"), and this is naturally impossible if he is already facing the people. So to some extent the disorientation is not actually an official part of the Novus Ordo anyway, and is actually more of a generally tolerated distortion. Or something like that.

God blessed me with meeting the one of the persons who laid the groundwork for Vatican II. Archimandrite Boniface Luykx was a Norbetine priest at the time that had great training in ancient languages and was a liturgical expert. The purpose, Originally, was to move the Catholic Church closer to the Orthodox Church. The Orthodox Church had and is maintaining the Christian Tradition much better than the Catholic Church. That meant a return to saying the mass in the language of the people which is done in the Orthodox Church. The return of the diaconate, the return of concelebration, the return of receiving both bread and wine. All of these was to return the Church closer to the Orthodox Church.

Turning the priest around was NOT one of those. The Orthodox continue to hold fast to the tradition. Even in the Coptic and Syrian churches, the priest faces the tabernacle. Turning the priest around was presented as done by the early church but if that was so, the Orthodox Church that doesn't change much doesn't concur.

On another note, the tradition of the Church is to NOT to kneel on Sundays. That was an innovation introduced by the Roman Catholic Church in the 10th century. It was resisted but it was forced down the throats of the laity that were trying to preserve the traditions of the church. The Roman Catholic Church changed alot of things like the bread is supposed to be leavened and the direction of the sign of the cross.

There is not much traditional in the Pre-Vatican II Church. The Orthodox Church has maintained the traditions more faithfully than the Roman Catholic Church. Not to speak of changing the Creed without the approval of the Orthodox Church.

I was at a Novus Ordo Latin Mass some years ago. The things that struck me most had nothing to do with Latin: young adults (high teens or older) serving at the altar, incense, the commanding presence of the priest. They showed the seriousness of the priest and the people, but they were all things that any NO mass could have. I'm seeing an increase in incense used at NO masses, including in my own parish. 
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I think I would prefer to see the Tridentine Mass said in English than a Latin NO mass -- but that's the sort of statement that might just be showing how shortsighted and foolish I am. 

‎I don't know that the repetitions are a sign of needed reform. Catholics say ten Hail Marys at a pop, for crying out loud. :)

‎Even more, it is my hypothesis that the near complete silence of the traditional mass, with most of the spoken prayers only recited between the priest and the alter boys, is due ONLY to the loss of Latin as the vernacular, that in the original usage the priest said those prayers aloud and the congregation responded as a whole.‎

I would need evidence of this before I believed it. The Mass was the Mass everywhere and for centuries, wasn't it? Among the rich and the poor, among the educated and the peasantry, in the country and in the city? If so, there were many situations in which the church could not have expected the participants to know Latin well. 

A question that someone may know the answer to: In the Traditional Latin Mass, do priests who celebrate together respond as a group, or are there a main priest and "servers" and "congregants"? 

The Roman Catholic Church changed alot of things like the bread is supposed to be leavened and the direction of the sign of the cross.

According to what I have read, the Eastern tradition has been to use leavened bread, and the Latin Church has always used unleavened bread, at least going back to before Leo the Great. St. Thomas says that both traditions encapsulate something valid: Christians are supposed to be the leaven in the world, and the Mass is a memorial of the Last Supper which used unleavened bread (being the paschal meal).

I would be surprised to find that all of the earliest Christians in the earliest days of the Church used leavened bread. That just seems unlikely to me, though I admit I don't have actual historical basis to go by. But if it wasn't all, then BOTH traditions are valid and neither is lacking as a traditional form.

I think I would prefer to see the Tridentine Mass said in English

Heh, my Catholic friends who know the high Anglican liturgy tell me that's very close to what it is. I presume that is why the Anglican uniate churches (which mine of course is not) do use the Anglo-Catholic English liturgy. In essence, Cranmer translated much of the liturgy of the Latin Mass of his own time into Elizabethan English, toning down the Roman elements and adding some prayers of his own. Then in the late 19th to early 20th centuries, the heirs of the Oxford movement came and put a whole bunch of Roman elements back in, making the language consistent with Cranmer's as much as they could. My own feeling is that there is some clash in style in the end. Cranmer's language and the later high Anglicans' language *aren't* really alike, though they tried, and their sensibilities are quite different, and I think this shows. But nonetheless, the friend who originally introduced me to Anglicanism and now has "gone to Rome" says he is in seventh heaven in his uniate Anglican church in Texas.

A question that someone may know the answer to: In the Traditional Latin Mass, do priests who celebrate together respond as a group, or are there a main priest and "servers" and "congregants"?

I have read that the Tridentine mass did not allow concelebration except at the ordination of a priest or consecration of a bishop. There was, however, room for multiple levels of others: deacon and sub-deacon, and any priest could fulfill one of those roles because he had to have passed through those ranks on the way to being a priest.

If so, there were many situations in which the church could not have expected the participants to know Latin well.

But consider the difference between when Latin was the language of every Roman participant (say, the year 380), and 500 years later when Latin was not the vernacular for any participant. I think it likely that that change caused a change in the Roman liturgy.

in the Arlington Diocese, at least in the several Churches where I have attended the NO Mass, there is an increased use of Latin. In my own parish, the Lord's Prayer, Agnus Dei, Sanctus, for example have been gradually introduced and sung. The parish has been prepared for this and seems to welcome it. We also have a TLM every Sunday and often one week night. It is well attended as well with quite a few young people and families attending - not just those of us who came to Rome before VII. At the TLM, many of the congregation make the responses :~) as well as the Altar servers. The NO also uses both incense and the bells. Another tradition that seems to be returning is the praying of the St. Michael prayer at the end of each Mass. At morning Mass, we pray the Angelus with the priest as he enters (NO).

The fairly recent change in the translation of the prayers for the NO Mass was no change at all for those who know the Tridentine Mass -- it was just a more accurate translation of the Latin.

To me, the priest facing the congregation is a distraction and focuses on the priest, rather than helping us focus with the priest on God.

It is a pity I discovered this thread so late. There is much to say. Much. There are many resources on-line for people who want to compare the Ordinary Form Mass (so-called Novus Ordo) and the Extraodrinary Form Mass (pre-Vatican II). New Liturgical Movement, Musica Sacra and Adoremus Bulletin are three good websites. The article, "The Day the Mass Changed (parts I and II) should be required reading for all Catholics:

http://www.adoremus.org/0210Benofy.html

The Chicken

It is a pity I discovered this thread so late. There is much to say. Much.

I will say the same.

I grew up in the carpeted, felt-bannered parishes of suburban New Jersey. I did not attend my first TLM until I was in my mid-twenties, attending college on the other side of the country. Even though I had been prepared by the Latin NO in college, I did not immediately take to the TLM. Not long after college, though, Providence saw to it that I moved to a community with a long-standing TLM community and a nascent FSSP parish. It was there that I fell, and fell hard.

Others will suggest their own favorite sources, but (other than assisting at the TLM with an open mind and soul) what helped me see "what else have we lost" was reading "The Ottaviani Intervention" and Michael Davies' "Liturgical Revolution" trilogy. I've recently begun Romano Amerio's "Iota Unum", which I recommend enthusiastically to anyone seeking to understand what it meant to live, think, and believe like a Catholic prior to the changes. A recent gem of a book is Peter Kwasniewski's "Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis: Sacred Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and Renewal in the Church". I could recommend many others!

Pax et bonum,

Eoin Suibhne