The Novus Ordo of the Vatican Council is in organic, substantial continuity with the Latin Mass of Trent and Gregory the Great and generations prior to that. The inner form or substance of the mass was preserved, but accidents were changed. The intention of the Council Fathers was to enhance participation by the laity, remove accretions that had become distracting, and unveil more transparently the simple, ancient, continuing shape of the Liturgy. The change was more like a haircut or a makeover, rather than a heart transplant or gender transition. Extremists among traditionalists and progressives see a rupture, a substantial change, and therefore disparage one or the other as a defective form. An authentic Catholic view affirms both/and, not either/or.
The Novus Ordo is now the authentic, normative rite of the Latin Church. For over 1,000 years the Latin mass was such. It remains a valid, authentic rite. It has not been cast aside or invalidated. It is now secondary and subordinate to the new rite. It remains.
The liturgical instructions of the Council were inspired by the Holy Spirit and protective of the integrity of the Eucharist. But this rite, while divinely inspired, is a human endeavor, therefore finite, limited, prone to weakness, imbalance, and misuse. It is not above criticism. I will offer two such critiques, along with a countervailing appreciation of the more traditional rite: loss of reverence and excessive verbosity.
Loss of Reverence and Solemnity. In making the liturgy more accessible, normal, and understandable, the Church risked the loss of reverence and solemnity. This loss became far greater than anyone could have anticipated. This was not the work of the Council documents. Rather these teaching were voiced to a Church that was rapidly and catastrophically assimilating itself to a world that was at that very second falling off the cliff into bourgeois secularism, consumerism, materialism, technocracy, relativism and Godlessness.
The awe, silence, fasting, confessing, genuflecting, restraint, and sense of sacredness that had been handed down by almost a hundred generations of priests, parents, ascetics, mystics, hermits, missionaries and catechists disappeared...in a split second. It was an instantaneous change! A catastrophe! A monumental victory for Satan!
Excessive Verbosity. Related to the loss of reverence is the imbalanced reliance on verbal, deliberative discourse and a displacement of more solemn modes of contemplation and worship including silence, fasting, ritualistic actions, iconography, non-intelligible song and worship. In the new rite, we are listening to someone speaking, in English, usually the priest, from start to finish. The words never top. We never get a break to rest our discursive intellect and surrender to contemplative rest. Too many words! Contrast this to the Latin mass! An unknown language that can be accessed by a missal but allows the mind to rest and ruminate, while smelling the incense, and glancing around at icons, statues stations of the cross, and stained glass windows. Likewise, in a good charismatic mass, there are periods of silence and waiting for the Word, prophetic deliverances, and the praying in tongues which resembles Latin in that it is an non-intelligible discourse which relaxes the cognitive brain and allows more meditative, poetic and mystical ruminations.
Ironically, the new rite is over-focused on the priest celebrant and his words. For sure the Latin mass is clerical, but the actual personality, articulation and viewpoints of the priest were hidden by a richness of ritual that led the worshipers beyond his person into the Holy. The celebrants person disappeared behind an elaborate ritual. The new rite lends itself to an unfortunate clerical narcissism as the stripped down rite can lend the celebrant to see himself as center of attention: his humor, stories, insight and erudition. It leads to a more tedious, toxic clericalism.
Renewing our liturgy, "opening the doors to the world," at the very moment of radical secularization created a perfect storm of flattening, sentimentality, superficiality, verbosity, and monotony that pervades our liturgical life. The rite is not itself defective. But it has no defense against trivialization as it is so porous and non-resistant to the surrounding culture of hostility.
In this environment, the Latin Mass offers an antidote. It obscures the personality of the celebrant, it highlights the solemnity around the holy sacrifice and the real presence, it enhances worship by silence, genuflecting, iconography, chant, visual stimulation of servers bowing and gesturing around the altar, "ad orientem" posture of priest-with-people. This ancient rite is a perfect antidote to the superficiality, trivialization and middle class mediocrity to which the new rite is vulnerable.
The policy of Benedict was wise as well as kind and unifying: retain both rites. Let them both flourish. Let them mutually enrich each other: the old and the new, the traditional and the innovative .Live and let live!
The policy of Francis is narrow and imprudent, as well as vicious and polarizing.
The old and the new belong to each other; as do memory and hope; tradition and creativity; fluidity and stability; past, present and future. A more generous and appreciative embrace of the Latin mass will only enrich the Novus Ordo.
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