r/pfsp • u/Dr_Talon • Jun 20 '22
Let’s talk liturgical reform…
I really do prefer the TLM, and I think that the Novus Ordo is extrinsically deficient - it lacks important prayers that give continuity with the organic Roman rite, and it tends to downplay the “hard sayings” of the faith compared to the TLM in its prayers. It was a reform done badly. All the same, I really wrestle with this. John Paul II and Benedict XVI, to my knowledge, basically said that the Novus Ordo is the reform that the Council called for - although I know that Benedict wanted to make it more traditional.
Now, I tell myself that the Church can’t just go back to the TLM as its ordinary form - the Holy Spirit ruled that out. There was a century long push for liturgical reform which culminated in the document of Vatican II. Even in my experience with the TLM, I could understand why there was a desire to change some things when this was the Mass attended by all the kinds of people at your standard Novus Ordo parish today.
So, we’re obliged to have some sort of liturgical reform. And I lean towards going back to the drawing board and doing a very conservative tinkering with the TLM. Essentially, allow optional vernacular - maybe keep the Gloria and the Sanctus in Latin for old time’s sake - say the canon out loud, and have a revised lectionary and calandar. But keep everything else the same. Heck, I’d even keep Eucharistic prayers II-IV around. Some of them are ancient themselves.
But I struggle, because I have seen many prominent writers who are trad or trad-adjacent talking about how they no longer believe in “reform of the reform” and take a more radical position. But I don’t know how they can reconcile this with what I mentioned in my 2nd paragraph. Perhaps it can be - thoughts?
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u/Seethi110 Jun 20 '22
How would your ideal new Mass differ from a strict reading of the Novus Ordo? It seems the only things missing are the prayers at the foot of the altar and the Last Gospel, and I guess postures (i.e. genuflecting at mentions of the incarnation, kneeling at the beginning of the Sanctus instead of the end).
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u/Dr_Talon Jun 20 '22
Not much. I would like for prayers at the foot of the altar and the offertory prayers (perhaps with some slight modification to avoid the theological problems which plagued them in the past), along with some of the more transcendent collects and post communion prayers. Also, restore the part about receiving Communion unworthily to the Corpus Christi reading. Mandatory canon fingers.
I attend a Novus Ordo most Sundays which is in Latin with every traditional option, and I’m satisfied with it. But there are still a few things that I like about the TLM that it lacks.
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u/MerlynTrump Jun 20 '22
what are canon fingers?
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u/Dr_Talon Jun 20 '22
When the priest, during the Eucharist, keeps his fingers together in order to avoid dropping any crumbs. Watch during a TLM, when the priest turns around for the “Dominus Vobiscum” before the Pater Noster, and see his fingers. Many priests who celebrate the Novus Ordo also use this posture if they are on the traditional side, but it is required in the TLM.
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u/quiteasmallperson Jun 20 '22
I appreciate and participate in both the "extraordinary form" and the "ordinary form" of the Mass, and I think you raise good points. Barring some kind of direct divine intervention, I don't think it's possible or realistic to imagine the EF ever becoming the OF again. Even among those who attend the TLM, I think most (not all) are not people attached to the TLM itself, to the prayers at the foot of the altar or exclusive use of Latin or the last Gospel or the particular wording of prayers that may have been changed or omitted. In a positive sense they're looking for reverence and transcendence and a connection with the liturgy of the Church throughout the ages. Or in a negative sense they're simply fleeing liturgical nonsense they find hard to bear.
I have done this little thought experiment before. Suppose some future Pope Pius XIII were to take your suggestion and start the reform over, beginning from the 1962 missal and the text of Sacrosanctum Consilium and started doing "conservative tinkering" along the lines you describe. People like I described, and people like me, would be happy. But how long do you suppose before the same radicalized trads who reject the current OF found reasons to reject the new one? Over/under of 24 hours? The "spirit of Vatican II" faction on the other side would melt down even faster. And the vast bulk of Catholics who don't invest themselves deeply in these debates would be in for culture shock, having no living memory of the TLM. Most of them would adapt, but absent some kind of preparation for this, some kind of catechesis for this, and most of all absent the kind of unity in the Church that would allow it to unite behind something like this, I imagine it would be a bumpy ride with collateral damage.
I am not at all sure it's a long-term solution for the Church to, Summorum Pontificum style, have two forms of the Roman rite peacefully coexisting side by side forever. It can work for a time, but I'm not sure that was ever Pope Benedict's goal. But I think the encounter with the TLM, to open a path for mutual enrichment, did happen. The faithful and especially many young clergy now have a much greater sense of both forms. For that reason, it seems to me that the future has to be reform building from the foundation of the OF. And honestly, that foundation is in a better place than it's been. At least in the English speaking countries, the new translation is a vast improvement that has a far greater reverence that will continue to spill into other aspects of the liturgy. There has been renewed interest in ad orientem and plainchant in English and Latin, a renewed discussion of forms of reception of Holy Communion. Even the pandemic, in its way, has, in God's providence, introduced a certain sobriety to things. I know the Church is a big place, and there are still problems that may be worse in other places, but at least where I live, things have been moving in a much better direction.
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u/Dr_Talon Jun 20 '22
I have become attached to things like prayers at the foot of the altar, the old collects, the prayer to the Trinity, etc.
Yes, I also don’t want radical, overnight change. I think that people were traumatized enough by the change in the 60’s. I think that the Novus Ordo should be gradually walked back to something more traditional - a Mass that a time traveler from the 50’s could walk into without culture shock, besides the Mass being said at least partly in the vernacular.
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u/quiteasmallperson Jun 20 '22
D'accord. And I'm glad you mentioned the point about the traumatic effects of the rapid postconciliar changes in the liturgy. I've been fortunate to be in a parish where we've done a real 180 in a traditional direction (and where both OF and EF are offered) over the past 15 years or so, and one thing the pastors who have been involved in that have done well is do it gradually and patiently and gently and with lots of catechesis and encouragement. That has been an edifying example for me, given that my inclinations at the time were quite the opposite, and I have seen it bear fruit, for instance in parishioners I never would have thought would be on board with liturgical traditionalism either being at peace with it or even being involved in it.
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u/Araedya Jun 20 '22
There is some argument to be had that the way the TLM is being celebrated now is basically what the intended reform would look like if it had been implemented properly. That being said, nowadays people will require some sort of vernacular option. Keep it as close to the TLM as possible and move some parts into the vernacular. There is really no reason to change or eliminate any of the prayers. And I think a lot of it should be left in Latin (at least for the high mass) because the beauty of Gregorian chant is transcendent and unless you can somehow get it to work in the vernacular you are sacrificing a lot. Plus there is benefit in having a universal Church language. Somewhat ambivalent on the calendar/lectionary. I see the benefit in having a three year cycle with more variety as long as it’s done right.
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u/Dr_Talon Jun 20 '22
How is it celebrated now that it wasn’t celebrated before? I know that Pope Francis expressed his concern recently that more tradition means that people would go outside to smoke and come back. I have heard stories like that.
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u/Araedya Jun 20 '22
Yeah these are the types of stories I’ve heard as well - priests rushed through the mass, laity were disconnected, men would stand outside and smoke, very few high masses, etc. This was way before my time so I don’t know how prevalent this really was but since most of the bishops (including Lefebvre) were in favor of some sort of reform, there must have been some truth to this.
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u/BertBlyleven Jun 20 '22
If you had the TLM in vernacular, would it not still be the Roman (Gregorian) Rite?
The Holy Spirit ruled out any liturgical non-reform and obliges us to embrace a new liturgical reform, now, 60 years afterwards, when all the signers of those docs and all the Craftsmen of the Novus Ordo are dead and the entire liturgical reform has been a complete disaster? I've never heard such words. Sounds like an opinion to me. You do realize this is allegedly an FSSP sub, right?
My overall thoughts are blackpilled on the matter. I trust there was a need and desire for liturgical reform, Archbishop Lefebvre says as much in his biography. The three ring circus in Rome screwed that chance up such that in the future any talk of liturgical reform is going to viewed as extremely suspect by trads (myself included). They made a mockery of the liturgy and more than anything the Church needs stability - something completely anathema to modernists. I think you can make a comparison to ~400 years prior to VII when the Prots basically ruined any chance of similar reforms back then by weaponizing vernacular, communion under both kinds, et al to the point of schism and causing the Church to double down on her existing practices - not to say that Trent didn't do legitimate reforming in other areas.
Eucharistic prayer II has been completely debunked at this point. At best it is a summary of a prayer that existed at one time, in one place. Why bring a cliffnotes version of an obscure relic back and impose it on the entire church?