Praise for Reclaiming
Our Roman Catholic Birthright

“Dr. Kwasniewski’s comprehensive new book has something for just about everyone seeking an answer to the question why it is so urgent that we take refuge in our tradition and reclaim our birthright as Catholics. Parents and grandparents with an interest in passing on the Faith to the next generation will also find much food for thought. This book greatly aids the case in favor of an urgent and universal return to the only solid basis for Catholic liturgy, namely, the traditional Roman Missal, with accompanying Breviary and other liturgical books. Overwhelming numbers of practicing Catholics cannot seem to move past the worldly solutions of the last half-century. Dare I say that they cling to the Novus Ordo in desperation, rather than embracing a full project of being the Church, with catechesis and family life, finding in the Vetus Ordo the source and summit of Christian existence? May Kwasniewski’s book be read by the many bishops, priests, religious, and laity who are troubled or dissatisfied by their present liturgical experience. May the virtue of hope inspire them to make the leap and the sacrifices involved in what amounts to a true paradigm change!”— ARCHBISHOP THOMAS E. GULLICKSON,

Apostolic Nuncio to Switzerland and Liechtenstein

“Readers of Dr. Kwasniewski are often left breathless by his prolific pen. He is the theological master and propagator of the usus antiquior. Books, learned monographs, articles, critiques, and analyses pour like torrents from his impressive theological-philosophical-liturgical mind. But never does he lose the common touch that appeals to the non-scholar or the mere onlooker coming to the classical Mass for the first time. The formidable scholarship of Kwasniewski, together with that of a handful of other scholars, achieves intellectual victory over the dishonest liturgical cabal that has brought such sorrow upon the Church. Of books defending the usus antiquior, Kwasniewski’s Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright should hold pride of place on your bookshelf.”—REV. JOHN A. PERRICONE, Iona College, New Rochelle, NY

“If you’re looking for carefully crafted, incisive, logical arguments as well as Pascal’s ‘reasons of the heart’ for why the Traditional Latin Mass is a lighthouse both for the Church and for your own soul’s voyage amid stormy seas, this is a book for you.”—REV. WILLIAM J. SLATTERY, author of Heroism and Genius: How Catholic Priests Helped Build—and Can Help Rebuild—Western Civilization

“This book is erudite and eloquent. It even fulfilled the function of spiritual reading for me, as so many passages rise into prayerful appreciation for the treasures of tradition. No one can accuse the traditionalist movement Kwasniewski so competently represents and defends of being merely reactionary; he is a model of fides quaerens intellectum, faith seeking understanding. At the same time, if you love a good donnybrook, you’ll find plenty of deft argumentative pugilism. Those who seek to understand why the traditional Latin Mass is (or at least, why an increasing number believe it to be) superior to its modern alternative in expressing the Church’s faith and in meeting the deepest needs of Catholics should do themselves a favor and read this book.”—DR. MICHAEL P. FOLEY, Professor of Patristics, Baylor University, and author of Drinking with Your Patron Saints (Regnery, 2020) and The Politically Incorrect Guide to Christianity (Regnery, 2017)

“Having recently rediscovered the Traditional Latin Mass, my spirit has been soaring ever since. Stunned and embarrassed by how little I know about the Mass itself and how the Novus Ordo came about, I started reading widely. I found Peter Kwasniewski’s writings to be a wonderful resource, erudite without being academically forbidding. This new book will be an inspired aid to those who have never been to a traditional Latin Mass, to those who can’t remember when they last went, and to those who, already attending it, stand to benefit greatly from Kwasniewski’s insights into the history and meaning of the sacred liturgy. It could change your spiritual life forever.”—JANET E. SMITH, author of Humanae Vitae: A Generation Later

“In this time of liturgical confusion, even desolation, Peter Kwasniewski’s book provides strong yet charitable persuasion for the restoration and full embrace of tradition. Perhaps most urgently for parents grieving over the hemorrhage of youth from the Church, Kwasniewski writes at length about the importance of recovering the usus antiquior for the sake of our children. Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright has that rare combination of readability and intellectual depth needed for responding to our ecclesial crisis. If you are already convinced of the pressing need to return to the beauty of tradition, it will provide you with sound rhetoric; if you are not convinced, it will draw you toward the truth.”—LEILA MARIE LAWLER, co-author of The Little Oratory: A Beginner’s Guide to Praying in the Home

“I grew up in the post-Vatican II Novus Ordo Mass. I had an interior conversion in my mid-20’s and came to the understanding that I am a sinner and that Christ is my Lord, my God, and my All. For many years I was involved in the Charismatic Renewal, Life in the Spirit Seminars, and Steubenville Conferences; my faith life was measured by emotional spiritual consolations. My intellect was stimulated by the discovery of Catholic apologetics; and then I ran into TAN booklets from different authors talking about the Latin Mass, which I had never even heard of. After experiencing it, I now live with a broken heart knowing that this Mass is not offered in every diocese and that most Catholics will never experience it. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the greatest wonder in the world—and the next greatest wonder is the indifference and ignorance of Catholics regarding their own traditional Mass. It’s as if we all fell prey to amnesia and forgot our liturgical patrimony. In this book Dr. Kwasniewski leads those who are curious about the traditional Holy Mass into a thorough understanding of its superiority in language, music, prayers, postures, reverence, and piety. Although written by a scholar, this book is for everyone. Readers will come away with a new appreciation for our sacred birthright, meant to be passed on to all Catholic generations until the Lord comes again. For those of us who believe that nothing else on earth surpasses or even comes close to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, this book is a must-read.”—JESSE ROMERO, Catholic lay evangelist, author of The Devil in the City of Angels

Other Books from the Same Author

Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis: Sacred Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and Renewal in the Church

Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness: Why the Modern Age Needs the Mass of Ages

A Reader in Catholic Social Teaching: From Syllabus Errorum to Deus Caritas Est

Tradition and Sanity: Conversations and Dialogues of a Postconciliar Exile

John Henry Newman on Worship, Reverence, and Ritual: A Selection of Texts

Sacred Choral Works

Reclaiming Our
Roman Catholic Birthright

The Genius and Timeliness of the
Traditional Latin Mass

PETER KWASNIEWSKI

Reclaiming Our
Roman Catholic Birthright

The Genius and Timeliness
of the Traditional Latin Mass

First published in the USA
by Angelico Press 2020
© Peter Kwasniewski 2020

All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without permission

For information, address:
Angelico Press
169 Monitor St.
Brooklyn, NY 11222
angelicopress.com
info@angelicopress.com

ISBN 978 1 62138 535 6 pb
ISBN 978 1 62138 536 3 cloth
ISBN 978 1 62138 537 0 ebook

Cover photograph courtesy of Allison Girone
Cover design: Michael Schrauzer

CONTENTS

Acknowledgments

Introduction: An Awakening in Souls

PART I: ORIENTATION

1   Taste and See: Ten Reasons to Attend the Mass of Ages

2   The Genius of Christianity’s Oldest Rite

3   A New (Old) Perspective on Active Participation

4   Why Congregations Dwindle

5   The Mass That Demands More, Delivers More

6   The Dire Need for a “New Habit of Mind”

7   Man Does Not Live by Bread Alone

PART II: OBJECTIONS & REPLIES

8   Twelve Reasons Not to Prefer the Novus Ordo

9   Responding to Common Anti-TLM Arguments

10  The Problem of False Antiquarianism

11  The Gift of Liturgical Tradition

12  Can We Love Tradition Too Much?

13  The Charge of Aestheticism

14  Understanding Tridentinophobia

15  The Failure of Todaying

16  Should We “Move Past” the Liturgy Debates?

PART III: PRESENT & FUTURE

17  Children Change Everything

18  What Children Learn from the Traditional Mass

19  Good and Bad Liturgical Parenting

20  Helping Children Enter Into the Mass

21  Sorting Out Difficulties in Liturgical Allegiance

22  Pro-Life, Pro-Liturgy, Pro-Tradition

23  Is the Church Crisis Driving the Faithful to the TLM?

24  Rebuilding on the Ruins of the Conciliar Experiment

Conclusion For a Darkening Church, the Light Is Tradition

Glossary

Select Bibliography

About the Author

Dedicated, with grateful remembrance and lasting affection,
to all the students it has been my privilege to teach

Majorem horum non habeo gratiam,
quam ut audiam filios meos
in veritate ambulare.

3 John 4

Funes ceciderunt mihi in praeclaris;

etenim haereditas mea praeclara est mihi.

The lines are fallen unto me in goodly places:
for my inheritance is precious to me.

Psalm 15:6

“Michel could no longer be said to possess the love of Mass, but rather the love of Holy Mass possessed him. At first it had risen in his heart like a little stream, clear and singing and beautiful; now it was become a torrent, sweeping him along in full flood.”

Michael Kent, The Mass of Brother Michel

Acknowledgments

Most of the chapters in this book saw their initial publication at sites to which I regularly contribute: thus chapters 1, 5, 7–9, 11, 12, 14–21, part of chapter 13, and part of the Conclusion appeared at OnePeterFive; chapters 4, 6, 10, and 24 at New Liturgical Movement; chapter 22, part of chapter 13, and part of the Conclusion at LifeSite News; and chapter 24 at Rorate Caeli. Earlier versions of chapters 2 and 3 were delivered as lectures in Houston and are published here for the first time. Original titles have sometimes been changed and the content extensively rewritten and reorganized. I left intact the rhetorical “flavor” that originated in amicable disputes with Catholics arguing on behalf of the Novus Ordo—debates that occur practically every day now in gatherings of Catholics or on social media.

Chapter 1, “Taste and See: Ten Reasons to Attend the Mass of Ages,” was a collaborative effort with Michael Foley; it has been completely revamped. I take this occasion to express my gratitude to Dr. Foley for his remarkable body of work on the Church’s calendar and saints, not to mention designer Catholic drinks.

The letter exchanges in chapters 14, 15, 16, and 21 are real, not fictional. In place of the names of my correspondents, I have substituted appropriate Latin monikers. Quaerens Intellectum means “one seeking understanding”; Fiducia Fortitudinis means “confidence of strength” or “strong confidence”; Stet Centrum means “let the center stand firm”; Amator Pietatis means “lover of piety.”

Scriptural quotations are drawn from many translations, including the Douay-Rheims, the Revised Standard Version, and the American Literary Version.

I would like to convey my special thanks to all who read and commented on an earlier draft of the book: Archbishop Thomas Gullickson, Mark Allen, Jacob Bauer, David D’Alessandro, Michael P. Foley, Jeremy Holmes, Anna Kalinowski, Leila M. Lawler, Samuel Schmitt, and, above all, Janet E. Smith, whose detailed suggestions made the final work so much better. Thanks are also due to four friends who generously share with me their liturgical and linguistic expertise: Gregory DiPippo, Matthew Hazell, Joseph Shaw, and John Pepino.

Introduction
An Awakening in Souls

The Church’s liturgy is a reality as vast as the Church herself—as high as the heavens, as wide as the cosmos, as deep as the soul, radiant with the beauty of the face of Christ and the faith of the saints. In the words of one Rev. William W. Pounch in 1896: “How grandly impressive is Catholic worship! What an awful holocaust is its sacrifice! Far surpassing the power of human concept is the adorable Sacrifice of the Mass, the supreme worship of the Church.”

Alas, in the past half-century, the Church’s liturgy has also become a battlefield, which it was never intended to be. The reasons for this unfortunate state of affairs are many and complex. Some of the issues involved are obvious, some rather subtle; in these pages, I will dig into quite a number of them. At this point in time, a major bone of contention is precisely the Mass about which Fr. Pounch spoke so eloquently: the only Mass he or any priest knew. Today, that is no longer the case: two very different “forms” of the Roman rite of Mass are at hand. Contrary to the opinion one still meets with here and there among Catholics who have never been told the truth or never discovered it on their own, the new Mass introduced by Paul VI was not just a “translation” of the traditional Mass into vernacular languages, with a little trimming and styling of overgrown locks. It was a radical reconstruction of the Church’s central act of worship. Once people who are devoted to their Catholic Faith become aware of the multitude and magnitude of the changes, reactions and counterreactions, arguments back and forth, begin in earnest. Emotions can run high. The “traditionalists” claim to have found a lost treasure and they wish to share it with everyone. Not everyone is equally eager to share it, but no one can deny that an event of immense importance is taking place: tradition is awakening within souls.[1]

My goal in this book is to help every reader—whether already a lover of the traditional Mass or a complete newbie, whether committed or curious, perplexed or skeptical, sitting on the fence or bouncing back and forth between old and new—to understand better why the old Mass operates the way it does, how it had the wherewithal to serve as the focal point of Catholic life for so many centuries, and why it still captures so many hearts, in spite of everything it seems to have “stacked against it.” Sometimes I will argue on behalf of tradition; at other times I will simply try to describe the experiences others and I have had that give us a strong attachment to the old Mass. I think that some of my explanations will be surprising against the backdrop of modern (secular and ecclesiastical) assumptions. My hope and prayer is that this treatment of controversial issues will prompt deeper reflection and motivate decisions that build up the Body of Christ.

The traditional Latin Mass is the Eucharistic liturgy as it developed within the Catholic Church in the West over a period of about 1,600 years, from the fourth century under Pope St. Damasus, with special contributions made by St. Gregory the Great in the sixth century and by other ancient popes, through the Middle Ages and down into modern times. The last edition of its altar missal was published on the eve of the Second Vatican Council by Pope John XXIII in 1962. In his motu proprio* Summorum Pontificum of July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI explained why the traditional form of the Mass remains pertinent to us: “The Latin liturgy of the Church in its various forms, in each century of the Christian era, has been a spur to the spiritual life of many saints, has reinforced many peoples in the virtue of religion* and fecundated their piety.” This Roman Missal* “must be given due honor for its venerable and ancient usage.” It is a treasure for all Catholics.

In this document, Pope Benedict established that priests everywhere are free to celebrate the older usage of the Roman rite of Mass, the older rites of some of the other sacraments, and the old Roman Breviary* or Divine Office.* He told the Church that the clergy should make this venerable Mass available to all who ask for it. Attached to Summorum Pontificum was a letter addressed to all the bishops of the world, Con Grande Fiducia, in which Pope Benedict says: “It has clearly been demonstrated that young persons, too, have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist particularly suited to them.” As anyone who has traveled widely knows, the movement for rediscovering and recovering the traditions of the Roman Catholic Church is indeed a youth movement. This letter then eloquently summarizes the central point of Summorum Pontificum:

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.

In 2013, Antonio Cardinal Cañizares, then-Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, spelled out quite clearly the intentions of the Holy Father:

The motu proprio modified the recent situation by making clear that the celebration of the Extraordinary Form should be normal, eliminating every restriction related to the number of interested faithful, and not setting up any conditions for participating in these celebrations other than the ones normally required for any public celebration of the Mass, [a policy] which allowed for a wide access to this heritage that, while it is by law a spiritual patrimony of all of the faithful, is, in fact, unknown to the majority of them. . . .

But the motu proprio also produced a phenomenon that is for many astonishing and is a true “sign of the times”: the interest that the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite elicits among the young in particular, who never lived it as an ordinary form, [an interest] that manifests a thirst for “languages” that are not “more of the same” and that call us towards new and, for many pastors, unforeseen horizons. The opening-up of the liturgical wealth of the Church to all the faithful made possible the discovery of all the treasures of this patrimony by those who had been ignorant of them, among whom this liturgical form is stirring up numerous priestly and religious vocations throughout the world, [men and women] willing to give their lives to the service of evangelization.[2]

Cardinal Cañizares’s use of the language of “ordinary” and “extraordinary” provides a welcome occasion for a brief note on terminology. Since we are dealing with the unprecedented situation of two “forms” of the same Roman rite coexisting in the Catholic Church, it is a challenge to find the right ways to speak about them. Many names are in circulation, each name having its pros and cons. I will usually speak of the traditional Latin Mass—hence the popular acronym “TLM”—but also of the classical Roman rite, the Tridentine* rite, the traditional Mass, the venerable Mass, the old Mass, the Mass of Ages, and the usus antiquior.* Similarly, I will speak of the Novus Ordo* Mass, the new Mass, the modern rite, the Mass of Paul VI, and similar expressions. Except in citations from other authors, the terminology of “Ordinary Form” and “Extraordinary Form,” crafted in 2007 to deal with a peculiar canonical situation, has here been avoided, as it is probably the most artificial and extrinsic of the available options.[3] The Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum, the accompanying letter to the bishops Con Grande Fiducia, and the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae themselves employ a wide range of terms.

It is important, moreover, to note that the two “forms” in question comprise much more than the Mass. All liturgical rites were extensively changed: the sacraments (baptism, confirmation, penance, priestly ordination, marriage, extreme unction/anointing of the sick), the Divine Office, the dedication of a church, the consecration of virgins, blessings of sacramentals, and so forth. For each of these, there is an old or traditional form and a new or postconciliar form. This book will zero in on the Mass, but most of what is said about it will apply analogously to these other rites and services as well.

In spite of its many dangers and evils, the internet has allowed Catholics to access as never before a wealth of resources and information on liturgical history, theology, aesthetics, and spirituality that would have once been available only in major research libraries. Hundreds of articles have been published demonstrating the rupture with tradition that occurred in the Roman Catholic liturgy in the twentieth century, especially in the period of decades surrounding the Second Vatican Council. This online work has built a broad and strong intellectual foundation for the pastoral restoration of the fullness of the classical Roman rite and has blessed the world, in addition, with copious photography and footage of wellenacted liturgical worship, from which new generations are taking inspiration and bearings. For the reader’s convenience, I have tried to favor in my notes easily located online sources, using the following format: author, title, website, and specific date (e.g., Gregory DiPippo, “The New Rite Prefaces for Advent,” New Liturgical Movement, December 24, 2015). As the reader has already noted, a Glossary may be found at the back of the book, containing terms for which it seemed useful to provide more extended definitions (with the coincidental benefit of keeping the footnotes less cluttered). Any term included in the Glossary is marked with an asterisk (*) on its first appearance.

The way this book is written, subsequent chapters take up points raised earlier and develop them further, in greater detail. It’s like moving from a large-scale map to more detailed maps: first we look at the map of the whole country, dominated by mountain ranges, rivers, interstate highways, and big cities; then we start looking at a map of this or that state; finally, we go to the level of cities or towns. So, if the first chapter contains claims that strike you as exaggerated, arguments that sound unconvincing, connections that seem puzzling, or judgments that come across as unfair, don’t give up the book; proceed to the next chapter, which will give you more to work with.

There are, of course, many broader questions that bivouac at the margins of a book like this and keep trying to push their way to the center of attention: questions about the many-faceted history of the Liturgical Movement, the Second Vatican Council (its intentions, protagonists, interpretation, and aftermath), the papacy (its rights, responsibilities, duties, and limitations), other forms of Western liturgy and the whole panoply of Eastern liturgies, and more besides. I do touch on all of these topics here and there as needed, but I have avoided major detours into them lest the book swell past all usefulness and lose its focus. To remedy any such lacunae, I have included a “Select Bibliography” at the end, with annotated entries divided into various categories, listing only the cream of the crop.

1. Echoing Romano Guardini’s sentiment in the period just after World War I, a favorite quotation of Benedict XVI’s: “An event of enormous importance is taking place: the Church is awakening within souls.”

* An asterisk next to a word indicates that the term is defined in the Glossary at the end of the book.

2. Preface of Cardinals Cañizares to the Doctoral Thesis of Fr. Alberto Soria Jiménez, OSB, published at Rorate Caeli on July 16, 2014.

3. For further explanation, see “Formed in the Spirit and Power of the Liturgy: Reflections on Summorum Pontificum” in my book Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness: Why the Modern Age Needs the Mass of Ages (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2017), 135–66.

I
Orientation

1
Taste and See: Ten Reasons to Attend the Mass of Ages

Given that it can be less convenient for a person or a family to attend the traditional Latin Mass—and I am thinking not only of obvious issues like the place and the time, but also of the lack of a parish infrastructure and the hostile reactions one can get from friends, family, and even clergy who do not understand the appeal of something they consider “outdated” and “left behind”—it is worthwhile to remind ourselves of why we are doing this in the first place. If something is worth doing, then it’s worth persevering in, even at the cost of sacrifices.

This chapter will set forth a number of reasons why, in spite of the inconveniences and minor persecutions we have experienced over the years, my family and I have grown to love the traditional Latin Mass and would never give it up. I share these reasons to encourage you either to begin attending the usus antiquior or to continue attending it.

The first reason: you will be formed in the same way that the vast majority of the Saints were formed.

What some now call the “Extraordinary Form” was the Ordinary Form of the Mass for most of the history of the Church in the West. Since a Latin-language rite of Mass recognizably in continuity with or in the same family as the 1962 Missale Romanum* has been in place since the fourth century, we are talking, on a conservative estimate, of a millennium and a half of efficacious liturgical prayer on the lips and in the hearts of innumerable men, women, and children. The Roman Church seemed to be doing very well with this Mass as she spread throughout the world from the Mediterranean, evangelizing first Western Europe, then North and South America, Asia, and Africa. Wherever her missionaries went, they brought their Latin liturgical books and customs with them.[1]

This is the Mass that over two hundred popes celebrated, among them St. Leo the Great, St. Gregory the Great, St. Leo IX, St. Gregory VII, St. Celestine V, St. Pius V, and St. Pius X. Texts or ceremonies of this Mass are cited and discussed by all the Western Fathers and Doctors of the Church, including St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, St. Bede, St. Peter Damian, St. Anselm, St. Albert the Great, St. Bonaventure, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Francis de Sales, and St. Alphonsus Liguori. St. Thomas Aquinas, whose awe-inspiring theological writings occupy some 50 folio volumes, celebrated his daily Dominican-rite Mass (a close relative of what we call the Tridentine), served by his secretary Reginald, then they switched roles and Thomas served Reginald’s Mass. Not only did the Angelic Doctor write about the traditional Mass, he even had the rare privilege of contributing to it by composing, at the request of Pope Urban IV, the exquisite Mass Propers* and Office* for the Feast of Corpus Christi. Speaking of poets and thus, by extension, of artists: so widely respected was the Tridentine liturgy, which inspired centuries of the highest artistic creativity the world has ever known, that famous non-Catholics such as Agatha Christie, Iris Murdoch, Kenneth Clark, Robert Graves, Yehudi Menuhin, and Vladimir Ashkenazy came to its defense in 1971, imploring Pope Paul VI not to abolish the greatest cultural treasure of Western civilization. Plenty of famous Catholics, too, lamented its loss with sorrow and alarm, including Evelyn Waugh, Christopher Dawson, Graham Greene, David Jones, and J.R.R. Tolkien.

This is the Mass during which St. Francis of Assisi and his early companions had visions of the Crucified Lord and the release of souls from Purgatory; the Mass at which St. Louis IX, the crusader king of France, assisted twice or three times a day; the Mass that St. Philip Neri had to distract himself from before he celebrated it because it so easily sent him into ecstasies that lasted for hours.

This is the Mass first celebrated on the shores of America by heroic Spanish and French missionaries, such as St. Isaac Jogues, who requested and received permission to keep offering it even after his fingers had been gnawed off by the Iroquois; the Mass Blessed Miguel Pro risked his life to celebrate before being captured and martyred by the Mexican government in 1927; the Mass Fr. Damien of Molokai celebrated with leprous hands in the church he himself had built and painted in Hawaii. For the sake of offering this traditional Latin Mass, the Jesuits of Elizabethan England—chief among them, St. Edmund Campion—went around from house to house in disguise and were, most of them, caught, tried, convicted, hanged, and torn apart alive. This is the Mass that priests said secretly in England and Ireland during the dark days of persecution, the Mass Fr. Frederick Faber called “the most beautiful thing this side of heaven,” the Mass St. John Henry Newman said he would pray every moment of his life if he could.

St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), who was to die in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, became completely enraptured with this Mass; so did the Doctors of the Church St. Hildegard of Bingen, St. Catherine of Siena, St. Teresa of Avila, and the Little Flower, St. Thérèse of Lisieux. This is the Mass St. Padre Pio insisted on celebrating right until his death in 1968.[2] St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, never stopped celebrating it to the time of his death in 1974. Our list could go on and on.

What a glorious cloud of witnesses surrounds the traditional Latin Mass! Their holiness was forged like gold and silver in the furnace of this Mass, and it is an undeserved blessing that we, too, can seek and obtain the same formation. On most days of the year, the prayers, readings, and chants that these saints heard and pondered will be the very ones that we hear and ponder.

Yes, I know that I am still in the presence of God and His saints at the new Mass, but I also know that a concrete historical link to all these saints has been severed, as well as a link to my own heritage as a Latin-rite Catholic.[3] Even secular people recognize how wonderful it is to be able to live in a house built many generations ago, as long as it is in good condition, since “they just don’t make things like that anymore”; and Catholics to this day appreciate worshiping in noble church buildings that have survived wars, famines, and plagues, ideologies and revolutions, and centuries of floods, earthquakes, and inclement weather. With far greater reason should we see the Holy Mass of our forefathers as a spacious, durable, and beautiful building we can still live in today—and one that is far better than anything we can build from scratch in our times. The venerable Roman rite of Mass is, says Joseph Shaw,

the “classical,” the central and historically most widespread, form of Mass in the Western Church. For centuries it was attended by kings, soldiers, merchants, peasants, and children. It formed saints and scholars, converted sinners, sustained monks and nuns, inspired martyrs, and comforted the afflicted, in a complete range of social and economic conditions: from the basilicas of ancient Rome to the battlefields of the Second World War; from the mission stations of Africa, to the suffering Church in Communist China. Nothing should stop you engaging fruitfully with it, as they did.[4]

Second, we can point to its universality.

Not only does the traditional Latin Mass provide a visible and unbroken link from the present day to the distant past, it also constitutes an inspiring bond of unity across the globe. Elderly Catholics often recall how moving it was for them to assist at Mass in a foreign country for the first time and to discover that “the Mass was the same” wherever they went. The experience was, for them, a confirmation of the catholicity of their Catholicism. By contrast, today one is sometimes hard-pressed to find what looks and feels like “the same Mass” even at the same parish on the same weekend, with so many different “styles of worship” and subcultures in the mix. The universality of the traditional Latin Mass, with its umbrella of Latin as a sacred language and its insistence that the priest put aside his own idiosyncratic and cultural preferences and put on the person of Christ, acts as a true Pentecost in which many tongues and tribes come together as one in the Spirit—rather than a new Babel that privileges unshareable identities such as ethnicity or age group and threatens to occlude the “neither Greek nor Jew” (cf. Gal 3:28) principle of the Gospel.

Third, it’s the Roman rite in its integrity, fully expressive of the Catholic faith.

The age-old Roman rite exhibits an obviously God-centered and Christ-centered orientation, found both in the common stance of priest and people ad orientem (toward the east) and in the rich texts of the classical Roman Missal itself. As compared with their modern redactions or replacements, these texts give far greater emphasis to the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the sacrifice of Our Lord upon the Cross.[5] The prayers of the new missal are often watered-down in their expression of dogma and ascetical doctrine, whereas the prayers of the old missal are unambiguously and uncompromisingly Catholic.[6] It is a pure font of Christian wisdom, not something cobbled together by “experts” for “modern man” and adjusted to his (real or imaginary) preferences.[7]

More and more pastors and scholars acknowledge how badly rushed and botched were the liturgical reforms of the 1960s.[8] We are left in a messy situation for which the new liturgy itself is totally illequipped to provide a solution, with its plethora of options, its minimalist rubrics,* its vulnerability to manipulative “presiders,” and its manifest discontinuity with at least fourteen centuries of Roman Catholic worship—a discontinuity powerfully displayed in the matter of language, since the venerable Mass whispers and sings in the Western Church’s mother tongue, Latin, while the new Mass has awkwardly mingled itself with the ever-changing vernaculars of the world.

Fourth, you always know what you are getting.

The traditional Mass maintains throughout a focus on the Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross; this will be evident in the ceremonies, gestures, and prayers. There will be respectful and prayerful silence before, during, and after Mass. There will be only males serving in the sanctuary and only priests and deacons handling the divine Body of Christ, in accord with nearly 2,000 years of tradition. People will usually be dressed modestly. Music may not always be present (and when present, may not always be perfectly executed), but you will never hear pseudo-pop songs with narcissistic or heretical lyrics. Put differently, the traditional form of the Roman rite cannot be “co-opted” for a modernist agenda. Like almost every other good thing this side of the grave, the Latin Mass can be botched, but it can never be abused to the extent that it no longer points to the true God. Chesterton once said that “there is only one thing that can never go past a certain point in its alliance with oppression—and that is orthodoxy. I may, it is true, twist orthodoxy so as partly to justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up a German philosophy to justify him entirely.”[9] The same is true for the traditional Latin Mass.

Fr. Jonathan Robinson observes that “the perennial attraction of the Old Rite is that it provided a transcendental reference, and it did this even when it was misused in various ways.”[10] While the new Mass can be celebrated in a reverent way that directs us to the transcendent, says Robinson, “there is nothing in the rule governing the way the Novus Ordo is to be said that ensures the centrality of the celebration of the Paschal mystery.”[11] In other words, the new Mass can be celebrated validly but in a way that puts so great an emphasis on community or the sharing of a meal that it amounts to “the virtual denial of a Catholic understanding of the Mass.”[12] In sharp contrast, the indestructibility of the traditional Mass’s inherent meaning is what inspired one commentator to compare it to a navy warship: “It’s a machine built by geniuses so it can be operated safely by idiots.”[13]

Fifth, the traditional liturgy inculcates great reverence for the Most Holy Eucharist.

The Novus Ordo can be celebrated with reverence and with only ordained ministers distributing Holy Communion, but let’s be honest: throughout much of the world, almost every Catholic parish deploys “extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion” (in other words, laity who are not ordained for the service of the altar), and the vast majority of the faithful receive Holy Communion in the hand.[14] These two arrangements, which were heavily promoted by modernists in the twentieth century, constitute a significant breach in reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. Lay ministers do not purify their hands or fingers after handling God, thus accumulating and scattering particles of the Real Presence. The same is true of the faithful who receive Communion in the hand; even brief contact with the Host on the palm of one’s hand can leave tiny particles of the consecrated Victim.[15] Think about it: every day, thousands upon thousands of these unintentional acts of desecration of the Blessed Sacrament occur around the world.[16]

How patient is the Eucharistic Heart of our Lord! But do we really want to contribute to this desecration? And even if we ourselves receive Communion on the tongue at a Novus Ordo Mass, chances are we will still be surrounded by these careless habits—an environment that will either fill us with outrage and sorrow or lead to a settled indifference. These reactions are not helpful in experiencing the peace of Christ’s Real Presence, nor are they an optimal way to raise one’s children in the Faith.

Similar points could be made about the distracting “Sign of Peace”;[17] or female lectors and extraordinary ministers, who, apart from constituting an utter break with tradition, can be clad in clothing of questionable modesty; or the almost universal custom of loud chitchat before and after Mass; or the priest’s ad-libbing and trading of options. These and so many other characteristics of the Novus Ordo as it is all too often celebrated are, singly and collectively, signs of a lack of faith in the Real Presence, signs of an anthropocentric, horizontal self-celebration of the community.

Sixth, what is true for me is even more true for my children.

This way of celebrating Mass most deeply forms the minds and hearts of our children in reverence for Almighty God, especially in the virtues of faith, humility, obedience, and adoring silence. It fills their senses and imaginations with sacred signs and symbols, “mystic benedictions” (as the Council of Trent puts it).[18] The pioneering Catholic educator Maria Montessori frequently pointed out that small children are very receptive to the language of symbols, often more so than adults are, and that they learn more easily from watching people do a solemn liturgy than from hearing a lot of words with little action.[19] All of this is extremely impressive and gripping for children who are learning their faith, and especially for boys who become altar servers.[20]

That is the positive side. On the negative side, it is especially harmful for children to witness at the Novus Ordo the shocking lack of reverence with which Our Lord and God is treated in the awesome Sacrament of His Love, as pew after pew of Catholics automatically go up to receive a gift they all too often treat casually and even with a bored indifference. The Church teaches that the Eucharist is really, truly, and substantially our Savior, our King, our Judge— but then the majority of clergy and laity act in a way that says we are handling ordinary (though symbolic) food and drink.[21] And bishops pretend to be shocked that so many Catholics have an essentially liberal Protestant view of what is going on at Mass, or eventually drift away into unbelief? This unfortunate situation will not end until the maximally careful and reverent preconciliar norms for the handling of the sacred Host are made mandatory for all liturgical celebrations, which, alas, is not likely to happen any time soon.[22] For us and for our children, the safe refuge is, once again and always, the traditional Latin Mass, where sanity and sanctity prevail.

Seventh, the traditional liturgy offers us a better way into the Bible.

Many people think that the Novus Ordo has a great advantage over the old Mass because it has “so much more Scripture”—a three-year cycle of Sunday readings and a two-year cycle of weekday readings, and longer and more numerous readings at Mass, instead of the ancient one-year cycle, usually consisting of two readings per Mass (Epistle* and Gospel). What they do not realize is that the architects of the Novus Ordo took out most of the psalm verses and biblical allusions that formed the warp and woof of the traditional Order of the Mass* and then parachuted in a giant array of readings with little regard to their congruency with each other or with the fixed parts of Mass. On top of this, they quietly excised “difficult” passages that might offend or frighten modern people, even if these passages had been included in the liturgy for over a thousand years. The Word of God is a two-edged sword, but the edges had to be blunted to comply with safety regulations. In saner times, the sword was allowed to be sharp, so that it could cut into our hard hearts and make room for the liberating truth.[23]

When it comes to biblical readings, the traditional Mass operates on two admirable principles. First, passages should be chosen not for their own sake, to “get through” as much of Scripture as possible, but to illuminate the meaning of the occasion of worship. Second, the emphasis at Mass should not be on biblical literacy or instruction, but on what could be called a lifelong “mystagogy”: the readings at Mass are not meant to be a glorified Sunday school but an ongoing initiation into the mysteries of the Faith.[24] Their more limited number, brevity, liturgical suitability, and welcome repetition over the course of every year makes them a powerful agent of spiritual formation and preparation for the Eucharistic sacrifice. The focus much more naturally rests on the offering of the spotless Victim and on His heavenly court of saints, to whom the readings point us.

Eighth, the old Mass features a superior calendar for the saints.

In liturgical discussions, most ammunition is expended on defending or attacking changes internal to the Order of the Mass—and understandably so. But one of the most significant differences between the traditional and modern missals is their respective calendars.

Let’s start with the sanctoral cycle, comprising the feastdays of the saints. The old calendar is an amazing primer in Church history, especially the history of the early Church, which gets overlooked today. It is providentially arranged in such a way that certain saints form different “clusters” that accent particular facets of holiness.[25] The liturgy is permeated with the cultus or veneration of the saints, our older brothers and sisters in the family of God, whose feasts dictate the antiphons, prayers, and readings of the day. The traditional Mass has inspired and supported countless popular devotions to the saints over the centuries and continues to do so to this day.

The creators of the 1969/1970 general calendar, on the other hand, eliminated or demoted hundreds of saints, including St. Valentine from St. Valentine’s Day and St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, claiming they never existed.[26] They also eliminated St. Catherine of Alexandria for the same reason, even though she was one of the saints that St. Joan of Arc saw when God commissioned her to fight the English.[27] The architects of the new calendar made their decisions on the basis of modern historical-critical scholarship rather than the oral traditions of the Church. Their scholarly criteria call to mind G.K. Chesterton’s rejoinder that he would rather trust old wives’ tales than old maids’ facts. “It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history,” Chesterton writes. “The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad.”[28]

A double argument was made for thinning out the saints: on the one hand, it would open up room for local and more recent saints; on the other hand, it would give increased prominence to the temporal cycle (more on that in a moment). Although it is true that local and more recent saints have gained a place on the new calendar, the overall experience of the Novus Ordo—especially due to the dismantling of the Propers and the favoring of continuous reading through Scripture—is that most of the saints get rather short shrift. They are on the sidelines. The classical rite is stunningly different in this regard.

Ninth, we enjoy a superior calendar for the seasons.

Ironically, given that the putative justification for redesigning the liturgical calendar was to put greater emphasis on the temporal cycle—which comprises the seasons focused on the mysteries of Christ, such as Advent, Christmas, Lent, and Easter—the old Roman calendar is far richer in this respect, too, as it gives more weight to certain key seasons (such as Christmas and the Time after Pentecost) and features a number of special times that bring out more fully the meaning of each part of the grand cycle (such as Epiphanytide, Septuagesimatide, and Ascensiontide, all absent from the Novus Ordo calendar). Thanks to its annual cycle, each Sunday has a distinct and memorable flavor to it, and this annual recurrence creates a marker or yardstick that allows the faithful to measure their spiritual progress over the course of their lives. The traditional calendar has ancient observances like Ember Days and Rogation Days that heighten our gratitude to God and our appreciation of the goodness of the natural seasons and the agricultural cycles of the land. The traditional calendar has no such thing as “Ordinary Time” (a most unfortunate phrase[29]); instead it has “Time after Epiphany” and “Time after Pentecost,” extending the meaning of these great feasts of the manifestations of the Second and Third Divine Persons like a long afterglow or echo. In company with Christmas and Easter, Pentecost—a feast of no lesser status or antiquity than they—is celebrated for a full eight days, so that the Church may bask in the warmth and light of the heavenly fire. And the traditional calendar has the pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima, which, beginning three weeks before Ash Wednesday, bids Christmastide adieu and prepares us for the penitential rigors of Lent. Like most other features of the usus antiquior, the aforementioned aspects of the calendar are extremely ancient and connect us vividly with the Church of the first millennium and even the earliest centuries.

Tenth, when all is said and done, it’s the Mystery of Faith.

For centuries, going back into the mists of time—back to the Apostles, says St. Thomas Aquinas[30]—the celebrant in the Roman rite has said “Mysterium Fidei” in the midst of the words of consecration whispered over the chalice, referring specifically to the irruption or inbreaking of God into our midst in this unfathomable Sacrament. The consecration of the wine completes the signification of the sacrifice of the Cross, the moment when our High Priest obtained for us eternal redemption (cf. Heb 9:12).[31]

Many of the reasons for persevering in and supporting the traditional Latin Mass, in spite of all the trouble the devil manages to stir up for us, can be summarized in one word: MYSTERY. What St. Paul calls musterion and what the Latin liturgical tradition designates as mysterium or sacramentum is far from being a marginal concept in Christianity. God’s dramatic self-disclosure to us, throughout history and most of all in the Person of Jesus Christ, is mystery in the highest sense of the term: the revelation of a Reality that is luminous yet blinding in its luminosity, intelligible yet ineffable. It is fitting that the liturgical celebrations that bring us into contact with our very God should bear the stamp of His eternal and infinite mysteriousness, His marvelous transcendence, His overwhelming holiness, His disarming intimacy, His gentle yet penetrating silence. The traditional form of the Roman rite surely bears this stamp. Its ceremonies, its language, its ad orientem posture, and its ethereal music are not obscurantist but perfectly intelligible while at the same time instilling a sense of the unknown and unknowable, even the fearful and thrilling. By deeply fostering a sense of the sacred in an age of profanity, the old Mass preserves intact the mystery of Faith, and with it, the entirety of the Catholic Faith.

Many more reasons could be given; each person who attends it will have—or will soon discover—his or her own. The classical Roman rite is an ambassador of tradition, a midwife for the interior man, a lifelong tutor in the Faith, a school of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication, a rock of stability on which we can confidently build our spiritual lives. We should never deprive ourselves of the light and peace and joy of what is more beautiful, more transcendent, more sacred, more sanctifying, and more obviously Catholic.[32] Innumerable blessings await us when, in the midst of an unprecedented crisis of identity in the Church today, we live out our Catholic faith in total fidelity and with the ardent dedication of the Reformation-era martyrs like St. Edmund Campion, who were willing to do and to suffer anything rather than be parted from the Mass they had grown to love more than life itself. Yes, we will be called upon to make sacrifices—we may have to accept an inconvenient time or a less-than-satisfactory venue, or humbly bear with misunderstanding and even rejection from our loved ones—but we know that sacrifices for the sake of a greater good are the very fuel of a burning charity.

What we know for sure is that the Church needs her Mass, we need this Mass, and, in a strange sort of way that bestows on us an unmerited privilege, the Mass needs us. The sacred liturgy handed down to us by tradition has never been more important in the life of Catholics, as we see the “pilgrim Church on earth” forgetting her theology, diluting her message, losing her identity, and bleeding out her members. By knowing, loving, following, and assisting at her ancient liturgy, we do our part to bolster authentic doctrine, proclaim heavenly salvation, regain the full stature of Christ, and attract new believers who are searching for unadulterated truth and manifest beauty.

1. There were (and still are) various “uses” of the Latin liturgy in the West, such as what is called the Dominican rite, which the missionaries of the Order of Preachers would have celebrated on the missions. All of these uses and rites have so much more in common with each other than any of them has with the Novus Ordo that we can broadly speak of “the old Latin liturgy” versus its modern replacement.

2. Since he was a man who knew a thing or two about the secrets of sanctity, we should take seriously the fact that he requested and obtained permission not to adhere to any of the liturgical reforms of the 1960s, which filled him with foreboding. See Alessandro Gnocchi and Mario Palmaro, The Last Mass of Padre Pio: The Secret Soul of the Stigmatic Saint, trans. Marianna Gattozzi (Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 2019).

3. That there have been a few saints after and under the Novus Ordo does not prove that it is equal in its sanctifying power to the traditional Latin Mass, just as the fact that some demons can be expelled by the new rite of exorcism does not contradict the general agreement of exorcists that the traditional Latin rite of exorcism is far more effective. At most, such things prove that God will not be thwarted by churchmen or their reforms. As theologians teach, God is not bound to His ordinances: He can sanctify souls outside of the use of sacraments, even though we are duty-bound to use the sacraments He has given us. Analogously, He can sanctify a loving soul through a liturgy deficient in tradition, reverence, beauty, and other qualities that ought to belong to it by natural and divine law, although in the normal course souls ought to avail themselves of these powerful aids to sanctity.

4. How to Attend the Extraordinary Form (London: Catholic Truth Society, 2020), 7.

5. As documented in “Offspring of Arius in the Holy of Holies,” in my book Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis: Sacred Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and Renewal in the Church (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2014), 79–93.

6. This has been definitively demonstrated by Lauren Pristas, The Collects of the Roman Missals: A Comparative Study of the Sundays in Proper Seasons Before and After the Second Vatican Council (London/New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013).

7. For many examples of the modernization of prayers, which, without exception, take the form of watering down or softening their traditional robust content, see Michael Fiedrowicz, The Traditional Mass: History, Form, and Theology of the Classical Roman Rite, trans. Rose Pfeifer (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2020), 239–50.

8. In due course I will say more about the reformers’ operative principles, assumptions, and procedures, and why these deserve to be questioned.

9. Chesterton, Orthodoxy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), 132.

10. Fr. Jonathan Robinson, The Mass and Modernity (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 307.

11. Ibid., 311, emphasis added.

12. Ibid.

13. The same author continues: “The old liturgy was crafted by saints, and can be said by schlubs without risk of sacrilege. The new rite was patched together by bureaucrats, and should only be safely celebrated by the saintly.” John Zmirak, “All Your Church Are Belong to Us,” Crisis, February 17, 2010.

14. In later chapters I will explain why it is a half-truth at best, a bald lie at worst, to say that Communion in the hand as it is done today “revives an ancient custom.”

15. See Father X, “Losing Fragments with Communion in the Hand: Estimating the Problem with Unconsecrated Hosts,” The Latin Mass 18.4 (Fall 2009), 27–29, available at www.latinmassmagazine.com/pdfs/Losing-Fragments-LM-2009-Fall.pdf.

16. Their being unintentional does not make them cease to be acts of desecration that are displeasing to Our Lord, since we should know better than to treat the Most Holy Eucharist so carelessly, and indeed the Church did know better, as many centuries of tradition demonstrate. “Therefore, they have no excuse” (Rom 1:20).

17. The “Sign of Peace” at the Novus Ordo has little to do with the dignified manner in which the “Pax” is given at a traditional Solemn High Mass,* where it is clear that the peace of Our Lord, rather than a simultaneous eruption of bonhomie, is a spiritual endowment emanating from the Lamb of God slain upon the altar and gently spreading out through the sacred ministers until it rests on the lowliest ministers who represent the people.

18. Session 22, ch. 5.

19. Montessori wrote her catechetical materials with explicit reference to the traditional Latin Mass, but this fact is often unknown to her followers today because editors have abridged or expurgated the texts. See, for example, the original 1933 edition of The Mass Explained to Children (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2015).

20. Chapters 17–20 below are dedicated to the importance of the traditional Mass for children.

21. See my articles “The Other Pandemic: Regular Eucharistic Desecration,” OnePeterFive, March 18, 2020, and “The Fifty-Year Descent to Footnote 351: Our Progressive Desensitization to the Most Holy Eucharist,” OnePeterFive, January 10, 2018.

22. These norms include the following: the priest holds thumb and forefinger together from consecration to ablutions; only ordained ministers touch either hosts or sacred vessels; the faithful kneel and receive the host on their tongues; a chin paten is always employed (preferably, together with a Communion cloth*); the fingers of all who touch the hosts, and all vessels, are thoroughly cleansed after Communion. Such things are done both as practical precautions and for reasons of theological fittingness.

23. See my Foreword “Not Just More Scripture, But Different Scripture,” in Matthew P. Hazell, Index Lectionum: A Comparative Table of Readings for the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite (N.p.: Lectionary Study Press, 2016), vii–xxix, also published at Rorate Caeli on January 11, 2019.

24. Mystagogy is “the introduction of the uninitiate to the knowledge and the effective celebration of the mysteries” (Louis Bouyer, Dictionary of Theology, trans. Charles Underhill Quinn [Tournai: Desclée, 1965], 313).

25. For example, the progression of feasts from September 14 to September 21 as celebrated in the old missal is a mini-catechesis on the mystery of the Passion and death of the Lord. See my article “The Stigmata of Saint Francis, Appearing and Disappearing in the Liturgy,” New Liturgical Movement, September 17, 2018; cf. Kwasniewski, Resurgent, 134–37.

26. About 300 saints were removed from the general Roman calendar in 1969; many others were made optional memorials.

27. Acknowledging the mistake, Pope John Paul II restored St. Catherine to the new calendar twenty years later, but what about the remaining hundreds of saints who got axed—in some cases, despite many centuries of widespread veneration and patronage? Even as Lenten fasting was mostly abolished rather than reemphasized, so too, somewhat neglected saints were removed instead of being rediscovered.

28. Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 53.

29. See Michael Foley, “The Origins and Meaning of Ordinary Time,” Antiphon: A Journal of Liturgical Renewal 23.1 (2019): 43–77, summarized in two articles at New Liturgical Movement, February 5 and 6, 2020.

30. Summa theologiae III, q. 78, a. 3, ad 9.

31. In the new Mass, this phrase was removed from its immemorial place and turned into the prompt for a fabricated “memorial acclamation” that had never existed in the Roman rite before.

32. I will return to this point in chapter 21, “Sorting Out Difficulties in Liturgical Allegiance.”

2
The Genius of
Christianity’s Oldest Rite

Last chapter looked rapidly at some of the many virtues and perfections of the venerable Roman rite of Mass. If, however, we wish to go deeper in our understanding of why it is the way it is and “acts” the way it does, we need to start with a fundamental question: What is the Mass? Answering this question correctly will already bring us a long way towards appreciating the “genius” or “spirit” of the old rite.

Because God is our creator, our redeemer, and our sanctifier, we owe everything to Him. We owe Him a debt of justice and love we can never repay in a manner worthy of His great goodness and His gifts to us. Owing to the fall of man, the only way we can be friends of God and attain eternal life with Him is to adhere to Jesus Christ, our Redeemer, our Mediator, our Righteousness. Fully aware of our total dependence on His grace, Christ instituted the sacraments, through which He sanctifies our souls in all the needs, individual and social, of our lives.

The Mass is the greatest masterpiece of God’s wisdom and mercy. In it, Our Lord makes present His once-and-for-all sacrifice on the Cross, by the offering of the very same Body and Blood that were offered up to the Father for our salvation. He collapses the 2,000 years that separate us from Calvary and brings us right to His Cross, His holy wounds, His precious Blood, His pierced Heart. When we freely unite ourselves to this offering of Jesus at the hands of the priest, we give to God the glory and honor He deserves, the right worship we owe Him and could never give Him on our own. The Father looks upon us and says: “You have given Me that which pleases Me: My only-begotten Son, in whom I am well pleased.” This is why the Mass is the most perfect prayer, and the most excellent thing we can give to God. St. Peter Julian Eymard, a great French saint of the Eucharist in the nineteenth century, said: “Know, O Christian, that the Mass is the holiest act of religion. You cannot do anything to glorify God more, nor profit your soul more, than by devoutly assisting at it, and assisting as often as possible.”

The Mass is first the offering, in the sacrifice of Christ, of the religious worship we owe the triune God, for His own sake, because He is worthy of it. The Mass is not first of all a meal, though it has elements of a meal in it. Just as priests of the old covenant could partake of the flesh of sacrifices offered to God, so too in the new covenant, the Mass is the sacrifice of a victim to God, of which those who are baptized into Christ’s priesthood are allowed to partake. The Mass is not a reenactment of the Last Supper, as most Protestants (and now many Catholics) believe, but rather a makingpresent of the oblation of the Son of God on the Cross on Good Friday. It is a sacrifice that is also a meal, since Our Lord in the excess of His charity makes it possible for us to partake of the sacrificial victim, so as to share one life, one Spirit, one holiness with Him.

By the Mass, we are brought into the very presence of our divine Redeemer, “the Lamb that was slain,” who is “worthy to receive power, and divinity, and wisdom, and strength, and honor, and glory, and benediction” (Rev 5:12). Hence, before receiving the Eucharist, we must adore the Eucharistic Lord Himself: we would sin if we did not adore Him.[1] To adore is to acknowledge God’s reality, His authority, His kingship, His absolute sovereignty over us. It is to say to Him: “You are first and last, the beginning and the end. I am Yours, I belong to You, I submit myself to You, I desire to do Your will. Make use of me as You wish.” St. Peter in his first Epistle lays out the essence of the Christian life: “Be you also as living stones built up, a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2:5). The common Christian vocation is always to offer oneself—all that one has, and all that one is—to God, to the Father, through the Son, in the Holy Spirit. The Sacrifice of the Altar is the center from which the reality and power of this baptismal priestly self-sacrifice originate.

Our Lord makes Himself really present in the Holy Eucharist for several reasons: first, so that “through Him, with Him, and in Him,” we can make a worthy offering to the divine Majesty, which is our most basic duty as creatures; second, so that we may not be deprived of the strength and consolation of His company on our Christian pilgrimage from birth to death to eternal life; third, so that we may partake of Him, the Bread of Angels, for the life of our souls, and in this way, enter more fully into communion with the other members of His Mystical Body, the Catholic Church. When we receive the Eucharist, we are uniting ourselves to God—and indeed to our fellow Christians—as perfectly as we can in this life. He transfuses the power of His grace into our souls and plants the seed of immortality in our mortal flesh. The Eucharistic liturgy prepares us right here, right now, for eternity. As the French mystic and foundress Mother Mectilde of the Blessed Sacrament (1614–1698) writes:

The Mass is an ineffable mystery in which the eternal Father receives infinite homage: in it He is adored, loved, and praised as much as He deserves; and that is why we are advised to receive Communion frequently, in order to render to God, through Jesus, all the duties we owe Him. This is impossible without Jesus Christ who comes into us in order to accomplish [in us] the same sacrifice as that of the Holy Mass.[2]

Once we realize that the Mass is primarily an offering to God for His glory, we will tend to ask not “What can I get out of it” (even though we do get a lot out of it), but rather, “What should I give to God, and how can I give it to Him in the best possible way?” Ordering our minds and hearts rightly to God is the most basic work we have as creatures, and we will damage ourselves if we fail to do it, or if we do it negligently. When we understand the Mass as the making present of the Sacrifice of the Cross by which perfect worship is given to the Most Holy Trinity and the homage of adoration is paid to the Most Blessed Sacrament, we will then grasp the rationale behind many of the special features of the traditional Latin Mass that help to foster this fundamental attitude of adoration before God. In this chapter I will look at a few key features; others will be discussed in subsequent chapters.[3]

Sonic iconostasis

Visiting a Greek Orthodox or Byzantine Catholic church, you will find an iconostasis, or screen of icons, placed in between the nave and the sanctuary, separating off the “holy of holies” from the rest of the space. The sanctuary represents the divine liturgy in the heavenly Jerusalem, in which we participate “at a distance” while we are still in this life of pilgrimage. Meanwhile the clergy can enter through the iconostasis and go even unto the altar, because they are acting in persona Christi, in the person of Christ and as His representatives—they are mediators who pray on our behalf, carrying our offerings to God and bringing His gifts to us.

For about the first 1,500 years, the Latin West also had symbolic partitions, which took a variety of forms. Curtains were hung around a baldachin* or in front of the sanctuary; steps went up to an elevated altar platform and texts were chanted from large stone structures; later, delicate wooden chancel screens surmounted by a Calvary group (Jesus, Mary, and John) were set up in many Gothic churches. Even when one could see through and follow the motions of the ministers, one was still reminded of many important truths: first, that we are not now where we are called one day to be; that we are separated from God by the fall and by our sins; that we have through Christ (and by means of the work of His visible ministers) the opportunity for reconciliation and communion; that God is both “among us” as Emmanuel, and beyond us as our transcendent and all-holy Lord. Although responsible for all creatures and pointed to with signs, He is not in His own nature accessible to human senses. Referencing St. Paul’s words in Second Corinthians, “we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen; for the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal,” a Benedictine monk writes:

For centuries, it was not possible to see up-close the mysteries of the altar. In certain periods, curtains were drawn at the most important moments of the Mass. Still today, the solemn prayers of consecration are said in the lowest of tones—a whisper—as the drama of the liturgy unfolds. The hiddenness intrinsic to the Mass (with an iconostasis in the Byzantine rite) was common to all liturgies in some form for many hundreds of years; it summoned an atmosphere of mystery. In our age, which demands to see in order to believe, God is offering us a chance to rediscover mystery: the mystery of the Mass’s unseen efficacy (2 Cor 4:18). We must rely on an invisible medicine for our ultimate salvation.[4]

At the time of the so-called Reformation, Protestants objected that the laity were being excluded from worship by a clerical caste who conducted the real work of the liturgy while the congregants stood by, given over to private devotions or idle distractions. This was an unjust accusation, as historians have shown,[5] but partly in response to the Protestant challenge and partly in response to changing aesthetic ideals of the Baroque, the Church in the Counter-Reformation period generally removed such physical barriers from sanctuaries, so that the laity could have an “unimpeded” view of the liturgy.

Nevertheless, a more subtle and, I would argue, equally salutary set of separators remained in place. I like to call it the “sonic iconostasis”—a separator that we hear rather than one that we see. This iconostasis is made up of three elements: the Latin language, Gregorian chant, and silence.

Pontius Pilate’s order that the title “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews” be placed upon the Cross in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin (Jn 19:19–20) suggested to many Church Fathers a special role for these three languages, which they have unquestionably had in salvation history. St. Thomas Aquinas noted that it is fitting that the Roman rite of the Mass, which contains the re-presentation of the Passion of Christ, should employ all three languages: Hebrew in words such as alleluia, Sabaoth, hosanna, and amen, Greek in the Kyrie eleison, and Latin for the rest.[6]

The Christian Latin of the Church was not a commonplace vernacular language but a highly stylized, poetic register, even at a time when many people still spoke Latin;[7] and as the centuries rolled on, it acquired the status of a sacred language, that is, one set apart for divine worship, where we leave behind the everyday and common place, and enter into the sphere of mystery.[8] By the use of a nowarchaic, unchanging tongue, we are taken out of ourselves, out of our own place, time, culture, society, to the foot of the Cross where human salvation was accomplished in its essence. Unlike our everchanging vernaculars, Latin is universal: it does not belong to us, it belongs to all and to none; it is the same everywhere and yet still foreign, like God Himself, who is present everywhere, yet transcendent over all creation. To the extent that any of the Mass eludes our grasp, it reminds us that we will never fully comprehend God, for that would be to reduce Him to our own level. As St. Augustine said: Si comprehendis, non est Deus: “If you can wrap your mind around Him, He isn’t God.”[9]

Gregorian chant is the musical “clothing” in which the Latin liturgical texts are dressed, or better yet, the musical body that the soul of the rite formed for itself during its slow gestation over several centuries. With its unsurpassed variety of modal melodies and its unmetered free rhythm, this chant—instantly recognizable as sacred music—signals that we are in the presence of God and are there to offer Him the incense of our lips and hearts. Pope Leo XIII says: “In truth, the Gregorian melodies were composed with much prudence and wisdom, in order to elucidate the meaning of the words. There resides within them a great strength and a wonderful sweetness mixed with gravity, all of which readily stirs up religious feelings in the soul, and nourishes beneficial thoughts just when they are needed.”[10] There is no other type of music that even comes close to Gregorian chant for the “otherworldliness” that the Mass demands.[11]

Silence—how much we could say about it, without finding adequate words! “My soul waits in silence for God alone: from Him comes my salvation” (Ps 62[61]:1). The profound and prolonged silences of the traditional Latin Mass are like oases where we can find refreshment for our souls. They open up the time and space for encountering God as “more interior than what is innermost in me, and higher than what is highest in me” (St. Augustine).[12] The silence encourages an attentive watching, listening, and pondering. It allows the more complex ceremonies of the usus antiquior to make an impression on us; it frames the words and chants so that they resonate in the vault of our souls. Part of the reason the silences of the old Mass are so poignant is that they result naturally from the very unfolding of the liturgical action, instead of being tacked on to it by awkward suspensions of action; the silence is not an arbitrary “let’s pause for a few moments,” but a saturated environment in which prayer has assumed its rightful priority. Silence is a sort of spiritual prostration of the senses and human faculties in the most climactic moments of the Holy Sacrifice. Without denigrating the actions, chants, and beautiful things we can and should do in the liturgy, we must acknowledge that there are points when we are simply struck dumb. By observing these moments of “dumbness,” we enhance our realization of the unspeakable miracle taking place in the sanctuary, which is the very purpose of the sonic iconostasis.

The Latin Mass comes in different “degrees” or “manifestations”: the Low Mass, which involves little or no music, and is mostly said quietly; the High Mass (also called a Missa cantata*), in which the priest sings the parts meant to be sung; the Solemn High Mass,* in which the priest is assisted by a deacon and a subdeacon,* who have their proper roles and chants; the Pontifical High Mass, in which a bishop is the celebrant, surrounded by many more ministers. All of these will feature silence, especially for the duration of the Roman Canon.*[13]

Eastward orientation

Eucharistic worship ad orientem—that is, with everyone, ministers and congregation, facing eastwards—is not a doctrine, though it has doctrinal foundations and implications; it is not a statement or a text to be analyzed. It is more basic: a bodily posture, a disposition or stance we adopt together, a wordless attitude we take with our entire being, serving as an experiential foundation for much of what we hold to be true about the Mass.

Christians had been worshiping ad orientem for centuries before anyone thought to write down why they did so. In the year 375, St. Basil of Caesarea, one of the greatest Fathers of the Church, speaks of the apostolic custom of “turning to the east at the [Eucharistic] prayer.”[14] This practice found both inspiration and confirmation in Scripture passages that call Christ “the Orient” or say that He ascends to the east, or that He will come from the east. Jesus says of Himself, in Matthew 24:27: “For as the lightning cometh out of the east, and shineth even unto the west: so shall the coming of the Son of man be.” Prophesying the Ascension of Christ, Psalm 67:34 tells us: “Sing ye to God, who mounteth above the heaven of heavens, to the east” (cf. Acts 1:10–11). Zechariah announces the Messiah in this way: “Behold a man, the Orient is his name” (3:8), while Malachi calls Christ “the sun of justice” (3:20). God is called “Light” in 1 John 1:5, and His Son “the true Light that enlighteneth every man that cometh into this world” (Jn 1:9), as the physical sun does. As Origen says in a homily on liturgical prescriptions in the book of Leviticus:

Do not take the statement that “he sprinkles to the east” as superfluous. From the east came atonement for you; for from there is the man whose name is “East,” who became “a mediator between God and man.” Therefore, you are invited by this to look always “to the east” whence “the Sun of Righteousness” arises for you, whence a light is born for you; that you never “walk in darkness” and that that last day does not seize you in darkness; that the night and fog of ignorance not come upon you unawares, but that you always be found in the light of knowledge, always have the day of faith, and always preserve the light of love and peace.[15]

Implicit in the description of King Solomon’s dedication of the first temple is an ad orientem priestly gesture: “And Solomon stood before the altar of the Lord in the sight of the assembly of Israel, and spread forth his hands toward the heavens” (1 Kg 8:22). This verse puts us in mind of the “Sursum corda” in the Preface* dialogue, when the priest raises up his arms to God, gesturing that we should lift our hearts on high, to Him who lives and reigns for ever, enthroned above the cherubim. As St. John’s Gospel teaches us, the location of true worship is the crucified and risen Christ, who as man is the way to the Father’s house, and as God is the destination. So we face east not because we are referencing a particular “sacred place” on earth, such as Jerusalem or Mecca, but because we are turning to the one who is the temple in His body, Christ our Lord, and turning with Him to the Father who is above all (cf. Eph 4:6).[16] The east functions as the cosmic and scriptural symbol of Christ Himself, of His rulership over us, of His return in glory, and of His heavenly kingdom for which we yearn in hope. Proper liturgical orientation also serves as a healthy corrective to the deification of the cosmos and of nature that is such a besetting temptation in modern times, even among Catholics.[17] Thus David Clayton writes: “This is perhaps the most striking and immediate way of symbolizing that we look to and recognize a Higher Power”—higher than ourselves or the cosmos. He continues: “My own conversion was influenced by seeing an ad orientem Mass in which the priest was seen as the head of a body of people, leading us towards a common destination.”[18] When the priest faces the people (versus populum), the resulting “closed circle” effect keeps us occupied horizontally with one another. The priest turning ad orientem, in line with the faithful, diminishes his individuality and ours; it emphasizes that he is standing in for Christ the High Priest and head of the Mystical Body, guiding us to the threshold of the Kingdom. In a way, it removes the eastern wall and directs the interior gaze of the faithful to the heavens that declare the glory of God (cf. Ps 18:2).[19]

The priest’s facing away from the people and towards the altar— usually this means towards the geographical east, the tabernacle, and a prominent crucifix all at once—underlines that he is not doing something directed to the faithful; he is doing something for them, and offering it to God, in His honor and to win grace for His Church. The sight of the priest thus oriented, with his body shielding the miracle that, in any case, the naked eye cannot perceive, harmonizes with the sensible “barriers” already mentioned. It is as if the celebrating priest, configured to Christ by virtue of his ordination, becomes a living iconostasis before the altar: an image standing there, revealing not himself but the Lord. The kind of chasuble customarily worn in the traditional liturgy is more elaborately decorated on the back because it is meant to be seen from behind.[20] The priest disappears into his role, so that, when the servers pick up the edge of the chasuble at the elevations of the Host and the Chalice, we know that we, too, in imitation of the woman suffering the issue of blood, can take hold of the garment of Christ and be healed (cf. Mt 9:20–21; Mt 14:36). In this double elevation, the whole of creation, together with our hearts, is lifted to God, restored to Him in act and in promise.

Cardinal Sarah has spoken beautifully of the connection between silence and ad orientem, in words that emphasize the unbreakable link between external and internal, symbol and reality, liturgical custom and spiritual formation:

Liturgical silence is a radical and essential disposition; it is a conversion of heart. Now, to be converted, etymologically, is to turn back, to turn toward God. There is no true silence in the liturgy if we are not—with all our heart—turned toward the Lord. We must be converted, turn back to the Lord, in order to look at Him, contemplate His face, and fall at His feet to adore Him. We have an example: Mary Magdalene was able to recognize Jesus on Easter morning because she turned back toward Him: “They have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid him. Haec cum dixisset, conversa est retrorsum et videt Jesus stantem. Saying this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there” (Jn 20:13–14).

How can we enter into this interior disposition except by turning physically, all together, priest and faithful, toward the Lord who comes, toward the east symbolized by the apse where the cross is enthroned? The outward orientation leads us to the interior orientation that it symbolizes. Since apostolic times, Christians have been familiar with this way of praying. It is not a matter of celebrating with one’s back to the people or “facing them,” but [a matter of celebrating] toward the east, ad Dominum, toward the Lord. This way of doing things promotes silence.[21]

Density, complexity, simultaneity

Because of the Latin, the chant, the silence, and the eastward orientation, the traditional Mass transmits a strong sense of worship being theocentric (directed to God), and always beyond our complete grasp. This impression is reinforced by its multiple layers of text and ceremonial.[22] Faced with this density, complexity, and simultaneity, man easily intuits that this liturgy cannot possibly be primarily for him; he is finite and he cannot “take it all in.” He concludes—and this, by an easy intuition—that there must be something far above him happening: “Behold, a greater than Solomon here” (Mt 12:42).

Often many things are going on simultaneously, with different ministers exercising different roles and following a line proper to them, as happens in the reality of the cosmos, with its hierarchies of angels and men, and its web of interconnected organisms, particles, forces, and systems. The chanted Introit* soars while the priest and servers recite the prayers at the foot of the altar, and as the priest ascends the altar steps saying private prayers, the haunting melody of the Kyrie begins. St. John Henry Newman perfectly describes the start of Mass:

The celebrant, deacon, and subdeacon, acolytes* with lights, the incense, and the chanting—all combine to one end, one act of worship. You feel it is really a worshipping; every sense, eyes, ears, smell, are made to know that worship is going on. The laity on the floor saying their beads, or making their acts; the choir singing out the Kyrie; and the priest and his assistants bowing low, and saying the Confiteor* to each other. This is worship, and it is far above reason.[23]

Such overlapping of words and actions takes place throughout the Mass. This is all to the good: the more we are surrounded by and immersed in prayer, the more our heart’s aspirations are stirred up and given outlet. We are carried, in spite of the resisting gravity of fallen nature, into prayer, recollection, meditation, repentance, conversion. We stand mysteriously in the presence of the Holy Trinity, Our Lord Jesus Christ, the Virgin Mother, the angels and saints, in a massive density of fellowship and fervent love, to which the whole of God’s creation ministers.

Part of this “density” is the number of symbolic actions and items employed in the traditional Mass. The priest wears more vestments: in addition to the alb, cincture, and chasuble, he places the amice over his shoulders, the maniple on his left wrist, the biretta on his head. Copes, dalmatics, tunicles, and humeral veils will be seen at more solemn functions. As noted above, the vestments are usually more splendid. In comparison with the modern Mass, more prayers are said, more gestures done—signs, both subtle and conspicuous, of faith, devotion, and adoration, such as the priest kissing the altar eight times during the liturgy (instead of only twice),[24] bowing his head to honor God or the saints at significant phrases, making many genuflections before the Blessed Sacrament. There are more items to catch our notice, such as the altar cards, left, right, and center; the missal stand, which moves from right to left and back again, in a small procession of its own that corresponds to different “stations” of prayer; the row of candles with a crucifix at the center. These vestments, prayers, gestures, items, all of them are “prompts” reminding us of why we are there and encouraging us to make an appropriate spiritual response before the great mysterium fidei, the mystery of faith unfolding in our midst. One could even playfully say that these things are like hat pegs or coat hooks on which we can “hang” our thoughts and prayers.

The old rite of Mass often features several orations* (Collects,* Secrets,* and Postcommunions*) because of overlapping feasts or commemorations of lesser saints. For example, a Mass might be offered in honor of the Evangelist St. Matthew but include a commemoration of an Ember Day, because the two happened to coincide. The upshot is that one never feels as if one is “skipping” anything on the liturgical calendar: there’s enough room for all comers. This inclusive and expansive character lends a richness of texture: each year differs in subtle ways from the one before, while yet possessing the dominant notes of stability and comprehensiveness, since there are no options to speak of: the Order of Mass is fixed and the texts to be used are given in the missal, start to finish, as I will discuss in the next section.

A poet and blogger, Kathleen Pluth, notes the calming and fortifying effect of the sonic iconostasis and the seamless, organic density of action:

This taste of heaven, this time out of time, strengthens my heart for the rigors of the Gospel like nothing else has ever done. The receptivity has to do with a certain silence and peace. I experience silence, interior silence, even when there is a great deal of activity, for example at a Solemn High Mass, with its overlapping motions and sounds, with prayers repeated, whispered, announced. It is very calm. I breathe more deeply. Such a quiet peace.[25]

My experience has been the same as hers: the more I assist at the traditional Latin Mass, the more my heart is strengthened to seek holiness and to proclaim it.

Fixed and limited texts

Somewhat paradoxically, given what I just said about density and complexity, the classical Roman rite is at the same time more compact in terms of the amount of text it contains and more predictable in terms of what it will be from day to day. The missal permits almost no deviation from a pre-set routine and calendar, which makes it very easy to grow familiar with its texts and ceremonies once you have gotten over the initial learning curve.[26] I like to say to people: the traditional Latin Mass is like a brick wall when you first come up to it, but if you make the effort to climb over the wall, you will find yourself in a lavish garden with beautiful flowers, neatly aligned pathways, and plenty of benches for pausing and resting.

The classical form of Mass makes a consistent use of ritualized repetition of phrases, sentences, and prayers. The sign of the cross is made many, many times by the priest, and by the people in imitation of him. The Kyrie is said as a ninefold litany: three Kyries for the Father, three Christes for the Son, three Kyries for the Holy Spirit. Outside of Advent and Lent, the Gloria is recited on most days of the year, and the Creed is said more often than in the Novus Ordo. The personal confession of sin by means of the Confiteor is made three times: once by the priest, once by the ministers, and again by the ministers right before Communion. Doxological formulas (e.g., the “Glory be to the Father” and the prayer conclusion “through our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son, who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God forever and ever”) are of high frequency. The host is hailed as an immaculate victim multiple times before and after consecration. The name of Holy Mary is uttered almost a dozen times during Mass.[27] The priest says “Domine, non sum dignus ut intres sub tectum meum, sed tantum dic verbo et sanabitur anima mea”—“Lord, I am not worthy that thou shouldst enter under my roof, but only say the word, and my soul shall be healed”—three times before he receives, and then he says it three times together with the people before distributing Holy Communion. In other words, it is said six times, instead of once. Such repetition gives the distracted person’s soul a chance to catch up with his body, while giving the devout soul a chance to pour out her affection: a single word or touch is never enough for love.

Those who have practiced lectio divina* with the Bible know how much one benefits from the slow assimilation of a chosen text. One must mortify the desire to read too much or to skip all over the place. One has to read and re-read a passage before it opens up and discloses its treasure. In just the same way, the one-year lectionary* of the traditional Roman Missal affords the worshiper time to absorb a certain set of luminous biblical passages, well chosen for their liturgical purpose. Meeting these texts repeatedly, one puts them on like a garment, or assimilates them like food and drink. One begins to think and pray in their phrases.[28]

What happens with the lectionary happens, in turn, with the entire liturgy. The fixity of the classical Roman rite from top to bottom, from Collect to Postcommunion, from Psalm 42 at the start to the Prologue of John at the end, facilitates a liturgical lectio divina that can range over the words of the entire missal, in both its fixed and changing parts.[29] Since there are far fewer variable parts—there is a single Eucharistic prayer, which is used every time, and a limited number of Prefaces; the saints are celebrated usually with Commons* made up of appropriate Scriptural verses and prayers—the worshiper gets to be ever more familiar with the content of the Mass and can penetrate more deeply into its meaning. A daily missal might be somewhat daunting at first, but within a few months, you can be wielding it like a pro.[30]

The liturgical calendar

One is likely to notice quite early on that the calendar of the traditional Latin Mass is considerably different from that of the Novus Ordo.

For one thing, it is much more populated with saints—several hundred (!) more are celebrated or commemorated each year at Mass. This makes for a big difference in the overall “feel,” since the antiphons, prayers, and readings are usually determined by the feastday. The theology at work here is that the saints are the most perfect exemplars of Christ, as He is the perfect image of the Father; so the Mass can be at once hagiocentric (saint-centered) and Christocentric. St. Paul himself says to the Corinthians: “Be imitators of me, as I am of Christ” (1 Cor 11:1). “Gather my saints together to me, those who made a covenant with me by sacrifice” (Ps. 49[50]:5).

The “temporal cycle”—the parts of the year that correspond to the main mysteries in the life of Our Lord Jesus Christ—is more variegated in the traditional calendar. Advent is the same, but Christmas is a longer season: beyond an octave culminating in the feast of the Circumcision, the Twelfth Day of Christmas is marked on January 6 with Epiphany, then Epiphanytide bathes us in the light of the Word made flesh, ending on February 2 with Candlemas.[31] Three weeks before Ash Wednesday there comes a mini-season of preparation for Lent called Septuagesima, which deftly aids in the psychological transition from the joy of Christmastide to the sorrow and penance of Lent.[32] Lent itself yields to Passiontide, when all images are covered in violet veils and the liturgy loses a number of its customary prayers, reminiscent of the stripping away of Christ’s garments to humiliate Him. Passiontide leads into Holy Week and finally the Triduum, where, in addition to the main liturgies, the haunting services of Tenebrae* take place. After Easter and its octave, Paschaltide culminates in Ascensiontide, followed by Pentecost and its octave. The Sundays throughout the year are called either Sundays after Pentecost or Sundays after Epiphany. The ancient observances of Ember Days and Rogation Days afford opportunities to give thanks to God for His natural and supernatural gifts, to do penance for our sins, and to pray for seminarians and novices, vocations, and the newly-ordained.[33]

All this may sound complicated, and in a way it is; but we have to bear in mind that the historic liturgies of Christian peoples have always had features like these, and by entering into them ourselves, we step back into continuity with the Church of the first millennium and even the earliest centuries. What is unusual is not to have a rich calendar of saints and seasons, feasts and fasts.[34] The fact that so many books are now appearing on how to recapture the calendars of Catholics from the stranglehold of secularism and infuse positive Christian meaning into the rhythm of the year is a sign that we have lost our religious and liturgical bearings and feel the need to recover them. The Catholic Church had already figured all of this out a long time ago; our job is to unearth the treasure buried through several decades of incompetent administration of patrimonial goods.

However complicated the old liturgy may be, it’s a good complicated. We don’t have to try to master it with imperialistic ambitions. We just plug ourselves into it, like countless Christians before us. Once we do that, we actually do begin to understand it more, while at the same time realizing that all eternity is not enough to plumb the depths of the temporal cycle, whose mysteries we hope someday to enjoy face to face.

Eucharistic reverence

The traditional liturgy practices, and thereby inculcates, utmost reverence for the Most Holy Eucharist. At High Mass, incense is used four times in an escalating pattern: at the altar during the Kyrie, because it is where the sacrifice will take place; at the Gospel, because it is the Word Himself speaking to us; at the Offertory, because the bread and wine that the priest sets aside exclusively for sacrificial use will become the Victim; and at the elevations of the Host and the Chalice, where we adore the Word-made-flesh.

In order to prevent the scattering of any particles and to remind himself of the awesomeness of what he is doing, the priest holds his thumb and forefinger together after the consecration of the Host and keeps them thus until the careful ablutions after Communion. He bows and genuflects many times towards the Blessed Sacrament. His anointed hands are the only ones that touch the sacred species and distribute them to the faithful, who receive on their tongue, kneeling, in a posture of humble submission. This millennium-old practice of kneeling before the Holy One of Israel, truly present in the Sacrament of the Altar, and of receiving Him on the tongue from the hand of an ordained minister, literally embodies our dependency on God, our lowliness and unworthiness, our need to fall in adoration before the Lord, and our desire for healing and elevation. As Our Lady’s Magnificat proclaims, the creature must first be low—and see itself to be low—in order to be raised up on high by God. In this practice is contained the humility of willing to be fed like a child too small to feed itself. One of the Psalms says, in the person of God: “Open wide your mouth, and I will fill it.” I will fill it. In the supernatural domain, we are all children who need to be fed by the Father, fed with the bread that is His Son.

A Pew Research Center survey in 2019 indicated that two-thirds of Catholics in the United States do not believe in transubstantiation—that is, do not believe that the bread and wine are really and truly changed into the body and blood of Jesus Christ, instead of being merely symbols of Him. Undoubtedly, poor catechesis outside of Mass is part of the explanation, but the single greatest catechizer in the Church is the liturgy itself, as it forms the minds and hearts of worshipers week in and week out. If we have a rite of Mass that does not have us consistently and obviously behaving toward the Eucharist exactly as we would toward the risen Christ Himself (cf. Jn 20:28), then no other solutions will ever fix this problem, with all of the sins that follow in its wake. St. John Henry Newman minces no words:

So natural is the connexion between a reverential spirit in worshipping God, and faith in God, that the wonder only is, how any one can for a moment imagine he has faith in God, and yet allow himself to be irreverent towards Him. To believe in God, is to believe the being and presence of One who is All-holy, and Allpowerful, and All-gracious; how can a man really believe thus of Him, and yet make free with Him? it is almost a contradiction in terms. Hence even heathen religions have ever considered faith and reverence identical. To believe, and not to revere, to worship familiarly, and at one’s ease, is an anomaly and a prodigy unknown even to false religions, to say nothing of the true one. Not only the Jewish and Christian religions, which are directly from God, inculcate the spirit of “reverence and godly fear,” but those other religions which have existed, or exist, whether in the East or the South, inculcate the same.

Worship, forms of worship—such as bowing the knee, taking off the shoes, keeping silence, a prescribed dress, and the like—are considered as necessary for a due approach to God. The whole world, differing about so many things, differing in creed and rule of life, yet agree in this—that God being our Creator, a certain self-abasement of the whole man is the duty of the creature; that He is in heaven, we upon earth; that He is All-glorious, and we worms of the earth and insects of a day.[35]

Elsewhere, speaking of the feelings of “fear and awe,” Newman draws the logical conclusion:

I say this, then, which I think no one can reasonably dispute. They are the class of feelings we should have,—yes, have in an intense degree—if we literally had the sight of Almighty God; therefore they are the class of feelings which we shall have, if we realize His presence. In proportion as we believe that He is present, we shall have them; and not to have them, is not to realize, not to believe that He is present.[36]

Conventional catechesis is good, but it is not enough; what is needed, above all, is a form of liturgy that cries out Real Presence and humbles itself to the dust in adoration. What is needed, in short, is reverential fear. As the Psalmist says: Servite Domino in timore, et exsultate ei cum tremore, “Serve ye the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto Him with trembling” (Ps 2:11). God’s merciful closeness gives us no cause for abandoning reverential fear and expressions of our smallness, dependency, and need for purification; quite the contrary. Speaking of Holy Communion, Mother Mectilde exclaims:

Can there be anything greater? Has Our Lord not extended His love even to excess? Ah! If we had the faith to believe it, and if we would think about how we receive a God of infinite majesty as He truly is, would we not be overwhelmed with reverence?[37]

“Adore ye the Lord in His holy court” (Ps 95:9)

In terms of its atmosphere, the traditional Mass could be described as “kingly.” It includes features reminiscent of court ceremonial because Our Lord Jesus Christ is indeed the King of kings and Lord of lords, the Most High King over all the earth. Scripture speaks of the “court of God” in heaven and how all the blessed are bowing before Him in worship. Heaven is not a democratic convention. Jesus refused an earthly kingdom not because He does not possess power, but because His power is absolute, universal, transnational, and eternal; He did not want to be confined to ancient Israel or to any one age. According to the psalms, He rules over all nations and all men with an iron rod (Ps 2:9), that is, His unbending divine law, which is the firm and strong foundation for our happiness. The Mass points everything to Him, to His Cross and to His glorious reign.[38] “Be thou exalted, O God, above the heavens, and thy glory above all the earth” (Ps 56:6 [57:5]).

If the Mass really is the solemn, public, formal act of adoration, thanksgiving, and supplication offered by Christ the High Priest to the Father, and by His entire Mystical Body in union with Him; if it really is the foremost act of the virtue of religion, by which we offer to God a sacrifice of praise worthy of His glory; if it is the chief expression of the theological virtues of faith, hope, and charity; if it is the kingdom of heaven breaking in to our earthly time and space, the nuptial feast of the King of Kings; if it advances the reestablishment of the entire created universe in its Alpha and Omega—if it is all these things (and it certainly is!), then it follows that we cannot possibly offer the Mass with too much solemnity, lavish on it too much care and reverence, expend too much effort on surrounding it with the beauties of music, art, and architecture. “Let us employ all our care to adore Him well; let us place all our glory in rendering Him the homage we owe Him.”[39]

Thus did Holy Mother Church, century after century, employ all her care in worshiping the Lord, from hidden gatherings of persecuted Christians to the grand basilicas of Constantine, within the great cathedrals of the Middle Ages and the ornate edifices of the Counter-Reformation, through the upheavals of modern Revolutions down to the eve of the Second Vatican Council. Always and everywhere, the holy mysteries were performed, venerated, and received in a continuum of unwavering Catholic faith accompanied by growing theological insight and spiritual devotion that matured into well-established rituals perfectly suited to their content and purpose.

The Fathers of the Second Vatican Council celebrated the Tridentine Mass in all four sessions.[40] They did not vote to retire or abolish this form of Mass, or even to change its most striking features: Latin as the primary language, Gregorian chant as the primary music, the east as a common direction for all worshipers, overlapping hierarchical activity, the temporal cycle in the calendar, Communion received kneeling and on the tongue, and most of the other things mentioned in this chapter.

Noble patriarchs, wayward grandchildren

How, then, did we end up getting, in the late 1960s, a new Mass so different from the Mass prayed by the Church since time immemorial? The answer to that question is closely bound up with the influential “Liturgical Movement” of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This movement to rediscover the central place of the Church’s public worship in the Christian life can be described in terms of three distinct phases, although the boundaries from one to the next were somewhat fluid.

The first phase, exemplified by the pioneering figure Dom Prosper Guéranger (1805–1875) and his great work The Liturgical Year,[41] aimed at a better understanding and celebration of the inherited Roman liturgy through popular explanations and clerical-religious education. The leading idea was to take the treasures we already had and get to know and love them intimately. Guéranger often cited ancient sources to flesh out his commentaries, but without implying that the Church had erred in the medieval and post-medieval development of her liturgy, or that she should revert to these primitive models. This phase coincided with a blossoming of renewed monastic life.

The second phase—of which Dom Lambert Beauduin (1873– 1960), Ildefonso Cardinal Schuster (1880–1954), Fr. Pius Parsch (1884– 1954), and Fr. Romano Guardini (1885–1968) may be taken as representatives—was characterized by outstanding progress in historical, archaeological, linguistic, and theological research. It retained a profound respect for the wealth of tradition but sometimes spoke of medieval and Baroque “deviations” and showed a decided preference for what was (or, at times, was imagined by scholars to be) the most ancient—and therefore, presumably, most “authentic”—practice. This led certain individuals to dabble in experiments that conflicted with ecclesiastical legislation, e.g., celebrating Mass facing the people out of a conviction that this was how the Eucharist was originally celebrated by Christians.[42] The dangerous tendencies of this phase were called out by Pope Pius XII in his 1947 encyclical letter Mediator Dei, which we will discuss in chapter 10.

Despite the encyclical that was meant to put the brakes on, the Liturgical Movement entered a more radical third phase in the fifties and sixties, as more of its members indulged in pastoral experiments and crafted paraliturgies intended to “reach people where they’re at” and “get them involved.” Heavy liturgical reform of the general calendar, the rubrics, and the rites of Holy Week prior to the Second Vatican Council already announced that the attitude of respect for longstanding practice had lost its self-evident force. This third phase combined selective antiquarianism with a utilitarianism that sought above all “the people’s benefit,” understood in activist terms.

All three phases of the Liturgical Movement, be it noted, emphasized lay involvement. The first phase saw it primarily in terms of acquiring education: being initiated into a great tradition that one could explore for a lifetime yet never exhaust, and participating in the liturgy through prayerful engagement with the rites. The second phase strongly promoted the use of hand missals, devotional aids for living the Church year, and popular singing of plainchant. The third phase took an ideological turn, as prominent liturgists embraced the conviction that liturgy ought to be clear, comprehensible, accessible, verbal, linear, and group-oriented: modernized for Modern Man.

Paul VI lent his full papal support to the ideals and plans of this radical phase of the Liturgical Movement. When the ink was barely dry on the Council’s first approved document, the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium (1963), the pope set up a body called the Consilium.* The pope and the Consilium took Vatican II’s call for moderate reform as carte blanche for an unprecedented wholesale reconstruction of the Roman rite in every area— Mass, lectionary, calendar, Divine Office, sacraments, sacramentals, pontifical and papal ceremonies, and so forth. The controversial Vincentian priest and later archbishop Annibale Bugnini (1912– 1982), who worked on a succession of schemes of liturgical reform at the Vatican from 1948 to 1975, could be described as the general contractor of this massive project of demolition and reconstruction.[43]

While we can admit that the reformers were responding to certain problems of their time, we see looking back from our present vantage that they were often mistaken in their theories, naïve in their assumptions, and callous in their pastoral approach. The qualities of easy rational accessibility, immediate verbal comprehension, and community-centeredness are surely desirable in some social situations, but there is ample reason to question whether they suit well the religious ceremonies by which man comes before the God who wrapped Himself on Mount Sinai with voices, flames, the sound of the trumpet, and a dark cloud, wrought wind, rent rocks, shook stone, and whispered words, who names Himself “I AM” and “dwells in light inaccessible”;[44] the worship that leads to communion with the God-Man Christ who baffled His own mother and foster father, who unwithered a man’s hand and withered a fig tree, who blessed little children, raised the dead, drove out merchants with a whip, and sweated blood;[45] the operation of the Spirit who moved upon the face of the waters, descended as a dove from opened heavens, and entered as a violent rushing wind, to rest on the apostles as tongues of fire.[46]

Indeed, prominent voices in favor of liturgical reform, such as Fr. Louis Bouyer (1913–2004), subsequently expressed their regrets and dismay at much of what was done to and with the liturgy.[47] A close associate and disciple of Pius Parsch, Fr. Petrus Tschinkel of Klosterneuburg, admitted in an interview:

Now I can tell you that Pius Parsch would not at all have agreed with the changes of the post-conciliar era. That’s not what he wanted. Yes—(the liturgy) in the mother tongue. That is all, however. But also, the Mass as mystery, as a reality hic et nunc, here and now. . . . After the Second Vatican Council these liturgical forms are nothing but idling: only text after text. Not a trace of internal disposition nor of mystery.[48]

Fr. Tschinkel relates that Guardini, when he received the texts of the new liturgy, looked at them for a long time and then said: “Plumbers’ work!” (Klempnerarbeit).[49] Joseph Ratzinger renders a similarly negative judgment, though in more elegiac language:

The Liturgical Movement had in fact been attempting to . . . teach us to understand the Liturgy as a living network of Tradition that had taken concrete form, that cannot be torn apart into little pieces but has to be seen and experienced as a living whole. Anyone who, like me, was moved by this perception at the time of the Liturgical Movement on the eve of the Second Vatican Council can only stand, deeply sorrowing, before the ruins of the very things they were concerned for.[50]

In any case, we can say that history has moved on and the Church is now in a much different place than it was fifty years ago. If anything, the passage of decades has shown how urgently our traditional Roman liturgy responds to essential and universal human needs as well as needs peculiar to the postmodern era. Although a stubborn Old Guard of Bugninians remains ensconced in many a university chair and chancery office,[51] the energy is with the Ratzingerians, whose banner is Summorum Pontificum and whose motto is “what earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too.” As Dom Alcuin Reid observes:

the reality in the life of the Church at the beginning of the twenty-first century [is] that the usus antiquior is a living liturgical rite in which people—indeed significant and growing numbers of young people—participate fully, actually, consciously and fruitfully in a manner that would have brought great satisfaction to the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council and to the pioneers of the twentieth-century liturgical movement which preceded it.[52]

When Joseph Ratzinger called for a “new liturgical movement,”[53] he seems to have had in mind a new beginning, a movement characterized by the features of the first and healthiest phase, in which filial piety, grateful receptivity, and warm devotion are directed toward a rich heritage developed over twenty centuries of continuous worship—a tradition that should never have been rejected, and, happily, was never entirely forgotten or lost.[54]

“Stand fast and hold to the traditions”

Earlier (p.39) I quoted a blogger; now I would like to quote a valedictorian of Gregory the Great Academy, a boys’ boarding school where students and faculty attend both the classical Roman rite and the Byzantine Divine Liturgy. Here’s what this high school graduate experienced:

Though it was strange at first, I quickly came to fall in love with the structure and the poetry of the [traditional] Mass, and most of all, with the musical traditions that bind East and West into a chorus of divine praise. I came to know anew what I had always known, but never understood: the tradition of my Faith. Much in the same way as I was converted to appreciate the many beauties of the Divine Liturgy, I was drawn into a new understanding of the Roman rite, seeing in its structure a common purpose, which is the purpose of salvation and the depth of the sacred traditions. Through these traditions and the experience of the liturgy, I was brought into a new experience of my place in the divine family and my spiritual heritage. . . . I was thrown headlong into a new world of tremendous meaning and mystery.[55]

The traditional liturgy has great power to “throw us headlong” into a “new world of tremendous meaning and mystery,” inducing in us appropriate attitudes for those standing at the foot of the Cross and on the doorstep of heaven, privileged to be in the flesh-and-blood presence of Our Lord: humility, reverential fear, devotion, contrition, self-abandonment, tranquil joy. With these attitudes, we become the “true adorers” who “adore the Father in spirit and in truth, for such the Father seeks to worship Him” (Jn 4:23).

The Catholic Faith has always taken very seriously the words of the Apostle Paul, who wrote to the Corinthians: “I commend you because you remember me in everything and maintain the traditions even as I have delivered them to you” (1 Cor 11:2), and to the Thessalonians: “So then, brethren, stand firm and hold to the traditions which you were taught by us, either by word of mouth or by letter” (2 Thess 2:15). Our religion is irreducibly a religion of tradition—of what is received, handed down, and passed on. The revival of Catholic tradition is an extraordinary grace of our times, given in response to an alarming forgetfulness of our family history, confusion over our identity, and a feeling of deprivation and rootlessness.

1. St. Augustine’s exact phrase: see Enarr. in Ps. 98:9 (CCSL 39:1385).

2. The Mystery of Incomprehensible Love, trans. a Benedictine Oblate (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2020), 31.

3. Some of the things I will mention are, in principle, able to be done in the context of the Novus Ordo, but they remain seldom-chosen options, and, in any case, they originated with the traditional Latin Mass, where they are required rather than optional.

4. Norcia newsletter, March 30, 2020. The invisible medicine, grace, is indeed given to us under sensible signs; but the fruitful use of these signs rests on faith in that which cannot be seen.

5. The work of Eamon Duffy has put to rest, at least for pre-Reformation England, the conventional view that the medieval liturgy was distant and remote and that the laity had little idea of what was going on. See The Stripping of the Altars: Traditional Religion in England 1400–1580, 2nd ed. (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2005); idem, The Voices of Morebath: Reformation and Rebellion in an English Village, rev. ed. (New Haven/London: Yale University Press, 2003); cf. James Monti, A Sense of the Sacred: Roman Catholic Worship in the Middle Ages (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2012).

6. See In IV Sent., dist. 8, exp. textus.

7. As well as we can surmise, the liturgy in Rome shifted from Greek to Latin in the fourth century under Pope Damasus I (366–384). Henry Sire comments: “We should notice also that the spirit of the new vernacular was the opposite of that in which the vulgarisers of the 1960s did their work. Damasus himself was a fine Latinist, and he took care to write the prayers of the liturgy in a style that looked to the standards of the Roman rhetorical tradition. The Roman Canon,* most of whose text as we have it took shape at this time, may be assumed to be his composition; the same is true of the Collects,* which, like the Canon itself, reflect the fine cadences of classical prose style. Conventions of pagan prayer that go back to Virgil and to Homer find an echo in the Christian prayers, and, in his care to dignify the language of worship, Damasus sometimes substituted an old pagan word for the familiar Christian term. His Latin liturgy was thus an elevated vernacular, one that deliberately made use of archaism to express the sanctities of worship. The result of his artistry has been to give us, in the traditional rite of the Mass, a distinguished expression of the last age of ancient civilisation” (Phoenix from the Ashes [Kettering, OH: Angelico, 2015], 266).

8. For an exceptionally fine treatment of Latin in Catholic worship, see Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 153–78.

9. Cf. Sermon 117, n.5: “We are speaking of God; what marvel, if thou do not comprehend? For if thou comprehend, He is not God. Be there a pious confession of ignorance, rather than a rash profession of knowledge. To reach to God in any measure by the mind, is a great blessedness; but to comprehend Him is altogether impossible” (A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff, Series I, vol. 6: Saint Augustin [New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1888; many reprints], 459).

10. Quoted by Dom Jacques Hourlier, OSB, Reflections on the Spirituality of Gregorian Chant (Brewster, MA: Paraclete Press, 1995), 27; cf. Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 178–89.

11. For an extended treatment of the subject, see my lecture “Gregorian Chant: Perfect Music for the Sacred Liturgy,” Rorate Caeli, February 1, 2020 (also in video form at YouTube and in audio at SoundCloud); cf. my article “Why chant will never die, but will rise again as Church recovers sacredness of her worship,” LifeSite News, November 21, 2019.

12. Or, as another translation has it, “You were more inward than the most inward place of my heart and loftier than the highest”: Confessions, trans. Frank Sheed, 2nd ed. (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2011), III.6.11, 44.

13. The only exception to the silent recitation of the Canon is in the Mass for presbyteral ordination, where the pontificating bishop recites the Roman Canon aloud so that the newly ordained priest(s) may quietly join in with him. This is also the only situation where concelebration occurs in the usus antiquior. For more on the various “degrees” of Mass, see Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 69–74.

14. On the Holy Spirit 27:66, in A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, ed. Philip Schaff, Series II, vol. 8: Saint Basil: Letters and Selected Works (New York: The Christian Literature Company, 1888; many reprints), 41.

15. Origen, Homilies on Leviticus 1–16, trans. Gary Wayne Barkley (Washington, DC: The Catholic University of America Press, 1990), 9.10.2, 199, emphasis added; also found, ironically, in the postconciliar Office of Readings on Monday of the Fourth Week of Lent.

16. See Jn 2:21 and 4:21–24; Acts 17:24; Eph 1:22–23; Heb 9:24.

17. I have more specifically in mind the difference between the Catholic theology of the cosmos as the work of God, in some sense entrusted to man to bring into unity and sanctify by means of prayer, worship, and sacrament, and the cosmology of Teilhard de Chardin, in which God unfolds His own nature through the evolution of the cosmos, carrying man irresistibly to a divine destiny. Teilhardian pseudo-religion has much in common with the New Age movement, which, as Roger Buck shows, has become a pervasive backdrop in modern Western society: see The Gentle Traditionalist Returns. A Catholic Knight’s Tale from Ireland (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019).

18. “Connecting Ad Orientem, Sacred Art, an Ordered Environmentalism, Social Graces, and a Hierarchical Society,” New Liturgical Movement, April 10, 2018.

19. On all of these points, see the unsurpassed treatment in Joseph Ratzinger, The Spirit of the Liturgy, trans. John Saward; commemorative edition with Romano Guardini’s Spirit of the Liturgy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2018), pt. 1, ch. 2 (38– 48); pt. 2, chs. 2–3 (76–98). For a succinct but wide-ranging defense of ad orientem, see Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, ch. 7, “Direction of Prayer,” 141–52.

20. It is most often the Roman style of chasuble—colloquially, a “fiddleback” vestment—that is decorated in this manner, but one will also see the older Gothic style of chasuble bearing similar decoration. Regardless of the style, the traditional Mass with its innate grandeur and focus on the sacrifice at the altar seems to demand magnificent fabrics, patterns, ornaments, and symbols.

21. “Cardinal Robert Sarah on ‘The Strength of Silence’ and the Dictatorship of Noise,” interview at The Catholic World Report, October 3, 2016.

22. In what follows, I draw to some extent on the treatment given in my book Noble Beauty, 219ff.

23. From the novel Loss and Gain, Part 1, ch. 7, quoted in John Henry Newman on Worship, Reverence, and Ritual: A Selection of Texts, ed. Peter Kwasniewski (n.p.: Os Justi Press, 2019), 385.

24. See my article “‘For I Will Not Give You a Kiss as Did Judas’: On Sacred and Profane Kissing,” New Liturgical Movement, April 6, 2020.

25. “Summorum Pontificum at 10,” Chant Café, July 7, 2017.

26. There are minor options: the priest may choose which votive Mass to offer on a ferial day (i.e., a day other than a Sunday or feastday); occasionally the Commons* for certain types of saints offer a choice between two lessons or two Gospels; there are saints or observances that may be celebrated in certain regions. Recently the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith permitted the celebration of saints canonized since 1960 and the use of seven more Prefaces. Nevertheless, the dominant and welcome impression Mass-goers receive is that celebrations of the traditional Mass are far more the same than different, and that the liturgy is not characterized by lots of options within it. Once the Mass starts, it proceeds just as laid out in the missal (both in the altar missal and in the daily missal you might have in your hands).

27. As compared with one to four mentions in the Novus Ordo—commonly, just once. Comparing the obligatory traditional feast of the Holy Name of Jesus with the modern optional memorial of it yields a similar ratio: the sweet Name of Jesus is mentioned 27 times in the traditional Mass of the day, whereas it is mentioned about 7 times in the Novus Ordo version (give or take a few, due to options).

28. See my article “Repetition is the Mother of a Great Many Things,” OnePeter-Five, December 18, 2019. A list of articles on the contrasts between the old and new lectionaries may be found in “The Postconciliar Lectionary at 50: A Detailed Critique,” New Liturgical Movement, May 25, 2019. I return to the topic of the lectionary in chapters 8 and 11.

29. See my article “The Fixity of Liturgical Forms as an Incentive to Prayer and Lectio Divina,” New Liturgical Movement, January 23, 2017.

30. Chapter 3 will talk about different ways of participating fruitfully in the Latin Mass—some of which, be it noted, do not involve the use of a missal.

31. Because of the mobility of Easter, it is possible for Septuagesima to fall prior to Candlemas, in which case Epiphanytide would end sooner.

32. See Michael Foley, “Septuagesima: The Time that Land Forgot,” The Latin Mass 20.1 (Winter 2011): 42–46, republished at Scripture and Catholic Tradition, February 25, 2011.

33. See Michael Foley, “The Glow of the Ember Days,” The Latin Mass 17.4 (Fall 2008), Rorate Caeli, September 23, 2008; “Rogationtide: Rediscovering Yet Another Treasure of Traditional Catholicism,” Rorate Caeli, May 4, 2020.

34. See Gregory DiPippo, “The Faithful Are Not Morons,” New Liturgical Movement, February 21, 2020.

35. “Reverence in Worship,” Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 8, sermon 1, in Newman on Worship, 309–10.

36. “Reverence, a Belief in God’s Presence,” Parochial and Plain Sermons, vol. 5, sermon 2, in Newman on Worship, 217–18. In the context, “feelings” mean sentiments or attitudes, a frame of mind and stance of the will; Newman is not talking about emotionalism, which he criticizes in other sermons.

37. Mystery of Incomprehensible Love, 78.

38. See “A Defense of Liturgy as ‘Carolingian Court Ritual,’” New Liturgical Movement, January 30, 2017.

39. Mother Mectilde, Mystery of Incomprehensible Love, 19.

40. The public meetings of the Council began with solemn liturgies, most often in the venerable Roman rite but also on occasion in various Eastern and non-Roman Western rites as well.

41. Different publishers have kept this masterpiece in print over the years. The most recent edition: Dom Prosper Guéranger, OSB, The Liturgical Year, trans. by Dom Laurence Shepherd, OSB (Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, 2017), 15 vols. Some sections may be found online.

42. We now know that this is not true and that the history is more complicated. For a good overview, see Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, ch. 7, “Direction of Prayer,” 141–52.

43. For an excellent biography that also handily summarizes the liturgical fermentation and change from 1945–1975, see Yves Chiron, Annibale Bugnini: Reformer of the Liturgy, trans. John Pepino (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2018). There was a short period during the Second Vatican Council when Bugnini was not working for the Vatican in an official capacity. He nevertheless remained in Rome, in close contact with all the major players, until he was reappointed as secretary of the Consilium.

44. Cf. Ex 20:18–21; 1 Kg 19:11–12; 1 Tim 6:16.

45. Lk 2:43; Mt 12:13; Mt 21:19; Mk 10:16; Jn 11:43; Jn 2:15; Lk 22:44.

46. Gen 1:2; Mt 3:16; Acts 2:2–3.

47. See The Memoirs of Louis Bouyer: From Youth and Conversion to Vatican II, the Liturgical Reform, and After, trans. John Pepino (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2015), 218–25.

48. See Wolfram Schrems, “The Council’s Constitution on the Liturgy: Reform or revolution?,” Rorate Caeli, May 3, 2018.

49. Ibid. The German colloquialism means work done in a hasty, slipshod way, with inadequate care, and botched results. The reference to a hack plumber doing a mechanical job carries the implication that the reform of the liturgy was approached like the fixing, cutting, adapting, or welding of pieces of metal pipe, rather than as a subtle work of skill on a delicate living reality that would require holiness, discretion, and learning. Klempnerarbeit might also convey in this case a lack of aesthetic value in the misnamed “reforms.”

50. Preface to Alcuin Reid, The Organic Development of the Liturgy: The Principles of Liturgical Reform and Their Relation to the Twentieth-Century Liturgical Movement Prior to the Second Vatican Council, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2005), 11.

51. Notable figures who staunchly support the liturgical reform of Paul VI include Bugnini’s quondam secretary Archbishop Piero Marini (b. 1942), Msgr. Kevin Irwin (b. 1946), Fr. John Baldovin, SJ (b. 1947), Andrea Grillo (b. 1961), Fr. Anthony Ruff, OSB (b. 1963), and Massimo Faggioli (b. 1970).

52. “The older form of the Roman rite is alive and well,” The Catholic World Report, April 3, 2020.

53. Milestones: Memoirs 1927–1977, trans. Erasmo Leiva-Merikakis (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1998), 149.

54. See Fr. Thomas M. Kocik, Singing His Song: A Short Introduction to the Liturgical Movement, rev. and expanded ed. (Hong Kong: Chorabooks, 2019); cf. “The New Liturgical Movement: Urgent Care for a Sick Church,” in Kwasniewski, Noble Beauty, 89–112.

55. “Valedictorian’s Address, Graduation 2017,” posted at the Gregory the Great Academy website, June 2, 2017.

3
A New (Old) Perspective on Active Participation

In the last chapter, I explained how the qualities and features of the traditional Latin Mass can help us to mature as Christians and teach us to pray better by pushing us outside of our comfort-zone, outside of the everyday and commonplace, into a sacred sphere—to some extent throwing us onto our own resources while seeming almost indifferent to us, because the worship is so intently focused on God. Although there are some widespread customs, there are no official rules about how the lay faithful should participate;[1] there seems to be relatively little for the faithful to “do,” and almost nothing for them to say.[2] For this reason, one sometimes hears critics object that the faithful are not “actively participating”: they remain quietly kneeling while the priest prays the Mass up at the altar. People new to the old Mass may say that they “feel lost,” since they cannot hear the priest, who is not talking to them, and cannot follow what is happening, as it is not openly shown to them. As a result, they do not know what they are supposed to be doing.

In a pamphlet called How to Attend the Extraordinary Form, Dr. Joseph Shaw acknowledges that it looks like the faithful are being excluded from the action in the sanctuary, and that this action is not being addressed to them. But he disputes the negative interpretation of the appearances. His explanation is worth quoting at length, because it gives us a key to answering the question: What are we supposed to be doing at the Latin Mass?

It may be a busy church or an empty one, and it may be a Low Mass or a Sung Mass, but the impression created by the Extraordinary Form [EF] for a worshipper used to the Ordinary Form is distinctive. The Mass is taking place in the sanctuary: the priest bows before the Altar, engages in a dialogue with the server, and proceeds to perform a series of prayers and ceremonies at the Altar. There may be singing going on, but it is not led by the priest, and he doesn’t in general appear to take any notice of it, but continues with the Mass while it continues. Members of the congregation may take part in some of the singing, and may make some responses, but except when he preaches, the priest does not even look at them. Many of the ceremonies are partially hidden from view, since the priest is facing away from the nave. Some of the words are said so quietly that even the server kneeling next to the celebrant can hardly hear them. The ones said aloud are in Latin.

Mass seems to be happening over there, in some place set apart from the congregation, and without the congregation’s visible involvement. . . .

If you feel that you are being excluded, in a certain sense you are correct. We in the nave of the church are on the outside of something, but all the same we are looking in. We are, in fact, catching a glimpse of the heavenly liturgy. As the scholar Fr Michel Sinoir writes, noting the parallel with the liturgy of the Eastern Churches: “The [Eastern] iconostasis symbolically is heaven, and its liturgy, which anticipates heaven, is celebrated only by members of the clergy. The nave is symbolically the earth, the abode of men and women who are preparing themselves to enter into glory. This is by analogy the same mystery as that of Christ-the-Bridegroom, renewing in the sanctuary his sacrifice, which is gratefully received by the Church-his-Bride who is still in pilgrimage here below.”

In this way, attending the Extraordinary Form can be understood as the privilege of seeing, from a distance, something of great solemnity and holiness. The things which contribute to the distance between the priest and his doings, and the congregation, are essential to creating the corresponding sense of the sacred. The fact that we can’t see things clearly because the priest has his back to us, the use of Latin, silent prayers, the exclusion of the laity from the sanctuary, except for vested servers: all these things serve to remind us that we are looking in at something very special, from the outside.

The distance here is not a distance of understanding. We can, if we wish, learn all about the ceremonies and prayers; those who learn to serve Mass must do so. We can follow all the texts in a hand missal. Even without doing either of those things, a Catholic attending Mass can, should, and usually does know what is going on, in general terms—it is the Sacrifice of the Mass—and in specific terms—the significance of each part of the Mass.

There is a distance all the same. It is the distance between heaven and earth, between what is holy and set apart, and what is profane, the everyday world: not between the good and the bad, but between the supernatural and the natural. By acknowledging the reality of the distance between heavenly and earthly things, the Extraordinary Form allows us to witness, to experience, heavenly things, and not only to experience them, but also to unite ourselves with them. In other words, by representing, symbolically and dramatically, the chasm which separates us mortals from the things of God, the EF makes it possible to bridge that chasm.

To repeat, the EF marks off the holiness of holy things: they are separated from us, and from all ordinary things. The sanctuary is separated from the nave; the language used is separate from the language of everyday speech; the type of music is a distinct, sacred style; the vestments of the priest are equally special, separate, and sacred. The point of all this is not to keep us away, however, but to draw us in. We can see and hear this special zone, and we unite ourselves to it by our prayer, because we unite our intentions and our prayers to those of the priest celebrating the Mass.

This is spiritual participation in the Mass. By uniting ourselves with something which is palpably holy, it is able to enter us, to transform us, as happens in a special way when we receive Holy Communion.

The Catholic religion contains something astonishing and aweinspiring: the real and living presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament on the Altar, and the Sacrifice Christ made of Himself on Mount Calvary, offered in an unbloody manner in the Mass. Somehow the liturgy of the Mass must impress on the people both that this is what the Faith tells us it is, and also that we are invited to take part in these things. It is not so much a balance which needs to be struck, as a paradox which needs to be emphasised. Yes, it is a fearful thing to be in the presence of God. And yes, we may remain there, sinners as we are, and take part in the Church’s own worship of God, which, because it is Christ’s prayer and offering, is a perfect worship, acceptable to God. The Extraordinary Form does this precisely by not downplaying the holiness and otherness of what is taking place, and of what is present, but by making these qualities, in a certain way, visible. It is the holy nature of these things which we are invited first to acknowledge, and then, to partake in.[3]

What is this “active participation,” anyway?

Tellingly, the first time a pope used the expression “active participation”—it was in Pope Pius X’s motu proprio on sacred music, Tra le Sollecitudini, of November 22, 1903—the emphasis was not on the people or their contribution, but on the nature of the liturgy in which they were summoned to participate. The accent is placed on the objective reality, which must be a certain way in order to make the people’s involvement worthwhile if they are to acquire “the blessing of heaven” and the “true Christian spirit.” St. Pius X writes:

Filled as We are with a most ardent desire to see the true Christian spirit flourish in every respect and be preserved by all the faithful, We deem it necessary to provide before anything else for the sanctity and dignity of the temple, in which the faithful assemble for no other object than that of acquiring this spirit from its foremost and indispensable font, which is active participation in the most holy mysteries and in the public and solemn prayer of the Church. And it is vain to hope that the blessing of heaven will descend abundantly upon us, when our homage to the Most High, instead of ascending in the odor of sweetness, puts into the hand of the Lord the whips wherewith of old the Divine Redeemer drove the unworthy profaners from the Temple.[4]

The pope makes it clear that our first priority is the sanctity and dignity of the temple, the public and solemn prayer of the Church, the most holy mysteries, the homage we make to the Most High. When all this is in order, then the faithful will have access to the “foremost and indispensable font” of the Christian spirit. And if we fail to give God and the things of God the primacy, the pope says we will be putting whips into the hand of Christ to drive us out of the church like intruders on a sacred domain. Astonishing!

The notion of “active (or actual) participation” has been a notorious victim of journalistic oversimplification.[5] Participatio actuosa is “primarily our internal connection with the liturgical action— with what Jesus Christ is doing in his Church in the liturgical rites. This participation is about where my mind and heart are. Our external actions in the liturgy serve and facilitate this.”[6] The word actuosa means fully or totally engaged in activity, like a dancer or an actor who is putting everything into the dancing or the acting; it might be considered “super-active.” But what is the notion of activity here? It means actualizing one’s full potential, entering into possession of a good rather than having an unrealized capacity for it. Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone suggests that a more helpful translation of the word actuosa would be “engaged,” in the sense that “we are present to the liturgical action, allowing it to seep down into the depths of our consciousness.”[7] In contemporary English, “active” means the contrary of passive or receptive, yet from a Christian perspective, these are by no means contrary. In imitation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, I can be actively receptive to the Word of God; I can be actualizing my ability to be acted upon at Mass by the chants, prayers, and ceremonies. As Pope John Paul II explained with incomparable clarity:

Active participation certainly means that, in gesture, word, song and service, all the members of the community take part in an act of worship, which is anything but inert or passive. Yet active participation does not preclude the active passivity of silence, stillness and listening: indeed, it demands it. Worshippers are not passive, for instance, when listening to the readings or the homily, or following the prayers of the celebrant, and the chants and music of the liturgy. These are experiences of silence and stillness, but they are in their own way profoundly active. In a culture which neither favors nor fosters meditative quiet, the art of interior listening is learned only with difficulty. Here we see how the liturgy, though it must always be properly inculturated, must also be counter-cultural.[8]

The traditional Latin Mass, being thoroughly premodern, works counterculturally against those assumptions of the modern West that have proved so corrosive to the Catholic Faith:

• the rationalism that limits understanding to clear and distinct ideas capable of verbal delivery, and thereby eviscerates mystery, humility, and desire;

• the utilitarianism that asks what use we can make of something rather than how we might surrender to a reality that entirely escapes our control;

• the voluntarism that turns free choice into an unmoored selfcreator, neglecting our radical dependence on God’s will and the gift of His grace;

• the minimalism that looks for the quickest, easiest way to “fulfill an obligation” and loses sight of the costly veneration we owe to the Holy;

• the materialism that sees no more in man than his fleshly senses and instincts, ruling out mortification and the longing for spiritual goods.

These attitudes, and others like them, crept pervasively into the reformatory plans of twentieth-century Christians, blinded by optimism and busied with the project of “updating”[9] religion to modern times and tastes. The classical Roman rite is utterly and blessedly anachronistic in that it shares none of these preoccupations. It rides on the strength of sixteen centuries (and more) of otherworldly faith that drove the missions to convert the peoples of the world. It contains the power to supernaturalize our excessively naturalistic minds; it can convert us post-Christian neo-pagans to the timeless liberating truth of the Gospel.

The primacy of Christ’s action

In order to have these effects, the liturgy must reach deep within us, not remaining on the surface level of our words and bodily actions. Dom Alcuin Reid beautifully explains why:

In our word-saturated society we have, perhaps, forgotten that the liturgy is primarily an action, not a discourse. The liturgy is not a set of words read at us, or by us, or with us. It is a rite, a complex of actions, gestures and sounds in given places. Yes, it includes words, but the liturgy’s use of them goes beyond the efficient communication of information and ideas to which we are accustomed. For it is not simply what is said in a liturgical rite that is important; rather, it is what is done that is crucial. And it is not so much what is done by us; no—it is what is done by Almighty God that matters. Something happens in the liturgy which is not of our making. It is into the dynamic of that happening, of that action, that we must place ourselves. That is actual participation in the liturgy.

What is done in the liturgy is done by Christ, not by us. For the liturgy is the worship offered by Christ in His Church through the power of the Holy Spirit to God the Father. It is not something primarily that we do. We certainly, by right of our baptism, are able to participate in that offering. Indeed, it is our baptismal duty to do so to the best of our ability and according to our particular vocation. But the liturgy is first and foremost Christ acting in the world today through the rites of His Church. Because of this, through this, we are able to share in His saving acts—the Redemption He wrought for our sins on the Cross, and the hope of eternal life made manifest in His glorious resurrection. In short, the sacred liturgy is Christ’s saving action in our world today. . . .

The understanding that the liturgy is an action, not a text, and indeed that it is first and foremost the action of Christ Himself, is crucial if I am to participate in any liturgical rite, if I am truly to engage consciously and actually in that action, if I am in fact to pray the sacred liturgy.[10]

How do I hold these two truths together: the liturgy is essentially the action of Christ, yet I am supposed to be an active participant as well? Answering precisely that question, Malcolm Cardinal Ranjith writes:

This kind of participation in the very action of Christ the High Priest requires from us nothing less than an attitude of being totally absorbed in Him. Active participation, thus, is not a giving way to any activism but an integral and total assimilation into the person of Christ who is truly the High Priest of that eternal and uninterrupted celebration of the heavenly liturgy.[11]

The benefit or harm of any involvement of the laity in the liturgy must be assessed by how well or poorly it inserts the Christian into the priestly self-offering of Christ, our union with Him in the mysteries of His earthly life, salutiferous Passion, and eternal glory at the right hand of the Father. Both the traditional Offertory and the Roman Canon emphasize that we are entering into just these realities through the offering of the divine Victim: “Receive, O Holy Trinity, this oblation which we make to Thee, in memory of the Passion, Resurrection, and Ascension of Our Lord Jesus Christ”; “Wherefore, O Lord, we Thy servants, as also Thy holy people, calling to mind the blessed Passion of the same Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord, and also His Resurrection from the dead and His glorious Ascension into heaven…” In the Hebrew and Christian understanding, “remembering” does not mean lingering over a past event in one’s mind, but rather, actually bringing the event into the present moment so that it may exercise power over us, may encompass us in its radiance. “We have seen his glory…” (Jn 1:14). All that we do with our bodies, all that we say, sing, hear, watch, or otherwise experience, should carry us into the root of all mystery: the unfathomable love of God, burning in the Heart of Jesus, for the children of men made unto His image.

Three cheers for spectators and listeners

Thus, I can and should be “active” in the Mass—but in this precise way: by entering into Christ’s action. How do we go about doing this? It will help if we shift our metaphor from doing something to being drawn into something. When we watch a masterful play or listen to an interesting conversation or attend a concert of great music, we may not ever do anything towards it in the external forum—we are not among the actors or musicians on stage, or one of the conversationalists—but we are certainly drawn into it. In such a situation, our properly human activity is vigorous. We can become so absorbed in it that we forget where we are or how much time has passed; our life may be profoundly changed by it.

Some critics say that the laity at the traditional Latin Mass are “reduced to mute, inert spectators.” This judgment is not only unjust, it is also foolishly over-sophisticated, because it fails to appreciate the transformative power of attentive sight and intellectual vision—or, in plain English, just watching something beautiful, and being caught up in it and changed by it.[12] The same can be said for listening to the speech or music of another, absorbing what one hears, and letting it carry one away. The Mass, too, draws us up into itself in this manner; it makes us active by acting on us in certain ways and eliciting a certain response. In an article intriguingly called “The Mass Does Not Teach, Yet We Learn,” Patrick Kornmeyer, having described how much one learns by watching and listening to wiser people having a conversation, then draws a parallel with Mass:

I am a spectator, as a child is a spectator: I watch to learn. I am awestruck at the privilege of “watching the professionals” talk to God and offer Him fitting worship. I watch them take care to move gracefully and naturally, for I too must glorify God in my body. I watch them speak to God, and to us in the sight of God, with an acute propriety resulting from two thousand years of distillation, when they show me how to both intimately whisper to God and announce his mirabilia [wonders] in the Church’s very words and melodies. I learn that there really are some things more important than myself, more important than my ability to understand them, and in certain circumstances more important than my “right” to even hear them. I learn, and thereby I enter, or rather I am assumed, into the priest’s sacerdotal office, so that the priest’s prayer becomes one with my own prayer—if I so choose. The Mass will go on, with or without me. No one is forced to respond, though one can if he so chooses, yet all are invited to meditate interiorly on the joy of the psalmist when he was told: in domum Domini ibimus, “let us go unto the house of the Lord.”

All truth is dense, and this density renders it infinitely fascinating, if I still have a sense of wonder. I may attend a sung Mass and focus on the chanted Propers; I might follow along word for word with the priest’s text; I might cultivate interior acts of virtue, or meditate on a single word or phrase. I may exult in the symmetrical perfection of priest, deacon, and subdeacon moving in perfect harmony from the Introit at the Epistle side of the altar to the Gloria at the middle, seeing in it a glimpse of single yet triune action. I might shudder at the sublimity of the priest qua Christ, ritually exalted and commissioned with uttering the ipsissima verba Christi [the very words of Christ] over the bread and wine; I might be moved to penance when I see the total effacement of the priest insofar as he is a man and is expected to deny himself completely.

I can learn to do this, too, because I have been taught to do so by watching the “experts” do it. The crowning beauty is that the expert is not this particular priest, but the Catholic priesthood and liturgy itself, chiseled through nearly two millennia and surviving the Roman Empire and its fall, the barbarian invasions, the Islamic conquests, the Viking incursions, the Eastern Schism, the Avignon Papacy, the Reformation, the French Revolution, and two World Wars.[13]

Diversity at the service of unity

As Joseph Shaw noted, this approach tends to place a premium on the distinction and separation between clergy and people. Yet if we understand how participation works, we will see a wonderful truth: everyone can do everything in the Mass interiorly, even though the external actions are notably and necessarily differentiated. Only the priest consecrates, and only he elevates the host and the chalice; conversely, only the laity come forward to receive Communion, since the priest receives it where he stands. Externally we are differentiated, as is just and right for a hierarchical body such as the Church, which visibly mirrors the order of the human body and of the cosmos. But interiorly we are united by the one font and apex of all that we are, all that we do, all that we suffer. The external diversity is at the service of the interior unity, just as the difference of sexes is for the sake of the unity and fruitfulness of marriage.

The priest and the people form a kind of mystical organism that is acting in the Mass: the head and the members together. The priest is not my or your “representative” in a democratic sense, but rather, the set-apart minister of Christ, who is our Head. The priest must be other than the people if he is to act on behalf of Christ, who occupies a unique place in the mystical organism. The notion that the priest’s doing something that the faithful don’t or can’t do is somehow in conflict or in tension with the faithful’s dignity and activity is based on a false understanding, for any time either the priest or the people acts, the organism is acting. This is why, according to Church teaching (as Dom Alcuin Reid reminded us), only the baptized can assist at the Mass in the sense of partaking of its prayer, because it is baptism that unites us to Christ as His members. An unbeliever, not being united to Him, is, in truth, merely a spectator or auditor of any liturgy at which he might happen to show up. The liturgists who attack the Tridentine Mass for being clericalist betray an even deeper form of clericalism that does not recognize the dignity of baptism as the entrance into active, transformative, salvific participation.

The work of the laity is to receive the readings actively, to confess their truth in the presence of God: the Epistle, the Gradual,* the Tract* or Alleluia, the Gospel, are not solely didactic but are directed to God as offerings of faith, in the same way that the Credo is an offering to Him who gave us the gift of faith. In the Offertory, we offer the host and chalice at the hands of the priest; in the Canon, we offer the sacrifice and ourselves with it; in Communion, we are joined with Our Lord in the fullest way possible short of the beatific vision. Everything done concerns us; nothing that happens excludes us. In some moments, the priest and the people act towards each other; in others, the priest and the people act together, doing the same things (albeit in different modes).[14]

The Mass calls for a response that goes beyond speech or gestures, beyond the moving of mouth or hands, to the inmost heart. Participatio actuosa calls forth a total response, a full engagement, an investment of all of oneself—intellect and will, imagination, memory, and external senses, soul and body, through interior and exterior acts. The word actuosa tells us: be as active as you can be in the activity of divine worship, which is first and foremost interior— after all, only intellectual beings can worship; brute animals, plants, minerals, are excluded from that noble activity—and then becomes external when and as appropriate for each category of participant. Active participation is not about doing stuff for the sake of doing stuff, or creating new jobs so that people can keep busy. The key aspect, the root of the others, is always interior participation by the exercise of the virtue of faith, through a lively receptivity to the prayer of the Church, through acts of meditation and contemplation, through the movement of charity towards the Divine Lover.

Tradition’s wise pedagogy

It is well known in educational pedagogy that if a teacher wants students to learn something, he has to make them work on it themselves, applying their own powers. The teacher has to present a challenge that pushes them to another level and gives a sense of accomplishment at the end. If something is too easy, it tends to make us unreceptive and uninterested. So, although one can understand why it was thought advantageous to make the Mass simpler, easier, and more immediately accessible—to put all the texts in the common vernacular language so that the people would instantly grasp what was being said—a serious danger comes with this approach. Our everyday language is something we can easily stop paying attention to, like background noise. It can go in one ear and out the other. In a busy place filled with lots of talking, we tend to zone others out; our attention is more likely to be caught by what is strange, what is out of the ordinary. Moreover, if we are being told what to do and held by the hand, we become passive and lose the ability to be self-starters. Think of the best teachers: they ask their pupils to stretch beyond their present limits into future habits. Finally, if we do not have a sense of something important that is hidden and difficult to access, we will never work hard to find it. Critics of socialism point out that it encourages people to rely on handouts, in the process losing initiative, self-respect, and motives for self-improvement. One might say that Catholics, too, have been habituated to a kind of liturgical socialism—implemented, perhaps, with the best of intentions, but nonetheless harmful in the long run to the supernatural economy.

The traditional Latin Mass offers us a many-sided challenge. It challenges my knees, because I have to kneel a great deal more. It challenges my mind, because I have to unlock the mystic meaning of the ceremonies and work at understanding a sacred language. This will take a long time and will not come quickly. It challenges my will, because I have to concentrate, be attentive, and make acts of prayer for myself, in conjunction with a liturgy that takes place, in a certain sense, beyond me and almost unaware of me. From an interior point of view, this Mass requires more effort of the individual worshiper if he is to get anything out of it. Ironically, then, the classical Roman rite makes possible a more active kind of participation, not a less active one. Instead of participation being somewhat automatic or scripted, it has to be intentional, persistent, patient, and long-term. If this willingness is absent, the worshiper will get relatively little out of it—unless, of course, God decides to hit him over the head with special graces, which also happens when we draw near to the holy place.

The long-term benefits of participation in the liturgy are directly proportional to the investment of a certain effort, bodily and spiritual. Spiritual workouts have this much in common with their physical counterparts at the gym: the more we lift, the bigger our muscles become. Unlike physical exercise, however, the most important part of our spiritual training is not what we accomplish by force of will, but what we allow God to do in us: putting ourselves before Him so that He can shape us and strengthen us from deep within, as only He can do. That is what we do at Mass. We put ourselves in a position to receive what Our Lord is ready to give us: Himself, His grace, the gifts and fruits of the Holy Spirit. We need those if we are going to be soldiers for Christ, if we are going to play our individual part in salvation history. The traditional Latin Mass has special ways of putting us before God, heightening our receptivity, and letting Him act on us—ways developed over many centuries of piety. We would be foolish not to take advantage of them.

Nothing we have said is meant to belittle the role of bodily postures and external actions such as speaking or singing. Throughout the twentieth century, the popes encouraged Catholics at High Mass or Solemn Mass to sing the Mass responses and the Ordinary chants—the “Et cum spiritu tuo,” the Kyrie, the Gloria, and so forth. However, these external actions are valuable because they correspond to and strengthen something going on internally— something that proceeds from our understanding and our will, our capacity for truth, our capacity for love. There is little advantage to hearing or speaking or singing words if one’s mind is far away, or if what one is being asked to do is ridiculous, disconnected from the sacred, or merely horizontal in nature, such as one could find (and find better) in a secular club. What is of decisive importance is that the human mind and heart be filled with prayer, so that what we do with our senses and our bodies will be an extension and expression of that prayer, as well as something that helps our prayer to continue and to be fervent.

Where does the body come in?

So far we have seen that liturgical participation is primarily interior and that bodily actions are secondary. However, the body is unquestionably involved in our worship. We are rational animals who depend on our senses for knowledge and communication; what we do with our knees, our tongues, our limbs expresses and reinforces what is in our minds. The Church’s entire sacramental system, centered on the Incarnation (the Word’s “becoming flesh”) and therefore on the Eucharist, rests on the material, bodily, fleshly nature of man as God created it in the beginning. He loves the human body; in the fullness of time He reveals Himself through Christ’s own body and saves us by it. The Mass is not only the most spiritual but the most bodily of all events that take place in our world, since it hinges on the flesh and blood of Christ, the miracle of transubstantiation effected by the Holy Spirit who unites us to the risen Lord. It is the nature of the Mass to be a visible event involving bodies in motion and in repose. Our participation is not supposed to be— and, metaphysically, cannot be—simply invisible or purely spiritual, as we cannot use our minds for a moment without the aid of at least our interior sense powers. More than that, we are where our bodies are; that is why the requirement to attend Mass on certain days cannot be fulfilled by watching a live-streamed Mass from the comfort of our home. Part of what it means to “go to Mass” is to be physically there. A pilgrimage means going somewhere special and reaching it, not reading a map or a travelogue.

The traditional Latin Mass allows a fuller participation in worship because there are more kinds of experience to participate in— verbal and non-verbal, spiritual and sensuous. Many are surprised to learn that the older form of the Mass also involves much bodily action, at least if we follow common customs (since there are no hard-and-fast rules).

At a Low or High Mass, depending on the feast, one will make the sign of the cross up to ten times.[15] The triple sign of the cross is made twice—once at the Gospel, and once at the Last Gospel. One may end up striking one’s breast as many as 18 times.[16] These breast-beatings are no small matter: St. Thomas teaches that venial sins are forgiven when one does this action with a contrite heart.[17] Traditionally-minded Catholics learn to make a slight bow of their heads at every mention of the name of Jesus (and that’s quite a few!), at doxologies, at phrases in the Gloria (“Adoramus te,” “Gratias agimus tibi,” and “Suscipe deprecationem nostram”[18]), and at the “simul adoratur”[19] of the Credo, where we confess the divinity of the Holy Spirit; they may bow more fully at other times during the liturgy, such as when the priest is passing by in procession, at the “Gloria Patri” of the Asperges,* and before and after the thurifer incenses the people. We genuflect at the “Et incarnatus est”[20] of the Creed—every time the Creed is said or sung.[21] We genuflect at the final blessing and at the words “Et verbum caro factum est.”[22] There are also other special occasions throughout the liturgical year when everyone is called upon to genuflect during Mass, such as the Tract every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of Lent, and every day during the Epiphany octave at the moment in the Gospel when the Magi fall before the Christchild with their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.

A Low Mass will typically have the faithful kneeling for long stretches, from the prayers at the foot of the altar to the Gospel, and from the Sanctus to the last Gospel. This demanding discipline keeps us mindful that we are in a special sacred place, taking part in a sacrifice. At a Sunday High Mass, there will be a combination of standing, bowing, genuflecting, kneeling, and sitting, which, together with the signs of the cross, the beating of the breast, the bowing of the head, and the chanting of the responses, amounts to what educators call a Total Physical Response environment: you are thrown into the worship body and soul, and, at almost every moment, something is happening that puts your mind back on what you are doing. Tragically, the Novus Ordo dropped a lot of these “muscular” elements in favor of verbal comprehension and response, which, by themselves, constitute a fairly impoverished form of participation.

Most distinctive of all is the immense reservoir of silence at the center of the Mass, at the Roman Canon. There are, as we know, many forms of silence. Some are negative, an absence of sound, while others are positive, a density of presence: thus we speak of the “pregnant pause”—a pause in which something is gestating, ready to be born. When the priest, instead of “reading out” the Eucharistic Prayer “at” you, is facing east to offer the Canon silently to God, it becomes much easier to pray the words of the Canon in union with him, or to give oneself up to a wordless union with the sacrifice. This makes the Canon of the Mass a time of intensely full, conscious, and actual participation, a pregnant pause in the hustle and bustle of life, an opening through which God enters in a way past all understanding. “The Lord is in His holy temple. Let all the earth keep silence before Him” (Hab 2:20). It may seem that the priest is doing everything and the faithful are doing nothing, but the reality is far different: the disciplined holding of oneself, body and soul, attentive in silence to the heart of the mystery is an eminent way of bringing the whole man into subjection to Christ (cf. 2 Cor 1:5).

The traditional Latin Mass allows for and, in a way, encourages a multitude of approaches to it. There is the person who sits and watches the ceremonial actions, which are beautiful in themselves and full of meaning. Another person likes to follow all the texts in the missal and make them his own. Still another closes her eyes and listens to the chants, the organ, the sound of censer chains clicking, and lets herself float on an ocean of silence. In the traditional Mass there is a sublime integration of music, text, ritual, and silence, a coherent unity of elements, the simultaneous and hierarchical execution of which becomes a vivid reflection of the simultaneous layers and meanings of reality, and, on a purely practical level, makes room for diverse ways of participating on the part of different members of the congregation. Refreshingly, the old liturgy accords a certain freedom and dignity to the layman, whose baptism has equipped him to be a member of “a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s own people” (1 Pet 2:9). The liturgy spreads out a lavish banquet of prayer from which everyone can take all that they please, in the way that suits them best.

Practical ways to participate better

Our analysis has led us, therefore, to a conclusion that flies in the face of conventional wisdom. “Active participation,” in the manner in which it is commonly understood and implemented in the world of the Novus Ordo, may actually foster passivity, immaturity, and superficiality, while the Catholic who, over time, receives in a seemingly passive way all that the traditional liturgy has to give—its dense universe of intertwined symbols offered to the free play of the participant—can actualize his potential for worship to a far greater extent. With time and effort, he will find in the traditional Latin Mass access to a participation more all-encompassing, varied, flexible, and fruitful than the modern liturgy allows.

There are several ways in which we can learn to participate more profitably in the usus antiquior. A daily missal is a great help to our wandering minds during the celebration of Mass. The missal is a powerful means of assimilating the mind and heart of the Church at prayer. Speaking from personal experience, I can say that following the prayers in my missal over several decades has been like enrolling in a continual master class in the “school of the Lord’s service,”[23] forming my mind and giving me a savor for things spiritual, together with exemplars of holiness, ascetical rules, pious aspirations, good resolutions, and an increasing wealth of prayers lodged in my heart.

The printed text serves as a harbor in which to drop the anchor of our attention, and reinforces through the eyes what we are hearing with our ears (when something is being said aloud). We risk missing out on precious gifts of knowledge and piety if we do not—at least sometimes—follow along in the translation. (Eventually we may find that we wish to learn Latin in order to have a still more intimate grasp of the words of the Bride.) The Missale Romanum contains a rich variety of the most perfect prayers ever composed by Christians in love with God and illuminated by His wisdom. In the old Roman rite, many of the texts, such as the Roman Canon and the Collects, Secrets, and Postcommunions, can be traced back to the age of the Fathers of the Church. We can profitably make our own the Offertory prayers, the three prayers said by the priest right before Communion, and the prayers during the ablutions.

There is, nevertheless, no need to try to follow every prayer. Just use the missal to support your own prayer, and whenever you would rather watch and pray in your own words, you are free to do so. It’s good to have understanding, but it’s even better to be united to the ineffable mystery in adoring love. The traditional Mass demands and encourages “ownership” and personal prayer within the social prayer of the liturgy. Joseph Shaw offers some helpful guidelines:

The exact way we participate prayerfully in Mass is left open to us. . . . Prayer, the Church teaches us, is the lifting up of the mind and heart to God, and this can be done in many ways. We can do it by following the prayers of the Mass in a hand missal; we can say other appropriate prayers, which may be found in devotional books; we can say other formal prayers, such as the Rosary; or we can simply contemplate the action of the Mass in a recollected way: knowing what we are witnessing, and uniting ourselves with it. . . . No one should feel a slave to a missal: on occasion, a missal can even feel like a distraction from the Mass. For those new to the Mass, some may find it best simply to experience the liturgy, without the mediation of printed texts. Above all, allow the Mass to speak to you.[24]

Pope Pius XII shows the wide experience and generous heart of a true pastor when he observes that some people may do better, after all, praying the Rosary during Mass:

The needs and inclinations of all are not the same, nor are they always constant in the same individual. Who, then, would say, on account of such a prejudice, that all these Christians cannot participate in the Mass nor share its fruits? On the contrary, they can adopt some other method which proves easier for certain people; for instance, they can lovingly meditate on the mysteries of Jesus Christ or perform other exercises of piety or recite prayers which, though they differ from the sacred rites, are still essentially in harmony with them.[25]

Beyond using a missal and practicing other devotions that connect us to the action of Christ, another important thing we need to do outside of Mass is to keep educating ourselves. The better we get to know that which is worth knowing, the more we are able to love it. No matter how busy our schedules may be, we can find (or rather, we can make) some time each day, be it first thing in the morning or last thing before bed, to read a few pages of a good Catholic book— including works on the traditional liturgy, which is quickly discovered to be an inexhaustible subject of wonder and delight.[26] Many find it useful to look over the readings and prayers of the Mass the night before. A family can read them together on Saturday night, after dinner or before bed, or in connection with the Rosary. The father or mother could offer a few thoughts about the Epistle or the Gospel; or the older children could be asked to talk about them for a little while, to get the mental gears working. It is surprising how much this preparation can help one feel prepared next day at Mass, ready to go one step further in understanding or piety.[27]

Just as we have to school ourselves in Catholic doctrine and labor against our fallen human nature by means of asceticism and conscious aspiration to virtue, so too we need to re-learn our traditions in all their amplitude and richness, if we are going to carry forward not just the legitimate aspirations of recent decades but also the reality and fruits of 2,000 years of Catholicism.

1. Exact rubrics for what the congregation should be doing during Mass were not instituted in the Catholic Church until 1969. To this day, customs for the traditional Latin Mass vary from country to country and even from parish to parish. See my article “Should the Postures of the Laity at the Traditional Latin Mass Be Regulated, Legislated, or Revised?,” New Liturgical Movement, April 27, 2020.

2. There are so-called “dialogue Masses” at which the faithful make the responses with the altar server and say the texts that the choir would sing at a High Mass. Although permitted by the rubrics, this approach has seldom met with an enthusiastic reception in English-speaking countries.

3. Shaw, How to Attend the Extraordinary Form, 9–13.

4. The English translation of Tra le Sollecitudini may be found at the Adoremus website, among other places.

5. In the remainder of this chapter, I take up and develop in a different way the treatment I give to this question in “How the Usus Antiquior Elicits Superior Participation,” Noble Beauty, 191–213; cf. the superb treatment of participation in Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 225–31.

6. Dom Alcuin Reid, “The Liturgy, Fifty Years after Sacrosanctum Concilium,” The Catholic World Report, December 4, 2013, emphasis added.

7. Foreword, Fr. Samuel F. Weber, OSB, The Proper of the Mass for Sundays and Solemnities (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2014), xi.

8. Ad Limina Address to the Bishops of Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska (October 9, 1998), n. 4.

9. See the Glossary, s.v. aggiornamento.

10. See “‘Praying the Liturgy’—A Talk by Dom Alcuin Reid,” New Liturgical Movement, December 3, 2019.

11. “Toward an Ars Celebrandi in Liturgy,” Adoremus online edition 15.1 (March 2009).

12. André Gushurst-Moore observes: “Young people today live in a world of images, even more than words. They can be enslaved through images, or else images can be a source of freedom, a way to a new kind of seeing” (Glory in All Things: Saint Benedict and Catholic Education Today [Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2020], 119).

13. Patrick Kornmeyer, “The Mass Does Not Teach, Yet We Learn,” OnePeter-Five, October 29, 2019.

14. See Pope Pius XII’s unsurpassed explanation of how the faithful offer the Divine Victim at Mass: Encyclical Letter Mediator Dei (November 20, 1947), nn. 85– 104.

15. “In nomine Patris, et Filii, et Spiritus Sancti”; “Adjutorium nostrum in nomine Domini”; “Indulgentiam, absolutionem, et remissionem…”; “Cum Sancto Spiritu” (end of the Gloria); “Et vitam venturi saeculi” (end of the Credo); “Benedictus qui venit” (in the Sanctus); the Confiteor before Communion; at the final blessing; and some add a devotional sign of the cross at the elevation of the Host and the Chalice.

16. Thrice at the “mea culpa” of the servers’ Confiteor; thrice at the Agnus Dei; thrice at the Confiteor before Communion; thrice at the “Domine, non sum dignus”; thrice at the Salve Regina (“O clemens, O dulcis, O pia”); thrice at the “Cor Jesu sacratissimum, miserere nobis.”

17. See “Things That Remit Venial Sins—The Traditional Liturgy Is Full of Them,” New Liturgical Movement, February 8, 2016.

18. We adore Thee… we give Thee thanks… receive our prayer.

19. Who together with the Father and the Son is adored and glorified.

20. And was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary: and was made man.

21. In the Novus Ordo, this is done only on Christmas and Annunciation, when it causes a bit of fussing: it has to be announced beforehand, which diminishes the sacrality of the liturgical rite, and seems awkward. At the Tridentine Mass, nothing need be said: all are accustomed to offer this gesture signifying adoration of the Incarnate Word.

22. And the Word became flesh, and dwelt amongst us.

23. St. Benedict uses this phase in the Prologue of the Rule to describe the form of monastic life he is establishing; but it characterizes equally well the sacred liturgy, the opus Dei, to which the monks are consecrated.

24. Shaw, How to Attend the Extraordinary Form, 14; 16.

25. Mediator Dei, n. 108. The “prejudice” to which the pope refers is the view of some members of the Liturgical Movement that laity cannot participate fruitfully in the Mass without “accidentals” like following along in a hand missal, dialoguing with the priest, and singing hymns.

26. See the select bibliography at the end of this book.

27. Chapters 17–20 give further tips for parents and children.

4
Why Congregations Dwindle

Msgr. M. Francis Mannion offers a theory about why liturgy ought to be in the vernacular: unless people can understand the words of the rite, attendance is sure to dwindle at an alarming rate!

Those who are attached to Latin in the liturgy (mostly in the context of the Tridentine Mass) would do well to attend to what is happening in the Greek Orthodox Church in America. A recent study by George Demacoupoulos of Fordham University proposed that the Greek Church should consider dropping the ancient Greek currently used in the liturgy and move toward English or modern Greek. The principal impetus for this is the fact that congregations are dwindling at an alarming rate due in great part to their incomprehension of the current language of the liturgy. This is especially true of young people, who are unable to connect with the liturgy because of the language problem. I bring this up because of the attachment of some Catholics to the Latin Mass. If they do not know what is going on in the liturgy (even with the use of a Latin/English missal), their attachment is apt to be merely aesthetic. Despite the myth of youthful attachment to Latin, I think the attachment will fade.[1]

In the article, Msgr. Mannion neglects to comment on the embarrassing fact that the greatest exodus in Catholic Church membership since the time of the Protestant Reformation coincided with the progressive vernacularization of the Roman liturgy from about 1964 to 1971—a decline that has continued to the present day, at least in the “advanced” nations, where bishops consolidate and close parish after parish—in spite of a liturgy that is totally comprehensible, inviting and even enforcing popular participation. Nor is Mannion prepared to explain how it can be that Latin Mass communities in the USA have grown from a handful in the 1980s to about 250 in 2007, to over 500 today. This is a pretty good upward trend for a faddish attachment to an alienating ritual, as he might see it. The responses Latin Mass-goers give to tough survey questions suggest that they are here to stay.[2]

We all know that there are many more factors in play than what language the liturgy is in, or whether people participate “actively” in it. There is the question of whether the rites as celebrated evoke the presence of the thrice-holy God, the Lord of heaven and earth, before whom we must bow our heads and bend our knees. There is the question of how much extraliturgical catechesis is being offered (or even whether any instruction worthy of the name is taking place). There is the question of intentional discipleship on the part of the faithful: the more seriously parents practice their faith, whether they are charismatics, traditionalists, or social justice crusaders, the more likely their offspring are to remain committed.

Back to Msgr. Mannion. In the simple Cartesian world of “clear and distinct ideas” in which some liturgists live, the lack of verbal, rational comprehension of liturgical texts will inevitably cause a precipitous decline of worshipers—and anyone who thinks the contrary is suffering from delusions of grandeur, induced by aestheticism. Does this claim hold water?

The assumption that following word-for-word the meaning of liturgical texts and making vocal responses to them is the primary way in which Catholics participate in the liturgy—a view popularized by certain liturgists in the 1950s and 1960s—has since then been subjected to critique from many angles. Sociologists have pointed out that dense, impenetrable, to some extent off-limits religious rituals are a powerful motivator for belief and devotion; psychologists note that archetypal symbolism conveyed in gestures, clothing, and other physical phenomena, not to say the suprarational language of music, are at least as communicative as words, if not more so.[3] Theologians have emphasized (as we saw in the preceding chapter) that liturgy is not so much a human work we do for God as it is a divine work He bestows upon us, allowing us to take part in that which is greater than anything we can grasp or control. This is one of the chief reasons why liturgy as it developed adhered more and more to established ceremonies, texts, chants, and rubrics: all this emphasizes that we are not about our own business, but about the Father’s business, as Jesus said when His parents found Him in the Temple (cf. Lk 2:49).[4]

As noted above, the mainstream Roman Catholic world, like the Greek Orthodox, is also experiencing the loss of worshipers. Yet on Mannion’s account, this should not be happening: our simplified Novus Ordo liturgy in the vernacular is certainly not beyond the reach of most individuals to whom it is addressed. On the hypothesis of rationalism under which they labor, reformatory liturgists will never (one fears) be convinced that the liturgy is sufficiently comprehensible. Instead, they would simplify it again and again, and make the language simpler and simpler, until… what? Until there is nothing left to seek. In what is too easily accessible, there is, or at least seems to be, nothing really worth understanding. The great mystery that saves the world flashes past like a Hallmark greeting. Such a shallow experience generates boredom and disengagement, and confirms in the minds of skeptics that religion is a waste of time. Whatever the problems are that confront the various Eastern Orthodox churches today, their retention of a traditional liturgy is not among them; it is arguably the strongest arrow in their quiver.

Fr. Claude Barthe sees the contrast between ancient and modern as a contrast between that which calls forth faith and that which deflates it:

This [modern] liturgy, which is intended to be “close to the people,” ends up being of no interest to them to the point that they no longer set foot in church. Ironically, the true closeness that a properly understood liturgy establishes between man and God’s incandescent holiness passes through a sense of absolute estrangement. . . . [T]he inherent paradox of the liturgical action is in the fact that it unveils and reveals the mystery while shrouding and hiding it. It hides the presence of the infinite and inscrutable God with veils of respect, forms, and rites; by that very fact it reveals it and brings the soul to this presence in truth. It is an epiphany that hides, the better to manifest itself.

Is a consecration—in the vernacular, on a table set in the midst of the assembly—of bread that will soon be taken in the hand for Communion, better understood in faith than the consecration in the Oriental liturgy, sung amid clouds of incense in a mysterious sacred language behind the veil that has fallen before the iconostasis gate? The question answers itself. In the first scenario you think you understand but you don’t get it, since the closeness that a banal liturgy produces makes a true encounter in faith difficult. On the other hand, the sacred remoteness in the liturgy of Saint John Chrysostom truly brings the soul closer to God. Liturgy is like the luminous darkness in which Moses received divine revelation: at once obscure and dazzling. Put another way, it is like the “bright cloud” that overshadowed the three disciples who witnessed the Transfiguration of their Lord (Mt 17:5).

Take the example of the “Nativity” of the Blessed Sacrament at the heart of the Mass, during the consecration: genuflections; kneeling; torches; incense; bells; sacred linens; precious objects to receive It (chalice and ciborium); the Communion rail at which one kneels, hands under a white cloth, to receive the Host on the tongue; the majestic tabernacle in which It will be reserved. All of this puts one at a remove by means of the respect of adoration, yet at the same time brings one closer by serving the act of faith.[5]

When a love of reverence, beauty, and ceremony is written off as “merely aesthetic,” one knows that one is dealing with a peculiarly modern form of reductionism, according to which sincerity is proved by ugliness or plainness. To critics of a certain generation, the longing for a transcendent and numinous expression of the sacrifice that unites heaven and earth is reducible to nostalgia, sentimentality, or elitism. If that were so, however, wouldn’t one have to write off most of Western cultural and religious history, which produced and rejoiced in extravagant visual and audible fine art for the sake of glorifying God and raising the human soul to the stars? An illiterate peasant who, thanks to the traditional Mass, knows that the Lord God is being adored and joins himself interiorly to this movement would be sanctified, regardless of whether or not he knows the details of “what’s going on.” In contrast, are we so sure that Catholics who hear all the prayers in the vernacular “know what’s going on,” much less make an appropriate response in prayer?

Speaking as a Thomist, I would say people in these conversations fail to make necessary distinctions. Instead of talking about participation as if it is a binary switch (on/off, active/passive), we should admit that there are at least five levels of participation:

1. Present but not paying attention.

2. Hearing and understanding words.

3. Relating to the liturgy as an act of worship: adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, supplication.

4. Joining together understanding (2) and worship (3).

5. Entering mystically into the Christus passus, the Christ who suffered for our sins, as we see in the lives of so many saints. This is compatible with (2), (3), or (4), but goes beyond them in ways that can neither be planned for nor put into words.

For someone stuck at level 1, a liturgy that is linear, modular, and verbose will come across as exceedingly dull, like sitting through a protracted meeting at work. Such a person desperately needs his or her attention to be caught by something out of the ordinary, something unique to the liturgy that will seem strange and offer an opportunity for puzzlement or disturbance of the closed mind. What we want is an uncomfortable seed to be planted that may germinate in memories or dreams. As memory specialists often say, we remember best that which is unusual.

For someone who has progressed to level 2, the usus antiquior presents both challenges and opportunities. It challenges the worshiper to take a more active role in understanding what the liturgy is saying, so that, paradoxically, attendees of Latin liturgy often know more about the liturgical texts from having been forced to do some work to crack them open than attendees at vernacular services know about their texts, in spite of the latter’s easy comprehensibility. Moreover, the guise under which the words are heard—namely, in an archaic, defiantly non-vernacular language with (when properly pronounced) a beautiful flowing sound as of streams or rivers—adds an indefinable mystique to the texts, a religious aura, a sense of set-apartness and elevation.[6] The texts are clothed in special sonic raiment, even as the liturgical ministers are clothed in their hieratic garments.

Let us be clear, however: the mere hearing and understanding of words, or, conversely, the mere hearing and not understanding of words, is not yet an act of prayer. That is why it is certainly possible for someone to sit through an entire Mass, understanding everything in the vernacular or being impressed with the sound of Latin, but never once adoring, repenting, thanking, or supplicating. (This, needless to say, is possible in any liturgy; even the High Masses at St. John Cantius in Chicago are attended by genial agnostics looking to be uplifted by a free concert.)

At level 3, symbols and ceremonies play a particularly crucial role in leading the soul to the four primary acts of prayer with which the liturgy always concerns itself. To take an obvious example, one is far more likely to be induced to adore the Lord in the Holy Eucharist and to examine one’s conscience with contrition before receiving Communion if the Host is surrounded by a rich ceremonial involving bowing, genuflecting, incensing, standing ad orientem, the lifting of the chasuble, the frequent ringing of bells, the regimented behavior of the acolytes, etc. Prompted, one might even say provoked, by actions of that sort (not a single one involving audible words!), it would be much harder to let oneself think that an object of such earnest attention and intense devotion is “no big deal,” or, for that matter, to step forward mindlessly to receive it.

Level 4 would be the ideal for normal circumstances (that is, short of a special grace of contemplation, which is what the final level points to). Here, one understands with some facility the texts of the liturgy, which after a while one knows by heart or by a kind of connaturality, yet one is also highly attuned to its multiple forms of expression and therefore well situated to posit the spiritual acts they call forth. I say this is ideal because it prepares the one assisting at liturgy to savor and enter into the very mysteries themselves that are made present in it.

Although each level involves the support of God’s grace, since we can do nothing supernaturally good without His aid, level 5 points to a moment in which the liturgy simply opens up to contemplation. The absence of this is not to be lamented, just as its occurrence is not to be expected; in a way, it goes beyond the sphere of liturgical action. I have in mind the stories of saints who went into ecstasy during the Mass—often, but not exclusively, the priest offering it. St. Gregory the Great,[7] St. Thomas Aquinas,[8] St. Gertrude of Helfta,[9] St. Philip Neri,[10] and St. Pio of Pietrelcina[11] are well known mystics of the Mass, but there are many others.

It is rather difficult, to be perfectly honest, to imagine level 5 occurring in connection with the Novus Ordo, seeing how stubbornly opposed to contemplation are its operative assumptions and methods. Level 3 is not especially easy to experience either; and this lack threatens level 4. Finally, even level 2 is thwarted by the Novus Ordo because its very simplicity and vernacularity make it so easy for attendees to zone out. One is reminded of the frequent phenomenon in families where children will ask “Have we said grace yet?,” even though the table blessing was said only a few moments earlier. A friend once wrote to me:

From childhood to young adulthood, I assisted at thousands of Novus Ordo Masses. I easily followed along, performed all the motions, said all the responses—with my mind totally disengaged. It was like a bad version of bilocation. I wasn’t there. Very often, I would have no memory of what the readings were or what the homily was about. If there was a Saint, I usually didn’t remember who it was minutes after walking out the door. When I started attending the TLM, everything seemed more meaningful, more meaty, and more memorable. The liturgy softly rains on you and soaks your soul.

Thus, as surprising as it may seem, given the purpose for which it was built, the Novus Ordo tends to facilitate, not full, conscious, and actual participation, but rather its opposite: being present but not paying attention, or what we have called level 1. There is a reason, on the other hand, why ordinary Catholics find the four acts of prayer of level 3 coming more naturally and spontaneously at the usus antiquior; why their knowledge of the text of the liturgy (level 2) tends to be better, since they need to pay more attention and work at it if they are to make of it anything at all; and finally, why it is fitting that this ancient rite should have prepared the souls of the greatest mystics of the Mass to receive from God the gift of contemplation (level 5).

Given these conclusions, which are borne out by the experience of young people today who frequent the traditional Latin Mass (as well as by the tragic testimony of their far more numerous peers who, as statistics show, have simply given up attending the modern Mass), it is more than a little embarrassing to read what Archbishop Annibale Bugnini had to say about the necessity of ridding the world of Latin once and for all:

The Council’s intention [in permitting the vernacular] was to open the treasures of the table of the Word and of the Eucharistic table to the people. Is there anything that is not part of the liturgical action of God’s people? No! Everything belongs to them. Nothing is excluded from their attention and their participation. . . . If, then, the purpose of using the vernacular in the liturgy is to enable the assembly to participate consciously, actively, and fruitfully, there is no justification for using in ANY part of the sacred action a language that the people do not understand.[12]

The irony, of course, is that the treasures of the twin “tables” have never seemed more remote and inaccessible in their true meaning. The redesigning of liturgical action as a work “of the people, by the people, for the people” has resulted in the virtual extinction of liturgy as the objective, solemn, public prayer of Christ for and with His people. The congregation for whose participation all was turned upside-down has been excluded, by the formidable barrier of total transparency, from a deeper engagement with the holy, immortal, awesome, and life-giving mysteries of Christ, which must always elude us in their ineffability, remaining veiled in order to be venerated.[13] The purpose of not using the vernacular—at least in the Western liturgy, which has its own integrity of method—is precisely to stir up in the faithful a better understanding of what they are doing, before whom, and why.

If my analysis is correct—if it is even only partially correct—we may handily dismiss Msgr. Mannion’s prediction that youthful attachment to the old Latin liturgy is ephemeral. The source of the attachment is far more profound than aesthetics, although obviously it has and should have an aesthetic dimension; given the average age of the attendees, it cannot be nostalgia, although no one should dismiss the value of nostalgia properly conceived.[14] Those who visit a Latin Mass parish are likely to see the pews populated not only with silvery heads but with black and brown-haired people, and more babies than all the neighboring parishes combined. Time indeed will tell what is going to fade and what is going to flourish, but if I were a betting man, I know where I’d put my money.

1. “Liturgical Vernacular,” PrayTell, February 9, 2019.

2. See Joseph Shaw, “Huge majority of traditional Mass attendees reject contraception, abortion, gay ‘marriage’: survey,” LifeSite, February 26, 2019.

3. On ritual and symbolism, see Fr. Uwe Michael Lang, Signs of the Holy One: Liturgy, Ritual and Expression of the Sacred (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2015); Fr. Aidan Nichols, Looking at the Liturgy: A Critical View of Its Contemporary Form (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1996); Dom Karl Wallner, “The Profanation of the Sacred and the Sacralisation of the Profane,” Canticum Salomonis, January 10, 2018.

4. Fiedrowicz (Traditional Mass) carefully illustrates this process of ever-growing detail and ritual fixity as he goes step by step through the classical Roman rite.

5. “An Interview with Father Claude Barthe on Setting Up the Extraordinary Form in a Parish,” Letter 68 of Paix Liturgique, February 16, 2016.

6. For an explanation based on the history and symbolic functions of languages, see my article “Why Latin is the correct and fitting language of the Roman Catholic liturgy,” LifeSite, November 19, 2018.

7. Paul the Deacon relates in his 8th-century biography of St. Gregory the Great that the pope—praying for a sign that would convince a woman, skeptical of transubstantiation, that the Lord is truly present in the Eucharist—witnessed during Mass the appearance of human flesh and blood in the host, and that this, when shown to the woman, overcame her lack of faith. Embellished later on into an apparition of Christ in full, the miracle is frequently depicted in Western art.

8. See my article “Golden Straw: St. Thomas and the Ecstatic Practice of Theology,” Nova et Vetera 2 (2004): 61–89.

9. For an example of Gertrudean liturgical mysticism, see my article “The Ninefold Kyrie: An Example of ‘Useless Repetition?,’” New Liturgical Movement, July 30, 2018.

10. See Frederick L. Miller, “Saint Philip Neri and the Priesthood,” Homiletic & Pastoral Review (January 2009): 8–17, republished at CatholicCulture.org.

11. See Gnocchi and Palmaro, The Last Mass of Padre Pio.

12. The Reform of the Liturgy 1948–1975, trans. Matthew J. O’Connell (Collegeville, MN: The Liturgical Press, 1990), 112.

13. See “Why the New Evangelization Needs the Old Mass: Beyond the Long Winter of Rationalism,” in Kwasniewski, Noble Beauty, 3–31, esp. 13–24.

14. See my article “‘What Is Most Deeply Human’: Two Contrasting Approaches to Nostalgia,” New Liturgical Movement, December 30, 2013.

5
The Mass That Demands More, Delivers More

Those who begin attending the traditional Latin Mass are often struck by how much extra effort it costs.

For starters, you are expected to kneel for long stretches of time. There is a lot of silence to get used to (and, for parents, to keep your children relatively quiet in). Sometimes there are lengthy readings, chants, or prayers that may stretch to the limit your capacity for meditation. You might be confused about what words the priest or the schola* is saying or singing, because the hand missal you happened to pick up from a bookcase in the foyer is a couple of thousand pages long, and you haven’t figured out how to use it yet. So much is strange, even overwhelming. The High Mass might last for an hour and a half or longer, depending on the solemnity of the day, the number of communicants, or the volubility of the preacher. Everyone dresses up more; women often wear veils; the atmosphere is more serious. A fellow munching a post-Mass donut might cheerfully volunteer the information that many who come to this Mass try to observe the old Eucharistic fast.* The usus antiquior is premised on asceticism and a reverential beauty in no hurry to be done. This Mass demands a lot of you and your family, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Is it worth the effort?

On the other hand, going to the Novus Ordo can be such a breeze. Everything happens in a logical sequence, step by step—just one thing at a time, with no confusing layering of ritual. The texts are in your own language, so no one gets lost. The music can be better or worse, but you know basically what you’re getting: a fourhymn sandwich with a squirt or two of instrumental relish. The liturgy’s style is not medieval and meandering, but modern and microphoned. We recite the Creed, rather than singing that whole list of doctrines. The church building is full of your friends and acquaintances, so you get the social benefits of chatting before and after Mass. It feels comfortable and homey; the dress-code is relaxed; no one thinks of a lengthy fast before Communion; most receive it in the hand. The children will still squirm or cry, but you’re in and out in an hour. This Mass places “reasonable” demands on you and your family, physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually. It was designed to be easier for Modern Man, and not surprisingly, it is—on the surface.

“Behold, Lord, we have left all things to follow you. What reward shall we have?” said a brash St. Peter to his Master (Mt 19:27). We can ask an analogous question: “Behold, Lord, we have left all the conveniences of a modernized and simplified Mass to follow you in the tradition you bestowed upon the Church. What reward shall we have?”

Those who persevere in attending the traditional Latin Mass discover layers and dimensions of the Catholic Faith of which they would never have become aware if they had not at some point taken a leap of faith by committing themselves to this ancient ritual, the “road less traveled.” Indeed, they find that the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass becomes clearer in its meaning and more potent in its impact. “Thy discipline hath corrected me unto the end: and Thy discipline, the same shall teach me” (Ps 17:36).

First, you come to realize that even after years of attending the Novus Ordo, you had not developed much of a “liturgical interior life”—that is, the ability to rest in the mysteries shining forth in the Mass, to absorb the prayers or Scripture texts, to connect deeply with the Real Presence of the Savior. The usus antiquior makes ample room for the growth of the spiritual life at the pace and in the way most suited to each individual, offering many helps or “handles” for penetrating into the marvels of the Eucharist and of the Church’s liturgical year. It gives you a lot more to pray about and a lot more room to pray in.

After experiencing this for a while, it can be a shock to the system to return to the Novus Ordo and discover that it is pretty much a non-stop extroverted exchange from start to finish, with now the priest speaking, now the congregation, always “something doing,” and never, or rarely ever, an expanse for resting, absorbing, connecting. Even though the classical liturgy has a lot more going on in its minutiae, it operates on broader lines, at a more leisurely pace— an inheritance from the ancient Mediterranean world and the monastery-rich Middle Ages. It offers shelter to the pilgrim and hospitality to the beggar, a gleaming of facets to the artistic, an intricate mesh of symbols to the intellectual, a starry vault to the dreamy. To the working man it offers graced repose, to the simple man an immediate contact with the divine, to the cultured a colorful tapestry for contemplation, to the God-thirsting an endless series of provocations and illuminations, to the contrite repeated opportunities to stir up and express repentance. The Novus Ordo is surprisingly thin on and bereft of these goods—and even if it had a greater abundance of them, its operative principles would interfere with their assimilation.

Second, at the traditional Mass you start to notice a plethora of little things that serve as windows to the infinite and eternal: the ministers bowing at the doxology of the Asperges; the priest kissing the altar time and again; the bowing of heads at certain phrases in the Gloria or the Credo; many signs of the cross made at significant moments; the clink of thurible chains and floating clouds of sweet smoke; the subdeacon holding the paten under the humeral veil; the pregnant silence of the Canon; the lifting of the chasuble at the elevations; the many ringings of bells; the corps of servers with straight backs and folded hands; the touching of sacred vessels and of Christ’s holy Body by ordained ministers alone… All these little things (and the list could go on) are so many signs or calls of love from God, who is drawing us with exquisite gentleness into the depths of His mystery, preparing us for our beatitude with Him. He would never wish to give us anything less than the fullness of the orthodox Faith, in the fullness of its sacral expression.

“Now wait a minute,” an objector might say. “Can we not find the same little things in the Novus Ordo, too?” Yes, with luck, some of them, on a good day, might be present.[1] The problem is that they rarely appear in the Novus Ordo, and when they do, it is with the slightly awkward feel of strangers who have arrived at a casual party vastly over-dressed. They do not belong to the company, and they sheepishly depart. In the old rite, these little things are completely at home; the house belongs to them and they to the house, like lifelong servants at a grand mansion. The combination of prayer, music, and ceremonial, orchestrated by carefully determined rubrics matured over centuries, is both perfectly natural and perfectly supernatural. One can surrender to it, trust oneself to it, be endlessly inspired by it. Dignum et justum est.

Third, by immersing oneself in the ancient Roman liturgy, one’s identity as a Catholic, and the content of Catholicism, become thicker and richer. With the aid of good illustrated books, sound catechesis at home, and patient parenting, your children too will have the opportunity to become more fully Catholic, and their unspoken sense of the reality of the Faith—the powerful reality of the things we say we believe, such as the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament—will grow. This, in itself, is worth everything that it takes to get to the traditional Mass: children will be confronted again and again with unequivocal signs of the holiness of God, the dignity of priests, the set-apart sacredness of the sanctuary, the altar as a place of sacrifice, and the special privilege of receiving the Lord from the anointed hands of His minister, as we kneel along the altar rail, shoulder to shoulder in fraternal fellowship, to receive the precious Body of Jesus.

The traditional liturgy is a trustworthy catechism writ large, in vivid characters, imprinting fundamental truths on the souls of those who attend it—truths for which there is little obvious support in the Novus Ordo, with its permeable democratic “ministries” that allow laypeople and clergy to mix roles and functions, its positioning of the priest over against the people (versus populum) as a “presider” at a social event, its treatment of the altar as a table, its dearth of signs and symbols to catch hold of and elevate the mind, its nearly institutionalized use of substandard church music, its lack of intrinsic silence, its encouragement of informal attitudes, and much else besides.

If we want to avoid all this dreck, we must not dither and secondguess. We must make up our minds to attend the Church’s traditional liturgy, which enshrines the totality of Catholic dogma and responds to man’s deepest religious needs. Whatever our vocation is, whatever our state in life, whatever the state of our soul, we stand to receive a treasure far greater than any sacrifice we might make in order to obtain it. If we are parents with children, we are greatly increasing the possibility that God may give our families the greatest gift after the Most Holy Eucharist, namely, vocations to priestly or religious life—vocations that the traditional liturgy awakens in a disproportionate number of its adherents.[2]

An awakening to the interior life; the finding of dozens of new paths to the knowledge and love of God; the enrichment of one’s identity and faith as a Catholic: this is what the extra effort of attending the traditional Mass wins for attendees. Is it worth it? Is it “reasonable” to place such demands on modern people?

Maybe that is the wrong question to ask, for the truth is better than we expect or deserve. The tradition makes what look like foolish, unreasonable demands, because it aims not at our comfort but at our divinization. It calls us to suffer the Passion and death of a God, to rise with Him in the Resurrection, to ascend into the heavenly places—and accomplishes them efficaciously in mystery. We do well to follow this narrow way that leads to abundant life.

The words of André Gushurst-Moore, describing trends in modern education and the duty of Catholic schools to oppose them, apply with uncanny exactitude to the cultural assumptions behind the liturgical reform of the 1960s and to the countercultural reappearance of the classic Roman liturgy:

Insofar as Catholic schools facilitate the secular culture rather than challenge it, they will adopt utilitarian approaches to course content. . . . If the ends of the course are most importantly to achieve the highest exam results, then course content will be determined by relative simplicity, “relevance” to the pupils’ immediate concerns, superficial connections with the supposed tastes of the young, and all sorts of perspectives designed to require less and less of the pupil and the teacher.

But if the ends of the course are transfigured by the transcendental vision, then inevitably the choice of materials, tests, and tasks will be affected. Here, the Catholic curriculum will certainly be counter-cultural, because a Catholic understanding of the nature of the human will mean a different view of art, literature, science, music, and the rest than prevails within the secular culture and the educational establishment that emerges from it. . . .

This education, while being formative, is not coercive or objectifying, as the pupils are subjects in a world of other subjects. The education is Christ-centered (rather than being childor teacher-centered), since, as Benedict puts it, we “prefer nothing to Christ.” The means, method, or pedagogy is expressed in the “humility” of both pupil and teacher on the sure-footed path to wisdom.[3]

In the school of the old Mass, everyone remains a pupil for his entire life, on the sure-footed path to wisdom. Everyone is humbled by the transcendental vision that escapes our grasp. No one is put on the spot as an object; no one is coerced; the focus always lies elsewhere; there is disciplined freedom. All are subject to the same rule so that, in union with Christ who is subjected to the Father, God may be all in all (cf. 1 Cor 15:28). We are submerged in an entire curriculum that is prerational and suprarational. We are reconfigured by concerns that are deep and distant, but for that reason pierce the heart more sharply than anything “relevant” or “useful.” It requires more and more if we take it seriously, and opens horizons we never knew existed.

Let us return to that conversation between St. Peter and Jesus. What did the Lord reply? “Every one that hath left house, or brethren, or sisters, or father, or mother, or wife, or children, or lands for my name’s sake, shall receive an hundredfold, and shall possess life everlasting” (Mt 19:29). Something like this is true for us, too, especially today. Everyone who has left comforts and real human goods behind—a short drive to the local parish, social camaraderie, smooth relations with family or friends, the sense of being “normal” and mainstream, the naïve security of thinking “it’s all good,” or whatever it may be—shall receive a hundredfold, with a foretaste of the kingdom of heaven in the glory and peace of a Mass that demands more and delivers more.

1. Inexpert visitors to the Brompton Oratory in London, for instance, might mistake the Sunday Novus Ordo “High Mass” for a Tridentine Solemn Mass. But such tridentinized modern Masses count for 1% (at best) of what is to be found at Catholic parishes around the world. Anyone who reads or travels widely will know that in most places the modern liturgy is still stuck in the rut of the 1970s. The fact that a self-consciously contemporary ars celebrandi has dominated for decades at every level and enjoys the support of most members of the worldwide hierarchy— even after decades of attempted liturgical “course corrections” under Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI—means that we are never likely to see the Oratorian approach widely extended. More problematically, the Oratorian High Mass, however well-intended its practitioners, remains a personal conquest of good taste over a Protean liturgical rite; it lacks the ultimate perfection of liturgical worship that consists in receiving a fully-formed rite and enacting it dutifully because it must be so.

2. See my article “Traditional Liturgy Attracts Vocations, Nourishes Contemplative Life, and Sustains the Priesthood,” New Liturgical Movement, May 28, 2018.

3. Glory in All Things, 106–7.

6
The Dire Need for
a “New Habit of Mind”

In a podcast, MIT professor Alan Lightman discusses how technology and modern society have affected the way people spend their time and even how society itself is ordered.[1] Prof. Lightman touches on several dire needs of modern men that, curiously, find a powerful remedy in Catholicism’s traditional worship.

Lightman’s talk begins and ends with an anecdote about a trip he made to Cambodia, when he asked a village woman how long it took her to ride her bicycle every morning ten miles on a dirt road to get stuff for the kitchen. He was surprised when she responded that she hadn’t thought about how long it took. She just took as much time as was needed for the task. Compared to how closely he, as a modern Westerner, monitored “time cost,” he was taken aback that someone could live with a calm indifference to the passage of time. Time for the villager was not a commodity owned and jealously guarded but a natural resource freely spent on whatever most needed it. The only real parallel left in Western society is a sporting event. If an outsider were to ask a fan of football or baseball: “How long will this game take?,” and upon hearing that it will take several hours, asked why, he would receive the reply: “That’s just how long it takes to play the game.”

How long does Mass take? This is a question that seems to be of great importance in the mainstream Catholic world, where people want to “get in and get out” in as “timely” a manner as possible. There is brunch to be made, or a sporting event to get to, or yardwork to be done, or some shopping delayed all week; in any case, who wants to be in church for very long? When I attended Georgetown University for a year (1989–1990), I learned about a Jesuit priest there who was famous for an approximately 11-minute Sunday Mass at 11 pm. It was very popular with students who wanted to “fulfill their obligation.” Later I learned that St. Alphonsus Liguori had judged that a Mass celebrated in less than 15 minutes would be a mortal sin; of course he was speaking of the Tridentine rite, which has more substance to it, but the moralist’s point is still applicable.

We know that Catholics who attend the traditional Latin Mass are a self-selecting group (this already tells us something significant, namely, that those who love liturgy are drawn to its traditional forms!). It is nevertheless worth pointing out that, on the whole, they are much less concerned about “how long Mass is going to take,” and are willing to attend, or even look forward to, lengthy solemn liturgies. Like the Cambodian woman, they are willing to take time to travel the long road to the town and back. Apprehending that the liturgy is the best and most important thing we do as Catholics, they want to spend time with it and on it, like the fragrant expensive nard poured over the feet of Jesus. The mind of the Psalmist is theirs, too: “I shall dwell in the house of the Lord for length of days” (Ps 22:6).

The earlier example of riding a bicycle to market is a humdrum one, connected with necessity. Beyond the realm of need, we spend time on the things and people we love. The saying “time is money” is familiar, but a more correct version of it would be “time is life.” Our life is measured out in time. What we spend time on is what we spend life on. Père Ghislain Lafont applies this truth to prayer:

I remember that one day a novice came to ask me: “But what does it mean to give oneself to prayer? What is praying?” I proposed to him this definition: “To pray is to give time to God.” Time, that is, a quantity measurable on one’s watch, because I believe that time is life. A man who uses his time to pray . . . truly shows to what point this activity directly ordered to God is important to him. It is a manner of laying down one’s life.

Having quoted Lafont, Dom Mark Kirby comments: “Prayer is a sacrifice. A sacrifice requires some matter, something to be immolated. The matter that we immolate in prayer is time.”[2] It does not seem too likely that the Lord will ask us on Judgment Day whether we spent enough of our time on sports, shopping, social media, movies, work, or sleep. It seems more likely He will ask us why we didn’t pray more when we could have done so, or why we didn’t devote ourselves more to caring for other people.

Returning now to Prof. Lightman, I was particularly struck by these remarks of his, which begin 25 minutes into the podcast:

I think that we are destroying our inner world now via the wired world [after having destroyed parts of the natural world]. It’s more subtle, it’s not as obvious, but we’re beginning to document the bad effects of our frenzied, hyperconnected lifestyle. . . . I think that the situation is dire. I think in some ways it’s just as serious as the destruction of our environment, even though it’s partly invisible. And we may already be at the point of no return. . . . We’re losing our ability to know who we are and what’s important to us.

So is there anything that we can do? Somehow we need to create a new habit of mind, both as individuals and as a society. We need a new mental attitude that values our inner reflection, values stillness, values privacy, values personal reflection, that honors the inner self.

Lightman then makes a number of suggestions: for K-12 students, a ten-minute period of silence daily. For all students, more time to reflect on academic work, rather than pumping out assignments. He suggests quiet rooms in offices where people can go to read a book, close their eyes, or pray. For families, the evening meal should be entirely “unplugged.” Everyone should take walks. At the societal level, there should be “screen-free zones.” (This last suggestion was music to my ears. I have noticed over the years that almost every public space—in hotels, restaurants, airports, wherever people gather—is dominated by a giant TV screen. This makes it practically impossible for the center of gravity, the weight of attention, to reside in a book that one might wish to read, or in a conversation among friends.) A last point made by Prof. Lightman is our need for what he calls “unstructured time,” that is, time when we are not being made to do anything in particular, but are free to be alone with our thoughts.

This podcast is especially interesting because it shows a secular thinker noticing a major anthropological crisis and searching for a way out. Implicit in his searching is a sense that the foundation of our society is deeply flawed. Prof. Lightman gives us a glimpse of modern society stumbling around trying to find a way out of the mess it has made owing to its excessively clever technology and its egregiously bad social habits. Are his proposed solutions likely to be effective—or even taken seriously? One could say that they are good, as far as they go, but not radical enough. Will a quiet room in an office make a big difference? Doubtful. Not without some other change in mental disposition. The fundamental decision is how we order our lives. Are we ordering our lives as the world directs, or should we try something else? It is not easy to shed the wiring of modern society.

Lightman says we need to find “a new habit of mind.” Is it not striking how well the ancient Latin Mass and the other rituals of traditional Catholicism, which were once widespread and are beginning to return in our day, embody the slow, reflective, lowtech, hands-on approach Lightman recommends as necessary for sanity and survival? As Matthew Schellhorn once pointed out, the gimmicky work by John Cage, 4’33, which consists of four minutes and thirty-three seconds of non-performance and the ambient sounds of the concert venue, was “written” at a time (1952) when millions of Catholics experienced about this much silence every week during the silent Roman Canon. Cage was hailed by the academic avant-garde as a path-breaking genius, but he was an infantile dilettante compared to Holy Mother Church.

One of the great virtues of the traditional liturgy is that it enables the practice of a new habit of mind that can free humans from their enslavement to superficial things; it reflects the fundamental choice of Christianity to order all things to God, to make time for Him, to make room for Him. The centuries-old liturgy proved itself able to be the axis of Christendom, the burning heart of religious life, the source of strength for marriage and family, the glue of a Catholic society, the focal point of missionary zeal. Can we say the same about the Novus Ordo liturgy, as it is practiced almost everywhere according to a network of assumptions that derive from its built-in features, as understood by its very promulgator?

(I am referring to the fact—which deserves to be better known by proponents of the “reform of the reform”*—that Pope Paul VI by no means intended the new Mass to be celebrated in continuity with the preceding liturgical tradition. In three general audiences, the pope who promulgated the Novus Ordo spelled out what he saw as the manner in which the reformed liturgy was to be properly celebrated, and why it should be so different from how Mass had been offered in the past—even if it meant causing great annoyance or agitation among the faithful.[3])

The radical theocentricity of the classical Roman rite, which has as its counterpart the primacy of the interior life over external activity and phenomena, paradoxically leads to the fullest possible development of the external physiognomy of the rite and the aesthetic phenomena associated with it. This is not a contradiction but a necessary consequence of putting first things first. The Tridentine liturgy makes possible an unstructured interior freedom precisely by its dependable discipline of ritual form and its continual orientation to God. Never does a priest pray as intensely as he does when facing ad orientem and whispering the sacred words; never do laity pray as intensely as when they are kneeling at Mass, letting it envelop their senses and prompt their hearts. Although the classical rite is the most complex and highly structured work of art known to man, its architectural spaciousness offers innumerable points of entry, its creviced solidity provides countless “handholds” to grip on to, and its reliable stability permits a calm continuous relationship with it as one progresses in the spiritual life.

In contrast, under the reign of liturgy designed as a social workshop or “school of Christian sociology,”[4] there will be a perpetual double struggle: worshipers will struggle to recover the theocentricity and interiority that have been lost, and the modern Mass will struggle to acquire the splendor of external features suitable for a sacred action. These features will always seem like “glued-on” accretions rather than emergent properties. Due to its structural simplicity and prejudice for rational verbal communication, the Novus Ordo does not accommodate different “love languages,” styles of learning, and personality types; its variability and rubrical inadequacy make it a shifting target or slippery platform, difficult to engage steadily.

Prof. Lightman’s observations, which are echoed by many commentators on modern society and technology (e.g., Marshall McLuhan, Augusto Del Noce, Ivan Illich, Neil Postman, Mark Bauerlein), fly in the face of the basic assumptions of the liturgical New Order, namely, that modernity is, or contains, a movement of the Holy Spirit that we should embrace. Instead of offering a truthful counterpoint to the worldly spirit, the Novus Ordo regurgitates that worldly spirit under quasi-liturgical trappings. The lost modern man will not find his way back to that which is perennial and, in that sense, unmodern even in the one place he should be able to find it: the liturgy of the Mass.

From this vantage we can see, more clearly than ever, the vital spiritual, psychological, and sociological need in our time for the usus antiquior. The reintroduction of the traditional Mass is not merely a matter of superior aesthetics; rather it concerns all of the crises that we face as a society, as a race, as a planet. The only way forward is a reordering to God. This begins with traditional liturgical rites, Eastern and Western, which instill in man the practice of this ordering, without openly or subtly contradicting it. A key idea here, well understood by the wisdom of Catholic tradition, is that this reordering takes daily effort and work. We must apply ourselves carefully to this work. It goes against the grain of fallen nature. It’s not a whimsical word or sentimental deed now and then that makes the practice effective. The traditional liturgy comes to man’s aid by the steady habitual reordering of our interior and exterior powers, directing them toward the highest objects in the noblest manner. It helps us in this work when, and where, we need help the most. It is folly to set aside that help.

It is sad that the most common reflex for people who become aware of the inner crisis of modern Western society is to turn to Far Eastern or New Age spiritual practices rather than to the exceeding richness of Christian tradition.[5] A friend of mine told me he once met a nice young woman from the American South. She happened to be reading a book on Buddhism. The friend mentioned in passing that Christianity, too, had a rich spiritual and mystical tradition, and gave her some titles to look up. Years later, she wrote to him out of the blue: “Thank you for helping me find my way back to the Catholic faith.”

In spite of decades of churchmen doing their best to obscure, deform, abandon, or proscribe the rich spiritual and mystical tradition of Catholicism, Our Lord will not allow it to be taken away from His Church. Most Catholics do not know it yet, but this tradition is still alive, as health-giving as it ever was and will ever be. We must do our part to make it known and loved.

1. The podcast is available at https://alum.mit.edu/slice/podcast-praise-wasting-time-mit-professor-alan-lightman.

2. “To pray is to give time to God,” Vultus Christi, March 12, 2020.

3. For a close analysis of the three addresses (delivered on March 17, 1965 and November 19 and 26, 1969), see my lecture “A Half-Century of Novelty: Revisiting Paul VI’s Apologia for the New Mass,” Rorate Caeli, April 2, 2019. The 1965 address concerned the versus populum celebration of a mostly-vernacularized and partially dismembered Tridentine Mass, while the 1969 addresses dealt with objections to the Novus Ordo Missae about to go into force. Paul VI and some of the liturgical reformers were willing to concede that monasteries and convents should retain a higher level of liturgy because the religious were well-acquainted with the meaning of traditional rites, which, moreover, suited their contemplative way of life. Sadly, not even the religious proved capable of resisting the lure of modernization and pastoral reductionism.

4. Paul VI’s description of the Novus Ordo in the General Audience of November 26, 1969, n.16.

5. On the history and content of “secular spiritualism” or the New Age religion, see Buck, Gentle Traditionalist Returns.

7
Man Does Not
Live by Bread Alone

Far too often, people will hear a fallen-away Catholic say something like this: “I stopped going to church because I just wasn’t being fed.” What might be meant by this statement? What could we learn from the metaphor of hunger and lack of nourishment?

Those who dwell in the ambit of traditional Catholicism will rarely hear someone say: “I left because I just wasn’t being fed.” The reason for the difference is staring us in the face. Mainstream Catholicism offers a meager diet, while traditional Catholicism offers a banquet.

The problems begin with the Protestantized notion of the Mass as a meal.[1] It is, to be sure, a wedding feast—but it is the bloody nuptials of the Cross that become present in our midst in an unbloody manner. What we are coming together for is not first and foremost a meal, but a solemn sacrifice to God, an offering of adoration, thanksgiving, propitiation, and impetration to the Most Holy Trinity through Jesus Christ the High Priest and Head of His Mystical Body. This is the act of religion into which the Christian is baptized and for which he is empowered on earth, to enjoy its fruits forever in heaven. It is by participating in this act that the Christian is fitted to be intimately united with the Savior in the Sacrament of His Passion, which contains, as St. Thomas Aquinas says, Christus passus, the Christ who suffered for our sins.[2]

A meal, in and of itself, is not an act of worship or of any other virtue connected with the virtue of religion, although it can be an integral part of a series of acts that, taken together, deserve to be called divine worship. Put simply, what human nature needs and desires, and what God demands and deserves, is the immolation of our hearts on the altar of the Cross, in union with the God-Man. This is the union of faith and charity that precedes and indeed permits the one-flesh union of the Eucharistic banquet.

Consequently, the reduction of the Mass to a meal—a reduction characteristic of the views and practices of “progressive” liturgists— turns upside-down the order in which Catholics are to enter into the liturgy.[3] They ought to be entering into it with holy fear, through the gates of abnegation and humility, coming before the mystery of God who irrupts into our midst upon a stone altar of sacrifice, all the while surpassing our every thought and word. The faithful ought to be plunged into hieratic ritual, music, and silence that make skimming the surface or running along easy tracks impossible. They ought to be faced with an unmistakable testimony of their own insignificance and peripherality. They ought to see, feel, hear, smell, that God is more real than anything created because everything created is forced to bow to Him, point towards Him, gather around Him—so that, if He did not exist, the entire content of what we are doing and the manner in which it is being done would be absolutely senseless and downright insane.

None of this, take note, is about meals, food, or drink. That will come later. Eating bread and drinking wine are everyday activities that are taken up by Christ and given a wondrous role to play in the economy of salvation—but only for those who no longer see them as ordinary, who have been so steeped in, so saturated with the ineffable Divine Presence, or so troubled by its absence and their corresponding emptiness, that they are driven to hunger and thirst for God, the living God. “When shall I see Him face to face?” is the inner cry of one who, being studiously ignored by the sacrificing priest who never makes eye contact, is learning the hard lesson that it is not about me, about my “being fed,” my being caressed with a message of comfort or harangued into social awareness.

I will be fed, deeply nourished and satisfied, only when I let go of myself and seek God, who is the soul’s mysterious food. It is the soul that informs the body, and it is therefore the soul with a hearty appetite for grace, which it may desire under many different names and in many different ways, that renders a body susceptible to sacramental nutriment. This is why Jesus says, in a verse Protestants often misquote against the Real Presence: “It is the spirit that gives life, the flesh is of no avail” (Jn 6:63). If we are not present in our souls to the Presence of the Lord, with living faith and actual devotion, our bodily action of walking up to receive a host or drink from a cup will profit us nothing. Nay rather, as St. Paul warns: “He that eats and drinks unworthily, eats and drinks judgment upon himself, not discerning the body of the Lord. Therefore are there many infirm and weak among you, and many sleep” (1 Cor 11:29–30).[4]

Some conclusions are inescapable. Man does not live by bread alone—even the Bread of Life. If we created a religion out of endless Communion services, it would not be a religion suitable for man, nor would it be the religion instituted by Christ. In order to be properly nourished by the living Bread of God, we must be duly prepared to receive it and profit from it. We are prepared through doctrine and devotion, through asceticism and aesthetics. The Latin prayers and chants, the liturgical gestures and postures, praying with Scripture and the Rosary, all of these build up in us an appetite and an aptitude for the Bread of God, and enable its flavor and nutriment to linger in us. We have to exercise the tongue, teeth, jaws, and muscles of our minds before we are ready to exercise those of our bodies, or at least we need to be doing both together; merely eating a sacrament is no guarantee of any efficacy whatsoever. All the eating in the world will not divinize the soul as long as intellect and will are not focused on, engaged with, and tethered to the mysteries out of which the liturgy is woven.

The liturgy woven out of these mysteries will not be just any human attempt at actualizing the virtue of religion, a “do-it-yourself ” liturgy, but will necessarily be one of the traditional liturgical rites of the Church, Eastern or Western. These rites began with the apostles and matured through centuries of men and women exercising this virtue in union with Christ and one another, under the guiding power of the Holy Spirit. Just as man is a body-soul composite, so too is worship a body-soul composite: as the human soul informs the human body, so does tradition inform the “body,” or external manifestations, of the liturgy. If we want a truly Christian liturgy, therefore, its soul must be Catholic, i.e., not a product of a human committee sponsored by ecclesiastical authority, but the result of the organic development of apostolic tradition spread across time and space, and thus truly universal or catholic (kata holos, according to the whole). This is the liturgy to which the Catholic soul is proportioned by its baptism, which not only equips the believer for communion with the entire Church, triumphant, suffering, and militant, past, present, and future, but also inclines him to act and suffer as a member of the whole Body.

It is not surprising, then, that one who has been so equipped and is so inclined by the character of baptism will find it nearly impossible to be satisfied with a liturgy that is not catholic or universal in the manner described—indeed, that is not even liturgical in the full sense of the word.[5] He may not be able to describe the problem; he may not even be consciously aware of the problem as a problem; he may become bored, have doubts, get lazy, drift away, and eventually find himself among the “nones” about whom Bishop Robert Barron speaks voluminously without ever identifying the deepest underlying cause: the dissolution (or, at least, banishment and inaccessibility) of the normal and normative way by which Christians encounter the transcendent mystery of God, the splendor of Christ, the gentle but insistent pull of the Holy Spirit.[6]

The fallen-away is someone who “just isn’t being fed”—and why? It is not religion he is rejecting, nor adoration, nor a quiet place under the Tree of Life; he is rejecting the ersatz religion of the table of plenty, the social trough, the bread and circus. Would that he could encounter religion for the first time! Would that he could worship in fear and trembling, resting at the foot of the glorious Cross, and have nothing to do with “meals” and “suppers” at which, even today, the Son of Man is betrayed!

The pretense has reached Orwellian levels when a Catholic university professor can write a book called Bored Again Catholic: How the Mass Could Save Your Life, in which he accepts, as a given, that the liturgy will bore youths, and then encourages them to “embrace” the boredom. Why do we have to pretend that the Bugnini-liturgy is not at fault—that it is not largely responsible for this epidemic of boredom? Why do we go on as if our situation is the fault of everyone and everything else—as if it has no essential connection with the ill-starred liturgical reform, which went light-years beyond (or beneath) anything broached in the Second Vatican Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy Sacrosanctum Concilium? Does the fact that millions of Catholics walked away in the sixties and seventies, and that the mainstream Church continues to experience paltry success in attracting or retaining young people, really have nothing to do with the radical make-over of our divine worship, to the point that it seemed neither divine nor worshipful? Why is it that, wherever Latin Mass parishes have been established, they are actively growing rather than shrinking?

The evidence is in; we are, in fact, drowning in it. If mainstream authors are prepared to admit that the new liturgy is boring and that young people can hardly be made to be interested in its sleek styling, the debate is over: they are throwing in the towel (and no, I’m not referring to the lavabo*). If, in contrast, young people and young families are found in abundance wherever the traditional Mass has been allowed to take root, they are testifying to the same truth from the opposite angle: this rich majestic old Latin liturgy has a power of attraction, a spirit of mystery, a palpable beauty, a plenitude of prayer, that the modern anorexic version lacks. The one is “fat” and nourishes, the other thin and fails to feed.

Consider the powerful testimony of a young Englishman, Adam Harrison. He had converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism, lost his way spiritually in his twenties, and then tried to get back into his Catholic faith—but found himself stymied by the liturgies he encountered: “Each Novus Ordo Mass that I attended left me uninspired to the extent that I was brought low. I felt thoroughly lost among the thorn bushes, asking myself where was the fire in my soul of the ‘New Evangelisation’ much spoken of in church circles today.”[7] He was on the verge of giving up. He was about to exit a church one day when, by chance (as it seemed), he bumped into a group of people coming in, who told him there was going to be a Latin Mass. He decided to stay out of curiosity. His own eloquent words should tell the rest of the story:

The Holy Mass began and from the very start I was mesmerised. Although I did not understand any of it, my soul did. It was like nothing I had ever experienced before, and, as the Kyrie began, I almost wept with a deep sense of spiritual joy, a joy that stayed with me long after Mass had finished.

I began to attend the usus antiquior every week, learning more about the Faith as I did so. I discovered that the more I learnt about the Mass, the more my love of Jesus increased. Many people say that it is much better to understand the Mass in the vernacular, but through my own experience I would beg to differ. I have been able to connect with Jesus in a more meaningful way during the Old Latin Rite that was not possible before—it put me in a true state of focus. . . . In some way that I cannot quite put my finger on, the transparency of the Novus Ordo somehow seemed to obscure the great mystery of the Mass, with the result that it became virtually meaningless and, quite frankly, boring. The hitherto incomprehensible Latin of the Traditional Rite, however, along with the celebration’s deeply spiritual and reverent dignity, had the opposite effect. The great incomprehensible mystery being made present on the altar at the hands of the priest became very real to me at the deepest level of my being.

Attending my first Latin Mass was like seeing a lighthouse in a storm, giving me a glimmer of hope. I was lost at sea, preparing to give up without even realising it. Whereas attending the Novus Ordo was nothing more than a chore to be dreaded, to be got through at any cost, I now look forward to going along and praying the Old Rite every week, receiving many graces and blessings from God. Becoming a regular congregant at the Latin Mass has led me to take spiritual retreats, singing Lauds and Compline at home, praying the rosary daily, doing charitable work, and much more. All this started with just one usus antiquior, when the Lord kept me in church after a Novus Ordo for just a few minutes out of curiosity, throwing me a lifeline at a crucial moment. The Traditional Rite Latin Mass saved my spiritual life.[8]

Adam is by no means an isolated exception. His story is like that of so many other young adults who have discovered or rediscovered their faith in just the same way. It should not surprise us that “the Mass of Ages,” the classical Roman rite, still feeds God-thirsting souls today, as it has always done, as it will always do. Man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God—including the liturgical tradition He conceived in His wisdom and uttered in His Providence.

1. The new Mass’s explanatory document, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, contained the following definition in its first edition from 1969: “The Lord’s supper or Mass is the sacred assembly or congregation of the people of God gathering together, with a priest presiding, in order to celebrate the memorial of the Lord.” This definition was challenged by the Short Critical Study of the New Order of Mass of June 5, 1969, written by a group of Roman theologians and signed by Cardinals Bacci and Ottaviani (hence, its popular title The Ottaviani Intervention). While the definition was subsequently corrected by command of Paul VI, it is noteworthy that nothing was changed in the new rite of Mass, although it had been designed by the same people who formulated that Protestantized definition. See Chiron, Bugnini, 141–47.

2. See Super Ioan. 6, lec. 6, §964; In IV Sent., d. 8, q. 1, a. 2, qa. 2; ST III, q. 66, a. 9, ad 5 and q. 73, a. 5, ad 2.

3. This reductionism is both theoretical (what certain liturgists think the Mass actually is) and phenomenological (how the liturgy is made to appear sensibly or experientially). In like manner, the correct order that is turned upside-down is an order both ontological (how things are ordered in their being or essence) and psychological (how this order should impress itself on us and be interpreted by us).

4. Catholics who attend the traditional liturgy will have this apostolic warning placed before their consciences at least three times a year. The architects of the Novus Ordo, however, made sure that these verses appear nowhere in the entire liturgy, at any time. See my article “The Omission that Haunts the Church—1 Corinthians 11:27–29,” New Liturgical Movement, April 11, 2016.

5. See my lecture “Beyond ‘Smells and Bells’: Why We Need the Objective Content of the Usus Antiquior,” Rorate Caeli, November 29, 2019.

6. In the 2017 Erasmus Lecture, “Evangelizing the Nones,” published in the January 2018 edition of First Things, Bishop Barron identifies various cultural contributors to modern irreligiosity, while never mentioning the elephant in the room: a watered-down, politically correct liturgy, inculturated into modern secularism and, in turn, contributing to secularization. I suspect that Desiderius Erasmus, had he been able to hear this lecture in a series named after him, would at least have raised a skeptical eyebrow, if not launched full-tilt into a withering satire.

7. “The Traditional Rite saved my spiritual life,” Mass of Ages 202 (Winter 2019), 28.

8. Ibid.

II
Objections & Replies

8
Twelve Reasons Not
to Prefer the Novus Ordo

In an article entitled “Twelve Things I Like About the Novus Ordo Mass,” Fr. Dwight Longenecker, a former Anglican cleric and today a Catholic priest with a wide readership, lists many, if not most, of the reasons Catholics would give were they asked to name what they like about Paul VI’s Mass. (In the next couple of chapters, we will be looking at additional reasons.) Unfortunately, the article betrays minimal knowledge of the history, process, and content of the liturgical reform[1] and of the contrasting richness of the traditional Mass. I shall make a succinct reply to each of his twelve claims.

1. It’s accessible. Having the liturgy in the vernacular helps it to be understood by the people. How can that be a bad thing?

It is characteristic of the rationalism of the Liturgical Movement, based on its Enlightenment precursors, to prioritize immediate verbal comprehension over a more synthetic and holistic understanding of the mystery of faith, which draws on all the senses and appeals to the heart as well as to the intellect. The use of Latin, in addition to being simply what the Western Church has done for over 1,600 years, creates for worshipers a numinous and sacral atmosphere that invites meditation and adoration.

Moreover, seeking the goal of easy intelligibility led the reformers to dumb down much of the content of the Mass so that it might not be “too hard.” What is the heavy price we pay for the “accessibility” of the Novus Ordo? Superficiality and boredom. It’s so accessible that it “fails to grip,” as P.G. Wodehouse would say. This is why we have a new self-help genre on getting over one’s boredom with Mass, and various faddish movements like LifeTeen for pumping it up. In contrast, the traditional Latin Mass is steep, craggy, and sublime, offering the worshiper the kind of challenge that befits his rational dignity and supernatural destiny, and opening up an endless vista of new discoveries in the age-old prayers and gestures.

Finally, no literate person is incapable of using a daily missal, where all the antiphons, prayers, and readings may be found in vernacular translations—but without any attempt at an “official” translation of ancient Latin texts that are impossible to translate perfectly, thus avoiding the intractable battles over what “style” and “register” of vernacular should be used in the liturgy. The major prayers of the Mass are fixed and repeated from week to week, so it is not difficult to follow them, as one can see from wee lads and lasses who do this at the traditional Latin Mass.

2. It’s flexible. We’re supposed to honor Latin as the language of our Church and it is easy enough to integrate a little or a lot of Latin into the Novus Ordo Mass. It is also flexible musically. You don’t have to use Haugen-Haas,[2] hootenanny, and soft rock music. Learn Gregorian chant and polyphony. It fits.

The idea that a liturgy should be a matter of “picking and choosing” among options is foreign to the historical development of Christian liturgy in East and West, which has always been toward greater definition, consistency, and stability of liturgical texts, chants, and ceremonies. A liturgy is a ritual action in which the actors lose their idiosyncratic individuality and adopt a persona that befits the mysteries enacted. The clergy should come across not as the ones steering and coloring the enterprise, but as stewards of a treasure they receive and place humbly before the people; the people, for their part, find it easier to pray when the liturgy is not a moving target, but a sacred routine, ever the same, into which one can enter again and again. This intrinsic quality of good liturgy is absent from the Novus Ordo by design.

Concretely, what does this flexibility end up looking like? We can choose the Roman Canon, that which defines the Roman rite, or a Eucharistic Prayer patterned after a pseudo-anaphora written by pseudo-Hippolytus and finished on a napkin in Trastevere.[3] We can have the chant that grew up for a thousand years with the rite, or some sentimental piano tune by an ex-Jesuit. We can have Mass facing eastward in accord with apostolic tradition (as St. Basil and other Church Fathers testify), or we can try our luck with the novel “closed circle” approach of versus populum. We can have people line up for Communion in the hand like customers queuing for bus tickets, scattering fragments of the Body of Christ hither and yon, or we can place the Lord on the tongue of believers kneeling in a posture of adoration. All this great flexibility! The devil delights in it, since it usually plays in his favor.

Such flexibility has also destroyed the distinction between a Low Mass and a High Mass, as well as the distinction between a High (or sung) Mass and a Solemn High Mass with priest, deacon, and subdeacon. In practice, one usually gets a bizarre mixture of high and low elements with no discernible order or hierarchy, brazenly contrary to constant Roman tradition prior to the Age of Aquarius.[4]

3. It travels well. As much as we love beautiful architecture, music, vestments, and pipe organs, there are times when the Mass is celebrated at camp, in prison, on the battlefield, in a tin hut or on a mission field, a mountaintop or a beach. The simplicity of the Novus Ordo means it can be celebrated more easily in such situations.

This may be the flimsiest of the twelve reasons, given that the greatest missionaries the Church has ever known, as well as military chaplains in many wars (including both World Wars, as can be seen in vintage photos), offered exclusively the traditional Mass and carried on their backs what they needed for it. The only book a priest needs to celebrate the old Latin Mass in its integrity is a compact altar missal, and for a High Mass, a book of chant like the Liber Usualis. To celebrate the new liturgy in anything approaching completeness, one needs the altar missal and the lectionary; firsthand experience as a choir director has taught me that a “sung Mass” in the Novus Ordo requires a veritable library of books and an array of choices.[5]

Online galleries of photos show priests celebrating the traditional Latin Mass outdoors, including on backpacking trips that last for weeks.[6] As Martin Mosebach says, it’s not ultimately the architecture that makes the difference, but the Mass. The great Catholic Mass of tradition takes possession of the place where it is offered and dominates it, while the Novus Ordo brings even a lofty cathedral down to its own impoverished simplism. This is why it usually feels so out of place in the great churches of the past.[7]

It should also give us pause that prisoners respond positively to the Latin Mass coming into their lives.[8] I received a letter from a prisoner in Louisiana who prays the old breviary and is requesting a weekly Latin Mass. Don’t prisoners also deserve and respond to that which is beautiful, rich, and profound? The old liturgy was the cultural and spiritual wealth of the poor, freely available to them. As Mosebach observes:

The great damage caused by the liturgical revolution after Vatican II consists above all in the way in which the Church lost the conviction with which all Catholics—illiterate goatherds, maids and laborers, Descartes and Pascal—naturally took part in the Church’s sacred worship. Up until then, the rite was among the riches of the poor, who, through it, entered into a world that was otherwise closed to them. They experienced in the old Mass the life to come as well as life in the present, an experience of which only artists and mystics are otherwise capable. This loss of shared transcendence available to the most humble cannot be repaired for generations, and this great loss is what makes the ill-considered reform of the Mass so reprehensible. It is a moral outrage that those who gutted the Roman Rite because of their presumption and delusion were permitted to rob a future generation of their full Catholic inheritance. Yet it is now at least possible for individuals and for small groups to gradually win back a modicum of unself-conscious familiarity with even the most arcane prayers of the Church. Today, children can grow into the rite and thus attain a new, more advanced level of spiritual participation.[9]

“Simplicity,” then, is the opposite of a benefit; it’s a flaw. The modern world is already too much awash in abridgements, shortcuts, diet drinks, and lite snacks; we would benefit from the original version, the scenic route, the robust nourishment.

4. There is more Scripture read, and it is read in the language people can understand. How can it be a bad thing for there to be a wider range of Sacred Scripture being made available to the people?

All things being equal, familiarity with more of Scripture is better for the Christian people. But all things are not, in fact, equal.

First, the new lectionary is so cram-jammed with Scripture that it works against familiarity, whereas the ancient lectionary features a more limited number of readings of optimal length and liturgical appropriateness, which encourages a deep familiarity with them. Since the Mass is not meant to be a Bible study, and no Catholic can be expected to acquire a well-rounded understanding of the Bible from the liturgy—even the new lectionary features only 13.5% of the Old Testament and 54.9% of the New Testament outside of the Gospels—the claim that it is better to read more Scripture at the Mass simply begs the question.[10]

Second, the traditional lectionary, as limited as it deliberately is, demonstrably features more of the “tough sayings” of Scripture. It is not afraid to present the wrath of God, the evil of sin, or the danger of sacrilegious Communions—the kind of passages that are frequently skipped over in the new lectionary, in spite of its much greater size. By its own admission, the new lectionary suppresses parts of Scripture that are “difficult” for “modern man” to understand or accept. Thus, it presents less of the total message of Scripture, even as the Liturgy of the Hours* presents a reduced Psalter, expurgated of politically incorrect material.[11]

Third, stuffing more readings into the Mass can leave the faithful with a false sense of security that they are “getting” a lot of Scripture. But if one doesn’t internalize Scripture—and it is very hard to internalize anything in the Novus Ordo—then one isn’t actually getting it, regardless of how much text is printed in the lectionary or how many words are pumped through the speaker system. The Mass is not a one-stop shop where we check off on our To Do list all the pesky things we’re told we’re supposed to do. The traditional Mass, by drawing us into a deeper union with Christ and pulling us deeper into the mysteries of God, builds in our souls a greater inclination to read and pray with Scripture in our personal prayer time outside of Mass. It might prompt us to start praying the Divine Office, with which the meditative and biblically resonant ancient Mass so perfectly harmonizes. As a result, we will no longer view the Bible as a chore to be gotten through, but rather, as an extension of the union we experience when we assist at Holy Mass. If Mass is the presence of the Beloved, then reading Scripture at home is perusing His love letters. First we need to fall in love, and then we’ll want to start up a correspondence.

5. The gospel procession is restored. Moving the book from one side of the altar to the other: that’s not really a procession, is it? In the Sarum rite—the ancient English rite—there were a good number of processions, the gospel procession being one. Nice to have that ancient custom restored.

Fr. Longenecker seems unaware that this element has always existed in the normative form of the old rite, the Solemn High Mass, in which a magnificent Gospel procession starts at the high altar and comes over to the front of the sanctuary, where the deacon chants the Gospel to the north, to symbolize confronting the world of unbelief and evangelizing it.[12] Even in a Missa cantata or sung Mass, the transition from Epistle side to Gospel side is accompanied with candles, incense, and a striking change in chant tone, making it an impressive moment in the liturgy. The Epistle, interlectional chants, and Gospel are all sung from different places and in different tones, emphasizing their distinctiveness, and the homily is given from yet another place, showing that it is didactic or exegetical rather than liturgical, properly speaking.[13] At very nearly every instantiation of the Novus Ordo, on the other hand, one or two readings, a psalm, the alleluia, the Gospel, the homily, and miscellaneous announcements are all read (read) from the same spot—a practice gravely deficient in comparison.

Fr. Longenecker speaks as if the daily Low Mass were the measure of the ancient Roman rite; in reality, it is a slimmed-down monastic devotional version of it. Nevertheless, even in a Low Mass the transition from the Epistle to the Gospel by way of the Gradual and Alleluia, the profound bow at the center and the prayer invoking the prophet Isaias—all conducted upon the altar of sacrifice, where the Word rises up as a sweet fragrance to the Father, showing in a striking way the inherent unity of the “liturgy of the word” and the “liturgy of the Eucharist,” as well as the ordering of the one to the other—is still far more impressive than a priest strolling over to the ambo to read out the Gospel in Nabbish.[14]

6. The Prayers of the Faithful. These are often abused, but when they are well composed and fitting they are a great assistance in leading the people in prayer.

This point gives us the opportunity to identify a recurrent error in Fr. Longenecker’s philosophy, which he shares with all the tinkering liturgists of the mid-twentieth century—namely, that if someone wakes up one day with a “good idea,” a fortiori if he leaps out of bed with a capital idea, we should insert it into the liturgy.[15] It doesn’t matter how things have been done since time immemorial, or how perfectly developed the liturgy is in the order, balance, and content of its parts; our “good ideas” deserve their day in the sun— pontifically legislated, no less!

The General Intercessions were added to the Mass on the basis of the scholarly theory that the early Christian Mass always featured such intercessions, as one finds them in full flower in the Good Friday liturgy. But it is not hard to understand why, with the passage of time, the Good Friday “Mass of the Presanctified” became isolated as a day bearing uniquely archaic features, while the liturgy on other days of the year contented itself with praying for the needs of the Church and the world by means of the many intercessions already present in the Roman Canon and in other parts of the Mass, especially in the multiple orations (Collect, Secret, Postcommunion) that were always a part of the Roman tradition.[16]

In any case, there is no evidence that the Roman liturgy featured lengthy litanies or intercessions along the lines of the Byzantine rite. The “Prayer of the Faithful” as now practiced is just another novelty inserted into the Mass because the experts thought it was a grand idea, plausibly “early-churchy.” Which, as if on cue, brings us to the next point.

7. The Offertory procession is restored. The Offertory procession is an ancient part of the liturgy in which the people of God bring forward the gifts of the altar. That’s a beautiful restoration of an ancient tradition.

The “Offertory procession” as it was revived by the Consilium bears little resemblance to any historical precedent in the West; it is a fanciful creation loosely based on the long-extinct custom of people handing in bread and wine before the service began. Its current form seems to be another method for giving jobs to lay people, like the Works Progress Administration for the unemployed in the Depression.[17]

Besides, Pope Pius XII warned liturgists against the “exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism” of those “who, in matters liturgical, would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity, discarding the new patterns introduced by the disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation.”[18] In other words, the fact that something seems to have been done a thousand years ago or more is no compelling reason to reintroduce it today, when it would certainly take on a different meaning based on the very different context in which it is performed. The same pope explained:

Ancient usage must not be esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity. . . . It is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive table form; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer’s body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts.[19]

Curious, isn’t it, how every example given by Pius XII as a case of “straying from the straight path” turned out to be characteristic of the liturgical reform as it was implemented everywhere twenty years later—replacing the ad orientem altar with a versus populum table, excluding black for Requiems, destroying images, installing weird “resurrexifixes,” and repudiating polyphonic music?

Fr. Longenecker, who stands with the reform of the reform, decries the loss of these meaningful customs.[20] But the presupposition of many of his points is precisely the false antiquarianism that led to the loss of so much that was distinctive of Catholicism, in favor of supposedly “more ancient” practices. Taking away what we gained from the Middle Ages and the Baroque and replacing it with questionable and always selective reconstructions of antiquity is the hallmark of liturgical eggheadedness. It always looks better on paper than it does in reality.

8. The Offertory prayers. That’s a connection with the Jewish prayers Jesus would have said at the Last Supper. So that’s a bad thing?

The Novus Ordo faux-Jewish Offertory is a fabrication that bears no relation to the liturgical offertories found in all Eastern and Western rites from the Middle Ages until 1969.[21] Nor should we be surprised that Christian rites as they developed over time did not take inspiration, let alone specific texts, from post-Christian rabbinic Judaism. In point of fact, the Consilium wanted to abolish all Offertory prayers and have the “Offertory” consist simply in the gesture of a symbolic raising up of the bread and wine. Pope Paul VI objected to the lack of a text and requested the “drawing up” of one (since there was apparently agreement among the architects of the new rite that the way the Church had prayed for about 1,000 years was mistaken). The Jewish table blessing was conveniently laid hold of. Shabbat shalom!

Can it be that Fr. Longenecker and other proponents of the Novus Ordo are unaware that it is a serious problem to go about constructing liturgy in this manner, whole cloth—a non-Athena springing forth full-grown from the head of a non-Zeus? Liturgy is and has always been seen as the corporate prayer of the Church handed down from one age to the next, augmented by the devotion of each generation. The idea of canceling out a significant part of the rite that stood firm for centuries and replacing it with something never in currency among Christians was inconceivable, and so it should remain.

9. It’s adaptable. The adaptability means the abuses have come in, but it also means all sorts of traditional customs can be retained. Pope Benedict wished for the Extraordinary Form to inform the celebration of the Ordinary Form. So it can be celebrated ad orientem, with altar rails, Communion administered to the faithful kneeling and on the tongue, well-trained altar servers, good music, vestments, architecture and art. Yes, bland and banal is possible, but so is grand and glorious.

This is a bit like saying, “Our political system is so adaptable that, although it allows funding for Planned Parenthood, it also allows the March for Life.” Rather, this shows our political system’s catastrophic failure to adhere to the natural law and promote the common good.

In like manner, the fact that the Novus Ordo is a matrix of possibilities that can be realized by each community according to its own ideas of what is right and fitting is not a perfection of it, but a sign of its internal incoherence, anarchy, and relativism. The traditional rites of the Church follow time-honored rules that require (and thus, to the extent humanly possible, guarantee) serious, reverent, orderly, and theocentric worship. The result is that anywhere I go in the world, I can walk into a traditional Latin Mass and know what I am going to see and hear: the same texts, the same gestures, the same ethos, the same Catholic religion. As long as the priest follows the rubrics, the Mass will be prayerful, focused, and edifying, giving Our Lord the glory due His Name. Tragically, this cannot be said for the Novus Ordo.

10. Hymns. Yes, I know hymns are supposedly a modern “Protestant” innovation. It’s debatable, but simply taking them for what they are, there are some excellent hymns which really do help the people lift their hearts in worship, express their faith, and help to catechize. Used to complement the liturgy, they can be a good thing.

Vernacular hymns are not an exclusive preserve of the Novus Ordo world: communities that worship with the traditional Latin Mass often include a processional hymn on Sundays, prior to the Asperges, and a recessional hymn after the Last Gospel. Be that as it may, the over-use of hymns long predates the Novus Ordo: some members of the Liturgical Movement prior to the Council favored, as an ideal, a Low Mass into which an Entrance Hymn, Offertory Hymn, Communion Hymn, and Closing Hymn had been inserted, for the “people’s participation.” Sound familiar? It’s the “four-hymn sandwich.”

The real story is that Catholic hymns began in the Divine Office, which is their proper home. Every hour, from Matins and Lauds through Prime, Terce, Sext, and None, to Vespers and Compline, has a hymn. This body of poetry and music is among the richest that Catholics possess, yet almost no one encounters it “in the wild.” Vatican II recommended that the faithful be introduced to the public chanted celebration of the Divine Office.[22] This, like much else in the document, was ignored by a highly selective and creative liturgical reform.

On the other hand, paraphrasing Scripture or writing devotional poetry and having a congregation sing it during the “Lord’s Supper” is unquestionably a Protestant invention, a custom that tends to give the Novus Ordo liturgy a Protestant or generically Christian feel—as its ecumenical proponents intended. It really doesn’t matter how nice the hymns are. The Catholic Mass has its own hymns, the Gloria and the Sanctus, as well as its own native music: the Gregorian antiphons and Mass parts, or their great polyphonic settings down through the ages.

The point of the Mass is not to give catechesis, nor to foster “praise” in the sense in which charismatics use the term, but to offer worship to the Triune God through the sacrifice of Jesus Christ.[23] The liturgy does not need “complementing”; it needs to be celebrated with integrity and purity, according to its own resources, for that is how it will be most effective in doing its proper work. Without a doubt, there are other occasions when hymns and popular religious songs may be used to better effect.[24]

11. Its accessibility makes it better for evangelization. I know the Mass is not primarily for evangelization, but when potential converts start attending Mass, to be able to understand and follow the words and actions eases their entrance into the Church and enables the process to be more welcoming.

Judging from their rhetoric, some liturgists assume that what potential converts are seeking is rational content, verbally delivered. We have already touched on this point above. Here it may suffice to note that traditionalism is above all a youth movement. As anyone can see from paying a visit to them, traditional Latin Mass parishes attract a disproportionate number of young adults and young families. Conversions and reversions are numerous, which is striking when one considers the ghetto-like marginalization under which traditional communities all too often operate, especially in dioceses where the bishops have chosen either to ignore or to obstruct Summorum Pontificum.

All of this suggests that what “modern man” is looking for may not be this now old-fashioned notion of “accessibility” or “being welcomed,” but an encounter with mystery, a confrontation with the divine, a brush against the ineffable, an immersion in the sacred. The Novus Ordo is singularly poorly equipped to accomplish that, nor does its sleek Bauhaus design naturally prompt it or encourage it. By 2020, the new liturgy, now fifty years old, looks and feels dated; many adhere to it from custom or lack of awareness of any alternative. The millennia-spanning liturgy has, in contrast, a perpetual freshness that beckons world-weary pilgrims who stumble across it into the haven of the Church.[25]

12. It’s simple. The plain words and actions of the Novus Ordo provide for a celebration with noble simplicity. Just saying the black and doing the red has a down-to-earth dignity—not overly ornate and fancy nor banal and vulgar.[26]

Should the mystical representation of the atoning sacrifice of Christ, which inserts us into His supreme gift of love for mankind; the awesome crossing of the abyss that separates man from God and earth from Heaven; the revival in our midst of the mysteries of the life, death, resurrection, and ascension of the Lord; the commingling of His acts of love, adoration, sorrow, supplication, thanksgiving, with our own, so that we, the members of His Mystical Body, may glorify God in union with our Head—should this be “simple”? Could it ever be? Only at the price of falsifying it utterly. Liturgical rites, Greek or Latin, Eastern or Western, developed under the beneficent hand of Providence toward ever greater fullness of expression of these glorious realities, ever greater amplitude, exuberance, and detail. The contrary motion appears in history as iconoclasm: the urge to push God’s hallowed and hallowing beauty off to a safe distance by destroying its rich expression in material things—including in this category the historic liturgical rites, which are the greatest works of Christian art.

“Saying the black and doing the red” is only as valuable as the black to be said and the red to be done. The theological inadequacy and spiritual narrowness of the texts of the Novus Ordo have been thoroughly documented and critiqued;[27] the skimpiness and looseness of the rubrics have been a standing joke from the first printing of the missal to its latest edition. No wonder a private cleric, working on his own initiative, had to supply a complete set of rubrics in three volumes; the Vatican apparently felt that Catholic liturgy was better off without taking into account such fussy details.[28] What we see in the Novus Ordo is a contradiction in terms: an unliturgical liturgy, an unceremonious ceremony, a relaxed ritual, a do-it-yourself template for collective devotion.[29]

It is a classic straw man to claim, as Fr. Longenecker does at the start of his article, that “there are some who seem to think every problem in the Church and the world can be laid at the door of the dreaded Novus Ordo.” I have never read any traditionalist author who thinks this or says it. Yes, we think the Novus Ordo is a rupture with Catholic tradition; this is the primary sense in which we would agree with Joseph Ratzinger’s oft-quoted remark: “I am convinced that the crisis in the Church that we are experiencing today is to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy.”[30] But we are well aware that worship does not exist in a vacuum. Other problems regularly pointed out include modernism, consequentialism, hyperpapalism, feminism, the homosexual clerical power caste, the liberal separation of Church and State—indeed, the list is lengthy. All of these problems are interconnected at one level or another. The liturgical reform is the “poster child” of the revolution that has divorced today’s Catholic mainstream from the Catholicism of all ages, but behind every poster is a propaganda office and an ideology.

The traditional liturgy has taught me that my likes and dislikes do not and should not have any effect on the Mass. Rather, it is the Mass, pre-existing in its solidity and density, that ought to shape my loves and hatreds, in accord with what it shows me, impresses on me, leads me to understand after a long apprenticeship. It was the same way with Jesus and the disciples. He was not as they expected the Messiah to be, but He did not accommodate Himself to the likes and dislikes of zealots, Pharisees, tax-collectors, or fishermen. He patiently but authoritatively made them conform to Him.

Some have seen in Jesus’s use of parables an effort on His part to “meet people where they are.” But His own explanation is quite different:

His disciples came and said to him: “Why speakest thou to them in parables?” Who answered and said to them: “Because to you it is given to know the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven: but to them it is not given. For he that hath, to him shall be given, and he shall abound: but he that hath not, from him shall be taken away that also which he hath. Therefore do I speak to them in parables: because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand. . . . But blessed are your eyes, because they see, and your ears, because they hear.” (Mt 13:10–16)

Christ sheathes His doctrine in a garment of imagery that both conceals and reveals, excluding those who make no effort to penetrate the outer shell and rewarding those who work at understanding, who keep knocking until the door opens. This is exactly how it is with the Church’s traditional worship: it surrounds the mystery with layer upon layer of imagery through which we must pierce with our faith and love; it repels those who are not willing to apprentice themselves to it for life. Again, it teaches me what to like and dislike, what to give up and what to hold on to.

I can understand a priest wishing to believe that the liturgy he has been given by “the Church” could be simply accepted as it is, no worries, no bones about it. But the Lord has extended a special mercy to us during the seismic reign of Pope Francis: the opportunity to wake up to the dangers of a runaway ultramontanism that prompts Catholics to swallow whatever “reforms” a pope wants to push through, even when they run against the papacy’s ministry of receiving, preserving, and defending tradition. Our response to this mercy should be to set aside the barren innovations of churchmen and to commit ourselves with humble zeal to an enduring Catholic inheritance.

1. As documented, for example, in Yves Chiron’s Annibale Bugnini or Michael Davies’s Pope Paul’s New Mass.

2. In the original article Longenecker has “Haagan Daz,” but given the musical context, he likely meant to use the parodic phrase for two particularly dreadful postconciliar songwriters: Marty Haugen and David Haas.

3. As Louis Bouyer, one of the most eminent twentieth-century theologians and a member of the Consilium, relates: “You’ll have some idea of the deplorable conditions in which this hasty [liturgical] reform was expedited when I recount how the second Eucharistic prayer was cobbled together. Between the indiscriminately archeologizing fanatics who wanted to banish the Sanctus and the intercessions from the Eucharistic prayer by taking Hippolytus’s [sic] Eucharist as is, and those others who couldn’t have cared less about his alleged Apostolic Tradition and wanted a slapdash Mass, Dom Botte and I were commissioned to patch up its text with a view to inserting these elements, which are certainly quite ancient—by the next morning! Luckily, I discovered, if not in a text by Hippolytus himself certainly in one in his style, a felicitous formula on the Holy Ghost that could provide a transition of the Vere Sanctus type to the short epiclesis.* For his part Botte produced an intercession worthier of Paul Reboux’s ‘In the manner of…’ than of his actual scholarship. Still, I cannot reread that improbable composition without recalling the Trastevere café terrace where we had to put the finishing touches to our assignment in order to show up with it at the Bronze Gate by the time our masters had set!” (Memoirs, 221–22).

4. I address the spiritual dangers of this arbitrariness in a talk called “Liturgical Obedience, the Imitation of Christ, and the Seductions of Autonomy,” available at my SoundCloud page.

5. Historically the liturgical books developed separately. In the early Middle Ages, the texts of all of these books were gathered into a single altar missal for the purpose of Low Mass. In a Solemn High Mass, separate books continue to be used to this day: the book of readings for the subdeacon and the deacon, the Gradual for the schola, and the missal for the priest.

6. See my article “Worthily Celebrating the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass Outdoors,” New Liturgical Movement, May 23, 2016.

7. Mosebach: “The liturgy of the reform and its adornments will never be able to constitute a seminal fact in the life of the nations. It is too anemic, too artificial, too little religious, too lacking in form to do this. The old liturgy, on the other hand, is not as poorly equipped for the terrible trials it has to face as we might often think, beholding its daily woes. The struggle against the old liturgy has helped us toward greater insights into its nature. Initially it must have felt like a deathblow when the liturgy was driven from the magnificent old churches that had been created for it. Then, however, it became clear that it was the churches that died, once the spirit of the sacred vanished from them; the liturgy itself stayed alive, albeit in lamentable circumstances. For it is the liturgy that produces all that is solemn and festive—art can contribute nothing essential to it. Once, I recall, the dean of a cathedral, very annoyed, asked me why on earth I wanted to go to the old Mass; after all, he said, very elaborate orchestral Masses were celebrated in the cathedral from time to time. I simply could not make him see that a low Mass in the old rite, read silently in a garage, is more solemn than the biggest church concert with spiritual trimmings. We have come to see, in a time without holy images, without sacred places and sacred music, that the old liturgy was itself the greatest possible image” (Heresy of Formlessness, rev. and expanded ed. [Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2018], 79–80).

8. See, for example, this story: “The New Benedict XVI Institute Schola Recruits 25 San Quentin Inmates to Chant at the First Latin Mass Celebrated at the Prison in Three Generations,” https://www.benedictinstitute.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/BXVI-San-Quentin-2-News-Release.pdf.

9. Subversive Catholicism: Papacy, Liturgy, Church, trans. Sebastian Condon and Graham Harrison (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019), 99–100.

10. See Felix Just, S.J., “Lectionary Statistics,” available at www.catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/Statistics.htm.

11. See General Introduction to the Lectionary, n. 76; cf. General Introduction to the Liturgy of the Hours, nn. 101, 126, 131. For examples, see my articles “Not Just More Scripture, But Different Scripture—Comparing the Old and New Lectionaries,” Rorate Caeli, January 11, 2019; “The Omission that Haunts the Church— 1 Corinthians 11:27–29,” New Liturgical Movement, April 11, 2016; “The Omission of ‘Difficult’ Psalms and the Spreading-Thin of the Psalter,” Rorate Caeli, November 15, 2016; “A Systematic Critique of the New Lectionary, On the Occasion of Its Fiftieth Anniversary,” Rorate Caeli, May 24, 2019.

12. Old Testament texts particularly connect the north with evil—either unconverted pagan empires or adulterous Israel. Of many examples, consider Jer 1:14: “From the north shall an evil break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land, for behold, I will call together all the families of the kingdoms of the north”; Jer 3:12: “Go, and proclaim these words toward the north.” Jer 31:8–9 says that God will bring from “the north country . . . the blind, and the lame, the woman with child, and she that is bringing forth,” and will lead them “in mercy . . . through torrents of waters” (i.e., through baptism). Is 14:13–14 puts these words in the mouth of Babylon: “I will sit on the mount of assembly in the far north” (cf. Is 41:25). Cf. Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 89–90.

13. See my article “Homogeneity vs. Hierarchy: On the Treatment of Verbal Moments,” New Liturgical Movement, October 16, 2017.

14. “Nabbish” is Anthony Esolen’s apt neologism for the crabbed and awkward English in which the New American Bible (NAB) is written: see his “A Bumping Boxcar Language,” First Things, June 2011, available online. In addition to the sheer hideousness of its style, the NAB is also notoriously loose and paraphrastic, often occluding the message of the Word of God. Those who attend the Latin Mass, in contrast, will read in their missals and/or hear read out from the pulpit a more traditional, more eloquent, and more accurate translation of the Bible.

15. See Newman’s potent arguments against liturgical “improvements” and “revisions”: Tracts for the Times, Tract 3, “Thoughts Respectfully Addressed to the Clergy on Alterations in the Liturgy,” in Newman on Worship, 1–4.

16. These multiple orations were heavily limited under Pius XII and John XXIII in a wave of rubrical changes that traditionalists have begun to revisit and critique in recent years. It seems that, by an organic process on the ground, the regular use of multiple orations is returning in the celebration of the usus antiquior.

17. See Notkerus Balbulus, “Myths and Facts about the Offertory,” published in two parts at Canticum Salomonis, October 12 and 13, 2018.

18. Pius XII, Mediator Dei, 63. See chapter 10 for a more in-depth treatment of the error of antiquarianism.

19. Ibid., n. 62.

20. As can be seen at length in his book Letters on Liturgy (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2020).

21. See Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, ch. 13, “Offertory,” 255–62; cf. Gregory DiPippo’s series “The Theology of the Offertory” at New Liturgical Movement.

22. Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 100.

23. For critiques of “contemporary” church music, see Fr. Christopher Smith, “Why Praise and Worship Music is Praise, But Not Worship,” Chant Café, June 2, 2011, and the follow-up, “Let’s Revisit ‘Praise and Worship Music is Praise But Not Worship,’” Chant Café, September 1, 2015; and my articles “Sacred Music vs. ‘Praise & Worship’—Does it Matter?,” in two parts, OnePeterFive, March 31, 2016 and April 5, 2016; “Is ‘Contemporary’ Church Music a Good Example of Inculturation?,” OnePeterFive, May 11, 2016.

24. See my article “Sacred Music as Occasion of Grace for Modern Man,” with the accompanying Cantate Domino: A Statement on the Current Situation of Sacred Music, at OnePeterFive, March 15, 2017; “It’s Time We Stopped the Musical Starvation Diet,” in my book Tradition and Sanity: Conversations and Dialogues of a Postconciliar Exile (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2018), 183–205.

25. See “Why the New Evangelization Needs the Old Mass,” in Kwasniewski, Noble Beauty, 3–31.

26. “Say the Black, Do the Red” is the famous slogan of Fr. John Zuhlsdorf, leading the charge against ad libbing and experimentation. It means: the priest (or anyone else involved in the liturgy) should say (or sing) exactly what is printed in black on the pages of the liturgical book, and should do exactly what is spelled out in the “rubrics,” that is, the instructions printed in red.

27. See Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 239–50, et passim; Pristas, Collects of the Roman Missals; Anthony Cekada, Work of Human Hands: A Theological Critique of the Mass of Paul VI (West Chester, OH: Philothea Press, 2010); Michael Davies, Pope Paul’s New Mass (Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 2009); Lorenzo Bianchi, “A Survey of the Theology, History, Terminology, and Syntax in the Prayers of the Roman Missal,” in Theological and Historical Aspects of the Roman Missal (Kingston & Surbiton: CIEL UK, 2000), 127–64.

28. Peter J. Elliott, Ceremonies of the Modern Roman Rite: The Eucharist and the Liturgy of the Hours. A Manual for Clergy and All Involved in Liturgical Ministries, 2nd ed. (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2004); Ceremonies of the Liturgical Year (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2002); Ceremonies Explained for Servers: A Manual for Altar Servers, Acolytes, Sacristans, and Masters of Ceremonies (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2019). Such manuals also exist for the classical Roman rite, but since that rite has far more detailed and exacting rubrics already built into it, its manuals concern finer points, whereas Msgr. Elliott has to spell out the ABCs.

29. The early twentieth-century dispute between Benedictines and Jesuits exposes the root of the standoff between the traditional Mass and the Novus Ordo: see “Different Visions, Contrary Paths,” in Kwasniewski, Noble Beauty, 115–33.

30. Milestones, 148.

9
Responding to Common Anti-TLM Arguments

People who make the case for the traditional Latin Mass are often greeted with authoritarian dismissals and relativistic claims about “different tastes.” Sometimes, however, we encounter thoughtful objections that deserve a careful response. The following seven objections came from readers of the last chapter.

1. The person you responded to [Fr. Longenecker] said only that he liked X, Y, and Z about the Novus Ordo; he never criticized the traditional Latin Mass. You, in responding, defended the old Mass and attacked the new one. You weren’t being fair to the author’s intention.

If a person says, “Here are twelve things I like about the Novus Ordo,” and nearly every one of them differs from the longstanding practice of the Church prior to Paul VI’s reform, then it’s not hard to see an implicit comparison being set up with the usus antiquior. If it is a perfection of the Novus Ordo to be more “accessible,” more “flexible,” more “simple,” more chock-full of Scripture, and so forth, and if these things are lacking in the traditional Latin Mass, which, on the contrary, is remote, inflexible, complex, bound to a more concise ancient cycle of readings, then to that extent the latter is defective (and, presumably, needed or needs to be “reformed”). If, on the contrary, the usus antiquior is actually superior in those very respects, then it would be irrational to like the Novus Ordo for its defects.

The sentiment “I like the fact that the Novus Ordo is all these things” is difficult, if not impossible, to separate from the judgment “I dislike the fact that the old Latin Mass is none of these things” and from the wish that somehow its “defects” could be overcome in some future revision of it. Thus, we have an Oratorian opining that the old Mass should be available in the vernacular to make it better conform to Chalcedonian doctrine (a misapplied Christological lesson if ever there was one);[1] we have a priest providing us with a laundry list of “improvements” to be imported from the new Mass to the old Mass;[2] we have advocates of “pastoral liturgy,” latehatched offspring of Jungmann, substituting spoken vernacular readings for chanted Latin ones at High Mass, while also violating the symbolic directionality of the Epistle and Gospel by reading them versus populum—and then accusing of “elitism” and “aestheticism” those who follow the tradition;[3] and on and on it goes, the merry-go-round of “moderns know better” that leaves a bloody mess on the operating floor.

More tellingly, the approach “what I like about liturgy” sets us in the wrong posture toward it. A number of points made by the author to whom I was responding might (might) be valid if the Mass were principally about us. The sign that it is not “about us” is that a priest is ordained to offer sacrifice, not to preside over a Bible study or host communal meals, which anyone can do. A reading group or a supper club leaves all kinds of room for what the given guests (or hosts!) might like better, what might attract, what might tantalize, please, evangelize, retain. Sacrifice doesn’t care a whit what others think of it; it just is what it is, and does what it does. The liturgical reformers rejected the primacy of sacrifice by seeking to abolish or minimize the “private Mass,” such as once rose up from countless altars throughout Christendom, and by modifying the ordination rite and other liturgical texts to downplay as much as possible the idea of the priest as an agent of sacrifice, which they argued was pagan and Jewish, not Christian.

It is not unusual for Catholics attached to the Novus Ordo to raise a certain kind of complaint against the traditional Mass: “I just can’t understand the Latin,” “I think it’s too ornate,” “I find the congregation too stoic.” Each statement hinges on “I”; it’s about their own preferences. This was not the method of the greatest born of womankind (Mt 11:11), St. John the Baptist, who testified: “He must increase, but I must decrease” (Jn 3:30). We, too, must decenter from ourselves and recenter on the mysteries of Christ.

Traditionalists may like and love everything about the usus antiquior, or we may not, but that is beside the point. We are committed to the traditional faith, the truth of Christ, the treasury of the Church handed down to us, and we strive to conform our minds, hearts, likes and dislikes, to that. We are fully consistent, then, in objecting not only to liturgical modernism, but also to doctrinal deviations like Amoris Laetitia’s opening to Communion for “remarried” Catholics and the death penalty change to the Catechism.

2. The bishops who ran the Second Vatican Council, the professional liturgists who designed the Novus Ordo, and Pope Paul VI himself were all brought up exclusively on the old Latin Mass that you so highly praise. Obviously, it wasn’t so impressive and untouchable in their eyes, otherwise they would never have agreed to swap it out for something else.

Here I would like to quote Dr. Alice von Hildebrand from a 2001 interview:

The devil hates the ancient Mass. He hates it because it is the most perfect reformulation of all the teachings of the Church. It was my husband[4] who gave me this insight about the Mass. The problem that ushered in the present crisis was not the traditional Mass. The problem was that priests who offered it had already lost the sense of the supernatural and the transcendent. They rushed through the prayers, they mumbled and didn’t enunciate them. That is a sign that they had brought to the Mass their growing secularism. The ancient Mass does not abide irreverence, and that was why so many priests were just as happy to see it go.[5]

In my book Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness, I comment on this response as follows:

Liturgical decadence, deviation, and disorder are, like the natural tendency of entropy, a downhill walk for fallen man. Left to himself, left without the guidance of the tradition willed by the Holy Spirit and the example of many saints who have shown us how to walk the often grueling uphill path of fidelity, fallen man will make liturgy conform to his own whims and wants, his own programs and purposes—something easier, and more damaging. It is the uphill climb, prepared for by self-discipline, that leads to the magnificent vista, the glimpse of a vast and humbling beauty that can only come from the mind of the Creator. “Hate not laborious works, nor husbandry ordained by the Most High. Number not thyself among the multitude of the disorderly” (Sir. 7:16–17).[6]

The old liturgical rites, if they are to be done in a truly prayerful and edifying way, require discipline, mortification, serious study and practice, keen attentiveness, great piety, and a deep interior life. Any priest who could barrel through them or who was ready to chuck them out the window had already lost his faith and his commitment to the virtue of religion. In Newman’s terms, he had notional assent, not real assent.[7]

It was therefore hardly surprising when such men backed a radical simplification that released them from what had become onerous burdens and meaningless rituals. They wanted a drive-thru Mass and a lunchable picnic of psalms. They wanted to “get busy” with the “real work” of “helping the people,” spreading a pure and simple Christian message that whiffed of Marx and Freud. The energetic implementers of the Council promoted a vision of Christianity that was all outwardness and no inwardness, all action and no contemplation, all reform and no formality, all up-to-date and never timeless, privileging the homely over the solemn, the casual over the sacred. In short, the Novus Ordo enshrined a certain generation’s impiety, activism, and worldliness.

Those who were expressly modernist and revolutionary in their intentions—and there were many such—hated the traditional Latin Mass not because of incense, chant, or Latin, which they were willing to harness on occasion for their own purposes, but because its every prayer, gesture, ceremony, and rubric enshrines the Catholic Faith in its premodern and antimodern audacity. We must also face head-on the disturbing reality that at least some of the men responsible for the dismantling of the traditional liturgical rites knew perfectly well that the Church had something beautiful and superior to anything that could be cobbled together in a few years, but were so fixated on the elusive winning of “modern man” that they were prepared to gamble everything away on a gigantic experiment.[8]

All this proves that something had gone wrong before the Council, and on that bigger topic, there are several compelling theories.[9] But we can see that there were also many who were deeply devoted to the liturgy—the best authors of the Liturgical Movement prove it, when they write with such fervor and insight about the life of worship they lived—and there is absolutely no reason to think the same liturgy would not have continued to be learned, loved, prayed, and passed down by Catholics serious in their faith. The reform was imposed on the Church from above, by an elite of ideologues with “bright ideas”; it was not clamored for by the faithful.[10]

3. You and others write about the Extraordinary Form through rosecolored glasses, as if “in the old days” it was everywhere offered piously and edifyingly. But this was far from true.

As my quotation from Alice von Hildebrand indicates, I don’t deny that there were abuses. Abuse of the good is always possible for fallen human beings. A fifteenor twenty-minute rapidly mumbled Low Mass was the sort of problem one might have encountered before the Council. Do such abuses mean that the solution was to reconceive the liturgy “from the ground up”? No. That’s not a Catholic way of thinking about anything, especially the liturgy we receive from our forefathers. Abusus non tollit usum: the abuse of a thing does not cancel out its proper use. The original Liturgical Movement had the right idea: educate Catholics in their heritage, and help them to take hold of it. True reform means recovery of form, not indulging in antiquarian antics or futuristic fantasy. Mosebach: “True reform consists of putting on the bridle, of returning to a stricter order. . . . Reform is a return to form.”[11] Again:

In the past, the aim of every reform in the Church had been the reestablishing of discipline, the revitalizing of some Church order that had fallen into decay. When we speak of the Ecclesia semper reformanda [the Church is ever in need of being reformed] we are referring to the human fact that there is a tendency to throw off burdens and blunt the imposed rules. The monastic reforms of Cluny and Citeaux, and of the Carmelites, and the reforms introduced by the Council of Trent, are associated with a return to a stricter order, a tightening of the reins, a return to a more radical religious practice and a restoration of a spiritual discipline that had been lost. The postconciliar liturgical reform is the first reform in the history of the Church that did not have the aim of re-establishing order, but of softening, abolishing, and relativizing it. . . . The liturgical reform has absolutely nothing to do with religious reform in the old meaning of the term. It resembles the frantic “special offer” and “sale” mentality of a supermarket that is fast losing its customers.[12]

4. The Apostles’ liturgy was far simpler than the Latin Mass, and said in Aramaic or Greek. Why do you insist that Catholics today use an elaborate medieval liturgy in Latin? We should imitate what the Apostles did.

One who makes this objection might be in the grip of a Protestant notion of the Mass as a re-enactment of the Last Supper in the simple gathering of disciples to read Scripture and break bread, which obscures what it really is: the offering of the sacrifice of Christ within the living community of His Body, the Church. Like Mary, who “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Lk 2:19; 2:51), the Church too, treasuring up and pondering the sacred mysteries, elaborated their celebration according to the wisdom given to her from above. Christ promised His apostles: “When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth” (Jn 16:13). The development of the divine liturgy over the millennia—from Abel’s offering to Melchisedech’s bread and wine, from Hebrew sacrifices to apostolic eucharistia, from the age of monasticism and medieval cathedral chapters through Baroque splendor— is nothing other than the preparation, reception, and explication of the truth given to us in Christ and fully blossoming in the life of His Bride: “Amen, amen I say to you, he that believeth in me, the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do” (Jn 14:12).

Christian worship is not a play-acting of Passover fellowship or time-travel to some chosen favorite century, but a living whole, built up slowly over time by lovers of God and cherished by the Church, which hands down the same liturgical rites from age to age, augmented with new beauties inspired by God to be in harmony with what is already there. As it develops into the full expression of its essence, the liturgy achieves greater definition and perfection in its secondary elements. This is why its rate of change slows down as time goes on, and what is added, though valuable, is small in comparison to the body of rites, chants, texts, and ceremonies already in place.[13] We do not reinvent our worship by leapfrogging backwards over centuries of faith and devotion; we do not produce new anaphoras because we think we need some more variety;[14] we do not cast off the cycle of readings hallowed by well over 1,000 years of consistent use and replace them with an altogether new cycle compiled by a group of scholars; we do not make optional the magnificent antiphons that are flesh and bone of the Roman rite; and so forth. Protestants invent liturgy, Catholics receive it. While it was necessary for someone at some point to compose particular prayers, for at least 90% of the classical Roman rite we have no idea who composed its elements, and often we can’t even specify with exactness where or when they originated. It is a collective effort of many anonymous individuals over many centuries, adding their widows’ mites to the temple treasury. Moreover, those who come later gladly and gratefully take up what they inherited from the preceding generations and do not set themselves up as judges over it, the way Protestants did when they fashioned anew their liturgies in the sixteenth century.[15]

It is therefore not merely a bad idea, but actually contrary to the Church’s faith in Divine Providence and in the governance of the Holy Spirit, to reject major elements of the Latin Church’s liturgical tradition and to replace them with a combination of artificial archaeologisms and novelties, as was done in the 1960s and 1970s. The massive rupture from the preceding liturgical tradition, which extends to every aspect and detail of the liturgical rites, cannot be papered over with platitudes. It is a gaping wound in the Body of Christ.[16] For, as St. Vincent of Lérins maintains:

The principle of piety admits of only one attitude: namely, that everything be transferred to the sons in the same spirit of faith in which it was accepted by the fathers; that religion should not lead us whither we want to go, but that we must follow whither it leads; and that it is proper to Christian modesty and earnestness not to transfer to posterity one’s own ideas, but to preserve those received from one’s ancestors.[17]

It may be worth adding that the primacy of Latin in the Roman Church was unequivocally reaffirmed by Pope John XXIII in the Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia, solemnly signed at the altar of St. Peter’s Basilica on February 22, 1962,[18] and never rescinded. Conversely, the notion that liturgy ought to be in the vernacular was condemned at the Council of Trent and in Pius VI’s Bull Auctorem Fidei.[19] The condemnation does not mean that nothing in the liturgy may ever be in the vernacular, but only that no one may maintain that it must be or even should be. To hold that the Roman Church erred by keeping her rites in Latin—as Annibale Bugnini and many members of his Consilium held[20]—is manifestly a condemned opinion.

5. You object to “antiquarianism”—going back to earlier centuries to recover lost elements in the liturgy—but the very form of liturgy you are trying to revive is something that belongs to a former time, so aren’t you guilty of the same thing?

The recovery of the usus antiquior does not constitute a form of antiquarianism for two basic reasons.

First, it has never ceased to be celebrated. Even when Paul VI attempted to replace it, a minority of clergy, at first the elderly, then newly-ordained priests here and there, and finally whole religious communities, continued to use the old missal or made use of both missals. Consequently, the usus antiquior embodies an unbroken living tradition, so ancient we cannot specify precisely when and how it emerged. Anyone who studies the history of the Roman rite can see that July 14, 1570—the date of St. Pius V’s Bull Quo Primum—is in no way, shape, or form its “birthday.” The new Mass, in contrast, has an exact birthday: April 3, 1969, the date of Paul VI’s Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum. It turned fifty in 2019, and boy, how its age is showing.

Second, it is understandable that over the centuries, certain practices will be modified or lost, due to the pressures of a period of time or a new emphasis. Thus, Communion in the hand was gradually replaced by Communion on the tongue, which was seen to be a more reverent and safer way to receive the Lord’s Body, the worship of which was intensifying. It is a form of antiquarianism to try to reactivate lost elements like this many centuries after they have perished. But the liturgy as a whole is not something that can be modified or lost, except by an abusive exercise of power.[21] Hence, the usus antiquior has the right of primogeniture and the right of possession and cannot ever be excluded from the life of the Church.

6. Your position implies that nothing in the Ordinary Form is an improvement over the preceding liturgy. Indeed, you even seem to reject it altogether.

I used to think there were some improvements in the Novus Ordo. For instance, I thought it was good to have more Prefaces, more readings, and more flexibility for what may be sung (in other words, you can sing the Ordinary without the Propers or vice versa, enabling more chant to be used, instead of an “all-or-nothing” approach). But as I examined these things more carefully, and, even more importantly, gained extensive hands-on experience with both rites, I came to see many flaws in these supposed “improvements.”[22] Unfortunately, superficial assumptions tend to rule the day, as few have the patience or the opportunity to compare the rites, to see what was changed and why.

Apart from a handful of meager details, after thirty years of intimate experience with the Novus Ordo as a music director, I see nothing in it that represents an improvement on the Latin rite that came before it, with a pedigree of centuries and millennia.[23] The Novus Ordo is a dumbed-down ritual, with a lot of specialist scholars’ pet ideas thrown in and a huge amount of verbiage. The results are as could be expected: many Catholics walked away in disgust at the desacralization of worship, and those who stayed or have come along later have absorbed from it flawed notions of what liturgy is. I say “flawed” based on what Vatican II itself said about the liturgy in the first part of Sacrosanctum Concilium, which reads like a theological exposition of Solemn High Mass, not of the Consilium’s Missa normativa.[24]

The Novus Ordo Missae is sacramentally valid (the same may be said for the other sacramental rites of Paul VI), but beyond that, the whole experiment in modernization is a disappointment, not to say a scandal, once one gets to know the riches of the usus antiquior. And I am not talking only about the Mass. The old rites of baptism, confirmation, penance, matrimony, extreme unction, and above all, holy orders are far superior to their “reformed” versions, seen from every angle: doctrinal, moral, aesthetic, ascetical-mystical. Even the breviary of St. Pius X, which has its problems, is outstandingly better than the Liturgy of the Minutes—I mean, Liturgy of the Hours.[25] It is not the traditionalist who rejects the new liturgy; it is the Church’s own tradition that repudiates it as a stranger.[26] Validity the sacramental rites must have, since Our Lord would not deprive His people of access to grace; a functional licitness they have as well. But none of this touches the question of the authenticity of a rite in the line of its own historical development from apostolic roots, or the profound questions of fittingness that surround the enactment of any liturgy.

7. At this point in time, shouldn’t we be working to improve the celebration of the Ordinary Form? After all, it is the rite that 99% of Catholics pray in, and we should do what we can to correct its abuses and elevate its dignity.

In a way, yes, in a way, no. Undoubtedly, it is good for Catholics to be exposed to Gregorian chant; to hear some Latin and the jangling of bells; to see the priest facing eastward, wearing beautiful vestments; to smell the incense that symbolizes our sacrifice of praise; to kneel before the Word made flesh and receive Him on the tongue.

But let’s not kid ourselves: the reform of the reform cannot succeed. Each time an official effort to implement some long-overdue reform acquires momentum, it runs off the tracks. In the midst of the first sustained effort to improve the postconciliar liturgical wasteland, Benedict XVI abdicated. Cardinal Sarah was slapped down by the Vatican for his modest proposals to make the Novus Ordo look like a Catholic liturgy. Islands of Oratorians intrepidly celebrate “the rite of Michael Napier,”[27] inventively plugging in the gaps of Paul VI’s missal, but they stand at the ecclesiastical periphery, somewhere near the orbit of Pluto. Within the mainstream Church, mediocrity asserts itself with the gravitational force of a black hole—a Missa normativa that is neither egregiously abusive nor characterized by anything noble, whether “noble simplicity” or its often forgotten counterpart, “noble beauty.”[28] Apart from unexpected redheads, this is the genetic type to which offspring continually revert.

It is startlingly clear, in addition, that Paul VI did not have a “high” and “traditional” Novus Ordo in mind when he promulgated the new missal. In his general audience of November 26, 1969, he calmly praised the glories of Latin and Gregorian chant before proceeding to explain that the Church was asking the faithful to sacrifice them forever in order to win over Modern Man. Those who are busily dressing up the Novus Ordo like the Infant of Prague may display a sort of tragic heroism, but they are working against the intentions of the pope who imposed this ball and chain upon us, and working against the grain of the new liturgy itself, which was made to be totally “accessible,” “relatable,” and “inculturated.”

On a more practical level, the priest who, inspired by Ratzinger’s The Spirit of the Liturgy and other such inspirational reading, tries to elevate the Novus Ordo—which generally means enriching it ad libitum with elements already hardwired into the usus antiquior—is going to generate opposition within the flock, and soon enough, complaints will find their way to his bishop. In nine out of ten cases, the visionary pastor will be called on the carpet and warned off his boat-rocking ways or, sooner or later, moved to another church, while his replacement will come in and undo most or all of his reforms. I’ve seen this kind of reversal happen; I know that the sad tale is repeated again and again. It is perhaps the #1 cause of trauma among younger clergy and those of the faithful who are still attached to the modern liturgy.

It would take not just one outstanding pope, but several in a row, and several turnovers of the worldwide episcopacy, before the Novus Ordo could look, as a rule, like Catholic liturgy in continuity with the preceding 1,600 years or more of the Church’s worship. Meanwhile, the souls of the faithful are pulled this way and that, according to the temperamental whims of pastors, bishops, and popes, and one’s children absorb the lesson that Catholic liturgy is more or less the plaything of the most powerful person in control at any moment.

Moreover, the reform of the reform should not succeed, because its modest successes only mask the fact that the reformed liturgy is itself the fundamental problem, not merely “how it’s done.” One can gauge the magnitude of the problem by looking at the orations of the Mass (lex orandi*), which were altered or deleted so that the beliefs of the faithful (lex credendi *) would be changed. There are countless examples.[29] One may consult the old orations for St. Catherine of Alexandria, St. Albert the Great, St. Felix of Valois, St. John of Matha, the Stigmata of St. Francis, St. Pius V, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Francis Xavier, St. Scholastica, the Presentation of the Blessed Virgin Mary, the Kingship of Christ, the Holy Name of Jesus—the list goes on and on—and compare them against their replacements in the new missal, or their simple absence. The consequent deprivation of doctrinal and spiritual nourishment affects the priest above all. The laity can schlep along with their weekly service, but priests and religious are the ones who have been most grievously deprived of interior formation by the modern Mass.

The reality, I’m afraid, is this: the Novus Ordo and the traditional Latin Mass cannot ultimately sit peacefully next to each other because their principles are incompatible. The most serious defenders of the Novus Ordo—scholars like Fr. Pierre-Marie Gy, Msgr. Kevin Irwin, Fr. Patrick Regan, Massimo Faggioli, Andrea Grillo, and almost anyone who writes for the blog PrayTell—are quite clear that the new rites embody and advance a new theological vision born of Vatican II, one that “revises” or “completes” (but, in effect, repudiates) the Tridentine legacy.[30] As Cardinal Lercaro, a major player in the liturgical reform, imperiously stated: “The historical period that we call Tridentine is closed.”[31]

There can be an uneasy truce, but the things in themselves tend in opposite directions, as we would expect, since they have contrary origins. The usus antiquior comes to us by tradition—it long preexisted the first time an official edition of it was papally promulgated in 1570. The Novus Ordo is the creation ex nihilo of papal power, in 1969. Like a sort of parody of Melchisedech, it hath neither father nor mother, but continueth interminably (cf. Heb 7:3). Never in the history of the Church had there been a new missal; there had only ever been new editions of an older missal. And it does no good pretending the two are in continuity: the content is far too different, not only in the texts (orations, antiphons, readings, offertory rites, anaphoras, etc.), but in the gestures and ceremonies as well. Everywhere there is extensive and profound divergence.[32]

So great is the difference that priests who discover the old Mass find it powerfully transformative for their priesthood, even after having celebrated the Novus Ordo devoutly for many years.[33] Therefore, the priest who loves Christ, the Church, his own soul, and the souls of his flock should learn and then lean upon a Mass that will delight him with “marrow and fatness” (Ps. 62:6), if only as a restful pause in the ever uphill effort, always slightly dodgy and idiosyncratic, to clothe a naked waif stripped of its devotional and theological garments.[34]

This whole back-and-forth is premised on unrealistic comparisons. Mainstreamers who like the “smells and bells” will contrast their “Oratorian” Novus Ordo—which is as rare as hen’s teeth, comprising at best 1% of the Catholic world—with a 1950s speed-muttered Low Mass of Baby-Boomer lore, which basically doesn’t exist anymore. To be fair, “rad trads” (radical traditionalists) are guilty of the same fallacy whenever they set up a comparison between a Solemn High Mass in a Gothic cathedral and a clown mass on a card table. Neither of those is commonplace, either.

What few people seem willing to do is to compare the “median Mass”—that is, what you can typically find on a Sunday, at least in a diocese that has implemented Summorum Pontificum: the traditional Missa cantata or sung Mass versus the Novus Ordo in Anytown, USA. The former has chant and other sacred music, uses only properly vested male ministers, retains the silent Roman Canon prayed eastward, distributes Holy Communion to kneeling faithful on the tongue, etc. The latter is valid; has horrible music, altar girls, extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion, and lay lectors; uses a fabricated canon, garrulously proffered versus populum; and gives Communion in the hand to people standing in a queue. In this comparison between a Missa cantata and a random Sunday Novus Ordo—call it the “Popesy Challenge” for liturgy—tradition wins big time.

The lay faithful who attend only the Novus Ordo, or who may have seen a Latin Low Mass once or twice, are at a huge disadvantage. When they read arguments presented by traditionalists, they feel that Catholicism is being attacked, or their personal fidelity, or the holiness of the Eucharist. But none of this is the case. Many Catholics are admirably faithful to what they have been given, little enough though it be, and the Lord, Who is truly, really, substantially present even in a Mass that sins against His liturgical Providence, can still sanctify their souls. But the “spirit of Vatican II,” and the liturgical reform that perfectly embodied it, has deprived them of much of the historical and theological content of Catholicism and left them with a shell, a simulacrum, a substitute. The Novus Ordo, even at its best, is still a starvation diet compared with the riches in the preconciliar liturgical tradition. God can sanctify prisoners in jail fed on stale crusts and standing water, but this is not the manner in which He would sanctify most of us. “I came that they may have life and have it more abundantly” (Jn 10:10), says Our Lord—and this promise applies also to liturgical life, where we meet Him in person.

If the longed-for renewal of the Church is ever to get under way in earnest, Catholics must come to grips with this tragedy of rupture and suppression, yet without giving way to anger or despondency, and with a resolve to seek and to find the fullness of the Faith. In no other way can the Bride of Christ be rescued from the mud and grime that mar her earthly beauty.

1. Fr. Ignatius Harrison, “Why we should be able to celebrate the Old Rite in the vernacular,” Catholic Herald, December 21, 2018.

2. Fr. Peter Stravinskas, “How the ordinary form of the Mass can ‘enrich’ the extraordinary form,” Catholic World Report, January 31, 2017. I responded in my article “Liturgical Rollercoaster,” New Liturgical Movement, February 6, 2017.

3. See my article “The Ill-Placed Charges of Purism, Elitism, and Rubricism,” New Liturgical Movement, July 9, 2018.

4. The famous philosopher and writer Dietrich von Hildebrand, a lifelong advocate of the traditional Latin liturgy.

5. “Present at the Demolition: An Interview with Dr. Alice von Hildebrand,” The Latin Mass 10.3 (Summer 2001): 6–11, available at http://www.latinmassmagazine.com/articles/articles_2001_su_hildebran.html.

6. Noble Beauty, 184.

7. See Newman’s Grammar of Assent, Part I, ch. 4. Whether we should lay blame on the liturgy or on its practitioners may be illustrated with a comparison. All heresiarchs were formed by the Church, but nobody could rightly conclude that the Church is defective because they went off into heresy. That Martin Luther was a Roman Catholic Augustinian monk does not make Catholicism, the Augustinians, or monasticism responsible for his sins.

8. I have Pope Paul VI first and foremost in mind (see p. 143).

9. I go into this topic at greater length in chapters 15 and 24 and the Conclusion.

10. In his letter to bishops Con Grande Fiducia of July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict acknowledges that even after the Novus Ordo was universally imposed by Paul VI, love for the Tridentine Mass still burned in the hearts of many Catholics: “It soon became apparent that a good number of people remained strongly attached to this usage of the Roman Rite, which had been familiar to them from childhood. This was especially the case in countries where the Liturgical Movement had provided many people with a notable liturgical formation and a deep, personal familiarity with the earlier Form of the liturgical celebration. . . . Many people who clearly accepted the binding character of the Second Vatican Council, and were faithful to the Pope and the Bishops, nonetheless also desired to recover the form of the sacred liturgy that was dear to them.”

11. Mosebach, Subversive Catholicism, 98, 100.

12. Ibid., 62–63.

13. See Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, ch. 3, “Organic Development and Continuity,” 51–65; Kwasniewski, “On Liturgical Development and Corruption” and “Gnosticism, Liturgical Change, and Catholic Life,” in Tradition and Sanity, 43–51 and 99–116.

14. See Cassian Folsom, OSB, “From One Eucharistic Prayer to Many: How It Happened and Why,” Adoremus, 2.4–6 (September–November 1996), available at the Adoremus website. See the Glossary, s.v. Roman Canon.

15. See Michael Davies, Cranmer’s Godly Order: The Destruction of Catholicism Through Liturgical Change, rev. ed. (Ft. Collins, CO: Roman Catholic Books, 1995).

16. For a fuller statement of the problem, see “Reverence is Not Enough: On the Importance of Tradition,” in Kwasniewski, Noble Beauty, 33–50, and “The Five Wounds and the Church of the Future,” in Kwasniewski, Resurgent, 94–111; cf. my lecture “Beyond ‘Smells and Bells.’”

17. The Commonitories, ch. 6, trans. Rudolph E. Morris, in The Fathers of the Church: A New Translation, vol. 7: Nicetas of Remesiana, Sulpicius Severus, Vincent of Lérins, Prosper of Aquitaine (New York: Fathers of the Church, Inc., 1949), 277.

18. As recounted by Alfons Cardinal Stickler (1910–2007) in his “Recollections of a Vatican II Peritus,” Latin Mass Magazine, Winter 1999, available at www.latinmassmagazine.com/articles/articles_1999_WI_Stickler.html.

19. See Council of Trent, Session 22, canon 9; Pius VI, Auctorem Fidei, n. 33 (Denzinger, 43rd ed., 2633); cf. n. 1 (D2601), n. 66 (D2666).

20. See Bugnini, Reform of the Liturgy, 283n16; cf. Thomas M. Kocik, The Reform of the Reform? A Liturgical Debate: Reform or Return (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2003), 226–27.

21. This is why traditionalists are consistent when they critique the dubious reinvention of Holy Week under Pius XII in the mid-1950s. There is a growing consensus that the Tridentine Holy Week is superior to it in every way.

22. See my article “Liturgical Rollercoaster,” New Liturgical Movement, February 6, 2017; to drill into a particular example, namely, the Prefaces, see Joseph Shaw, ed., The Case for Liturgical Restoration (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019), 113–19, and Gregory DiPippo, “The New Rite Prefaces for Advent,” New Liturgical Movement, December 24, 2015.

23. An example of an improvement over the status quo ante would be the Novus Ordo’s restoration of a suitable number of readings to the Easter Vigil. Yet if Pius XII had not approved the barbaric reduction of readings from twelve prophecies to four in the 1950s, no subsequent course correction would have been necessary.

24. The Missa normativa was the draft Novus Ordo that was complete by 1967 and presented in October of that year at the First Ordinary General Assembly of the Synod of Bishops. See Chiron, Bugnini, 129–31.

25. On the peculiarities of the Pius X breviary, see Gregory DiPippo, “Compendium of the Reforms of the Roman Breviary, 1568–1961, part 7—The Breviary Reforms of St. Pius X,” published in four parts at New Liturgical Movement on October 28, November 3, November 9, and November 18, 2009.

26. See my article “The Byzantine Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and the Novus Ordo—Two Brothers and a Stranger,” New Liturgical Movement, June 4, 2018.

27. See the article under this title at The Rad Trad, July 28, 2018.

28. These phrases are used in Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 34 and n. 124, respectively.

29. See Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 239–50; Cekada, “The Revised Orations: ‘New Values, New Perspectives,’” in Work of Human Hands, 219–45.

30. See Andrea Grillo, “Open letter on the ‘state of liturgical exception,’” Munera: Rivista Europea di Cultura, March 29, 2020, signed (as of April 10) by 180 liturgists and theologians, and translated into several languages.

31. See Chiron, Bugnini, 119.

32. See the Glossary, s.v. Sacramentary.

33. Of the many testimonies to this effect, one might start with the four recounted in Jim Graves, “Finding What Should Never Have Been Lost: Priests and the Extraordinary Form,” Catholic World Report, August 19, 2014; cf. my article “Discovering Tradition: A Priest’s Crisis of Conscience,” OnePeterFive, March 27, 2019.

34. On all of the points in this section, see the fuller treatment in my article “Why the Reform of the Reform is Doomed,” OnePeterFive, April 22, 2020; cf. Bishop Athanasius Schneider, “Reform of the Reform,” in idem, with Diane Montagna, Christus Vincit: Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019), 235–59.

10
The Problem of
False Antiquarianism

Acatholic school in denver offered a public “forum” on the Eucharist, taught by a teacher who recycled several misleading canards.

First (he said), the Emmaus story prefigures the Novus Ordo Mass because Jesus broke open the Scriptures (“Liturgy of the Word”) and then broke bread (“Liturgy of the Eucharist”). Second, Origen’s commentary on Exodus 35:4–5 shows that people received Communion in the hand at the inception of the Church: “How carefully and respectfully you receive the Lord’s body when it is distributed to you, for fear even a crumb might fall and a little part of this consecrated treasure might be lost. You would even blame yourself—and rightfully so—if a fragment were lost through your negligence.” Third, St. Justin Martyr’s First Apology describes a Mass far closer to the Novus Ordo than to the traditional Latin Mass. Even the term “president” is found there, as the term “presider” is found in the context of the Novus Ordo. Thus, the Novus Ordo is a return to the “true” Mass of early Catholics. This last point is frequently made: Dr. Mary Healy, for example, claims that “the revised liturgy . . . is in some respects closer to the liturgy as celebrated in the first millennium than is the Tridentine Mass.”[1]

Note that there is a common thread running through all of these points: “false antiquarianism,” as Pope Pius XII called it in his encyclical letter Mediator Dei. We may be surprised at the ongoing relevance of what he says in numbers 61–64.

61. The liturgy of the early ages is most certainly worthy of all veneration. But ancient usage must not be esteemed more suitable and proper, either in its own right or in its significance for later times and new situations, on the simple ground that it carries the savor and aroma of antiquity. The more recent liturgical rites likewise deserve reverence and respect. They, too, owe their inspiration to the Holy Spirit, who assists the Church in every age even to the consummation of the world (cf. Mt 28:20). They are equally the resources used by the majestic Spouse of Jesus Christ to promote and procure the sanctity of man.

This encyclical was published in 1947, prior to any major changes that would be made to the Roman Missal in the years thereafter. Pius XII’s mention of “the more recent liturgical rites” therefore refers to things medieval and Baroque—that is, everything subsequent to that ancient period of which the Liturgical Movement tended to be enamored. By 1947, this collective body of liturgy— simultaneously ancient, medieval, and early modern, as an organic reality that had passed through and, as it were, absorbed the flavor of all of these periods—had already been highly stable and consistent for 400 years. This testifies not to a lack of vitality but to a ripe maturity in form and content. There comes a time when a great work of art, such as a cathedral, is essentially finished; all that will be added subsequently are minute details. Pius XII continues:

62. Assuredly it is a wise and most laudable thing to return in spirit and affection to the sources of the sacred liturgy. For research in this field of study, by tracing it back to its origins, contributes valuable assistance towards a more thorough and careful investigation of the significance of feastdays, and of the meaning of the texts and sacred ceremonies employed on their occasion. But it is neither wise nor laudable to reduce everything to antiquity by every possible device. Thus, to cite some instances, one would be straying from the straight path were he to wish the altar restored to its primitive table form; were he to want black excluded as a color for the liturgical vestments; were he to forbid the use of sacred images and statues in churches; were he to order the crucifix so designed that the divine Redeemer’s body shows no trace of His cruel sufferings; and lastly were he to disdain and reject polyphonic music or singing in parts, even where it conforms to regulations issued by the Holy See.

63. Clearly no sincere Catholic can refuse to accept the formulation of Christian doctrine more recently elaborated and proclaimed as dogmas by the Church, under the inspiration and guidance of the Holy Spirit with abundant fruit for souls, because it pleases him to hark back to the old formulas. No more can any Catholic in his right senses repudiate existing legislation of the Church to revert to prescriptions based on the earliest sources of canon law. Just as obviously unwise and mistaken is the zeal of one who in matters liturgical would go back to the rites and usage of antiquity, discarding the new patterns introduced by the disposition of divine Providence to meet the changes of circumstances and situation.

Just as we should not prefer older (and at times vaguer) dogmatic formulas to the more recent and more fully expressed dogmatic formulas of Trent and Vatican I, so too we should not prefer older (and at times less articulate or complete) liturgical rites to the more fully developed ones of later centuries. The phrase “new patterns” refers to that which has arisen in the Church after the early centuries, such as high altars, black vestments, statuary, crucifixes, and polyphonic music.

Notice how many of the opinions singled out by Pius XII for condemnation were later enacted to the letter by liturgical reformers. The modernist finds ways to appeal to ancient practice while conveniently forgetting (or never believing to begin with?) that the Church’s life of worship unfolds over time under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, who leads her into the “fullness of truth” (cf. Jn 16:13). If the antiquarian modernists were correct, the Church would have been profoundly mistaken or misguided—for periods of 500, 1000, 1,500 years or more—about many important aspects of how to celebrate the Eucharistic liturgy. It seems difficult, to say the least, to reconcile such a temerarious opinion with the governance of the Church by Divine Providence. A saner and more Catholic perspective would see the sacred liturgy becoming more and more complete and settled with the passing of centuries. This is not “ossification” or “fossilization,” but a process of maturation arriving at the stability of perfection. The pope completes his critique:

64. This way of acting bids fair to revive the exaggerated and senseless antiquarianism to which the illegal Council of Pistoia gave rise. It likewise attempts to reinstate a series of errors which were responsible for the calling of that meeting as well as for those resulting from it, with grievous harm to souls, and which the Church, the ever watchful guardian of the deposit of faith committed to her charge by her divine Founder, had every right and reason to condemn. For perverse designs and ventures of this sort tend to paralyze and weaken that process of sanctification by which the sacred liturgy directs the sons of adoption to their Heavenly Father for their souls’ salvation.

The Synod of Pistoia was a diocesan synod held in 1786 under Bishop Scipione de’ Ricci (1741–1810) with a view to reforming the Tuscan Church along Enlightenment lines. Pistoia’s proposals included liturgical simplification, use of the vernacular, abolition of silent prayers, and the removal of side altars and cases of relics. The synod’s decisions were condemned by Pope Pius VI in the bull Auctorem Fidei of August 28, 1794. How remarkable it is that the Enlightenment rationalism that dominated this Jansenist Synod, already many times repudiated, reemerged triumphant after Vatican II— not to reap new anathemas, but to be embraced and enforced!

The appeal to antiquity is always selective: reformers will pick those early elements (and only those) that fit in with their agenda and discard or pass over the rest—even things that are equally ancient or more ancient, such as the ad orientem stance. In other words, there is a modern filter that determines what antiquity means and what makes an ancient element acceptable to moderns. In this way, all such “recoveries” are inherently and unavoidably modern rather than ancient. For example, the reformers wanted to revive Communion in the hand because it suited their anti-medieval, antischolastic, anti-metaphysical, anti-Tridentine mentality, which they dignified with the name of “ressourcement” (returning to the sources). But when it came to the season of Septuagesima or pre-Lent, which is from the sixth century and even older than Ash Wednesday, or the quarterly observance of Ember Days dating from the third to fourth centuries, or the octave of Pentecost from the late sixth century, they just chucked it out the window. One can cite dozens of such examples. Yet the Church’s liturgy developed as it did over the centuries for good reason. Giving Communion on the tongue to kneeling faithful is obviously both safer and more reverent. A short period to prepare for the rigors of Lent is obviously helpful in calling the faithful’s attention to the season of intensified fasting, prayer, and almsgiving up ahead. Setting aside special days of prayer and penance each quarter, in tune with the cycles of nature and the recurring needs of the Church, is eminently sensible. Basking for eight days in the light and warmth of the sending of the Holy Spirit makes exactly the same sense as devoting octaves to the newborn Savior and the risen Lord. The traditional liturgy is the capacious home of all that is most ancient, most wise, and most beautiful. Its replacement is an arbitrary mishmash with a Guggenheim aesthetic.

Antiquarianism is doomed to collapse into the self-referential modernism that picks and chooses items deemed “relevant” out of the indifferent mass of purposeless matter into which the Church’s past has been converted by modern philosophy. Nothing is valued simply on account of its being handed down; it is valued because it is wanted by a reformer according to his own lights and for his own purposes, be they good or ill. It could almost be turned into a motto for an organization called Planned Prayerhood: “No rite an unwanted rite.”

The liturgical reformers earnestly appealed to “scholarship,” yet this scholarship was often tendentious and subsequently exploded. In the words of Gregory DiPippo:

Depending on how you define “early Church,” nearly all of the common claims about its liturgical practice—the claims upon which the reformed missal is based—are unsubstantiated. Just to give two easy examples, there is not a single shred of hard evidence that the Christian liturgy was ever celebrated versus populum, or that the Roman rite originally had three readings at all Masses.[2]

We have a decent amount of useful and indirect information about the liturgy in the Patristic era, but we have no liturgical books before roughly 700 ad. (The so-called Leonine Sacramentary,* which is over 100 years older, is now known not to be a sacramentary.) But once we get to the actual books, what we see in them is essentially and unmistakably very similar to what we have in the later medieval missals and the rite codified by St. Pius V. The only substantial development of any real theological importance is the emergence of the Offertory prayers,[3] which begins in the later 9th century, and which carries its own justification as an organic development (in the correct sense expounded by St. Vincent of Lérins and St. John Henry Newman).

What we do not find any kind of evidence for in the early Church, whether in the early liturgical books, or things that can be reasonably inferred from other stuff, is any of the practices that make the Novus Ordo uniquely itself: multiple canons available ad libitum; the mixing of the rites of read and sung Mass; lots of places where the celebrant and/or his chosen collaborators must make choices about what to say or sing, how to say or sing it, whether to say or sing it—not excluding even the very heart of the rite, the Eucharistic prayer. The list of novelties without ancient parallel, and pseudo-ancient reconstructions, is lengthy.

Once they got control of the Central Committee, it was never the policy or intention of the more radical reformers to return to the “original rule of the Fathers,” as Vatican II had asked. It was always their policy to decide ahead of time what they were going to change, and then fish around in the liturgical books of other rites, or historical iterations of the Roman rite, for justifications, or putative justifications, for the changes they had already made. This is why the more honest among them—people like Cardinal Antonelli, Fr. Bouyer, Msgr. Martimort, Dom Bernard Botte— expressed such grave reservations about both the dishonesty of the procedure, and the deleterious results.

Let us consider briefly, then, the three points mentioned at the start of this chapter.

To the first. The division of the Mass into the Mass of the Catechumens (from the prayers at the foot of the altar to the Creed) and the Mass of the Faithful (from the Offertory to the Last Gospel), which we still find in the Tridentine Mass, is ancient and universal. The Novus Ordo’s division into Liturgy of the Word and Liturgy of the Eucharist hails from the Protestants. Sure, you can extrapolate it out of Emmaus, just as you can extract Luther out of Romans or Calvin out of Augustine. But it’s not traditional and it’s not Catholic.[4]

To the second. Bishop Athanasius Schneider has refuted at length the claim that the early Church did “just what we’re doing now” with Communion in the hand. Nothing could be further from the truth.[5] First, the ancient way of receiving in the hand was more careful, more devout, and more solemn: the consecrated bread was received always in the right hand (never in the left) and the communicant did not pick it up to bring it to his mouth but bent over in a sign of adoration and took it with his mouth. In other words, the right hand was used as a primitive paten and the communicant did not feed himself as he would do with ordinary food. Moreover, in some cases, a cloth was draped over the hands as a sign of reverence. Second, the faithful were fewer in number, which made this more time-consuming and risky method tolerable in a way that it could never be if large numbers were to approach for Communion. Third, the reason the Church moved over time to Communion on the tongue for kneeling recipients is the very piety one already finds in the Fathers of the Church. Take the attitude of a St. Cyril of Jerusalem or a St. Basil the Great and compound it by several centuries of meditation, adoration, and experience, and you will end up with the medieval custom followed at the traditional Mass today.[6]

To the third. Yes, the primitive liturgy described by St. Justin sounds a bit like the Novus Ordo. That’s because there had not yet occurred 1,800 years of natural and supernatural development to enrich the solemn official worship of the Church, especially after this worship had become legal and public. The earliest Masses of the Church were said inside the homes of Christians on account of persecution from the pagan Roman Empire. When, later on, Christians were free to celebrate Mass in basilicas with large congregations, fitting developments occurred in ceremonial and fine art, expressing with splendor the faith of the Church in the sublime mysteries of her God and Lord. St. Justin must be rolling over in his grave to see people depriving themselves and Our Lord of a richly endowed public worship full of reverence and beauty—a worship of which the saint himself, were he to return to earth today, would eagerly avail himself—in order to simulate what for us would be the fiction of a primitive liturgy.[7]

The redactors of the Novus Ordo used selective (and, as we now know, often erroneous) scholarship on early Catholic practices as an incentive and a justification for creating their own novel product, which, in its totality as in its details, bears little resemblance to any actually existing liturgical rite whose complete form we know, such as the Latin rites and uses at the end of the first millennium, or the Roman rite from the Middle Ages. Or rather, it bears the same resemblance that a toy lion on my desk has to a real lion roaming the African savanna: they both have the same shape; they both have eyes, ears, nose, a mouth, and four paws; they are both furry. But one is large, heavy, alive, and hungry, while the other is small, lightweight, lifeless, and stuffed.

The presumably well-intentioned but certainly ill-informed teacher who presented this half-information to his Catholic audience at the forum was doing them a disservice by implying that the Novus Ordo is somehow more in continuity with the ancient Church than the developed Latin liturgical tradition. In reality, the modernists conducted a liturgical reform pervaded with skepticism and dismissiveness toward traditional Catholic faith and practice, removing every “medieval or Baroque accretion” they could get away with removing, and thus introducing for the first time a colossal rupture in the Church’s bimillenial life of prayer.

There is no need for the hypothetical reconstructions of a false antiquarianism when we have, and have always had, thanks be to God, a real and living connection with antiquity in the classical Roman rite—still alive and well, in spite of every attempt to bury it as a relic from the past.

In order to cover the new rite’s nakedness, people inclined to the reform of the reform add as many “smells and bells” as they can manage to pull off. But there is no amount of Latin that will change what the prayers say (and do not say); there is no amount of chant that will change the damaged structure of the Propers, the lectionary, and the calendar; there is no mountain of incense that will mask the sharp smell of the electric dynamo, the quintessentially modern spirit animating the Consilium. The reform of the reform is a huge Band-Aid placed over a gaping wound that refuses to heal. It refuses to heal because rupture with tradition cannot be blessed by God. Many people will be saved in spite of it, but it can never be a good thing in itself.

Why, then, do some Catholics still adhere to the will-o’-the-wisp of reforming the reform, when in many cases they could easily switch over to the traditional Latin Mass—when, let us say, a parish run by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter or the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest is just across town, or even down the road, or where a parish priest has added the usus antiquior to the Sunday schedule? Why settle for the second-hand Citroën or Renault when you could have the Jaguar or Rolls Royce? Why eat the industrially grown vegetables coated with chemicals when you could have organically grown produce from a roadside stand? Why is it that those without special training or academic credentials can often see the rightness of the old ways and the inadequacy of the new, while those who should be leading their brethren by precept and example turn out to be hoodwinked and benighted?

I understand the complexities of individual and family situations—people are constrained by many factors, some within their control but many outside of it—and I do not presume to judge anyone’s interior life. At the same time, it seems to me that there are reasons both cognitive and moral behind the “conservative” resistance to the venerable Roman rite.

They do not see it because they have not tried to see it. This is the cognitive or perceptual dimension. One has to let the traditional liturgy wash over one’s body and soul like waves at the ocean, patiently getting to know it, adjusting to its gentle rhythm; and then its secrets begin to reveal themselves. An increasing number of Catholics, discovering these secrets year by year, are proving once again the perennial efficacy of the prayer of Our Lord: “I thank thee, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them to the little ones” (Mt 11:25).

They do not see the rightness of it because they do not want to see it. This is the moral dimension. Something like what Gerard Verschuuren says about atheists can be said analogously of many Catholics today, who are “unbelievers” in regard to the tradition of the very Church to which they belong:

What we often see in the lives of non-believers is a certain disconnect between what they know and what they prefer to know. Thomas Aquinas was very aware of this disconnect: “Whereas unbelief is in the intellect, the cause of unbelief is in the will.” No matter how strong the empirical and rational evidence is in favor of God’s existence, some atheists choose not to accept God’s existence as a fact because they don’t like the way the world looks to them with God in the picture. They act like smokers who know smoking is unhealthy, but nevertheless keep smoking. It is the will, says Pascal, which “dissuades the mind from considering those aspects it doesn’t like to see.”[8]

What is it about “the way the world looks with the usus antiquior in the picture” that unbelievers in liturgical tradition don’t like to see? Or whence arises the continuation of the liturgical smoking habit? There are, I believe, four factors.

First, an inflated ultramontanism or hyperpapalism leads to a belief that Paul VI—or any pope—is incapable of doing wrong, of leading anyone astray, of approving something harmful to the Church. We can be grateful to Pope Francis for having done more to demolish this noxious error than any other pope in history.[9]

Second, there is a fear that if the modern liturgy turns out to be flawed, it will somehow call into question the indefectibility of the Church (which it does not),[10] or that its defects may indicate that the new theological and pastoral approach introduced by Vatican II is worthy of critique (which indeed it is).[11] Assenting to these conclusions would require a spiritual and intellectual reorientation that many are unwilling to entertain, let alone execute—although, again, the deep-seated, multifaceted abuse crisis in the Church has been making this reorientation well-nigh unavoidable.

Third, cultural and political activism among zealous and dogmatically faithful (if not liturgically-minded) Catholics puts a huge emphasis on being part of the winning “party.” They want to win souls by the thousands, they want to end abortion, they want to defend marriage and defeat the LGBTQ agenda, etc., and they fear that joining a “fringe group” will remove them from their great campaign to save mankind. What they need to realize is that if we do not keep ourselves centered on and tethered to the Faith’s unadulterated expression and enactment in the traditional sacred liturgy, we will find at some point that we have joined forces with ambiguity, accommodation, and deculturation; we will find ourselves, contrary to our best intentions, contributing to—or at least offering no serious resistance to—the progressive undermining of the foundations on which everything else rests.[12]

Lastly, there are Catholics—everyone knows that this description rings true—who simply don’t want to give themselves totally to the Faith. They want the psychological and social benefits of religion, but if they feel something is getting too radical, too intense, too “out-there,” they shy away. “It’s just too much!,” they think. Or: “I’m not a fanatic! I just want to be normal.” Far more sharply than the Novus Ordo ever could, the traditional Latin Mass brings people to a crisis: they sit there and watch the ministers performing precise rituals with utmost care, and the stark alternative comes to mind: either this Faith is worth dying for, or these priests, servers, and the whole throng of faithful are a bunch of lunatics. The modern liturgy doesn’t make us think this way because there we see people serving themselves, in an atmosphere of cushioned comfort, and that is what we see all over society. The rite is not surprising or enigmatic. It doesn’t compel us to wonder. It is quite normal. Indeed, it confirms us in our mediocrity.

This is why all modern Catholics need to be “thrown headlong into a new world of tremendous meaning and mystery” through “the depth of the sacred traditions,” and thus to enter “into a new experience of their place in the divine family and their spiritual heritage.”[13] That may well be the only thing that can save the Church from her autodemolition.

1. The next chapter responds to Dr. Healy’s arguments.

2. See Gregory DiPippo, “Did the Roman Rite Anciently Have Three Readings?,” New Liturgical Movement, November 17, 2013.

3. See idem, “The Theology of the Offertory,” published in multiple installments at New Liturgical Movement.

4. See my articles “Why ‘Mass of Catechumens’ Makes Better Sense than ‘Liturgy of the Word,’” New Liturgical Movement, December 29, 2014; “Why the ‘Word of God’ for Catholics is not only the Bible, but more importantly, Jesus Himself,” LifeSite News, August 29, 2019.

5. See Schneider, “The Eucharist and Holy Communion,” in Christus Vincit, 219–33; idem, Dominus Est!—It Is the Lord, trans. Nicholas L. Gregoris (Pine Beach, NJ: Newman House Press, 2008); idem, Corpus Christi: Holy Communion and the Renewal of the Church (n.p.: Lumen Fidei Press, 2014).

6. See Glossary, s.v. Communion cloth. On all these points, see my article “Debunking the myth that today’s Communion in the hand revives an ancient custom,” LifeSite, November 26, 2019.

7. See Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 51–65.

8. The Myth of an Anti-Science Church: Galileo, Darwin, Teilhard, Hawking, Dawkins (Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2018), 199.

9. See Roberto de Mattei, Love for the Papacy and Filial Resistance to the Pope in the History of the Church (Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2019).

10. See “May We Question the Liturgical Reform?,” in Kwasniewski, Tradition and Sanity, 117–30.

11. See the incisive essay of Thomas Pink,“Vatican II and Crisis in the Theology of Baptism,” published at The Josias, November 2, 5, and 8, 2018, as well as Schneider, Christus Vincit, 85–104, 117–35; see also chapters 15 and 24 and the Conclusion below.

12. On why the pro-life movement and the movement to restore Catholic tradition are ideal partners, see chapter 22.

13. See above, p. 53, for the source of this quotation.

11
The Gift of
Liturgical Tradition

On january 18, 2020, Homiletic & Pastoral Review published an article by Dr. Mary Healy entitled “The Gift of the Liturgical Reform.”[1] Dr. Healy does not at all draw upon what is known about the history of the liturgy and its governing principles, the genesis of the Novus Ordo Missae, and the scholarly considerations of those who maintain that it not only fails to reflect the program of reform requested by Vatican II but also counts as a seriously flawed invention and in no sense a legitimate liturgical development. She does not mention Annibale Bugnini, the secretary of the Consilium, who manipulated both his own network of committees and Pope Paul VI.[2] Her failure to acknowledge the highly problematic institution of the Novus Ordo and the tragic, unjust suppression of the traditional Latin Mass is astonishing.

Bugnini’s massive reform project,[3] conducted along simultaneously antiquarian and modernizing lines, has borne highly mixed fruits, some of them rotten and still plentifully in our midst. (To her credit, Dr. Healy seems to concede this.) The reform has been subjected to extensive and penetrating scholarly critique by, among others, Klaus Gamber, Dietrich von Hildebrand, Romano Amerio, Stratford Caldecott, Thomas Kocik, Martin Mosebach, Lauren Pristas, Aidan Nichols, Alcuin Reid, Andrew Wadsworth, Uwe Michael Lang, William Mahrt, Daniel van Slyke, Joseph Shaw, and—perhaps the name will be familiar—Joseph Ratzinger. Any defense of the Novus Ordo should surely take into account the shared concerns of such a distinguished group of scholars. Of all this ferment, Dr. Healy’s article shows little to no awareness; its content and tone are reminiscent of what one will find in any issue of Notitiae or Worship from ca. 1965 to 1975.

Dr. Healy’s article is organized according to “improvements” or “gains” the Novus Ordo is said to have brought to us; these furnish my headings below.

A rich banquet of the Word

Dr. Healy praises the new lectionary for including significantly more Scripture, while she faults the old Mass for giving insufficient attention to it. In the Church’s tradition, however, the sacrifice of the Mass was never understood to be the primary place for biblical lessons and catechesis. Readings were chosen for their universal moral, dogmatic, and Eucharistic resonances, or for their connection with individual saints or classes of saints. The saints themselves are seen as living icons to which the letter of the Bible points us, and in which its message is fulfilled. The readings hold up great examples of virtue and prepare the congregation ascetically, doctrinally, and mystically for communion with the Lord in adoration and in sacrament. The limited, artful, and memorable selection of biblical pericopes* in the ancient one-year recurring lectionary is admirably “to the point” and much appreciated by those who attend the classical Roman rite. If additional Scripture readings needed to be incorporated into the Mass, there was no need to create a lectionary de novo; it would have sufficed to enrich the existing lectionary, drawing upon extant historical models from periods when the missal had more readings than it did later on, in keeping with Vatican II’s sound (but largely ignored) principle: “there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing.”[4]

Also worthy of unfavorable mention are the new lectionary’s rationalistic principles of composition and its surprising lacunae as compared with the old lectionary that served the Western Church for over 1,000 years. It does not merely offer more Scripture; it offers different Scripture than the old rite. Closer investigation turns up many problems of skewed selectivity.[5]

Moreover, the traditional liturgy as a whole is permeated with scriptural citations and allusions in a way foreign to the Novus Ordo, as a side-by-side textual comparison demonstrates. From Psalm 50 at the Asperges and Psalm 42 at the foot of the altar, to the Gradual and the Alleluia or Tract in between readings, to Psalms 140 and 25 during the Offertory, to Psalm 115 at the priest’s Communion, to the Prologue of John at the end of Mass, and verses from Psalms 17, 84, 101, 123, and others woven in here and there, with allusions to other books as well, the usus antiquior practices an “immersive” approach to Scripture that is sorely lacking in its replacement. The ancient liturgy is teaching the priest and the people how to pray God’s Word, how to understand its fulfillment and reality in the present moment. It is a crash course in lectio divina. The liturgy is showing us that the Word is for the sake of worship, and worship for the sake of one-flesh communion with God Incarnate.

This brings me to a not inconsiderable difference between the theology of the classical Roman rite and that of Paul VI’s modern rite in regard to how the readings are understood as liturgical actions. Over time the view developed that the readings at Mass, far from being merely instructional or didactic, are an integral part of the seamless act of worship offered to God in the Holy Sacrifice. The clergy chant the divine words in the presence of their Author as part of the logike latreia or “rational/verbal worship” we owe to our Creator and Redeemer. These words are a making-present of the covenant with God, an enactment of their meaning in the sacramental context for which they were intended, a grateful and humble recitation in the sight of God of the truths He has spoken and the good things He has promised (in keeping with Scripture’s manner of praying to God: “Remember, Lord, the promises Thou hast spoken!”), and a form of verbal incense by which we raise our hands to His commandments, as the great Offertory chant has it: Meditabor in mandatis tuis, quae dilexi valde: et levabo manus meas ad mandata tua quae dilexi, “I will meditate on Thy commandments, which I have loved exceedingly: and I will lift up my hands to Thy commandments, which I have loved” (Ps 118:47–48). When we give up a utilitarian/rationalist perspective and adopt a more truly theological one, we begin to see how fitting is the ceremonial in which the ancient rite wraps the chanting of the Word of God.

The language of the people

Dr. Healy calls vernacularization a great gain, the result of “an instinct of faith.” What she can’t say is that it was mandated by Vatican II, which stated only that it would be beneficial were some of the Mass to be in the vernacular, with Latin retained for the unchanging parts.[6] That Mass be said exclusively in the vernacular was simply not on the Council’s agenda. The reason is not far to seek: from the fourth century to the twentieth—therefore, the vast majority of the Western Church’s life of faith—the defining public act of the Church, the sacred liturgy, was conducted in Latin, which was also the language of theology, spirituality, liturgy, music, and canon law. This linguistic sovereignty of Latin was either the work of Divine Providence (as Pope John XXIII declares it to be in his Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia of 1962) or the sign of major dereliction from God’s will, as the Protestants say.

Dr. Healy claims that only prayer “in a person’s mother tongue” will enable him to “pray to God intimately, from the heart.” This may be true of private prayer, but it was never the mentality of the Church towards liturgical prayer. As Joseph Shaw explains in his response to Healy’s article:

It would be very surprising if the Apostles agreed with Prof. Healy’s claim, since, as Jews, they were brought up to pray and sing the Psalms in Hebrew, as well as in their mother tongue. No word of criticism of sacred languages is to be found in Scripture, and the earliest liturgies were by no means composed in the language of the street. In Greek-speaking areas, the Church was able to employ the sacred register created by the Septuagint translation of the Bible: a distinct form of Greek already two centuries old and filled with Hebraisms. Latin liturgy did not emerge until Latin translations of the Bible had created something equivalent, and, when it did, we find a liturgy in a sacred Latin with a specialized vocabulary, replete with archaisms, loan-words, and other peculiarities; similarly, liturgical Coptic is an archaic language larded with Greek terms and written in Greek letters. As for Church Slavonic and the language of the Glagolithic Missal, their origins and history are not reducible to the simple idea of the “language in use at the time,” and, in any case, they quickly become liturgical languages for people not able to understand them. They remain culturally connected to the peoples they serve, but not readily comprehensible by them. One is obliged to conclude from this history that the Church’s preference for sacred languages is so powerful that it expressed itself in one cultural context after another.[7]

Whatever place it deserves in liturgy and devotional life, the vernacular’s total hegemony and the corresponding loss of the Roman rite’s ancient language have been disastrous for the sacredness and stability of the Church’s worship and indeed for her very identity and catholicity. The consequent collapse of Latinity among the clergy and laity has introduced an unprecedented break in access to much of our (untranslated) heritage. The resulting widespread ignorance of sources and egregious cultural illiteracy is plain to see.

The international organization Paix Liturgique has been conducting professional surveys in many Western nations, and, to everyone’s surprise, has discovered that, of Catholics who still attend church, a consistent 25–35% say they would attend the Latin Mass if it were available near where they live. This hardly sounds like an absolute preference for the vernacular among worshipers (even if preference were the main thing to look at—which it isn’t). Moreover, since the Latin Mass is still so difficult to find, it is reasonable to suppose that greater availability would prompt, in turn, a faster growth of that demographic.[8]

Moreover, the extent to which Latin must remain a “barrier” of total incomprehension is greatly exaggerated. It is a kind of barrier, yes, and appropriately so, as I argued in the second chapter; but at least three-quarters of the fairly compact traditional Latin Mass remains identical from day to day (the Roman rite of yore did not relish arbitrary options or verbosity). Aside from the changing antiphons, readings, and orations, the rest is the same: the prayers at the foot of the altar, the Ordinary (Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, etc.), the Offertory prayers, the Canon, the last Gospel, etc. Many of these texts will already be familiar to Catholics who have hitherto attended Mass in the vernacular.

But there is a deeper question here that we must not evade. If Israel was able to revive its ancient language, Hebrew, about a hundred years ago, with the result that the entire nation now speaks Hebrew; if Moslems can teach their children classical Arabic; if the Irish can teach their children the Irish language—what exactly is our problem? Why aren’t we interested in preserving our culture? If Latin-rite Catholics do not love and learn Latin—and Gregorian chant and sacred art and whatever else is distinctive of our heritage—we have only ourselves to blame when the secular culture invades, dominates, and stifles us. Put differently: culture is not something “out there,” like a museum exhibit. It is a major part of what constitutes us as social and religious animals. If we do not preserve and pass on a culture of our own, we will be assimilated by another culture. Language, in fact, is the primary resource of interior resistance to totalitarian efforts at ideological colonization, dilution of identity, and sociological or geographical dispersion.

Learning the amount of Latin necessary to make sense of the Roman liturgy is not rocket science or relativity theory. I’ve seen little kids speak Latin with their parents, who teach it to them in oral exercises. It’s only a matter of what is important to us. If our Roman Catholic identity, history, and culture are important to us, we will quit making excuses and expend the elbow grease. If not—good luck surviving the onslaught of the Assyrians and Babylonians. Either zeal for the Lord’s house will consume us… or something else will.

Banquet and sacrifice

Dr. Healy speaks in a confusing manner about the relationship between sacrifice and meal, as if these are parallel or equal. Christ’s death on the Cross was first and foremost an atonement for the sin of mankind and an act of redemptive love, the fruits of which are applied to us through all seven sacraments for our salvation. As the Council of Trent teaches, the Mass is above all the re-presentation of this holy sacrifice on the Cross, by which perfect adoration, thanks, and praise are offered to the Most Holy Trinity and we are inserted into that God-pleasing worship. Those who are in a state of grace may then partake of the very flesh of the crucified and glorified Savior in Holy Communion. Sacrifice has definitive priority over the meal aspect, not only in grasping what the Mass is, but in grasping how we are drawn up into its reality. The traditional Latin Mass embodies and proclaims this correct understanding.

Nor does Dr. Healy acknowledge that an insistence on Communion under both kinds has led, in practice, to the ordinary use of “extraordinary” ministers of Holy Communion, frequently (but ineffectively) condemned by the Vatican. She also does not mention the scandal of Communion in the hand, which, though only an “option,” has become practically de rigueur at the Novus Ordo.[9]

One loaf, one Body

Dr. Healy criticizes the Tridentine Mass for being too “vertical” or theocentric and for neglecting the “horizontal” or communal dimension. In her view, the classical rite emphasizes the transcendent and divine aspects of worship at the expense of the immanent and human aspects. After all, she claims, God gave liturgy to us for our benefit—“the sabbath was made for man, not man for the sabbath” (Mk 2:27)—and it’s obviously meant to be a communal activity that expresses and builds up our social bonds with one another. In holding this view, she echoes the post-war phase of the Liturgical Movement, which recast the aim of liturgy in communitarian, horizontal terms, as a way of nurturing relationships with fellow Christians. After the Council, Mass was reconfigured so that people could feel themselves to be acting together, even interacting, in the pews.

Such a perspective, and the wave of changes that resulted and continue to result from it, disclose a profound misunderstanding of how liturgy works. In truth, we are ordered to one another and joined together by being properly ordered to God in worship centered on Him. When we make a secondary goal (the goal of expressing or building community) primary, or make it equal to the primary, we introduce disorder and inevitable decadence, even as we have seen with the inversion or equalization of the ends of marriage.[10] Guided by the teaching of popes and saints and the perennial witness of the Church in her life of worship, we may say with confidence that the sacred liturgy has, for its primary aim, honoring and glorifying God. Precisely in doing this, the liturgy sanctifies our souls, leading us to an ever-deeper intimacy with Our Lord Jesus Christ, and through Him, with His Father, in the power of the Holy Spirit; and only in that way does it successfully build up a supernatural community of charity en route to the heavenly city, rather than a chummy club of benevolent neighbors.

It is good and fitting for us to pray to God as a people and to be conscious of our neighbors as fellow citizens of the household of God.[11] Liturgy is a public and communal action that unquestionably redounds to our benefit; God is absolutely perfect and unchangeably good in every way and cannot be improved by anything we do for Him. The problem with the popular emphasis on “fraternity” is not that it is completely false, but that it has been sundered from the only context in which it makes any sense, the only source from which it can actually come. The liturgy furthers the brotherhood of man by refocusing man on God, moving him to seek in Christ the exemplar, savior, and head of humanity. Unlike merely human efforts, the liturgy enables fellowship to exist; it fraternalizes us by the power of grace. There is common brotherhood only in the common adoration of the Father through His Son.

We must make sure that our grasp of the meaning of community is sufficiently in tune with the real nature of the Church. When we worship we are in the presence of God and of His angels and saints. Reverence, solemnity, and majesty belong to worship precisely because it is no mere human gathering, but a momentary opening up of our world to the life and glory of the heavenly Jerusalem. We are joined to all the saved who have worshiped in the past, with all who worship in the present (whether next to us in the pew or anywhere else in the world), and, in a way hidden in God’s foreknowledge and predilection, with all who will worship for ages to come. It is not just “our” worship, the action of this particular local community; it always has a cosmic, universal, transtemporal dimension to it.

The glorious reality of the communion of saints should decisively shape the way we worship publicly. The liturgy in itself is not—and will only be cheapened if it becomes—a gathering for waving to your neighbor, exchanging news, shaking hands, “dialoguing” with an improvisatory priest, or the like. This sort of thing may have legitimacy outside of the place of worship, in the parking lot before Mass or at the coffee hour afterwards. Transplanted into the temple of God, it becomes a serious impediment to participating in the mysteries of the liturgy and attaining those goals at which the liturgy aims.

The experience of community proper to the liturgy is an experience of common adoration, all faces, all hearts turned towards the sanctuary, focused on the divine truths announced and the divine sacrifice renewed. In a paradox well known from the lives of the saints, it is when we most forget ourselves and our neighbors in our intense concentration on the Mass that the seeds of true charity for oneself and one’s neighbor are most deeply planted in our souls.

A sacrifice of thanksgiving

Dr. Healy says it is fitting for the people to sing at Mass, and that is correct; the question is what music, when. Although traditional Catholics do hold different points of view among themselves about the extent to which congregational singing is advisable or practicable,[12] it is by no means unusual today to find congregations at High or Solemn Mass singing the Ordinary of the Mass* (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) and the frequent responses (“Et cum spiritu tuo,” “Amen,” “Habemus ad Dominum,” “Dignum et justum est,” “Sed libera nos a malo,” “Deo gratias”) with the melodies of Gregorian chant, the music “specially suited to the Roman rite,” which “should be given chief place [principem locum] in liturgical services,” as Vatican II stated, consistent with what all the preconciliar popes had encouraged.[13] Unquestionably our souls are stirred up and our awareness of unity in Christ is strengthened when we make dignified responses with one voice, or when we join in singing songs with reverent and doctrinally rich words, such as the Gregorian chants continually recommended for our use by the Church. All of this is a fitting way to nurture and express the Faith.

The communal singing of chant was catching on throughout the twentieth century until the ill-starred liturgical reform threw its weight behind emotive, communitarian pseudo-folk and pseudopop styles of religious music, which, instead of reflecting the essence of the liturgy as an offering to God, seek above all to express our own feelings. In any case, painful experience has taught us the approach that does not work: always-having-to-say-or-sing-something, which ends up being a kind of busywork, distracting and counter-spiritual, much like exercises in arithmetic given to an ornery pupil who cannot sit still. “Speech” does not mean filling the air with talk, any more than “song” means a rousing chorus into which all voices must be drafted.

From this perspective, one can only hope for a day when priests and others charged with liturgical responsibilities will appreciate that there should be ample occasion at Mass for the faithful to ponder the age-old sacred texts handed down by our holy faith, to listen to the uplifting melodies of Gregorian chant by which these texts are given wings, and to reflect meditatively in silence. It would be easy and profitable to replace banal songs with Gregorian melodies that have a sweeter tone on the lips and a more lasting influence over the mind; it would be an easy and vast improvement if we could have a quiet church before Mass, a holy stillness during the Canon, and an atmosphere of peace after Mass for those who wish to linger in their thanksgiving (with the celebrant setting the example). Sitting still for five minutes with one’s mind on God requires and fosters more spiritual maturity than singing for an hour.

Facing the people

Dr. Healy admits that there are symbolic reasons for ad orientem worship but fails to note that it was the norm for almost 2,000 years among all Christians who practiced a sacramental-liturgical life based on apostolic succession. Its replacement with versus populum was barely mentioned in the Council’s general meetings and never mentioned in its documents. It remains to this day the ordinary manner in which Eastern Christians offer the Holy Oblation. The Fathers of the Church, whom she quotes selectively on other topics, bear unanimous witness to ad orientem as an apostolic norm (e.g., St. Basil the Great, St. Augustine, St. John Damascene). It would be surprising indeed if it turned out that, for nearly twenty centuries, Church Fathers and Doctors, popes and bishops, monks and nuns, mystics and theologians had all somehow overlooked the fact that versus populum would have been the better way to worship all along.

Dr. Healy dismisses the “images of Christ and the Church” preferred by our predecessors (remember, this includes the Church’s greatest saints and theologians) by saying that they are “not what most aptly brings to light the deepest meaning of the Mass.” She does not specify exactly what she means by this cavalier statement, but it seems careless, at very least, to reject tradition as she does. If tradition is not revered and treasured, we would have—as in fact we have had—a proliferation of “innovative” liturgies having woefully little in common with each other or with the religion practiced by our ancestors and by thousands of canonized saints. For a Catholic, what the Church has done for most or all of her history is to be trusted as part of an inheritance of wisdom, a coherent patrimony of prayer we reverently receive. For Dr. Healy, most of what the Church has done in her liturgical history has been problematic or inferior to what was invented or reconstructed in the 1960s. (On the face of it, that we should have stumbled upon a superior liturgy at just the time when the Church was being ravaged by dissent and the culture valued rebellion over order is highly implausible.) Rather than receiving the liturgy from our forebears and allowing it to habituate us to its priorities, moderns stand in judgment over it and revise it according to our “lights,” disassembling and reassembling its pieces like Lego bricks.

In the end, there are only two possible directions for the soul: either the liturgy shapes one’s personality, or one’s personality shapes the liturgy. The first is true formation in the monastic sense, whereas the second is reformation in the Protestant sense. I once heard a Greek bishop express a similar sentiment: “In the East, we think what we pray. In the West, you pray what you think. So, our theology doesn’t change because our liturgy doesn’t change, whereas when you began to change your theology, you also changed your liturgy.” This is a true judgment, but it is true only about the modern West, for what the good bishop described was the Enlightenment-inspired project of the reductionistic (and eventually victorious) faction of the liturgical movement, as distinct from its dogmatic-mystical mainstream represented by figures like Dom Guéranger.[14]

At one point Dr. Healy complains that the ad orientem stance, where the priest together with the people faces geographical or “liturgical” east, makes the consecration “invisible.” Yet the supreme miracle of transubstantiation, the very heart of the Mass, is necessarily invisible: we do not see the bread changed into flesh, but accept it on faith in the word of Jesus Christ. Nor can we hear with bodily ears the innermost truth of the Word-made-flesh. What is needed above all, then, is help in building and expressing our faith in the mystery. This help comes through the only thing that is sensible in the liturgy: the signs of adoration we offer, the palpable reverence with which we surround the miracle. In its unmistakable focus on the moment of sacramental sacrifice, visually accentuated and veiled in silence, the Roman Canon as prayed in the traditional Latin Mass gives the mysterium fidei its due prominence. This, truly, is the font and apex of the Christian life.

Dr. Healy also makes the common claim that since Jesus was facing the apostles at the Last Supper, so too should the priest face the congregation. In antiquity, however, all the diners sat or reclined on one side of the table and were served from the other. More to the point, the Mass was never seen as a re-enactment of the Last Supper, but rather as a memorial of the saving death of Christ, as St. Paul teaches and as the Council of Trent defined with utmost clarity.[15] The Mass should orient everyone to the Father in union with Christ the Savior, whose advent Scripture teaches us to anticipate from the East (cf. Mt 24:27).

Reverence and intimacy

Dr. Healy claims that the New Covenant in Christ facilitates an “intimacy” with God that overcomes the distance between man and God as affirmed and accentuated by the “sincere but mistaken piety” of those who, over the centuries, erected altar rails, moved the tabernacle to a high altar, used a non-vernacular language that disengages the people, silenced the audible Eucharistic prayer, and limited the handling of the Eucharist to the clergy. In making such claims in favor of a supposed “intimacy” that allows us to walk right up into the sanctuary and handle the Blessed Sacrament, Healy radically breaks with the Catholic understanding of the harmony between anticipatory Old Testament worship and sacramental New Testament worship—a continuity lavishly evident in all traditional liturgical rites, Eastern and Western, and beautifully expounded by the Church Fathers and more recently by St. John Henry Newman.[16] It is as if, after so many long ages of human history in which men feared the gods and tried to placate them, post-Vatican II Catholicism has effectively domesticated God. Aslan is now a tame lion.

In the traditional Latin Mass, there is no mistaking that God came among us out of love to save us; it is a caricature to suggest otherwise. Yet Catholicism has always held the poles of mystery together: God’s transcendence and His immanence, His inaccessibility and His immediacy, His remoteness and His intimacy, His severity and His tenderness, His awesomeness that reduces us to dust and His compassion for our dust. He is, as St. Augustine says, interior intimo meo et superior summo meo, “more within than the innermost in me, and higher than the highest in me.”[17]

The Epistle to the Hebrews exemplifies this both/and approach: Christ has penetrated through the veil, but we on earth are not yet arrived in Heaven, even if we are participating from afar in its resplendent reality (cf. Heb 3:7–4:11). It was precisely this theology of the “already and not yet” in Hebrews that inspired traditional church architecture and its symbolic separators, be they curtains, iconostases, rood screens, or altar rails. These separators articulated the “architecture” of the liturgy itself, which both displays and inculcates the stages of our relationship with the Lord. Thus the atrium or vestibule of the Church was used for the unbaptized or for penitents; the nave for the faithful (the illuminati, as they were once called); the sanctuary for ordained ministers. This threefold division of space symbolizes the purgative, illuminative, and unitive stages of the spiritual life. Were we to take Dr. Healy at her word, the upshot—in analogy with her remarks about ad orientem—would be the dismissal of all Catholic churches built from the heyday of the Emperor Constantine to the eve of the Second Vatican Council as embodiments of a primitive Jewish mentality we have only recently surmounted.[18]

Liturgy, sacred music, and architecture are closely intertwined, and all three have suffered from modernizing tendencies in the Church. Few would maintain that the self-consciously “Vatican II” churches built since the 1960s are an improvement on the architecture of traditional churches designed to house the Latin Mass. Thankfully, the movement to restore this form of the Mass parallels and reciprocates a growing thirst for authentic sacred music and noble architecture. We are looking at the recovery of a worship ecosystem in which spiritual life can flourish.[19]

Full participation of the laity

Dr. Healy buttresses her defense of the Novus Ordo by means of the claim, accurate in and of itself, that Vatican II made the promotion of “active participation” a major motive of reform. Yet she fails to address the pivotal question of what participatio actuosa actually means and the chorus of critique that has risen over the past decades against the manner in which the reform interpreted and implemented it.[20] “In the liturgical sphere, [the term] ‘active’ has been wielded like a sickle to cut down various modes of receptivity, the alert absorption of listening, the silence conducive to meditation.”[21]

One of the most fruitful ways to participate in Mass is to “soak in” the profundity of what is happening, beyond the reach of human senses and human reason. This requires a supportive environment, marked by a certain leisure—that is, a lack of surface-level busyness—in which to ponder the rich ceremonial and the dense texts of the liturgy. The Latin Mass certainly makes demands on our bodies and sometimes on our voices, but above all it permits and encourages interior engagement: faith in the action of God leading to contemplation of Him, and this contemplation, in turn, feeding the flame of charity. As the Catechism of the Catholic Church says (n. 2715):

Contemplation is a gaze of faith, fixed on Jesus. “I look at him and he looks at me”: this is what a certain peasant of Ars in the time of his holy curé used to say while praying before the tabernacle. . . . Contemplation also turns its gaze on the mysteries of the life of Christ. Thus it learns the “interior knowledge of our Lord,” the more to love him and follow him.

Our forefathers who worshiped in the traditional Roman rite understood well the value of stillness: “Be still, and know that I am God. I am exalted among the nations, I am exalted in the earth! The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge” (Ps 46:10– 11). The silences of the ancient liturgy give the soul time to absorb the mysteries, to reflect on God’s speaking to us in His revealed Word and Our Lord’s coming to us in the Eucharist; the soul is given a chance to become deeply aware of His mercy, His glory, His presence. “The Lord of hosts is with us, the God of Jacob is our refuge.”

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger famously called for a “new liturgical movement” and a “reform of the reform,” by which he meant that the postconciliar liturgical reform itself needed to be revisited and rethought. (Benedict XVI’s declaration of freedom for all clergy to celebrate the Tridentine Mass, with the intention that it would eventually be available everywhere, was part of that process.) At the end of her article, Dr. Healy implies that Ratzinger was mistaken in his understanding:

The reform that is most needed is a profound conversion of the hearts of the faithful through a deeper understanding and more intense spiritual participation in the liturgy. The revisions to the Mass following Vatican II have more fully brought to light the treasures of the Eucharistic mystery in all its dimensions, but, sadly, many Catholics have yet to experience those depths.

Her accompanying claim that “the primary problem . . . is not the reformed rite itself but its flawed implementation”—a line that used to have traction—looks today as forced and unconvincing as a smile on a government photo ID. Early in her article Healy acknowledges some of the outrageous abuses that have occurred in the Novus Ordo but does not speculate about why those happened or even demand that they be eliminated. In this way she ignores, all along, the objective problems with precisely the “revisions to the Mass following Vatican II” that, so far from “more fully [bringing] to light the treasures of the Eucharistic mystery in all its dimensions,” have obscured and diluted this mystery. Those who have known only the Novus Ordo and discover the traditional Latin Mass frequently remark on how it has tremendously deepened their appreciation of the sacrifice Our Lord made for us and has forcibly brought home the ineffable sacredness of the Eucharist.

Janet Smith noted: “I sense that Prof. Healy has some sense of what the devotees of the TLM are fleeing, but has little appreciation of what it is that we believe we have found.”[22] Even if still-ubiquitous liturgical abuses may be the insufferable problem that initially motivates people to try out the traditional Latin Mass,[23] what makes them stay is the superabundant wealth of its prayers, ceremonies, music, calendar, customs, and associated rites and sacramentals, which together constitute an unsurpassed synthesis of the Catholic Faith at the height of its cultural and theological expression.

What is needed in this discussion, then, is not merely the rigor of good scholarship, but the humility of experience, a willingness to learn patiently from two millennia of Catholic tradition. To talk authoritatively about Catholicism, one needs to live it. In just the same way, to talk intelligently about traditional liturgy, one has to become immersed in it, and get to know its treasures from within. Nothing can substitute for familiarity with the Catholic Church’s immemorial Roman rite—especially in its sung or solemn form that does, in fact, reach back organically to the earliest liturgical books of the Roman Church, the Ordines Romani and the sacramentaries.

Since so few Catholics have had any, let alone a prolonged, experience of the traditional Latin Mass, testing it out once or twice won’t be enough—though it does instantly convert some, as one exposure to solemn Vespers at the Cathedral of Notre Dame in 1886 converted Paul Claudel from glib agnosticism to a fervent Christian faith. If I were a doctor of souls and the medicines were within my clients’ reach, I would prescribe for adherents of the Novus Ordo attendance for three months at a Byzantine Catholic liturgy, followed by three months at traditional Latin High Masses. The Byzantine experience by its very differentness would help Latin-rite Catholics appreciate what is essential to liturgy, while the classical Roman rite would show them what their own tradition looks like in its fullness: at once both very different from, and yet profoundly in tune with, the ancient East. This double exposure would make it apparent that the Novus Ordo, be it ever so valid as a Sacramental Delivery System (SDS), is not one of the liturgical rites of Christendom. After half a year of this treatment, serious Catholics would know where to go to church for the rest of their lives.

1. The magazine used to be printed but is now internet-based at www.hprweb.com.

2. As Chiron documents with a historian’s acumen in his biography of Bugnini.

3. For a good overview, see Conor Dugan, “Lament for the Liturgy,” Catholic World Report, January 27, 2019.

4. Sacrosanctum Concilium, n. 23.

5. See the articles mentioned on p. 119, n.11.

6. See Sacrosanctum Concilium, nn. 36.1, 54, 101.1, and 116.

7. “The Novus Ordo at 50: Loss or Gain? A Reply to Prof. Mary Healy,” Homiletic & Pastoral Review, February 10, 2020. Shaw’s final point is particularly important: even when a language closer to the vernacular is initially chosen for public worship in a certain region, as occurred with the Slavic recensions of the Byzantine liturgy, the universal tendency among Christians is to hold on to the original formulations even when, centuries later, the common tongue has “moved on.” Thus, Church Slavonic, or, to take a different example, the Elizabethan English of the Book of Common Prayer, although remote from today’s languages, are nevertheless related to them, and are treasured for their venerable and numinous aura.

8. There is, of course, a great deal more to be said about the question of Latin in the liturgy. For vigorous defenses, see Shaw, Liturgical Restoration, chs. 18–21; “Latin, the Ideal Liturgical Language of the West,” in Kwasniewski, Resurgent, 158– 65; James Jackson, FSSP, “Latin in the Liturgy,” in Nothing Superfluous: An Explanation of the Symbolism of the Rite of St. Gregory the Great (Lincoln, NE: Fraternity Publications, 2016), 303–14.

9. See my articles “‘Eat That Which I Will Give You’: Why We Receive Communion in the Mouth,” New Liturgical Movement, June 17, 2019; “The Fifty-Year Descent to Footnote 351: Our Progressive Desensitization to the Most Holy Eucharist,” OnePeterFive, January 10, 2018; “Why the ordinary use of ‘extraordinary ministers’ has to go away,” LifeSite, September 26, 2018; cf. Jonas Alsˇe˙nas, “Porneia and Communion in the Hand,” OnePeterFive, March 3, 2020.

10. According to sound philosophy and traditional theology, the unitive end of the nuptial act is subordinated to the procreative end. Some personalist thinkers either equate the ends or place the unitive higher. See, as a place to start, Jim Russell, “Procreation: Still the Primary End of Marriage,” Crisis, April 25, 2017.

11. All the same, the public character of the liturgy derives not from any number of people being present, but from the action of Christ the High Priest, Head of a Mystical Body that extends through time and space. Hence, even a “private Mass” offered by a priest alone is still a public and corporate act. See my article “The Church encourages priests to say Masses, even without the faithful,” LifeSite News, March 18, 2020.

12. See my article “Is Passivity Mistaken for Piety? On the Perils and Pitfalls of Participation,” New Liturgical Movement, February 18, 2019.

13. See my article “Why Gregorian Chant? And Why Sung by the People?,” OnePeterFive, September 4, 2015.

14. Kwasniewski, Resurgent, 154–55.

15. See 1 Cor 11:26 and Council of Trent, Sesson 22; cf. Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 143–44, 149–50, 261.

16. See Newman on Worship.

17. Confessions III.6.11.

18. Cf. Joseph Shaw, “Was Constantine the Great a Clericalist?,” LMS Chairman, October 1, 2015.

19. On the Catholic understanding of the relationship between reverence and intimacy, see my articles “The Fear of the Lord is the Beginning of Liturgical Wisdom,” New Liturgical Movement, August 19, 2019; “The Silent Canon: Is Worship Supposed to be Aweful?,” New Liturgical Movement, October 14, 2013; “Doctrinal Foundations of All-Male Sanctuary Service and the Problem with Ignoring Them,” New Liturgical Movement, August 13, 2018; “Unambiguous Theocentricity: Church Architecture and the Traditional Mass,” OnePeterFive, June 6, 2018; “The Usefulness of Leviticus: Sacrifice for Catholics,” OnePeterFive, July 17, 2019.

20. See chapter 3 for a more detailed treatment of participatio actuosa. It is nothing short of laughable to say (as Prof. Healy does) that the Novus Ordo has rescued us from clericalism. See my article “What ‘clericalism’ really looks like,” LifeSite, October 5, 2018.

21. Kwasniewski, Noble Beauty, 193.

22. Via public exchange on Facebook.

23. See my article “The Other Pandemic: Regular Eucharistic Desecration,” OnePeterFive, March 18, 2020.

12
Can We Love
Tradition Too Much?

The ancients liked to say: “Nothing in excess.” Make sure you strike a balance. Give a little, take a little. Don’t go overboard. Life is full of compromises. Whatever you do, avoid the extremes. The Bible says it, too: “Do not swerve to the right or to the left; turn your foot away from evil” (Prov 4:27). The via media, the middle way, the “golden mean,” is a legitimate concept. As Aristotle explains, every moral virtue consists in a mean between extremes, as courage is a mean between cowardice and rashness.

Problems arise, however, when the concept of the via media is applied to the realm of ideas, where it can become a substitute for real thinking, for the hard work of clinging to the truth even when it is so unpopular or so unrecognized that it looks extreme. There are times when the middle way is the wrong way. There are times when the middle way is the broad path that leads to destruction.

How easily the via media logic can be abused! “Believers are too credulous, atheists are too assertive in the opposite direction, so the via media is agnosticism.” “Sedevacantists go to one extreme in their rejection of the reigning pope, while most traditional Catholics are too flaccid in their acceptance of him; the via media is the SSPX.” “The Eastern Orthodox have a rich tradition but are separated from Rome. Roman Catholics have largely given up on tradition but are still in union with Rome. The via media, then, is to be a Byzantine Catholic.” Or, to take a real historical example, the position that John Henry Newman believed and defended for many years: “Roman Catholicism is ancient but overgrown with superstition; Protestantism is free from superstition but cut off from antiquity. The via media is Anglicanism.” One could play this game for a long time, and always come out wrong.

Then it dawned on Newman, as he studied debates in the ancient Church, that sometimes the three parties—two extremes and a middle—were ranged in such a way that the orthodox faith, the true doctrine, stood at one of the extremes. For example, at the time of the Arian crisis, there were Arians, Semi-Arians, and Nicaeans. In the political battles and regional councils, the Semi-Arians were able to position themselves as holding the reasonable middle ground between the extremists who denied any likeness of nature between Father and Son (the Anomoeans) and the other extremists who, in their view, conflated the Son and the Father by identifying them both as God, “consubstantial” (the Homoousians). In holding their false view of the subordinating “similarity” of the Son to the Father, they showed that they did not grasp—or did not wish to grasp—the Nicaean faith of St. Athanasius and other orthodox fathers, who, though a beleaguered minority, valiantly confessed the truth and ultimately prevailed.[1] The Holy Spirit did not validate the via media; He led the Church to reaffirm what looked like an extreme to nearly everyone at the time. It was pondering the implications of episodes like this that led Newman to relinquish his via media theory.

I once saw a bulletin from England in which the pastor stated that there is a via media between progressivism and traditionalism. An interesting claim! What kind of a mean is it, I wonder? No doubt we can have too much of the wrong kind of progress, or too heavy a dose of that liberalism condemned by Leo XIII and other pontiffs; but, considering that Catholicism is entirely a religion of tradition (the Greek word parádosis and the Latin word traditio mean “handing down”: even our Scriptures and the Magisterium are part of what is handed down), can we have “too much” tradition? Can we receive too well, embrace too heartily, live too fully, love too ardently, and pass on too carefully the sacred inheritance of the Church?

The same pastor then claimed that there is a mean between “liturgical silliness or corruption” and “liturgical snobbery.” Perhaps we know what he means by the latter, but the way it’s phrased supports my general point: it’s easy to mold the description of one’s opponents in such a way that one ends up comfortably as the via media. Maybe we should concentrate less on persons or trends, and more on the truths we should adhere to with all our mind, the goods we should aspire to with all our heart, the beauty we should long for with all our soul, the holiness we should pursue with all our strength. In this way, we will be the right kind of “extremists.”

I couldn’t help thinking of Newman when I read an article, “Tradition is the Democracy of the Dead,”[2] penned by another Anglican clerical convert, the popular author Fr. Dwight Longenecker. Fr. Longenecker assures us that he is a lover of tradition—but not excessively. He says, rightly, that one should be or become Catholic for the sake of its 2,000-year-old tradition—or, more accurately, its 4,000-year-old tradition, since the law, prophecies, and worship of Israel are fulfilled in the Church. But he also says that, since tradition is not static or unchangeable, we need to be willing to change with the times, according to the judgment calls emanating from Rome, and not make an “idol” of the past. (One can certainly live free of fear that today’s Rome will make an idol of the past; one might rather fear its making an idol of the present or of the future.)

Fr. Longenecker then makes the classic move of the Anglican Newman: wanting to be in the sweet spot of the via media. Unlike the revolutionaries, I love tradition; unlike the traditionalists, I don’t idolize tradition as an unchanging thing.

There are two problems here. The first and more obvious problem is that we should take our cue from the Catholic Newman’s rejection of the via media model.

The deeper problem is the caricature implied in the position. Traditionalists fully recognize that liturgy develops over time. However, as with doctrinal development, we see liturgical development as tending, in broad lines, toward greater amplitude and perfection. So just as we don’t decide to cancel out at some point the Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed for the sake of going back to the more ancient and pristine Apostles’ Creed, in like manner, we don’t cancel out the medieval and Baroque developments of the liturgy in our search for a more ancient and pristine Christian worship. Pius XII warned against “antiquarianism,” but that became one of the two battle cries of the liturgical reformers—that and their aggiornamentalism, by which everything had to be adjusted and proportioned to the mentality of Modern Man (whoever he is).[3]

Traditionalists maintain that there is too little that is “traditional” about the Novus Ordo and the other manufactured liturgical rites from the sixties and seventies. Even when the reformers claimed to be “recovering” ancient elements lost over time, the way they went about it was distinctively modern: they kept or picked what chimed in with their preferences while filtering out or modifying difficult bits that might disturb or distress modern audiences, such as the frequent language in old prayers (still found in the traditional missal) about despising worldly goods in order to cleave more perfectly to heavenly goods. Moreover, they freely amputated and suppressed many extremely ancient features of the liturgy, such as the Pentecost octave and season, Septuagesima, the Ember Days, and the lectionary on which St. Gregory the Great preached in the late sixth century, replacing them with innovative and hybridized material fashioned from scholarly brains. These men openly profess in their articles and books that they intended to reconstruct the whole edifice of worship and that they succeeded in doing it. Constructivism on this magnitude and with this method is unprecedented in the Church’s history. It is impossible to see what could be “traditional” about this approach or the results.

Thus, when Fr. Longenecker says: “I do what I can to pray the tradition, live the tradition, and worship in the tradition,” it is a perfect study in the art of equivocation. To “pray the tradition” and “worship in the tradition” is to pray and worship in union with all the centuries of Catholicism as they are glued together in the one Roman liturgical tradition that was ours until 1969, not to hit the ecclesial reset button as the conciliar enthusiasts did. One may admire conservatives’ efforts to bring traditional elements in through the back door—when the local bishop’s not looking too attentively, and the neighborhood climate is favorable—but one should have the candor to admit that this is a desperate and somewhat pathetic attempt to put Humpty-Dumpty back together again. Fortunately, the real McCoy is still there, waiting to be rediscovered, and until a man has rediscovered it, he cannot quite say he has “done what he can.”[4]

It is telling when Fr. Longenecker implies that the only things unchangeable in the Church are her dogmas and proceeds to identify the essence of the Mass as the miracle of transubstantiation. Neoscholastic reductionism* has been a problem for some time, but it is exasperating to see it in the context of an article that is supposed to be about Catholic tradition, written by an author with a knowledge of great English literature and stage drama. The great historic liturgies of Christendom are categorized into their ritual families and subfamilies (Latin or Byzantine, Slavic or Greek, Roman or Ambrosian or Mozarabic, etc.) based not on whether transubstantiation occurs, which is what they all have in common, but rather on exactly what their content is, which makes them all different—sometimes extremely different. Imagine saying to a Byzantine Catholic: “You know, at the end of the day, your Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom and our Novus Ordo are pretty much the same, because they both convert the bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ.”

I’m afraid we’re seeing the result of a person’s speaking about such grave matters without the requisite knowledge of details. It is all too easy to say “the Roman rite remains intact” when the only thing one is looking at is a schematic outline of the Order of Mass. Countries with extremely different cultures and infrastructures can look much the same from 30,000 feet in the sky. But the devil’s in the details—and the angels, too, whose role was greatly reduced in the Novus Ordo. Liturgical rites exist not as outlines or abstractions, but as concrete codifications of text, music, rubric, ceremonial, and cast of supporting artefacts. The more one delves into what the classical Roman rite actually is—its particular calendar and lectionary, its more than a thousand orations, its set of Prefaces, its monolithic Roman Canon, the early medieval Offertory, its fixed ad orientem stance, and so forth—the more one can see how abruptly and comprehensively the Novus Ordo severs itself from that venerable rite. They are, in truth, two different liturgies that share some common elements, somewhat as the Eiffel Tower might be said to share in the verticality of Chartres cathedral.

It is thus more than ironic when Fr. Longenecker cites G.K. Chesterton’s famous words—“Tradition means giving a vote to the most obscure of all classes, our ancestors. It is the democracy of the dead”—when the postconciliar liturgical reform was, of all Church reforms in history, the most autocratic imaginable in its contempt for the collective voice of our ancestors, and democratic only in the sense that it proceeded by way of the voting of “experts” on a panoply of committees that sliced up the parts of liturgy into study groups, like teams of computer programmers testing new operating system modules.[5]

In the finest, most lyrical passage of his article, Fr. Longenecker compares Catholic tradition to a giant old mansion with extensive gardens:

I sometimes think that being a Catholic is like living in a grand old house like the one in Brideshead Revisited. It is an ornate, ancient and venerable structure, full of corridors of memories and alleyways of tradition. The walls are lined with the banners from ancient battles and the ancestors of grand reputation. The attic is full of curious and precious antiques and the kitchens and cellars are full of fine wine, casks of provisions and bundles of equipment for battle and for housework. The gardens are lush and expansive—some formal and fruitful, some still wild and untamed. The modernist would demolish such a house and send the contents to auction. But a Catholic should decide to live there, dust and shine the antiques, clean the carpets, polish the silver, restore the paintings, sharpen the halberds and shine the armor . . . and then he should draw back the drapes to open the windows and let in the fresh air and the morning light.

The last phrase—a deliberate echo of the remark attributed to John XXIII about how the Church needed to open her windows and let in fresh air[6]—could be refurbished as a reminder that without the Holy Spirit, without the grace of God, no one and nothing can produce good fruits, regardless of how handsome the tree might be. Fr. Longenecker would be the first to agree, I’m sure, that this reliance on grace by no means suggests there is something wrong with the old house and its contents, which the First Cause of all things— the architect and chief interior decorator, so to speak—intended to put there by His Providence.

It is ironic, again, that Longenecker should choose just this metaphor of the old house and its rambling grounds, which has always been the traditionalists’ favorite image for describing the result of twenty centuries of gradual development in the liturgy, gently tended by gardeners and servants. In his memoirs, Joseph Ratzinger makes use of a similar image as he describes his deepening appreciation for the great liturgy, stage by stage, from childhood to adulthood:

It was becoming more and more clear to me that here [in the Tridentine rite] I was encountering a reality that no one had simply thought up, a reality that no official authority or great individual had created. This mysterious fabric of texts and actions had grown from the faith of the Church over the centuries. It bore the whole weight of history within itself, and yet, at the same time, it was much more than the product of human history. Every century had left its mark upon it. . . . Not everything was logical. Things sometimes got complicated, and it was not always easy to find one’s way. But precisely this is what made the whole edifice wonderful, like one’s own home.[7]

British philosopher Stephen R.L. Clark makes a brilliant observation about the “magic” of such places, which consists not only in their grandeur of scale or fineness of ornament, but also and more basically in the (scarcely definable) accumulated effects of “being there” for a long duration and the copious historical associations and connections they acquire in the course of their existence:

The beauties of such parks and houses are more than contemporary: that is to say, they are “beautiful,” aesthetically moving, in ways that could not be duplicated overnight. First, it takes time to create a living landscape and architecture: as in ecology, a “climax community” cannot be quickly restored—so that farmers who first chop down a long-established hedgerow and then speak of “replanting it,” as if such hedgerows were no more than a row of nursery-bred wallflowers, are deceiving themselves. Secondly, their beauties are the greater because we know where they began, and what they have lived through: it is not a mistake to think that originals are more valuable than even good reproductions, that we would be being fooled if we were fobbed off with a building or painting that had no genuine material connection with the thing it represents. Forgeries are like fake relics.[8]

Lamentably, Archbishop Bugnini and his fellow experts had no patience for this regal house of Roman Catholic liturgy. They wanted to raze it to the ground and build rational modern flats in its place. Bugnini sought (in his own words) to “rejuvenate the liturgy, ‘ridding’ it of the superstructures that weighed it down over the centuries.”[9] This is why the new missal is so “rationally” ordered, making use of simple blueprints over and over again, in place of the profuse variety found in the old missal. A great example of such variety would be the quarterly Ember weeks. In contrast to the standard usus antiquior Mass with two New Testament readings, the Masses of Ember Wednesday, Ember Friday, and Ember Saturday feature many extra prayers and readings, including Old Testament passages. Another exquisite example are the variations in the Agnus Dei. On most days of the year, the petitions end: “miserere nobis” (twice) and “dona nobis pacem,” after which the stylized kiss of peace is given at solemn Mass. But on Holy Thursday, there is no ensuing kiss of peace because Judas betrayed Jesus with a kiss; while at a Requiem, the usual endings are replaced by “dona eis requiem” (twice) and “done eis requiem sempiternam” (grant them rest; grant them everlasting rest), and the Pax is omitted, because the Mass for the Dead is principally being offered for the repose of the souls of the faithful departed and not for the good of the living. Hundreds of such nuances in the old rite, rich in theological meaning and copious in spiritual fruits, were simply abolished in the liturgical reform.[10] The traditional Divine Office displays a like variegation: Lauds and Vespers follow one pattern, the Little Hours another, Matins and Compline still another. In the new Liturgy of the Hours, every component has been homogenized: the hymn always comes first, then the psalms, then the reading, etc., like identical row houses in a suburb. It was like trading a palette of bright colors for an assortment of grays, or a long-established hedgerow for nurserybred wallflowers. Originals were replaced with forgeries, true relics with plastic replicas.

Archbishop Bugnini was not the only liturgist who thought in architectural terms, comparing his work to demolition and reconstruction. Consider this passage from Demain la liturgie (1976) by Fr. Joseph Gelineau, SJ (1920–2008), who played a prominent role on the Consilium:

If the formulae change, the rite is changed. If a single element is changed, the signification of the whole is modified. Let those who like myself have known and sung a Latin-Gregorian High Mass remember it if they can. Let them compare it with the Mass that we now have. Not only the words, the melodies, and some of the gestures are different. To tell the truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass [c’est une autre liturgie de la messe]. This needs to be said without ambiguity: the Roman Rite as we knew it no longer exists [le rite romaine tel que nous l’avons connu n’existe plus]. It has been destroyed. [Il est détruit.] Some walls of the former edifice have fallen while others have changed their appearance, to the extent that it appears today either as a ruin or the partial substructure of a different building.[11]

Could Fr. Longenecker’s mention of Brideshead Revisited be a subtle hint to the cognoscenti that he does not, in fact, see eye-to-eye with the liturgical reform of which Gelineau boasts? It is well known that the author of this splendid novel, Evelyn Waugh (1903– 1966), was fiercely opposed to the dismantling of the Catholic liturgy: he conducted a regular correspondence with Cardinal Heenan to see if anything could be done to halt the madness that was beginning to bleed the churches of their congregations, and published anguished articles on the subject in periodicals.[12] Though he was spared the ultimate indignity of witnessing the Novus Ordo, as he died more than three years before it was rolled off the assembly line, Waugh was utterly horrified by the changes that had been made to the liturgy just in the first half of the 1960s, which were not insignificant, but certainly not equivalent to the tsunami of 1969.

Among Latin-rite Catholics who care deeply about the sacred liturgy—and why should they not, when Vatican II calls the “Eucharistic sacrifice” the “font and apex of the entire Christian life”?[13]— one finds several camps:

• those who believe that the changes after the Council, though part of the necessary updating of the Church, went too far in practice, and should be revisited;

• those who believe that these changes were timidly held back by conservative forces and not nearly comprehensive or radical enough;

• those who think that whatever happened happened, and we might as well make the best of it we can today—no need to “relitigate” the whole thing;

• those who believe that we have a duty before God to hold fast to the inheritance of our fathers, and who, accordingly, think that approaching the liturgy with the mentality of progress and relevancy is the wrong way to let it be itself and do what it alone can do and, moreover, a path doomed to self-parody and implosion the more one goes down it.

The traditionalist takes the last view. It is based, first of all, on repeated experiences of the beauty and riches of the classic Roman rite, against which the impoverished text and ceremonial of the new rite stand out glaringly. There can be no substitute for familiarity. No one who is not intimately familiar with the classical Roman rite is in a position to make any global commentary about how it compares with its intended replacement. To merit that privilege he must first get to know the Church’s heritage—not just the Mass, but the other sacramental rites and blessings and the breviary; he must see its qualities firsthand, and not from a distance. He might be surprised at how different the view is from the ground. He might, indeed, come to see that the danger of idolatry—in the form of an unquestioned, perhaps even unrecognized, adulation of aggiornamento*—is more real for those who endorse the Consilium’s modern construction. It was, after all, the attitudes and antics of liturgical progressives that Joseph Ratzinger compared to the rambunctious escapades of the Israelites serenading the golden calf.[14] In the words of an author who may be said to be in sympathy with Benedict XVI:

One of the disastrous results of the Second Vatican Council is that liturgists, clergy, and religious who were so zealous to make the Faith contemporary and relevant felt that they could best do this not by valuing and re-invigorating the traditions of the Church, but by demolishing them in revolutionary zeal.

Strikingly, these are the words of Fr. Longenecker himself, taken from the very same article we have been discussing in this chapter. They show how close he is to becoming a traditionalist—if only he would discover their applicability not just to occasional deviations post-1962, but to the entire liturgical reform.

1. See Claudio Pierantoni, “The Arian crisis and the current controversy about Amoris laetitia: a parallel,” Aemaet: Wissenschaftliche Zeitschrift für Philosophie und Theologie 5.2 (2016), available at http://aemaet.de.

2. National Catholic Register, March 15, 2019.

3. On antiquarianism, see chapter 10. “Aggiornamentalism” is my coinage, from the Italian aggiornamento.*

4. This is the basic problem I have with Fr. Longenecker’s book Letters on Liturgy, where it seems that the ultimate standard is not the tradition of the Church as a pre-given whole, but the good taste of the individual pastor, who lives a perpetual dialectic between the modern expectations of the people and the recovery of valuable elements (usually aesthetic) from the past, abstracted to a greater or lesser degree from their original liturgical and theological context.

5. As ludicrous as it may seem, this comparison was made by Fr. Thomas Reese, SJ, in his article “Reforming Catholic liturgy should be like updating software” (Religion News Service, September 12, 2017), where he compares the Tridentine liturgy to DOS and the liturgical reform to Windows—with the 1965 interim missal being 1.0, the 1969 missal 2.0, etc.

6. Some accounts have him saying: “I want to throw open the windows of the Church so that we can see out and the people can see in.” For research into the authenticity of the statement, see Sharon Kabel, “Pope John XXIII and Fresh Air,” available at https://sharonkabel.com/post/windows/.

7. Milestones, 19–20.

8. Stephen R.L. Clark, Can We Believe in People? Human Significance in an Interconnected Cosmos (Brooklyn: Angelico Press, 2020), 134.

9. Chiron, Bugnini, 30.

10. For other examples, see my article “In Praise of Irregularity,” New Liturgical Movement, April 4, 2016.

11. The passage is translated by Davies, Pope Paul’s New Mass, 82, from Joseph Gelineau, SJ, Demain la liturgie. Essai sur l’évolution des assemblées chrétiennes (Paris: Cerf, 1976), 9–10; cf. idem, The Liturgy Today and Tomorrow, trans. Dinah Livingstone (London: Darton, Longman & Todd, 1978), 11.

12. Readers will find all this in the book A Bitter Trial: Evelyn Waugh and John Cardinal Heenan on the Liturgical Changes, ed. Alcuin Reid (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011).

13. Lumen Gentium 11; cf. Sacrosanctum Concilium 10.

14. Ratzinger, Spirit of the Liturgy, commemorative ed., 36–37.

13
The Charge
of Aestheticism

There is a strange tendency nowadays to think that the external aspects of a thing matter very little, while the “inside” is all that counts. For example: as long as you’re “a good person on the inside,” it doesn’t matter what you look like, how you dress, how you speak, what music you listen to, or even (when the idea is taken to an extreme) what religion you profess.

There is a grain of truth in this view: one’s height or build or skin color, for instance, are not moral qualities; sinners and saints come in all colors, shapes, and sizes. The problem is rather that we are too quick to forget how the outside wells up from within, how it often reveals to us just what is in the heart. A good person will dress modestly, speak respectfully, and listen to music that builds up a noble character instead of assaulting it—and all this, because of dispositions in the heart, invisible to men’s eyes but visible to God’s. The profession of a religion, while done with external words and gestures, is rooted in the deep soil of the soul, and shows outwardly what a man’s worldview and priorities are.

The late Roger Scruton had no patience with contempt for aesthetics:

There is truth in Oscar Wilde’s quip, that it is only a shallow person who does not judge by appearances. For appearances are the bearers of meaning and the focus of our emotional concerns. When I am struck by a human face this experience is not a prelude to some anatomical study, nor does the beauty of what I see lead me to think of the sinews, nerves and bones which in some way explain it. On the contrary, to see “the skull beneath the skin” is to see [merely] the body and not the embodied person. Hence, it is to miss the beauty of the face.[1]

Scruton’s point could also be illustrated by the example of a Byzantine icon. The “essence” of the icon is not its underlying wood, its metal frame, or even its wax or paint, but the image of the face written upon it, through which we pass to the archetype. The very meaning and function of the icon is bound up with its appearance. In fact, as St. Thomas Aquinas argues, we can give latria (adoration) to an icon because of its appearance, since we are not worshiping the matter but the one depicted.[2] The icon has been compared with a window: its very superficiality opens on to another world. “Through these images that we kiss and before which we kneel and uncover our heads, we are adoring Christ and venerating the saints whose likeness these images bear,” teaches the Council of Trent.[3]

Our medieval forebears would never have agreed with the platitude “you can’t judge a book by its cover.” For they spent enormous sums of money on Evangeliaries or Gospel books with heavy bindings of gold, silver, and jewels, so that it was perfectly obvious that this book held the very words of God Himself, and deserved our veneration.

The sacred liturgy, too, holds the very words of God—indeed, astonishingly, the Mass holds God Himself, the Word made flesh. It is utterly inconsistent with its inner content that the outward form of it should be anything but beautiful, solemn, and reverent, majestic and glorious, even fearful and difficult. We should be able to judge this book, too, by its resplendent cover, that is, the Mass by its musical, textual, ceremonial appearances; we should be able to see the heart in the actions. We should not “miss the beauty of the face.” German novelist Martin Mosebach concurs:

I admit quite openly that I am one of those naive folk who look at the surface, the external appearance of things, in order to judge their inner nature, their truth, or their spuriousness. The doctrine of supposedly “inner values” hidden under a dirty and decrepit shell is something I find highly suspicious. I already believed that the soul imparts a form, a face, a surface to the body, even before I learned that it was a truth defined by the Church’s teaching authority. Consider me a Mediterranean primitive, but I do not believe a language that is untrue, full of deceit, and lacking in feeling can contain ideas of any value. What applies in art must apply to a far higher degree in the public prayer of the Church; if, in ordinary life, ugliness shows us the presence of untruth, in the realm of religion it may indicate something worse.[4]

St. John Henry Newman carries the argument further by noting that it is precisely the inner truth that demands for itself, or builds around itself, a suitable dwelling. It is as if the ineffable simplicity of divine presence could not be meaningfully attested to or safely approached without the dense complexity of a many-layered liturgy, which, on that account, will necessarily baffle and even turn away those who do not discern the mystery:

A Protestant wanders into one of our chapels; he sees a priest kneeling and bowing and throwing up a thurible, and boys in cottas going in and out, and a whole choir and people singing amain all the time, and he has nothing to suggest to him what it is all about; and he calls it mummery, and he walks out again. And would it not indeed be so, my brethren, if this were all? But will he think it mummery when he learns and seriously apprehends the fact, that, according to the belief of a Catholic, the Word Incarnate, the Second Person of the Eternal Trinity, is there bodily present,—hidden, indeed, from our senses, but in no other way withheld from us? He may reject what we believe; he will not wonder at what we do.

And so, again, open the Missal, read the minute directions given for the celebration of Mass,—what are the fit dispositions under which the Priest prepares for it, how he is to arrange his every action, movement, gesture, utterance, during the course of it, and what is to be done in case of a variety of supposable accidents. What a mockery would all this be, if the rite meant nothing! But if it be a fact that God the Son is there offered up in human flesh and blood by the hands of man, why, it is plain that no rite whatever, however anxious and elaborate, is equal to the depth of the overwhelming thoughts which are borne in upon the mind by such an action.

Thus the usages and ordinances of the Church do not exist for their own sake; they do not stand of themselves; they are not sufficient for themselves; they do not fight against the State their own battle; they are not appointed as ultimate ends; but they are dependent on an inward substance; they protect a mystery; they defend a dogma; they represent an idea; they preach good tidings; they are the channels of grace. They are the outward shape of an inward reality or fact, which no Catholic doubts, which is assumed as a first principle, which is not an inference of reason, but the object of a spiritual sense.[5]

Even the greatest care we can take, following the most detailed prescriptions, and with a full outpouring of signs of reverence hallowed by long use, could never be altogether equal to the task placed upon us. No one animated with Newman’s Catholic sentiments could ever fall prey to the fallacy that we needn’t worry too much about the externals as long as we know “Jesus is present.”

Throughout history, Christians have offered the best they can to God in the liturgy, especially the beauty attainable in the fine arts, in order that the souls of worshipers might be better disposed to adore and glorify the Lord. There is a sense in which it is true to say, with St. Thomas, that the liturgy is not for God’s sake but for ours. Of course it is directed to God; there would be no point in liturgy if God did not exist and if Christ were not our Redeemer by whose Sacrifice we are saved. But divine worship does not benefit God or Christ, as if making them better; they are already as good, holy, and glorious as can be. Rather, by ordering our souls to Him as our ultimate end, by filling our minds with His truth and our hearts with His love, divine worship benefits us who offer Him the sacrifice of praise.

Man as a creature of intellect and sensation will not benefit nearly as much from liturgy that is either verbal-cerebral or frivolously flashy as he will from liturgy that is packed with rich ceremonial-textual content and abounding with sensuous symbols, the sum total of which will always exceed human comprehension. A liturgy that is impressive in its setting and furnishings, gestures and vestures, chants and ceremonies—one that is permeated from start to finish with manifestations of the nearness and otherness of God—will be one that cannot be co-opted for secular purposes but compels the respect, wonder, and prayer of the beholder. This is exactly what all historic Christian liturgies are and do.

The traditional Roman rite is saturated with sacrality and nearly compels one to pray, to go deeper into the mysteries of Christ through the outward appearances, just as the disciples at Emmaus “knew him in the breaking of the bread” (Lk 24:35). The liturgical rite is like bread miraculously multiplied down through the centuries and placed in front of every king and pauper who seeks the food that will not perish. When we break this bread by entering into the rite, we come to know the risen Christ.

For all these reasons, then, a liturgy not only may but must be judged “by its cover,” by its appearances—for, as Aristotle says, the appearances of a thing point to its nature and substance. “See my hands and feet, that it is I myself; handle, and see: for a spirit hath not flesh and bones, as you see me to have” (Lk 24:39). The Catholic Church has to care, and care deeply, not only about inner realities but also about outer appearances. In the words of the incomparable aphorist Nicolás Gómez Dávila: “When religion and aesthetics are divorced from each other, it is not known which is corrupted sooner.”[6] Human beings come to know the truth through their senses; they cannot have concepts without phantasms. In religion, in the encounter with the God-Man in His life, death, and resurrection, our senses, memories, imaginations, and emotions play as important a role as our intellects and wills.

One will encounter people who say to Catholics who love the traditional liturgy something like the following:

“You’re making too much of incidental things. No matter what form or style, it’s the Eucharist, isn’t it? Whether Latin or vernacular, Tridentine or Novus Ordo, sung or spoken, in an American auditorium or a European cathedral, the Eucharist is still there, Jesus is there, and we are still nourished by Him. Compared to this, nothing else really matters, does it? The rest is incidental, external, debatable, changeable. In fact, someone who gets caught up in ceremonies, rubrics, music, and so on, just shows that he’s been distracted from what is essential. After all, the Mass is the Mass.”

There are at least two problems with this all-too-common line of argument, one philosophical, the other theological. Philosophically, it reflects the modern tendency to reduce real appearances to epiphenomena and thereby to misconstrue the relationship between the surface and the substance. A specifically theological error piggybacks on this philosophical one: the objector radically underestimates the principle of lex orandi, lex credendi, namely, that the way we worship expresses and influences what it is we believe— as well as how prepared we will be to receive Our Lord in the right spirit of adoration and humility when He comes to us. It reflects a modern materialist anthropology where nothing matters except “getting the job done”; whether the job is done nobly or poorly seems to matter a great deal less, or perhaps not at all, in spite of the fact that we are dealing with the Lord of heaven and earth. This way of thinking and acting displays a breathtaking naïveté about the subtle intersection of the sacramental economy with human psychology, and represents a break with twenty centuries of Catholic thought and practice. We might as well call it “liturgical consequentialism.” The ethical consequentialist maintains that the end justifies the means: if we have a morally good end in view, it matters little how we reach it. We see the same consequentialism at work in the modern Mass: the spiritually good end (the Eucharist) is taken as justification for more or less any liturgical means used to get there. Why would the Church condemn the former position, but not the latter, its exact parallel?

Yes, the Holy Eucharist is always the Holy Eucharist. This might be called the “constant” in the equation. What about the many variables? Are we approaching this august Mystery with the hushed reverence, lively fear of God, concentrated solemnity, and generous outpouring of beauty that we owe to the Sanctissimum—the Most Holy? If not, why not? What does this say about the purity of our faith, the ardor of our charity? Have the sacred mysteries ceased to impress us, fill us with wonder, send us to our knees, summon the best of our culture? Whom are we kidding—God or ourselves? The Mass is “just” the Mass as regards the confection of the Eucharist, but a Mass reverent and solemn is very different, as regards us and our relationship to God, from a Mass rapid and vapid, or long and wrong.

In fact, if we damage the so-called “externals” too much, we will end up undermining faith in the Real Presence. This indeed appears to have already happened in large parts of the Catholic world. A highly publicized Pew Research poll from 2019 showed that two-thirds of Catholics in the United States no longer believe in transubstantiation or the Real Presence. As Chad Pecknold observed,[7] this is not so much a failure of catechesis as the dramatic success of a relentless counter-catechesis provided by a liturgical life that has ceased to reflect the faith of the Church crystallized in the dogmatic teaching of the Council of Trent and epitomized in the Tridentine Mass, as it is in other traditional liturgical rites of East and West.

The Most Holy Eucharist is the Church’s greatest treasure: gift beyond price, ineffable mystery, source of wonder, privileged secret. It is the pulsing heart of her apostolic and contemplative life. The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the exclusive means by which this gift comes down to us, renewed for each generation of disciples. When we dishonor or abuse the Mass, when we make it appear to be less awesome and mysterious than it actually is, we dishonor or abuse the One who comes to us through it alone. The result is the deformation of the Faith and of the faithful.

Sacred music is the clothing of the naked Word—and what beautiful clothing it must be, to be worthy of that divine utterance! The Church building is the home in which our Eucharistic Lord dwells: Emmanuel, God with us. It, too, must unmistakably look like what it truly is. Vestments, furnishings, ritual actions—in short, everything that pertains to the carrying out of the liturgical action— should be like the Precious Body and Blood: holy, sacred, set apart. All that is not the Lord Himself ought to be His visible throne, His consecrated dominion, beautiful and solemn, that we may know that we are welcoming our King when He comes into His kingdom, and giving to Him the homage He deserves, to the best of our ability. As Pope John Paul II said in his final encyclical: “Like the woman who anointed Jesus in Bethany, the Church has feared no ‘extravagance,’ devoting the best of her resources to expressing her wonder and adoration before the unsurpassable gift of the Eucharist.”[8]

Here is another way of getting at the problem. When people say “the Mass is the Mass,” they usually wish to end discussion; they see this truth as a point of arrival, of homecoming, after which we can “sleep and take our rest” (cf. Mt 26:45). It is as if they are saying: as long as the Mass is valid, nothing else matters. In reality, the truth that “the Mass is the Mass” is a point of departure, imposing certain tasks and responsibilities on us. Because this thing we are doing is the Holy Sacrifice of Christ in which our Savior is truly present in our midst, we must do the best we can, in all the ways that are in our power, as regards both internal actions (thoughts, desires, attitudes, motivations) and external objects and actions. Validity and liceity are the “low bar,” compatible with abuses, ugliness, casualness, banality, irreverence, even sacrilege. Our highest aspiration should be fittingness in accord with tradition.

So, the next time someone says “the Mass is the Mass, after all, whether offered in Chartres cathedral with gilt altarware or on a basketball court with ceramic pottery,” you might consider replying along these lines:

“Jesus is not ‘merely’ Jesus; He is the Son of God, the Ruler of All, Judge of the Living and the Dead. In like manner, the Mass is not ‘merely’ the Mass; it is the Holy Sacrifice of Calvary, the supreme work of man’s redemption from sin, death, and hell, made present again among us by the glorified Christ who reigns in heaven, worshiped by countless angels and saints. And even as any sane Christian would fall down on his knees before the Word made flesh, as did the Magi, the Apostles, and generations of believers before us, and would give Him not only his heart but whatever choicest gifts he could muster, we should all be doing the same in the Holy Mass, since we are, in truth, falling on our knees before our Lord and our God—and one can rightly demand this generous attitude of every Catholic priest and layman who dares to set foot in a church.”[9]

If, in a time of war, Mass is said on the tailgate of a jeep or in a concentration camp with a thimble and a crumb of bread, it is done thus out of necessity, not by preference. Given a choice, we will build a cathedral, set up a high altar, erect a baldachin or reredos, establish a choir, and press into service the best that creation offers—silk, gold, jewels, incense, stained glass, rare woods—that we might surround our eyes and ears with beauty offered unto God for His glorification, from the heights and depths of the human soul made in His image.

Holy Mass is the sacrifice of Christ made present in our midst. He who, for us men and for our salvation, came down from Heaven and became man, enters once again into our lives as “the Lamb that was slain,” who in Holy Communion is ready to share with us His power, divinity, wisdom, strength, honor, glory, and blessing (cf. Rev 5:12). St. Augustine draws the conclusion: Because the Lord Himself comes to us, we must first adore Him before we receive Him.[10] Failure to do so would be sinful negligence or contempt.

Traditional Catholic practices help to foster this fundamental attitude of adoration in the presence of God, while certain modern practices dampen or destroy it. Though human beings are obviously more complicated than plants, we, too, are living organisms, rational animals that deserve and benefit from the right growing conditions. Just as a tomato plant placed outdoors in the winter would quickly die, whereas a plant kept in a well-regulated greenhouse flourishes and bears delicious fruit, we need a liturgical greenhouse to foster our growth in the spiritual life and protect us from a hostile environment of indifference, infidelity, and despair.

Examples of the right conditions include sacred music that lifts our spirits to divine things rather than stirring up our emotions and scattering them back towards the world; encountering the “sonic iconostasis” built up from the ancient Latin language, Gregorian chant, and silence; the offering of the Holy Sacrifice by a priest facing eastward with the people (ad orientem) rather than over against the people (versus populum); watching a devout priest adore God in the consecrated host and chalice, before which he genuflects, and to which he gazes in a drawn-out elevation; kneeling for Holy Communion, and receiving on the tongue.[11] These and similar practices are crucial for training us in all the virtues associated with the virtue of religion, especially the virtue of adoration.

The Roman Canon—that mighty prayer at the heart of the Mass, which defines it as the Roman rite, the most ancient of all Christian liturgies in the world—singles out two conditions for the fruitful reception of Holy Communion: faith and devotion. “Memento, Domine, famulorum famularumque tuarum N. et N.: et omnium circumstantium, quorum tibi fides cognita est et nota devotio, pro quibus tibi offerimus: vel qui tibi offerunt hoc sacrificium laudis…” “Be mindful, O Lord, of Thy servants, and of all here present, whose faith and devotion are known to Thee, for whom we offer, or who offer up to Thee, this sacrifice of praise…”

One of the worst things about the liturgical reform is how it stripped the Mass of an abundance of little signs of faith, devotion, and adoration: all sorts of gestures, ceremonies, and prayers, vestments and ornaments, that acted as “prompts” reminding us and encouraging us to make an appropriate spiritual response to the great mysterium fidei, the mystery of faith unfolding before us in the sacrifice of praise. The removal of these externals; their optionalization, which makes them subject to the will of their users; their frequent uglification, which makes them distracting counter-signs of the divine—these changes caused and continue to cause a massive deprivation of opportunities for exercising faith and kindling devotion, and thus, an irrecoverable loss in graces meant to be received through the Holy Sacrifice. Matthew Schmitz has remarked:

It is amazing that the leaders of a ritual faith imagined that they could dispense with traditional forms of prayer. Among the few elites who saw the folly of this project, most were artists, naturally alert to the way supposedly superficial things can in fact be essential.[12]

If the Mass were supposed to be a schoolroom lesson and/or an SDS (Sacramental Delivery System), then of course it should be as short and simple and to the point as possible, streamlined for optimal data transfer and receipt of goods, a sort of “Amazon Prime” of the spiritual life. But this premise is totally false. The Mass is our earthly participation in the beatific liturgy of Heaven, where the angels and saints in communion with the Eternal High Priest are praising the Almighty in song and adoring Him face to face. When this heavenly worship pierces through the veil that separates us from eternity, the result is the sacred liturgy. If a certain form of Mass does not bear within itself the spirit of this ultimate reality and show it forth, visibly and audibly, so as to draw us ever more deeply into it, this form has failed utterly as liturgy.

How do we know what form is the right one to use, to trust, to rely upon? The measure must be Catholic tradition—endorsed by Church authority, yes, but neither manufactured by it nor subject to its whims. It is not something that can be voted on by bishops, created by committees, or reconfigured by enthusiasts. Tradition, by definition, is a reality that goes before us, remains above us, and endures beyond us.

1. Roger Scruton, Beauty: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford/New York: Oxford University Press, 2011), 59. The words of Nicolás Gómez Dávila come to mind: “The laws of biology alone do not have fingers delicate enough to fashion the beauty of a face” (Aphorism 1317, in Nicolás Gómez Dávila: An Anthology, compiled by Andis Kaulins, published at Internet Archive, www.archive.org/details/NGDOctober12016).

2. Summa theologiae III, qu. 25, art. 3.

3. Session 25.

4. Heresy of Formlessness, 2.

5. Certain Difficulties Felt by Anglicans in Catholic Teaching (1850), vol. 1, lecture 7, “The Providential Course of the Movement of 1833 Not in the Direction of a Sect,” in Newman on Worship, 406.

6. Kaulins, Nicolás Gómez Dávila, Aphorism 2382.

7. “Why do so few US Catholics believe in the Real Presence?,” Catholic Education Resource Center (originally published on August 9, 2019, in the Catholic Herald).

8. Encyclical Letter Ecclesia de Eucharistia (April 17, 2003), n. 48.

9. While Byzantine Catholics seldom kneel in their Divine Liturgy, they show their profound reverence and adoration in many other ways, in accord with their tradition. My point is that the realities of the Faith must be reflected and embodied in our actions and in the objects we build or use. For Western Christians, kneeling is a deeply expressive sign of our adoration and humility before Almighty God, and its abandonment is effectively a countersign. Mosebach puts it well, as usual: “If . . . we think correctly and historically, we should realize that what is an expression of veneration in one period can be an expression of blasphemy in another. If people who have been kneeling for a thousand years suddenly get to their feet, they do not think, ‘We’re doing this like the early Christians, who stood for the Consecration’; they are not aware of returning to some particularly authentic form of worship. They simply get up, brush the dust from their trouser-legs and say to themselves: ‘So it wasn’t such a serious business after all’” (Heresy of Formlessness, 30).

10. See Enarr. in Ps. 98:9 (CCSL 39:1385).

11. See chapter 2 for a more detailed treatment of these features.

12. “The Latin Mass, Thriving in Southeastern Nigeria,” The New York Times, September 30, 2017.

14
Understanding
Tridentinophobia

Dear dr. kwasniewski,
I recently listened to your 1 Peter 5 podcast,[1] which was really helpful to me. The part where you take us through the history of the philosophical ideas that were motivating the liturgical reformers at and after Vatican II was interesting and informative. Thanks to the podcast, I understand better the sort of ideas that led some liturgists to the conclusion that the Roman Mass was antiquated and in need of reform. But at some point soon after the publication of the missal of Paul VI, it seems as if the attitudes of clergy shifted from “the Tridentine rite is outdated” to “the Tridentine rite is dangerous, something the faithful should either never be exposed to or be granted access to rarely, with extreme caution and onerous regulations.”

I was around in the ’80s and ’90s, and the general attitude of most high-ranking bishops of both “conservative” and “liberal” leanings, as well as most parish priests—even after John Paul II’s motu proprio Ecclesia Dei of 1988—seemed to be an almost irrational fear of the Tridentine Latin Mass or anyone associated with it. Even talking about it made them uncomfortable, as if one had just mentioned one was carrying a loaded gun. They didn’t seem to display such concerns about altar girls and rock bands. It was something specific and yet inarticulable about the Tridentine Latin Mass that evoked among churchmen a reaction of phobia or rage. How can we explain this phenomenon?

Sincerely yours,
Quaerens Intellectum

Dear Quaerens,

Your question is an excellent one. The phenomenon of a deepseated fear or hatred of the traditional Latin Mass (and all the other traditional sacramental rites and services, such as the Divine Office) on the part of clergy has been frequently noted by those of us who care about the Faith and who have worked to bring its traditional practice back in our day. How to explain it? I think it’s fairly simple.

On the theological plane, Modernism teaches that each age or generation has to find, or perhaps “evolve,” its own set of practices and concepts that “work” for it. People who are in the grip of this evolutionary fallacy are bound to view the unexpected return of what they consider a burnt-out liturgy as a threat to the necessary aggiornamento or contemporary updating of the Church. Even conservatives seem to have convinced themselves that the Church had to “come of age,” “update itself,” in order to survive and thrive. The reality has been the opposite: the Church’s influence and numbers plummeted when she started courting modernity in this manner. It is a sign of weakness, not of strength, to play catch-up or tag-along, to chase after a fantasy in a foreign crowd, like an old woman putting on lipstick and a short skirt in an attempt to look youthful and stylish.

Driven by a kind of passive-aggressive institutional logic, as Pope Pius X demonstrates in Pascendi Dominici Gregis, Modernism is incapable of recognizing the suicidal tendencies of its own premises: the process of updating, as they understand it, can never be successful because time is always moving on. Modernization always has an expiration date. Condemned to timeliness, the Church will either end up changing everything—and thereby cease to be recognizable as the same Catholic Church—or be quickly out of date for having changed too little. In the minds of Modernists, the solution for the Church’s continuing decline is to accelerate modernization, since they believe that the problem is that the Church has not adapted herself enough to the momentous changes of modernity. She will not be “right” until she has shed the last traces of anything ancient, medieval, or premodern, and has fully caught up to “science,” democracy, the Sexual Revolution, the free individual conscience, environmentalism, interreligious fraternity, or whatever the cause du jour happens to be.

Tradition-loving Catholics hold exactly the opposite. We adhere to the Faith because it is true across all ages until the end of time, and we reject modern errors because they conflict with the truth about God, Christ, man, and the world. We know that the Church makes a serious impact on society and culture only to the extent that she lives at a level beyond the merely temporal and temporary. The way we practice our religion enshrines our anti-modernism because traditional worship is heavily marked by elements from every age through which the Church has passed, amalgamated and elevated into signs of perpetual youthfulness and immortality. You can imagine how thoroughly this must dismay and enrage the Modernists in our midst.

On the practical plane, clergy from the mid-1950s to the mid-1970s were psychologically abused by constant and often radical and arbitrary changes to Catholic life and to the liturgy in particular, which were forced upon them (and upon the long-suffering laity) as “the will of the Holy Father” or “the teaching of the Council” or “the judgment of the Church,” even when, in many cases, they were nothing of the sort. So deep was the hyperpapalism, so luxuriant the invention of conciliar mandates, so heavy-handed the lowering of the boom, that many clergy, if not all, must have had to do violence to their thoughts and feelings in order to swallow these changes. In other words, they had to convince themselves, in spite of so many instincts, appearances, and warnings to the contrary, that it was “all for the best,” and that the old ways were not only out of date, but now spiritually harmful in the new Spirit-led phase of the Church.

This is why the sharpest opposition to the return of traditional worship is from today’s older generations who lived through the conciliar period and/or its immediate aftermath. Sure, there were Catholics who greeted the changes like Woodstock attendees hailing the next performer on stage, but there were also plenty who, having seen nothing particularly wrong with what the Church had been doing in the first half of the twentieth century, fell into step with the new regime in a crippling exercise of blind obedience, a Soviet-style “re-education.”

When people in this category have lived long enough to have seen the beginnings of a turnaround under John Paul II, then an increasing movement of restoration under Benedict XVI, and most recently a positive cranking up of traditionalism under Francis, they feel—or felt, if no longer with us—exceedingly bitter that they were forced to give up all the old things, while today’s young priests and laity get to have them again, more and more freely. Matthew Menendez reflects on his experiences with certain older individuals:

The behavior of the bishop [who lashed out at him], the cathedral priest [who wanted to deny him Communion when he was kneeling], and the embittered traditionalists can be explained, I think, by a single reason. All of these people lived through the traumatic days after the Council. Imagine if everything you held dear, from your Baltimore Catechism to your Corpus Christi processions, were suddenly banned and you were told that it was repressive and part of a scheme to make clergy powerful at your expense. No matter how much you appeal it, the priests and bishops keep telling you that there is no going back.

Three reactions might arise from this experience of rupture: 1. leave the Faith completely: if it was wrong and needed to be changed, then the whole of Catholicism is a sham; 2. join some traditionalist movement with varying degrees of marginalization; or 3. just agree with the priests and every time you remember those beautiful processions, repress that thought because it is not worth getting nostalgic about something that is wrong and forbidden.

The bishop and the priest who denied me Communion took option 3 and lied to themselves to handle the trauma. Then to see some young person come along with all that was taken away from them is unfair and upsetting. Today, the young people are encountering the liturgy like a treasure found in our grandparents’ attics, but the problem is that when we bring it down, grandpa finds us admiring the jewelry of his deceased wife and gets quite upset.[2]

For full accuracy, one would have to modify the image: grandpa finds us admiring jewelry that belonged to a brutally murdered wife, or perhaps to a first wife whom his parents had convinced him to abandon for another wife more to their liking.

For people browbeaten into the “spirit of Vatican II,” it can feel like a second and more subtle wave of psychological abuse to watch traditions, devotions, and markers of Catholic identity that were once ripped from their souls now entering back into the Church as if, instead of being frowned upon and banished, they had just been misplaced in a closet somewhere due to a misunderstanding. It could also easily prompt feelings of guilt: older folks may be reminded of how little resistance they offered to changes that struck them as wrong-headed at the time, or how they failed to take more steps to control the anarchy that engulfed the faithful. They may feel judged and rejected in proportion to the reappearance of more demanding forms of Catholic life and liturgy.

A friend shared the following anecdote with me, which perfectly illustrates the psychological phenomenon:

When I was in the army as a Military Academy teacher in France, the Principal told us at the outset to use the formal vous second person pronoun with the pupils. Now, in my platoon of 50 conscript-teachers (all university men), there were some liberals who had already been teachers in government schools, where the custom was to use the informal tu with students. They obeyed, albeit reluctantly. After the end-of-year ceremonies, one of the more forward students approached a group of us teachers (still in uniform) and said “Well, now that all that is over, we can call you tu.” The most liberal amongst us, for whom switching to vous had been hardest, lost his temper and said: “I did myself the violence of switching to vous at the beginning of the year, and you can’t make me switch back to tu now.” We were all surprised at the vehemence with which this otherwise even-tempered man reacted. But it makes sense. And illustrates how priests who were compelled to adopt the New Catholicism lose their cool when “going back” is presented as an option.

Or consider the Israelites: having become accustomed to the most brutal sort of oppression in Egypt, they murmured against Moses, their liberator, ten times. They wanted to keep living under Pharaoh, who wouldn’t let them sacrifice to Yahweh.

Generally speaking, the old Mass and much that goes with it embody and practically cry out a vision of an intellectually and aesthetically unified and coherent Catholicism, one that encompasses the fiery polemics of the Church Fathers, the towering dogmatic theology of the Doctors, the intricate and intimate poetry of the mystics, the uncompromising fortitude of the ascetics. It represents the Catholic Faith in all its otherworldly, culturally dominating grandeur.

This vision is definitely not something that the “men without chests”[3] of our age—those who have been tamed into political correctness, religious privatism and pluralism, and the horizontal social or ecological Gospel, not to mention those with undisciplined or unnatural sexual proclivities—are capable of handling. It is too hot to handle: it is pretty much the repudiation of the modern experiment, including the runaway experiment of Vatican II. So it’s understandable that those who are committed to this experiment at all costs, either from strong personal conviction or because it was browbeaten into them at a vulnerable age, will tend to react strongly against the very things that epitomize the Catholicism they were taught to hate, which, moreover, was supposed to have been superseded, purged, expelled.

You are right that there was (and, regrettably, still is) a massive lack of support on the part of the Church’s hierarchy for good initiatives—or, translated into personal terms, for those good clergy and laity who were (or are) rolling back the arduous ambiguities, dated updatings, and Sesame Street banality of the postconciliar status quo, and reaching for something that looks, sounds, smells, and feels Catholic and actually is Catholic when you subject it to close scrutiny. There was also, for the longest time, no official acknowledgment that anything had ever gone amiss after Vatican II, or any passing nod that something might be adrift in the reformed liturgy. Too many of our shepherds still live in total denial.

We had to learn to use our own eyes and ears to figure out the truth; we had to dig for answers ourselves. And as we found the answers, we realized more and more clearly why the hierarchy had been and continues to be so eerily silent in the face of spreading apostasy. For them to admit to what really happened and to propose a substantive spiritual remedy, they would first need to confess a catastrophic lack of prudence, wisdom, and charity on the part of the Church’s hierarchy, past and present, and second, follow it up with a concrete plan to recover the plenitude of Catholic tradition.

Pride gets in the way of that, to be sure, and a misplaced fear that admitting such errors on the part of churchmen, and turning the ship around in a different direction, will destroy the confidence of Catholics in their shepherds. Well, guess what, Your Excellencies: it’s already happened. The confidence is pretty nearly annihilated at this point. It would have been far better for you to tell the truth, and to have gained both the merit of humility and the advantage of looking honest to the faithful. Now you have neither. You may have our obedience (within well-understood limits), but you have to earn our trust. The way to start earning it is to show that you are resolutely, integrally Catholic, and above all, that you worship like Catholics.

The time will come, of this we can be certain, when those of the younger generations who still have the Faith will rise to become the next pastors, professors, musicians, administrators, superiors, and eventually bishops of the Church. They will not be perfect, and some will be tangled up in compromises, but the majority will have learned invaluable lessons in patience, perseverance, fidelity, sacrifice, and, most of all, the beauty, consolation, and power of tradition. A counterrevolution is stirring. Hints of it can already be seen in dioceses around the world where good bishops and sometimes mediocre ones with a modicum of self-respect have invited in traditional religious communities to work for the restoration of order and sanity.

A revolution fails inasmuch as it crosses certain lines of divine and natural law, and it will fail faster the farther it has crossed them. The postconciliar revolution in the Church crossed every line to the maximum degree compatible with her indefectibility. Great will be the fall of its protagonists and votaries: “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell, and great was the fall thereof ” (Mt 7:27).

Equally great—nay, greater—will be the triumph of the little ones who remain faithful to Christ, His Blessed Mother, Holy Mother Church, and the Sacred Tradition that makes the Church Catholic. These are the wise men who never stopped building their house on the Rock that is—simultaneously and inseparably— Christ, the Truth, the Faith, the papacy, the liturgy. “And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew, and they beat upon that house, and it fell not, for it was founded on a rock” (Mt 7:25).

1. Available either at YouTube (search for “1P5 Podcast Episode 41”) or at my SoundCloud page under the title “What Happened in the Liturgical Reform? And Why Does It Matter?”

2. “Youth and the Liturgy,” in Alcuin Reid, ed., Liturgy in the Twenty-First Century: Contemporary Issues and Perspectives (London/New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016), 169.

3. I borrow this phrase from C.S. Lewis, The Abolition of Man (New York: HarperCollins, 2001).

15
The Failure of Todaying

Dear dr. kwasniewski,
It is obvious that things are not well with the Catholic Church today. This is true whether we look at the morals of the clergy and the faithful or what they believe (or don’t believe) or how the Mass is conducted in our churches—really anything to do with prayer, doctrine, or way of life. In other words, a comprehensive meltdown, though with some sparkling lights here and there, keeping us from utter despair. Where did this disaster come from? What is the root cause? And can anything be done to redeem the new Mass, or is it irredeemable?

Best regards,
Fiducia Fortitudinis

Dear Fiducia,

The fundamental problem of the Catholic Church in the last half-century is the paradigm shift of taking as a guiding principle accommodation to the modern world rather than fidelity to the deposit of faith. The flash word at the Council was aggiornamento, updating; one might even translate it “todaying.”

Two critical questions were asked only by a few, and those few on the outskirts of power. First, should this “today” of ours be the definitive reference point or authoritative measure by which we reinterpret Christianity and renew its presence in the world? Or might this procedure lead to an inversion and perversion of its timeless power to bring illumination and redemption to any time and all times by way of remaining to some extent aloof from them and even opposed to them? Put differently, does not the Gospel have to remain countercultural even as it is wisely inculturated? Second, if we narrowly confine ourselves to “today,” will we not lose our guiding sympathy with yesterday and our freedom to speak to tomorrow with the force of perennial truth?

Aggiornamento became the adjournment of the Church’s role in society and in souls—an extermination (from ex-terminare, to drive out of boundaries), because it canceled out the defining duty of inheritance from our predecessors and the corresponding responsibility to our successors, seeking instead an ephemeral relevance to ourselves. The hodie of mystery, which transcends time, was replaced with “the latest,” which unfortunately quickly ends up as yesterday’s big news, not tomorrow’s.

This experiment has really been a failure. By taking on the world’s complexion, the Church has not evangelized it; the world, rather, has colonized the Church. The event of the Council and the unrelenting “implementation” that has been chugging along now for over fifty years gave and continues to give fallen human beings a plausible model for throwing off the gentle yoke of Christ and surrendering their freedom to the world, the flesh, and the devil.

The liturgical reform was so deeply mired in this paradigm, caught between rationalism and romanticism—between immediate verbal comprehension as the measure of active participation (an error no Christian prior to the Enlightenment could have been foolish enough to think up) and emotional impact as yardstick of engagement (another error, in permanent irremediable tension with the last one)—that it is very hard to see how one could actually “redeem” it or “reform” it. How can such an amorphous and everchanging beast be reformed? The new liturgical books are sui generis products of their time, assembled with scissors and paste by avant-garde committees whose brazen scholarly assumptions have been undermined and whose risk-it-all sociological gambles have proved a washout. As Ratzinger said, it’s a dangerous thing to tie the liturgy to pet theories, which change every generation.

It seems to me more and more that the decisive question to ask is this: How do we understand the words of Jesus when He says “the Spirit will lead you into the fullness of truth” (Jn 16:13)? This He says to the Church, His Bride. The realization of His promise was not only the canons and anathemas of Councils, but the organic unfolding of the great liturgies of the apostolic rites. The Roman rite witnessed a magnificent and complex development over many centuries. Any reform, to be legitimate, would have to show the most profound respect for this arc of development—and Paul VI’s did not do so. Rather, it combined inconsistent archaeologism, heavy-handed redaction, and sheer innovation. This is a problem that will not go away, no matter how much “spin” is put on it.

A key part of any healthy Catholic response will be having the courage to criticize what popes and bishops have done to the Church—and I do not mean criticizing in the manner of NCR[1] progressives who want to excuse their violations of the Ten Commandments, but rather as Catholics who really believe those Commandments and value the Church’s traditional creed, ethics, and worship.

Yours in Christ,
Dr. Kwasniewski

Dear Dr. Kwasniewski,

I have long pondered what it would look like if the Church suppressed the Ordinary Form (OF) entirely. In my life, I saw from close up how a bishop drove many practicing Catholics into the Old Catholic schism through his enthusiasm for liturgy and truth— though I did appreciate his willingness to speak the truth and to promote good liturgy. I heard the grumblings of older Catholics over the new translation of the OF in the early 2010s. People do not handle change well, which the Church saw after Vatican II when so many people left off practicing. I have tried bringing members of my family to the Extraordinary Form (EF) and most of them couldn’t care less what their liturgy looks like—though one liberal relative did ask in surprise after a reverent eastward-facing OF, “What do you like about that?” She could not understand the beautiful mystery of chant, of a liturgy directed toward God. One can always win arguments about the EF’s strong points, but I doubt most Catholics actually care about the reverence of the liturgy they attend. It’s not on the radar.

This past summer, we were on a big road trip and had to attend typical banal OF Masses along the way. One particular Mass featured three homilies: one from the celebrant, one from the parish priest, and a third from a recent convert about why he converted. The music was what I heard growing up: the St. Louis Jesuits and so on. The priests were chatty, the congregations were as well, and there were ushers that greeted us when we just wanted to slip in and out. The people with whom we attended it loved it. The community there was vibrant. There is a similar parish in my neighborhood with well-attended liturgies. I know a lot of young Catholic families that love their OF parishes; my relatives sit in the front pews with their families and happily sing the four-hymn sandwich with pastors who put on a show every week. Would these people willingly submit to switching back to the EF?

Then there was the case of the priest removed from his parish in Saginaw because he introduced Latin chant to one Sunday Mass, and his parishioners complained to the bishop. I do not think the Church is ripe for bringing back the EF exclusively.

The number of young people interested in the EF is, nevertheless, a hopeful sign that the traditional mindset will spread and grow. It is going to take time, generations, perhaps, but I am confident that tradition will prevail, and that is where I see the Holy Spirit guiding the Church. I have found that telling friends and family about the beauty of tradition does not work—love of this kind has to come from the heart as well as the mind. Perhaps that is the point you are making about rationalism and romanticism—two extremes—when the reality is that, during the liturgy, we need both our reason and our emotions to be open to the profound, beautiful mystery of the Sacrifice of the Mass.

I wonder have you ever attended an OF Mass at———?[2] The preservation of tradition within the OF changed my perspective. For the first time I realized that the OF could appear to flow from tradition rather than being antagonistic to it; that clergy and vested ministers were capable of doing everything in the sanctuary, without the need to tap random members of the congregation; the Mass looked and felt like a true act of adoration because the priest, with the people, offered it ad orientem; everyone knelt for Communion, and silence prevailed before and after Mass. After going there for a whole year, I was changed: the differences between the EF and the OF did not bother me so much anymore, nor did I obsess over the rubrics. I was able to pray with the liturgy, regardless of what form it was. I felt healed of bitterness at the liturgical changes because I realized what could have been done and can still be done to implement the Council in light of tradition.

If our young, tradition-minded priests could make their parishes like that, how easy it would be to bring congregations, over time, to a point where they could accept the EF once again. I think it’s very important not to mimic the swift, jarring changes of the 1960s. It has to happen “brick by brick,” as Fr. Zuhlsdorf is fond of saying. For healing in the Church to happen, for true tradition to take hold, we who love tradition have to sit back and wait for the Holy Spirit to guide the Church. The usus antiquior will need time to take hold again. This is the way tradition works; this is the way the Holy Spirit moves.

In Christ,
Fiducia Fortitudinis

Dear Fiducia,

It seems to me that the OF will not need to be suppressed; there is every reason to think it will slowly decay as time goes on. I say this not with glee, but with a melancholy sense of its failure to hold the younger generations and especially its notorious failure to generate the large numbers of priestly and religious vocations required for basic maintenance. While the traditional movement is tiny in absolute numbers, it has (proportionally speaking) larger families and more vocations. It is a movement of youthful energy, not of church closures and mergers, lay-administered parishes, and elderly priests in retirement homes.

Naturally, if the Lord will have mercy on us and send us a genuine reforming pope—a Leo XIV or a Benedict XVII—we could see a rapid escalation in the number of old rite liturgies. All it would take is a requirement (not a recommendation) that all seminarians be trained in both “forms,” and a requirement that every diocese have a certain percentage of old rite centers, or that each parish offer at least one EF Mass on Sundays and Holy Days. Right now such a scenario is well-nigh unimaginable, but as I like to say, stranger things have happened in Church history.

The reality is that the Church is already in schism. It is a virtual, unacknowledged schism, but no less real, spiritually, for all that. I speak of the difference between “all orthodox believers and confessors of the Catholic and apostolic Faith” (Roman Canon) and those who do not hold this faith unadulterated. This is why certain Catholics get up and leave when someone like Cardinal Burke or Bishop Schneider comes along and speaks the truth. It’s not because he’s speaking the truth; it’s because they do not want to hear it and would rather renounce the Faith than submit to it. And it seems to me that no amount of handling the truth with kid gloves will make a difference. A parish priest can spend weeks or months preparing his people for the return of ad orientem worship, but in the end it will always have the same result: a group of parishioners, usually a tiny minority, will storm out upset and go shopping for a Boomer church they like, and the parish will meanwhile attract new members who are looking for worship “in spirit and in truth” (Jn 4:23). Or a loud minority will complain, and that good priest will be transferred, placed on leave, sent to psychiatric treatment, or assigned to hospital chaplaincy.

The fact that certain parishes, in spite of doing everything the wrong way, are still “vibrant” in numerical terms is a cause of dismay rather than of rejoicing: they exemplify the drift, now over half a century old, into a Protestantized version of Catholicism that will not be able to resist assimilation to modernity in its cancer phase. I’m not saying these people will not continue to go to church; but it will be increasingly doubtful if they would be recognized as Catholics by the Church Fathers or the bishops who subscribed to the canons and anathemas of the Council of Trent. A hot-button issue like Amoris Laetitia’s opening of Communion to the “remarried”— though it could just as easily turn out to be any number of other issues, such as Amazonian idolatry—will become the line in the sand, separating the juring from the non-juring* bishops, priests, and laity. When the dust settles, I believe that the Catholics who adhere to sound doctrine and morals, and the Catholics who are celebrating traditional liturgy, will be found to have coalesced into a single group.

This brings me around to your claim that most Catholics don’t care what the liturgy is like. That is correct: they are no longer liturgical Catholics. What passes for liturgy in most parishes is a maudlin prayer service, a pious fraud, or a sacramental sacrilege. Catholics in this way have been de-catechized and de-liturgized. No wonder so many will not be capable of responding warmly to a majestic Latin Mass or even to a smells-and-bells Novus Ordo. However, there are always the exceptions: the ones who see a truly Catholic liturgy and are captivated by it, whose reaction may be summed up as: “Why didn’t someone show me this before? That’s what I was looking for without even knowing it!” Those who are looking will find Catholic tradition again, because it is the Real Deal.

I certainly agree with you that “love of this kind [viz., of tradition] has to come from the heart as well as the mind. . . . [W]e need both our reason and our emotions to be open to the profound, beautiful mystery of the Sacrifice of the Mass.” Absolutely. I see every conversion—whether to theism, Christianity, Catholicism, or the traditional liturgy—as God’s grace finding a welcome in a soul that has been furrowed to receive the seed. The furrowing can take all manner of forms: suffering, loneliness, a philosophical disposition, a passion for the arts, a deep relationship of love with another person who can open one’s eyes to see new things. Straightforward verbal apologetics generally don’t accomplish as much as we wish they did.

If you will allow me to say so, I was surprised to read your paragraph about the archconservative Novus Ordo parish, which ended on a note of almost universal benevolence and tolerance. Habituation to the classical Roman rite will tend to make a person more, not less, sensitive to and offended by the liturgical revolution carried out under Paul VI. Sometimes people will say “the Mass is the Mass is the Mass” and “a reverent Novus Ordo is just as good as a Tridentine High Mass,” but we know this isn’t true in several very important ways.

First, as Catholics we have an obligation to receive our liturgy from tradition with deep veneration, as all of our forefathers in the Faith have done. When we fail to do this, we fail in moral, intellectual, and theological virtues. Moral, because the virtue of religion gives to God that which we owe Him, and we owe Him what He has inspired us in our tradition to give Him. Intellectual, because the formation of a Catholic mind leans on and learns from the accumulated wisdom of our predecessors. Theological, because faith is nourished on the intensely worshiped mysteries of faith, hope aspires to unseen heavenly beatitude, and charity clings to God above all and sees the neighbor in relation to Him—precisely what traditional liturgical rites embody, exemplify, and entice from us.

Second, if at all possible, we should avoid participating in a form of prayer that deprives the Lord of the reverence that is due to Him. The Novus Ordo systematically does this by having removed hundreds of ways in which the Church showed her profound reverence for the Word of God and the holy mysteries of Christ. It’s one thing if you’re a Christian in the third century and your liturgy is simple because it hasn’t matured; it’s another if you already have a fully developed liturgy and then turn your back on it. This is what the reformers did—and what we also do, inasmuch as we go along with their scaled-down service.

Third, serious proponents of the Novus Ordo do everything in their power—the more serious they are, the more energetically—to restrain or marginalize the traditional Latin rites that were honored and celebrated for so many centuries. This shows that they are very well aware that the difference is palpable and powerful. If “the Mass is just the Mass,” it should make no difference, right? If we’re all playing on the same team, why make such a fuss?

The problem for thoughtful Catholics is the rupture that is “baked into” the Novus Ordo. Its euchology or corpus of prayers is a mishmash of antiquarian and novel sources (e.g., only 17% of the orations of the old Roman Missal survived intact in the 1969 missal[3]); its calendar is in some respects hardly recognizable as Roman; its lectionary is an unwieldy novelty that selectively edits the message of Scripture; its openness to celebrant-driven options and versus populum, which has become virtually obligatory, makes it not so much a liturgical rite as a modular matrix for the realization of a community project. One could go on, but the fundamental point is that the Novus Ordo cannot be “done well.” Sure, it can be dressed up like the Infant of Prague, festooned with smells and bells, but its internal DNA is genetically mutated. Nolite judicare secundum faciem, sed justum judicium judicate. “Judge not according to the appearance”—a bit of Latin, a bit of chant, a bit of incense, or what have you—“but judge with just judgment” (Jn 7:24). We should return with a calm conscience and a grateful heart to our traditional rites, which were not defective and did not need to be replaced.

I do agree with you that the restoration of the traditional Latin rite is likely to take a long time. Only the all-knowing, all-powerful Holy Spirit, usually in quiet ways but occasionally with a dramatic intervention like the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, can lead us out of our liturgical Babylonian captivity. May He strengthen our hands and hearts for whatever work and suffering He desires from us.

Cordially in Christ,
Dr. Kwasniewski

1. National Catholic Reporter, based in Kansas City, Missouri, founded in 1964 and well-known for its liberal and modernist views.

2. A place famous for “reform of the reform”-style liturgies.

3. Cekada, Work of Human Hands, 244.

16
Should We “Move Past”
the Liturgy Debates?

The following exchange shows the widening rift between two liturgical camps in the Catholic Church, what exactly that rift entails, and what might be done to fix it.

Dear Dr. Kwasniewski,

I attend Mass in both the old rite and the new rite, and I am bothered by the almost competitive approach you take to the two forms of the Mass. You even go so far as to imply the Novus Ordo should not be preferred by anyone. I don’t believe it’s an either/or choice, and according to his motu proprio on restoring the usus antiquior, neither did Pope Benedict XVI. I am concerned that you are fueling a paradigm that places orthodox Catholics who attend the Novus Ordo in competition with fellow orthodox Catholics who attend the Latin Mass. Far too often I have encountered snobs on either side who see their differently-minded brethren as the “B team.” Shouldn’t orthodox Catholics move past such squabbles, especially in today’s ecclesial climate?

I am blessed to live near a very orthodox parish that celebrates Mass in both rites. Both liturgies are beautiful. Because they are said properly and according to the rubrics, they are edifying vehicles of God’s grace. No liturgy said badly or not in conformity with rubrics is a good thing. Trust me, over the years I’ve seen traditional Masses sloppily done. Wouldn’t it be far more productive to encourage a reverent embrace of both liturgies at their best, and to encourage what Pope Benedict tried to do with the “reform of the reform”?

My fear is that your article[1] might encourage a surrender of the Ordinary Form to ideologues who would indeed love to continue using it as a vehicle for radical change to the liturgy and the doctrine of the Church (as we saw with the Amazon Synod working document). In other words, the center must hold. Articles like yours risk pushing usus antiquior-attending Catholics farther into a culde-sac that isolates them and deprives the wider Church of their important contributions.

Sincerely,
Stet Centrum

Dear Stet,

Thank you for your heartfelt letter. I understand where you are coming from. I used to share your views. However, I no longer think it right to defend or promote a liturgical rupture of so vast a scale. One can add copious “smells and bells” to the reformed liturgy, but it will always remain a committee-manufactured product that is at odds, on far too many points, with our prayer-saturated, theologically profound heritage slowly developed over the ages.

I do not believe that the Novus Ordo is worthless. Nothing that bears any sound Christian content, much less the sacramental graces Christ promised to give His Church until He returns in glory, can be worthless. But it is nevertheless a profound evil in the Western Church that we have turned our back on centuries of organic development, and even rejected some of the most ancient features of our public worship—e.g., the normative use of the Roman Canon, the old lectionary, Ember Days and Rogation Days, Septuagesimatide, the orations about fasting and despising earthly goods, the Good Friday orations, the baptism-centered Pentecost vigil, the Pentecost octave, the minor clerical orders—the list could go on practically forever. In truth, it is a different liturgy we are talking about concretely, with some general points of overlap in the abstract.

If we ask Catholics who still attend Mass why they go, the answer will usually be couched in terms of “things I like about going to Mass,” or “things I like about Fr. So-and-so’s Mass (or Mass at Our Lady of Such-and-such Parish).” The pivotal function of I like hints at an unspoken premise: it is our personal preferences in liturgy that are decisive, rather than the search for what is most pleasing to God in accordance with how He inspired God-fearing generations to glorify Him on earth. If Catholics make remarks critical of the traditional Latin Mass—“I just can’t get into it,” “I think the priest is ignoring us,” “I find the people too serious”—at the heart of each statement is “I”; it’s about their own comfort. To me, this epitomizes the “spirit of Vatican II,” in which the cult of man is exalted over the cult of God. It is a huge problem to start with the idea that liturgy is about me and my little world—a potent distillation of the egocentricity of fallen human nature. Former generations knew how to mortify the ego. They knew how to subordinate it to a heritage, a common good, a tradition seen as taking precedence, opening out to the broad and deep world created by God and redeemed by Christ.[2]

Proponents of the Novus Ordo seldom have anything to say about how it is more spiritual or expresses greater homage to God. In its origins, the new Mass was all about being better for the “assembly” (at least according to the judgment of a humanistic minority with whom the majority of the faithful did not concur)—missing the point that the Mass is first and foremost the worship of God; hence we should decrease as He increases, in keeping with the excellent policy of St. John the Baptist, who gives away his heart and loses his head. Paradoxically, it is better for us that we be totally oriented to God, that we honor, reverence, and adore Him in fearful rites, in mystic signs, received from our ancestors. The strangeness and differentness of the old liturgy, its pre-modern and pre-revolutionary content, turn out to be better for us than something that was designed specifically for us.

The reality is that, at the end of the day, many Catholics simply do not want to know what is wrong with the Novus Ordo. The evidence abounds, but they close their eyes and stop their ears. Who can blame them? We are all averse to hearing “bad news” that will change our lives decisively, requiring of us a second conversion from the comparatively shallow Catholicism of postconciliar officialdom to the richer, more complex hardcore Catholicism of twenty centuries’ slow growth. In my own life, it took me a long time to become acquainted with the full magnitude of the rupture—which, to be sure, had its roots and trial balloons already before the Council— and to face up to the doctrinal, moral, and spiritual schizophrenia into which it has propelled the Church. One of the “severe mercies” of God during the pontificate of Francis has been to tear off the polite garment hiding this schizophrenia, exposing it to the gaze of all. The project of fitting the square peg of traditional Catholicism into the round hole of the conciliar experiment, which has been tried at enormous expense, has failed and continues to fail.

Where does this leave us? There is an either/or situation between the two rites. The more one studies the principles, methods, and results of the liturgical reformers, the more one can see an abyss stretching between the two “forms”: their books embody two different theologies of liturgy, history, ritual, the moral life, and the Church. Abyss may call out to abyss, but, as in the parable of Dives and Lazarus, there is no crossing between them (cf. Lk 16:26). One may think for a time that it is possible, but experience and study prove otherwise. It is a bitter awakening—“for in much wisdom is much grief, and he that increaseth knowledge increaseth sorrow” (Eccles 1:18)—but it frees one from torturous internal and external contradictions, and in that way leads to a peace that the world, including the world within the Church, cannot give.

This does not mean that everyone has to abandon the Novus Ordo immediately, which may not be prudent or charitable or even possible in a given situation. But it does mean that there comes a day of reckoning. One must not evade the deeper questions forever. However pleasant to people of taste, the “Oratorian solution”— “doing up” the Novus Ordo to make it as much like the Tridentine rite as possible—is desperately temporizing. The vast majority of the most significant differences between the two “forms” of the Roman rite (in reality, two different rites) are not cosmetic, but muscular and skeletal, built into their texts and rubrics. To use an analogy, it is a problem not for a plastic surgeon but for a doctor of internal medicine.

The center cannot hold. Or rather, it is being held by sheer force of will, not by the real identity of the things in question.

Cordially in Christ,
Dr. Kwasniewski

Dear Dr. Kwasniewski,

I understand your position and it’s one I sometimes share, especially when I journey outside what I admit to be my liturgical bubble of the Novus Ordo said in strict conformity to the rubrics and in the spirit of tradition. I know I’m blessed to live near a big city that offers every available liturgical approach within easy driving distance.

I’m sure we could go back and forth on the mistakes/purposeful omissions of the Novus Ordo reforms. However, we are still left with the practical reality that this is the Mass attended by 99% of Latin-rite Catholics, and the only one many have access to. Barring some miraculous intervention (there are precedents!), it seems that the Novus Ordo is here to stay. How, then, do we move the normal celebration of it to something more in keeping with Catholic liturgical traditions? I’ve seen it done, and I’m sure you’ve seen it done: it was slowly starting to happen with the “Benedictine arrangement” on the altar, the new English missal translation, etc. Unfortunately, it was largely put on the shelf with Pope Benedict’s resignation.

It’s not the small TLM communities I’m worried about; they’ll find their way. It’s the rest of my fellow Catholics. As someone who attends both rites, I have enjoyed the simplicity of the Novus Ordo; when said properly, it can be a worthy offering to God. Yes, a level of preference is there in that statement, but that, too, is found among TLM attendees. You and I both know how picky they can be when it comes to vestments, musical arrangements, etc.! I think for both the TLM and the Novus Ordo, it’s the spirit of humility and worship that matters, and while I’ll grant you that this spirit is built more into the bones of the TLM than into those of the Novus Ordo, there’s no reason it can’t be there in the latter. This speaks to a wider spiritual ailment in the Church: all of the reformers, as you know, were raised in and conversant with the old rite. I’m afraid the ailment must go far deeper than liturgy.

As a religion teacher, I get to work with ordinary lay people. I’ve seen the complete re-education the liturgical reform has done to my fellow Catholics. When I mention to my colleagues that I attend Latin Mass or prefer the reformed Mass said ad orientem, I get looks of complete bafflement or comments like “why would you go to a Mass where the priest has his back to you?” (A few weeks ago I blew my students’ minds when I told them that the priest isn’t talking mostly to them at Mass; he’s talking to God. It was as though a light went on when they heard that.) How strange that Catholics have been taught, implicitly and explicitly, to disdain the way their ancestors worshipped for centuries! You’re right about the rupture.

All the same, the likelihood of a pope in the near future suddenly abrogating the Novus Ordo and restoring the TLM is almost zero; and if he did, I think it would be such a shock to the system that it would spark a schism. I’m at a real loss as to what we can do. On my darker days, I think the Roman rite and the whole way of being Catholic that went with it is pretty much dead and will never come back. It will exist in vigorous little pockets of faithful, and that’s it. Some days I think we should just go Byzantine. I worry that as my right-believing fellow Catholics run for the doors during this pontificate to the TLM, the Eastern rites, or the Anglican Ordinariate, the majority of Catholics in the pews will be left to the wolves.

Pax,
Stet Centrum

Dear Stet,

All that you say resonates with me. I have the same concerns about the vast majority of practicing Roman Catholics who do not avail themselves of traditional liturgical rites. The mainstream Church in the Western world is falling apart before our eyes.[3] Most Catholics contracept, and an ever-increasing number accept the entire post-1968 platform of sexual libertinism. As we have seen, many high-ranking clergy are either homosexual or heterodox or both (leading to the neologism “homodox”), and the bulk of the remainder seldom show courage or even discernible signs of consciousness. Churches will be closed more and more (although some new ones will be built in the suburbs). Lawsuits will bankrupt many dioceses. The agenda of the modernists in high places, if continued energetically along the lines of the German episcopate, will split the Church into those who are apparently Catholic and those who are actually Catholic, and the latter will be a minority. As St. Athanasius said in an analogous situation: “They have the churches, but we have the faith.”

I believe that you are right to say that Roman Catholicism in any form that would be recognizable as continuous with its own history—that is, the way of being Catholic founded on the distinctive theology, canon law, liturgy, and art forms of the Latin Church— has largely perished, surviving only in small pockets of people holding on by their fingertips. Never was the prophetic word more true: “Behold, the eyes of the Lord God are upon the sinful kingdom, and I will destroy it from off the face of the earth; only I will not utterly destroy the house of Jacob, says the Lord” (Amos 9:8).

What happened before, during, and after Vatican II? How could it all have collapsed so quickly?

I think there are multiple answers. The first is that tradition seems to have been taken for granted. It was always there; it would always be there. And so people got lazy with it. I name this subtle but important psychological aspect “the law of liturgical entropy.”[4] When tradition turns into mere custom, it can quickly lose its standing when insistently challenged.

Second, there was an overzealous application of good principles. A priest who was a young religious in the 1950s once related that everything in his house of formation was done in Latin—not just liturgies or theology classes, but recreation, kitchen work, chore charts, haircuts, you name it. While one can admire the desire and the need to achieve fluency in Latin, it was probably an extreme, and one extreme has an explosive potential to prompt the opposite.

Third, we should not underestimate the spiritual devastation wrought by World War I and World War II. These wars led to a conflicted mentality that oscillated between humanistic optimism (we can build a better Europe, a better world, through the democratic participation of all) and deep pessimism (the heritage of Christendom is buried in the bombed-out rubble; we must modernize as rapidly as possible, or we will vanish into irrelevance).[5] Both of these mentalities fed heavily into the liturgical reform: the postwar optimism of “we can build a better Mass” with scientific scholarship and organized manpower, and the postwar pessimism of “tradition is irrelevant and only drastic modernization will retain the congregations.” Then the revolution of 1968 blew apart what remained of a coherent Catholic worldview, and there were born three movements: the “progressives” who essentially concurred with the ’68ers; the “traditionalists” who saw in 1968 a further revelation of the demonic aggression or lust for destruction latent in modernity, and sought to repudiate it; and then whatever one wishes to call the folks who thought they could take a middle line (conservatives? moderates?), of whom Joseph Ratzinger became, in a sense, the patron and spokesman. But I am convinced that no middle way is sustainable in the long run. The words of Our Lord come to mind: “No man can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other” (Mt 6:24).[6]

Finally, let us not forget how much good can be destroyed in a short period, if the power and the motivation are present, and if the Lord, in His inscrutable will, permits it to occur. Henry VIII destroyed a nationwide ecosystem of monasteries and convents, extinguishing the flame of a vibrant Catholicism that had flourished in England for many centuries. The Protestant Revolt took away whole nations from the Faith in a matter of decades. The communists in the Soviet Union destroyed tens of thousands of churches and monasteries, while the communists in China destroyed a millennia-old Confucian imperial culture. One can cite other such examples. We saw how quickly the roof of Notre Dame Cathedral perished in flames. It took a century or more to build the great Gothic cathedrals, but a well-placed terrorist attack could reduce them to charred hulls in moments. So we should not be too surprised—especially if Satan and his angels are sleeplessly involved, as they surely are—that something as visibly burgeoning as the Catholicism of the 1950s[7] can fall to pieces almost overnight. What happened in the sixties and seventies was a kind of collective hysteria, a spiritual Bubonic plague. On the other hand, history has also witnessed periods of tremendous rebirth and restoration. The flowering of the Middle Ages after the Dark Ages, the Counter-Reformation’s zenith in the 17th century, and the 19th-century rebuilding of Catholicism in France after the fury of the Revolution are three shining examples.

I take very seriously the oft-quoted saying: “God does not call us to be successful; He calls us to be faithful.” We will work out our salvation, and help others to work out theirs, by being faithful to Catholicism in the fullest form in which it can be received, believed, and lived, without watering down, without compromise, and without useless modernization. We must rely on Our Lord to save us when He wills and as He alone can do. “I will restore the fortunes of my people Israel, and they shall rebuild the ruined cities and inhabit them; they shall plant vineyards and drink their wine, and they shall make gardens and eat their fruit” (Amos 9:14).

Tuus in Domino,
Dr. Kwasniewski

1. “Twelve Reasons Not to Prefer the Novus Ordo”: chapter 8 above.

2. Once we have been well-formed by tradition, we will in fact prefer the traditional Latin Mass; it will satisfy our God-implanted spiritual needs and give us true delight, sometimes even intense emotional experiences. But that sense of fulfillment does not stem from my untutored ideas or immature inclinations; it comes rather from a mind and heart that have been conformed to the objective good.

3. See Lisa Bourne,“Will bishops look at why millennials are fleeing the church? The answer is closer than they think,” LifeSite, June 21, 2019.

4. See Kwasniewski, Noble Beauty, 181–86.

5. We can see both of these attitudes at work in Pope Francis. See my article “Pope Francis’s Hermeneutic of Anti-Continuity,” The Remnant, December 22, 2019.

6. See the discussion of the via media in chapter 12.

7. See “The Case for Pacelli,” Rorate Caeli, October 14, 2018.

III
Present & Future

17
Children Change Everything

Children change everything: this is a truth we ponder many times in our lives. First, Christians celebrate each year the coming of a child—the Child, Emmanuel, God with us, the Word made flesh—the infant, the boy, the youth, the man, on Whom all of reality hinges, Who is our head, our cornerstone, our deliverer, our life. The annunciation, conception, and birth of this child certainly changed everything in the world, and, in spite of the constant battering of unbelief against the walls of the Church, His advent among us will never cease to purify and polarize mankind until the end of time.

Closer to home, whenever a man and a woman unite in marriage, God intends to change their lives by the advent of their child. By welcoming the child from His hands, they begin a long journey of maturing into their callings as husband and wife, mother and father, eventually grandmother and grandfather.

Parents face difficult decisions as the children grow up. Before, the man and the woman may not have thought much about what movies they were watching, what music they were listening to, what influences they allowed into their lives; but now they might start questioning their habits and trying to improve them. As much as newborns turn their parents’ lives upside-down, new challenges arise when children are expected to begin their education. Is homeschooling the way to go? Is the local Catholic school an option? What about online curricula? As the surrounding society becomes more demented and even parochial schools turn out to be lukewarm or heterodox, Catholic parents who want their children to know and love the Lord and practice the Faith usually reach the conclusion that education must be done in the home, in keeping with the divine right and duty parents have not only to beget children but also to educate them. And keeping children at home for their education definitely changes everything.

Liturgy as ultimate catechizer

Once children are part of our lives, we need to think more carefully about the liturgy we attend week in, week out.

We know how important Sunday is: it is the Dies Domini, the Day of the Lord. We also know how important is the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, where we give perfect worship to God through Christ, and receive His most holy Body as the divinizing food for our journey. Faithful Catholics intuitively know just how important it is that Sundays and Holy Days be properly set apart, solemnized with reverent, mystical, nourishing, and edifying liturgy. We have a duty to seek this out for ourselves, but, more to the point, we have a duty to seek it out for our children.

In my book Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis, I share the story of how, when our children were still small, we found ourselves at a Novus Ordo Mass in which a grown woman, vested in an alb, went up to the altar to assist the priest with distributing Holy Communion. My little daughter whisper-shouted to her mother: “Mama, there are women priests!”[1] This reminded us again, if we needed reminding, that the Novus Ordo has become a protected wilderness refuge for a plethora of deviations that still enjoy official toleration or endorsement, even in cases where sheaves of Vatican directives demand the contrary.[2]

Up to a point, one can “out-catechize” the misunderstandings arrived at by children who are judging simply on the basis of sights and sounds, but it is an uphill battle every step of the way when the mainstream form of worship transmits a message contrary to that of any traditional catechism published in the past 500 years. In fact, it’s worse: the liturgy cannot even harmonize with the models of worship given by God Himself to His people, which all Christian liturgies deliberately echoed—until the Novus Ordo. A friend of mine wrote to me:

I teach CCD for the parish, and it always brings vividly to mind what our culture and our Church situation is doing to the kids. . . . Today we looked at a model of the Israelites’ Tabernacle in the wilderness and drew parallels to the Church and the Mass; it was a neat exercise and they seemed to be getting into it. But then we went to the CCD Mass and the parallels were messed up by the versus populum celebration, clericalization of the laity, and verbose profanation of sacred time. It seemed to have barely anything to do with the Tabernacle—and yet this is the model that informs the Temple, the Epistle to the Hebrews, and the Book of Revelation. With this kind of disconnect, how are Catholics supposed to grasp anything Scripture says about worship?

The phrase “cognitive dissonance” comes to mind, and in reference to so many levels. No parent needs the headache of having to address, in a sort of liturgical postmortem, the errors, ugliness, or irreverence of a Mass one has just attended. It’s uncomfortable at best and discouraging at worst. Needless to say, the experience of the albèd EMHC was just one of many similar experiences that prompted us, as parents, to take far greater care about which liturgy we would be attending as a family.

Small doses of poison

I once wrote about this matter to a good friend, and he wrote the following insightful words back to me:

When our oldest started noticing things and asking questions, and knowing that when we face our personal judgment we will be judged on how well we performed our duties of state, we had to leave the diocesan parishes. Not only were the kids getting malnourished; we were getting small doses of poison. My wife and I had the capacity to filter most of it out, but the kids do not. The only option was to correct the priests’ actions and words, but that puts us in the awkward position of possibly disrespecting the one who has spiritual authority over us. And I have a very high view of the priesthood, and did not want to be in a position of regularly criticizing priests.

After we started assisting at the TLM, I noticed, as if in retrospect, that I had built up all sorts of defenses to filter out the not-so-good stuff that goes on in your average Novus Ordo Mass. We should not have to filter out stuff as we actively participate (in the proper sense) in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; I’d say that those filters actually prevent proper participation. At this point, I find it pretty near impossible to pray at a Novus Ordo Mass, and my kids do not want to go to “the English Mass,” as they call it.

My correspondent points out that children are naturally absorptive and inquisitive. We could add to this that they are naïve, innocent, and trusting. So their experiences are teaching them something about the nature of what they are seeing and hearing far more intensely than do the experiences of older people, who have seen and heard a lot more and had time to process it and learn about things from other sources. We, perhaps, can “shut it out,” close our eyes, meditate on something beautiful we once saw or heard, or “offer it up” as a penance, but their eyes are wide open, taking it all in—and it shapes them. What they see is what they are going to believe, and if we have to keep correcting erroneous inferences from what they see, it will fracture the fundamental axiom lex orandi, lex credendi. After all, how we worship should dictate what we believe, and what we believe should be spotlessly reflected in how we worship. Children therefore need to be protected from imbibing contradictions. Fiedrowicz points out the huge advantage we have in assisting at the old Mass:

The exterior forms of veneration and adoration that belong to the classical rite of the Mass are the best way of guaranteeing the corresponding interior attitudes. Prayers of preparation, genuflections, and bows are not trifles that could be omitted without diminishing the faithful completion of the holy action. The interior encounter with the sacred must manifest itself outwardly, involving and being supported by an exterior form. The traditional liturgy insists that interior sentiments are plausible only if at the same time they appear in an outwardly appropriate manner. In the same way, the liturgy is aware of the formative power that the sensible can exercise on the spiritual condition.

With the number of its sacred signs, the beauty of its altars, the preciousness of its chalices and vestments, and its ceaseless expressions of reverence, the classical rite guarantees this correspondence of interior belief and exterior form. This rite is, so to speak, safeguarded against a possible discord between that which one believes and that which one sees. Here is found the perfected unity and harmony between that which is to be performed and the way in which it is performed. The classical rite does not require anything to be believed that one does not—symbolically—see.[3]

First things first

We parents are responsible for the spiritual formation of our children. This is not something that can be outsourced to clergy, CCD volunteers, or parochial teachers. No matter how much formation they are getting from the outside, it is not likely to be enough, and it may not even be correct (by which I mean: in conformity with traditional Catholic doctrine). We need to ensure that the faith of children is fed from pure, uncontaminated sources; that their hope is directed primarily to heavenly realities, with worldly projects in second place; that their charity is enkindled by the sight of loving homage being paid to the Divine Lover and by the sight of other devout believers observing the proper order of charity: God is to be loved first, my own soul second, my neighbor’s soul third, my body fourth, and my neighbor’s body last.[4]

The liturgy is for the purpose of honoring and glorifying God, but precisely by doing this well, it also nourishes us. Ironically, when liturgy is done “for the people,” it ends up not benefiting them because it does not order them rightly to God, Who is our Creator and sovereign Lord. Take ad orientem worship: when the priest and the people together face the same direction, toward the East—the symbol of Christ, Sun of Justice, who will return to judge the world from the East, as He tells us in Scripture (Mt 24:27)—we all immediately experience that the sacred liturgy is something being offered to God, without the need for any tedious explanation. It is quite intuitive. To experience ad orientem negatively as “being ignored by the priest,” one must actually be brainwashed to some extent.

Such examples could be multiplied. Every traditional practice of the Catholic Church is catechetically powerful in this way, without the need for words. The reformed liturgy jettisons or inverts many of these symbols so that, again without the need for words, they catechize us in the opposite way, prompting us to draw false conclusions. Only those who are well catechized can intellectually resist the performative and habituating pressure of the new rites—what my correspondent referred to as “small doses of poison.”

Occasionally one will hear Catholics say: “My family has gone to this parish for generations; I can’t abandon it, even though the liturgy is pretty bad. I will stay and work as hard as I can to improve things.” They fail to realize that in maintaining this attitude they are holding their children hostage to the hope that things will in fact improve—which may or may not be realistic, and, given the scope of episcopal corruption and incompetence and the ubiquity of liturgical abuse in the Church, is far more likely to be unrealistic; meanwhile, the children are being malformed at this parish right now and for as many years as it may take to achieve the better conditions about which their parents dream. Acting this way is arguably a violation of the parents’ moral duty to give children the best faith formation they can, here and now, which necessarily centers on rightful divine worship. If anything, parents should act decisively with the good of their children foremost in mind, which takes precedence over the vaguer and more remote good of their territorial parish. Again, it has to do with the order of charity: the good of my children takes precedence over the good of fellow parishioners who are not dependent on me in the same way.[5]

In telling his family’s story, Rob Marco explains why he and his wife eventually left the regular parish to which they had been accustomed:

Not that there weren’t fellow Catholics in the N.O. [Novus Ordo] parish we came from who didn’t take their faith seriously, or who weren’t living pious and virtuous lives. But their fervor (like ours) was tempered by the culture of the parish, which seemed more concerned with maintaining a status quo lukewarmness than transforming worship or fostering genuine metanoia. For a time, we tried to “be the light,” but we were conflicted and felt out of place until we ultimately discovered intentional Catholics devoted to tradition, and our locus of worship—our paradigm—began to shift. We realized that up until then we were building our lives, and the lives of our children, on a liturgical foundation that was, for all intents and purposes, unstable. In reflecting on our personal exodus, it struck me how, like many of the families we now worship with, we “fled to the desert” to seek a new liturgical way of living not unlike those early monastics in the early centuries of the Church.[6]

The freedom to surrender

The correspondent I cited earlier also noticed how unhealthy it was for his own soul that he had had to develop, over the years, so many layers of armor against bad liturgy. It reminds me of the damage done to those who have suffered from abusive relationships: their idea of love or marriage is tainted, making it harder for them to be open to and affectionate with others—to be vulnerable in the right way so that they can be profoundly affected. The abused person puts up defenses, builds thick walls around himself. Those who have endured enough unfortunate instances of the Novus Ordo are likely to develop a knee-jerk reaction: “Don’t get anywhere near my insides. I don’t know what you’re about to do to me, but whatever it is, it first needs to pass through my cognitive and affective filtration system.”

I’ve referred to this problem as “Mosebach’s Paradox”:[7] the more one understands what the liturgy truly is, the more one is tempted to become a theater critic when confronted with aberrations or bad taste. It’s the worst possible disposition to be in for liturgy, since we are supposed to surrender ourselves to the work of Christ in our souls, above all in the liturgical rites of His Church. Attending Mass should not be like having teeth pulled without anesthesia. But we have been through so much in these past decades that we are shellshocked skeptics.

It’s time to get unshocked and unskeptical. There is only one way to find healing. A Mass that we know will be sound, prayerful, formal, orthodox, and beautiful (or at least silent), because it is utterly traditional and totally stable in content and manner of execution, is a liturgy to which we can gladly surrender ourselves, with no filters. We can let ourselves go; we can rest in the prayer of the Church, enjoy a poison-free banquet. We will then be achieving, perhaps for the first time in our lives, that “full, conscious, and active participation” in the name of which the Catholic universe was carpetbombed in the 1960s.

Worth the time and trouble

Some parents, particularly those with small children, may be wondering: “Isn’t the traditional Latin Mass longer and more difficult to get into, and harder to keep your children well-behaved at?” The answer is both yes and no. Yes, it demands more of everyone—but as I argued in chapter 5, it also delivers a lot more. The Catholic richness it provides is worth the added time and trouble.

Children in their squirmy or noisy stages are going to be a handful at any liturgy and will always require tag-teaming with one’s spouse or the help of a mature sibling of theirs. Children who are older and have learned to sit still will often find much more to interest them and keep them occupied during a Latin Mass—above all, a sung Mass (High Mass or Missa cantata), even more a Solemn High Mass—than they will ever find in typical Novus Ordo surroundings. Many families I’ve spoken with have reported better behavior at longer Latin Masses! There are many reasons for this, but briefly: there is a lot more ceremonial and pageantry to watch, the vestments and church decorations are usually more beautiful to look at, the music generally has a calming and quieting effect, and the congregation tends to be intently focused on the Mass in a way that makes it easier to swim in the same direction. Indeed, the whole thing feels more serious, more solemn, more transcendent, more awesome, and children, even small ones, can pick up on that difference in atmosphere almost as intuitively as animals respond to upcoming changes in the weather.[8]

Nurturing vocations

One of the longest-lasting ways children change everything is that they make you think—regularly—about their future. How will they respond to the grace of God? What will their vocations be? As difficult as it is on the human level to give away a child to the Lord as a priest, friar, monk, or nun, all Catholic parents should be praying that one or more of their children receive such an immense grace, if the Lord wills it. Nothing could be better for your children to choose, for their own sanctification and eternal happiness; nothing is more important in the life of the Church than holy clergy and religious, who represent the “head” and “heart” of the Mystical Body of Christ. There will never be a renewed and healthy Church without an enormous number of good priests and religious.

Where are these vocations coming from today? To a surprising extent, they are fostered in communities centered on the traditional Mass. The reasons for this deserve a fuller treatment.[9] Suffice it to say that it is precisely those young men and women who fall in love with prayer and the worship of God who are most likely to respond generously to an invitation to give their lives completely to Him; after all, the liturgy is the basic “work” all priests and religious do “for a living.” Parents who sincerely desire to foster openness to priestly and religious vocations will find no better way of doing it than by frequenting the same ancient Latin liturgy within which vocations flourished for so many centuries.

Two things are necessary, then: begging the Lord for vocations, and bringing up young people in an environment well suited to responding to His call. A parish that I once attended, run by the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, shows both elements. Whenever Benediction is held, everyone prays together: “Lord, send us priests. Lord, send us holy priests. Lord, send us many holy priests and religious vocations.” Thanks be to God, this parish in the past sixteen years has given to the Church eight young ladies as nuns.

Children need many things from their parents. They need our time and loving attention; our guidance and encouragement; our teaching and sharing of what we have learned; and our good, consistent example. They need us to do them the favor of establishing clear boundaries and enforcing a reasonable discipline. But within this complex role of parenting, nothing we do for our children will be more important than bringing them up in the Catholic Faith, and within the Catholic Faith, nothing is more important than the greatest act of prayer ever given to man: the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, in its grace and truth. Parents cannot give a greater gift to their children than a formative exposure to and a lifelong love for the Mass of the Ages.

1. See Kwasniewski, Resurgent, 25–27.

2. See my article “Fidelity to Liturgical Law and the Rights of the Faithful,” OnePeterFive, July 3, 2017.

3. Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 214–15.

4. See St. Thomas Aquinas, Summa theologiae II-II, q. 26. Of course, Aquinas offers many more precisions within the category of the neighbor: some neighbors are to be loved more than others, in the sense of holding them in greater affection or bestowing on them more of love’s effects, based on their proximity to us and also to God.

5. We need to be on our guard against the subtle pride of activism. Talented and energetic people can easily fall into the trap of believing that they are the special “agents” God has raised up to “save” the local Novus Ordo. They need to realize that they will, in fact, do more good for the Church by developing a deeper interior life with the aid of the traditional Latin Mass than by exhausting themselves trying to repair the irreparable.

6. “Families Seek a New Monasticism in the Latin Mass,” OnePeterFive, March 12, 2020.

7. See Kwasniewski, Noble Beauty, 169–72.

8. Chapter 20 returns to practical questions about preparing children for Mass and working with them during Mass.

9. See my articles “Traditional Liturgy Attracts Vocations, Nourishes Contemplative Life, and Sustains the Priesthood,” New Liturgical Movement, May 28, 2018; “Discerning the Priesthood: One Form or Two Forms?,” OnePeterFive, September 11, 2019.

18
What Children Learn
from the Traditional Mass

Children will learn many things from the traditional Latin Mass that they are not likely ever to learn from the modern Mass of Paul VI.

1. The Mass is a mystery of faith, a holy sacrifice.

When teaching children what happens at Mass, one can say something like the following. “Jesus dying on the Cross offered His life to the Father. The Father was so pleased with this gift of His Son that He forgives the sins of all who become one with Jesus on the Cross. To make this possible, Jesus gave us the sacraments and, above all, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The priest takes bread and wine, as Our Lord did at the Last Supper, and, by God’s power, changes these things into the Lord’s body and blood and raises them up on high, as Jesus was raised up high on the Cross. When we receive Him in Communion, we are made as completely one with Him as we can be in this life; we are given the grace we need to live our lives as Christians with whom the Father is well pleased, as He is with His Son.”

Well, maybe that’s three or four conversations condensed into one, but something along these lines will plant the seeds of understanding.

The ancient Roman rite enshrines and expresses in the most perfect way that the Mass is the re-presentation of the Sacrifice of the Cross, the immolation of Our Lord Jesus Christ that wrought and continues to work our salvation and that of the whole world. At the traditional Mass, relatively little catechesis is required for seeing how the major gestures of the priest illustrate this core meaning. Once you know a little about what Jesus did on Holy Thursday and suffered on Good Friday, the actions and prayers practically hit you over the head with a chain of mysteries—mediation, redemption, atonement, satisfaction, adoration. The Offertory luminously foreshadows this sacrifice; the Roman Canon, which many follow in their hand missals, is permeated with the language of sacrifice; the consecration and elevation of the host and of the chalice, in the midst of an ocean of silence, preceded and succeeded by genuflections, evoke the making-present of Calvary.

In the years when I still attended the Novus Ordo, I discovered that my children and the children of my friends routinely did not see these connections. The modern rite was more focused on the people, with a lot of talking, and with a Communion service tacked on. What was most of all hidden to the senses was that this liturgy is a sacrifice. It looks like a handling of bread and wine over a table, a meal in imitation of the Passover. The expression of the sacrificial dimension was not simply muted; it was largely absent. In a vernacular Mass said versus populum in the usual manner, with Eucharistic Prayer II as a default, how much, in either text or ceremony, strongly and unambiguously conveys the reality of sacrifice? One might say the Novus Ordo emphasizes, at best, the presence of Christ in our midst, but not His sacrifice.

To my chagrin, I realized that I always had to assert—without much in the way of supporting evidence—that the Novus Ordo was the Sacrifice of the Mass, even though it didn’t look like one and didn’t have the marvelous panoply of texts and ceremonies that underlined the sacrificial nature of the action. That bothered me then, and it still bothers me now. It’s as if the rite was designed by someone who wanted it not to be easy to perceive that the Mass is the unbloody re-presentation of the bloody sacrifice of the Cross. With the Novus Ordo, we need to do lots of extraliturgical heavy lifting, because otherwise the truth won’t be known. The liturgy does not convey the message, so we have to spend more time explaining, asserting, and keeping our fingers crossed that the brittle fideism will not give way to the ravages of forgetfulness, boredom, or heresy.

2. Absolute reverence for the Most Blessed Sacrament.

At the traditional Mass, children will see only the priest handling Our Lord’s Eucharistic Body. If they attend a solemn Mass, they will see such reverence toward the host that a subdeacon holds aloft an empty paten wrapped in a humeral veil throughout the Canon, in anticipation of the holy Body that will rest on it later in the Mass.[1] They will never see lay people walking right up into the sanctuary and manhandling hosts and chalices. Communion is given to the faithful kneeling in adoration, like the Magi before the Christ child; it is given on the tongue, as children are fed by their parents, as God feeds the world with His Providence. A paten is held beneath the chin; often a Communion cloth* is draped over the altar rail. After Communion, the priest washes his fingers and the vessels with utmost care. The liturgy spares no effort to proclaim loudly the Church’s faith in the miracle of transubstantiation; it therefore spares no effort to avoid the loss of the tiniest particle of the Body of Christ or the smallest drop of His Blood. Receiving Communion like this, and watching others do so, will speak to a child more directly and memorably than endless hours of catechesis.

3. The priest is a mediator between man and God.

The priest is facing eastward, away from the people, toward— Whom? To God the Most Holy Trinity, to whom the sacrifice is being offered; to the Word made flesh, really present on the altar of sacrifice. He represents us before God; he also represents God come to us. The priest’s role as mediator is seen to be essentially different from that of the laity: “Every high priest taken from among men is ordained for men in the things that appertain to God, that he may offer up gifts and sacrifices for sins” (Heb 5:1). The priest at the altar truly acts in persona Christi, in the person of the Eternal High Priest who offered Himself up in love for the redemption of mankind.

Thus, the old rite clearly distinguishes between the priest and the people—they are not lumped together, as in the modern rite, but are treated in accordance with their ontological distinction.[2] For example:

• At the start of Mass, the priest recites the Confiteor first, for himself, and then the servers recite the Confiteor for themselves and the people.

• At High Mass, he and he alone intones the Gloria and the Creed, and then continues to recite them separately, while the people or the choir sing.[3]

• The prayer Suscipe, Sancte Pater in the Offertory strongly brings out the priest’s role as mediator, as well as his personal sinfulness in the face of such a lofty role: “Accept, O holy Father, almighty and eternal God, this unspotted host, which I, Thy unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for my innumerable sins, offenses, and negligences, and for all here present: as also for all faithful Christians, both living and dead, that it may avail both me and them for salvation unto life everlasting. Amen.”

• The priest receives Communion first, in order to complete the sacrifice, and only then offers it to the people.[4] He says the “Domine, non sum dignus” three times for himself, and only afterward do the servers or the people say it three times for themselves.

• The Placeat tibi at the end of Mass again brings out the priest’s special role: “May the performance of my homage be pleasing to Thee, O holy Trinity: and grant that the Sacrifice which I, though unworthy, have offered up in the sight of Thy Majesty, may be acceptable to Thee, and through Thy mercy, be a propitiation for me, and for all those for whom I have offered it.” This is not the prayer of a mere “presider” or “president of the assembly.”

4. The very words of the Mass are sacred and special.

This truth is powerfully symbolized by the Latin spoken from start to finish (except in the homily, which is not, strictly speaking, part of the liturgy, but an explanation of some aspect of the liturgy or the creed or the readings for the people’s benefit). The use of an archaic language demonstrates, without the need for any explanation, that the liturgy does not belong to the everyday realm, the commonplace, as the use of a modern vernacular suggests.[5] Pertinent as well is the great respect shown to liturgical books throughout the Mass. The altar missal is propped on a gold stand or a pillow, and carried back and forth by the ministers in ceremonial fashion; at solemn Mass, the Lectionarium, containing the Epistle and Gospel, is elaborately handled, and, for the words of the Lord, accompanied by candles and incense.

5. The music—especially the chant—is unique and dedicated to God.

The effect of an archaic sacral language is strengthened when the liturgical texts are sung to the subtle melodies of Gregorian chant, with its eight “modes” and non-metrical flowing rhythm, which is like nothing else we will encounter in the realm of music. Gregorian chant arose exclusively for divine worship and lends itself to no other use: it is set apart for God. It is the sonic equivalent of incense, chasubles, and golden chalices, which are used only for worship. Such things are the privileged “honor guard” and “attendants” of Christ, powerfully evoking His presence and effortlessly guiding us into it.

Although Latin and chant can sometimes be found in celebrations of the Novus Ordo, we must remember this crucial point: the foremost beauty given to us in the Church is the beauty of the rite itself, which expands outward to include and inspire other arts. Latin and chant came into being as the clothing of the traditional rite, or better, as the “body” that corresponds to its “soul”; they are inseparable properties of the classical liturgy, through which its essence is expressed—not aesthetic doodads tacked on by a daring pastor.

6. The Mass is a solemn, serious business.

The venerable Roman rite of Mass is totally focused on the sanctuary, the altar, the sacrifice, the heavenly banquet, the Bread of Angels. It is orderly, disciplined hard work: there is formality, harmony of gesture and words, prayerful concentration. If someone were to disturb the priest and say, “Why are you not paying attention to us? Why did you leave us behind, and not tell us where you’re going or for how long?,” he would be able to respond in the words of the child Jesus in the Temple: “How is it that you sought me? Did you not know that I must be about my Father's business?” (Lk 2:49). Jesus said this even to His supremely holy parents, who were utterly mystified. He was reminding them of the primacy of the kingdom of God and of the glory due to the Father, which no earthly good can outrank.

When boys in particular watch the priest’s hard work in the traditional Mass, his painstaking attention to detail and his mastery of the craft, they are impressed: his vocation in life appeals to their incipient manliness, to the healthy boy’s desire for challenge, accomplishment, and worthwhile sacrifice.

7. The source of our unity and community is in Christ and flows out from Him to all of us.

Rather than having a horizontal feel and emphasis, a closed circle of people affirming one another in Pelagian fashion, at the traditional Mass we orient ourselves consistently to God in adoration, seeking our salvation, our fellowship, our very identity, from Him. Above all, the novelty of a simultaneous eruption of the “sign of peace” in the Novus Ordo, which transmits the subliminal message that peace among us gushes up like a geyser from within the human community, is blessedly absent from the solemn Roman rite, which instead shows the original form of the Pax, in which the peace that comes to us from the Lamb of God, truly present on the altar as the Prince of Peace, cascades outward from Him through the priest, deacon, and subdeacon who exchange with one another a stylized kiss of peace, and ripples to any others standing in choir—much as Communion at the traditional Mass begins with the priest alone, then moves to the other ministers, and finally comes to the faithful.[6]

8. Our religion is something given to us, received by us.

We receive the words of the Mass from tradition, represented by the altar missal; we receive the peace of Christ from the altar; we receive the Holy Eucharist from the anointed hand. The stability and fixity of the rite, and its palpably ancient ethos, strongly convey that the Christian religion preexists us, our intentions, our efforts, our “good ideas,” and will continue long after we have crumbled to dust. How good it is for modern men to be, for a change, not producers, manufacturers, or inventors, but humble beggars elevated by His gracious will to the King’s high table! His heavenly wedding feast was already in full swing long before we came on to the scene; it will continue forever, with us (please God) or without us.

9. The Mass goes beyond the local community.

Theoretically, any Mass celebrated among the one billion Catholics of the world is the same Sacrifice of Calvary. However, with the new Mass being said in hundreds of languages, in many conflicting “styles” of worship, with the activation of multiple sets of options, the local “flavor” overpowers the recipe, so that there seem to be as many different liturgies as there are celebrating communities. This fosters a negative parochialism that separates Catholics into dens and tribes, almost like the thousands of Protestant sects.

From one end of the earth to the other, the traditional Latin Mass is offered with the same age-old prayers in the same universal language according to exactly the same rubrics. As children grow up and begin to travel outside their home town, any Latin Mass they find in other cities or other countries will vividly bring home to them the unity and universality of the Church. While tapping into local cultures, the old Mass always transcends the boundaries of nations and the particularity of peoples. Indeed, this transnational divine cultus connects us organically to every generation of the past and of the future until the end of the ages. Its frequent invocations of the holy angels (mostly abolished in the Novus Ordo) draw us into fellowship with the exalted choirs of Heaven who minister in this world while dwelling beyond the realm of mortal flesh.

10. The Mass is the supreme school of prayer.

The traditional Latin liturgy provides an optimal environment for awakening the interior life of the child, offering him an opportunity to settle down, enter into quiet, and discover the meaning and power of adoration and the other acts of prayer. No one has expressed all this better than the English author Fr. Bryan Houghton, whose literary character Bishop Edmund Forrester describes (obviously in semi-autobiographical manner) how he learned to pray:

I learned to say my prayers at my mother’s knee—and I still say the same ones each night. But I learned to pray when I was dragged off to Mass on Sundays. Something was altered with Mummy and Daddy. They did not talk to each other or even look at each other. Mummy usually fiddled with a Rosary. Daddy thumbed intermittently a Garden of the Soul which one of my nephews still uses. My eldest sister, Gertrude, who became a Benedictine nun, knelt bolt upright with her eyes usually shut. As I looked around it was the same with all our other relatives and neighbours. What was most unusual was that nobody paid the slightest attention to me. Even if I pulled Mummy’s skirt, she just gently pushed me away. I once tried to climb on Daddy’s back; he lifted me off and put me under the seat. That, too, was strange: although I was in my Sunday best, I was allowed to crawl about the floor provided I did not make a noise. Funny little boy that I was, I realized perfectly well that something was up.

Over there at the altar was Father Gray, a stern old man. I used to hide in the lavatory when he came to visit us. He was dressed in brightly coloured clothes and looked like a fat butterfly. Most of the time he said nothing. He was looking the other way and paid as little attention to Mummy and Daddy as they paid to me.

I do not think I was a particularly precocious child but I was certainly very young when I tumbled to the fact that all these people were praying without saying prayers, as I did. Children are imitative: I too wanted to pray without saying prayers. I opened up to my sister Gertrude. “Just sit quite still, like a good boy,” she said. “You are too small to kneel. Keep your hands still as well, on your thighs. Try not to look round and keep your eyes shut if you can. Then just say ‘Jesus’ under your breath, slowly but constantly. I’ll prod you when you say ‘Thou art my Lord and my God’ and you can say it with me.”

That, mutatis mutandis, is I suppose how we all learned to pray. The point I am getting at is that the Mass itself was our school of prayer. It was there that we learned to be self-effacing, detached, recollected and to adhere to the Divine Presence. It was also at Mass that the simple faithful practiced prayer throughout their lives. They may have known little theology but they prayed as theologians often do not. Moreover, the simplest of them attained to heights of prayer and sanctity far beyond me.[7]

“Let the little children come to Me and do not hinder them,” says Our Lord Jesus Christ (Mt 19:14).

Let them come to Him in the awesome Mystery of Faith, the Sacrifice that unites God and man. Let them come before His flesh and blood with utmost reverence. Let them behold Him in the ministers He has chosen as “other Christs” to continue His work at their hands. Let the little children come to know the sight, the sound, the smell of holiness as they watch, listen, and linger in the house of the Father, while the words uttered and sung by countless saints are repeated to Heaven’s delight and Hell’s dismay. Let them come before the Lord in solemn joy to experience the peace that surpasseth all understanding. Let them receive abundant gifts from the hands of Jesus and, above all, the gift of His Body. Let them know they are entering into the presence of hosts of angels, adoring the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.

Do not hinder them by bad liturgy, and all of the falsehoods it tells—for example, that there is no great distinction between the nave and the sanctuary, or between the priest and the extraordinary minister of Holy Communion when it comes to distributing the divine mysteries. Do not hinder children by masking or blurring the unique dignity of the hands of the priest, anointed to handle the most holy Body and Blood of Christ. Do not hinder them from coming to the Lord by any of the distinctive practices of the Novus Ordo, driven by a false theology that decatechizes and recatechizes the children—“re-educating them” Soviet-style into a “new paradigm” of Catholicism.

Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi. How we pray shows, and shapes, what we believe; these, in turn, shape our way of life in their image. What faith do we profess, and how do we live our lives as Catholics? Look to the liturgy and it will tell you.

1. This custom, in turn, is based on an even older custom of the fermentum.*

2. This way of doing things promotes a deeper unity of the entire body of the Church by recognizing the mutual benefit that real difference confers, as in the relationship of husband and wife. Hierarchy and unity are correlative, not opposed (as democracy falsely assumes).

3. I have defended this practice—an instance of the retroactive influence that the Low Mass had on the High Mass, which most liturgists deplore—in my article “Is It Fitting for the Priest to Recite All the Texts of the Mass?,” New Liturgical Movement, February 10, 2014.

4. The way that the Novus Ordo conflates the priest’s Communion and the people’s testifies to Protestant influence. Catholic theology teaches, instead, that, while it is desirable for as many of the people as possible to receive Communion (provided they are properly disposed to do so), it is necessary only for the priest to communicate in order to have a valid celebration of the Mass. The priest, in representing Christ, represents the Mystical Body in its head and principle of life; his Communion points to the completeness of the sacrifice of the Cross in and of itself, even before its fruits are communicated to individual members of the human race.

5. But “Eastern Christians use the vernacular,” right? First, this is not true in a simplistic sense; many Eastern rites still employ, wholly or partially, archaic liturgical languages hallowed by centuries of use (see my article “The Byzantine Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and the Novus Ordo—Two Brothers and a Stranger,” New Liturgical Movement, June 4, 2018). Second, there has long been a tendency to linguistic diversity and adaptation in the East that is foreign to the Western tradition, where the liturgical language for 1,600 years was almost exclusively Latin. Either that linguistic unity was something God willed, or the “Church of the Latin rite” (as we still call it) has been messed up for a very long time, and we might as well all go Byzantine or Orthodox. Those who know from experience the fittingness of Latin in the liturgy, however, and who appreciate its cultural centrality in the West, have no difficulty seeing it as God’s will—and seeing the slapdash vernacularization of the Roman rite as an enormous error chosen by arrogant, shortsighted clergy.

6. See Michael Foley, “A Crisis of Meaning in the Sign of Peace,” The Latin Mass Magazine 16.5 (Advent/Christmas 2007): 36–39, republished at Scripture and Catholic Tradition, March 5, 2008.

7. From the epistolary novel Mitre and Crook, first published in 1979 (repr. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019), 168–69.

19
Good and Bad
Liturgical Parenting

The four basic responses that parents teach their children from an early age map onto the four basic purposes of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. As Michael Foley explains:

Implicit, then, in the objective to raise children who say “I love you,” “thank you,” “please,” and “I’m sorry” is something more than a trivial habit of politeness, a meaningless conformity or capitulation to social convention. Somehow, the aim is to form a young mind into the kind of person who is loving, grateful, deferential, and, when necessary, contritely determined to make amends. Perhaps this is because such qualities are not only choices worthy in themselves, but they also lead to the acquisition of other virtues. . . .

Interestingly, this fourfold path to authentic human flourishing, as it were, bears a remarkable similarity to the traditional theology of the Mass. Specifically, saying “I love you” at home is analogous to the act of adoration that takes place in the Mass, “thank you” to thanksgiving, “please” to petition, and “I’m sorry” to satisfaction.[1]

Strikingly, the four acts to which Foley refers line up with major themes of the four great prayers of the Ordinary of the Mass:

- the Kyrie corresponds to contrition (“have mercy on us”);

- the Gloria to gratitude (“we give thee thanks”);

- the Sanctus to adoration (“holy, holy, holy…”);

- the Agnus Dei to petition (“grant us peace”).

While it is true that these prayers, especially the Gloria, mingle together the four acts, there is nevertheless a certain progression from one to the next, as if we were mounting steps to the throne of the King. The Kyrie is penitential; the Gloria is full of rejoicing; the Sanctus is a solemn chant of angels bowing before God’s throne; the Agnus Dei is pleading for salvation from the Savior now present on the altar. The millennium-old Gregorian chants of the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei, as well as many of the polyphonic Mass settings, musically evoke these spiritual attitudes and habituate us to make a serious response to Our Lord, as befits His divine Majesty.

We see here, too, a model of the basic order in which we proceed in the Christian life. First, we repent of our evil. “Repent!” is the imperative found in the first public utterances of both the Precursor and the Messiah: “Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mt 3:1); “Repent, and believe in the Gospel” (Mk 1:15). Then we give thanks for God’s mercy. “I will give thanks to Thee in a great church; I will praise Thee in a strong people” (Ps 34:18). “I will give thanks to Thee, O Lord, for Thou wast angry with me: Thy wrath is turned away, and Thou hast comforted me” (Is 12:1). After this, we are ready to adore Him with a pure heart. “Bring to the Lord glory and honor: bring to the Lord the glory due His name: adore ye the Lord in His holy court” (Ps 28:2). Lastly, we present our needs. “Be nothing solicitous; but in every thing, by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your petitions be made known to God” (Phil 4:6). First, we remove impediments; we honor and praise God for His glory; we think of our own wants last. Again, these acts can happen in any order, but I am looking at a sort of “ideal progression.”

Now, what happens when parents neglect to form their children in the habit of saying “please” and “thank you,” “I love you,” and “I’m sorry”? The kids become little self-centered barbarians, incapable of moving on to the finer feelings and higher realities in life. They are insolent toward their superiors, shrewd with their equals, bullying toward their inferiors. In short, they are malformed human beings who think of their own wants first, do not think of the needs and demands of others, and don’t even recognize the impediments to their own maturation. We can see this today in the deplorable behavior of children and young adults, who get away with things that no parents would have tolerated decades ago.

Following Foley’s insight, what do you suppose would happen if the spiritual fathers of the Church, the bishops and priests, failed to form their spiritual children in the proper habits of saying “I’m sorry” and “thank you,” “I love you” and “please” to Almighty God in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass? What if, instead of ensuring a true discipline of self-denigrating sorrow, prompt thanks, adoring love, silent respect, and humble petition, they provided a relaxed, casual environment, where the priest and people face each other in a selfcelebrating circle, to the accompaniment of folksy, trite, and sentimental music? Would the children of the Church ever learn how to worship God that way? Or would they become little self-centered spiritual barbarians, presumptuous toward their heavenly Father, chummy with their neighbors, and altogether bereft of the fear of the Lord that is the beginning of wisdom?

This is exactly what happened—not just here or there, but everywhere in the Catholic Church. Growing up in a post-Vatican II parish, I fell prey to it myself. I was told, in First Communion class, to receive the host in my hands and to take the cup from the obligatory “extraordinary” lay minister of Holy Communion. I cannot remember ever hearing any substantive teaching on the Eucharist. I was an altar boy who served with altar girls, and it was not apparent to me from the casual atmosphere of the sacristy, the sneakers that incongruously poked out under the alb, or the minimal rubrics we followed, that we were taking any of this very seriously. I became a lector, and later an extraordinary minister myself, and joined the contemporary choir. I even wrote a guitar song during my time in the charismatic movement. Yes, I was trying to live my faith, I was “active” in the parish—but what was I living, what was I doing? All this was vanity of vanities, bearing little or no resemblance to Catholicism as it existed from the time of the Apostles to the Second Vatican Council. It was only later that I was given the light to see how sacrilegious these practices are, how much they grieve the Holy Spirit Who guided the development of doctrine, morals, and liturgy over twenty centuries. Having repented of my complicity in sacrilege, I wish to make reparation by devoting the rest of my life to urging Catholics to return to the traditional liturgy of the Church with its immense orderliness, divine wisdom, awe-filled sanctity, and captivating beauty.

Catholics who spent their early years as I did—how many of them have long since fallen away? Many of my relatives, friends, and acquaintances… We all know, or know of, far too many. There but for the grace of God went I. How many millions fell away during and after the Council, because they could no longer find the religion of Christ in the ever-shifting rites of churchmen, could no longer recognize the earnest discipline of a loving parent, inculcating repentance, gratitude, adoration, supplication?

The reformed liturgy has trained Catholics to think, first and foremost, of their (supposed) needs and wants. Just consider how “active participation” has been understood and practiced as a sort of blanket excuse for liturgical experimentation, so that all can “be involved”! It has trained them to neglect the Creator’s divine right to receive due worship from His creatures. It has habituated them to anthropocentric customs and art forms that deplete spiritual insight and wipe out asceticism. In short, the new liturgy has failed to inculcate the fundamental virtues of the Christian life. The shepherds who sheepishly embraced it failed in their duty of parenting the offspring of God.

Note that the four acts—adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, supplication—are all directed to God. The Mass is about Him, not about us, except inasmuch as we find ourselves in Him. Therefore, anything said or done, seen or heard that detracts from our saying to God “I’m sorry,” “thank you,” “I love you,” and “please” is not simply beside the point, as if it were a mild slip-up; it is offensive to God and harmful to our souls.

For example, if you wanted to say “thank you” or “I love you” to someone, would you turn your back to him first and then say your words, as if to someone else? Would you first establish eye contact with a different person and then say your words obliquely to the one for whom they are intended? No, of course not, unless in jest, in parody or mockery. Or if the king or queen of a nation were visiting, would you welcome them, not with a military band playing noble patriotic strains, but with a garage band wailing pop songs?

Yet a situation more absurd than this obtains at most celebrations of the Novus Ordo. Systematically, the altars were turned around, without mandate and without mercy. The Mass, that awesome sacrifice offered by the God-Man Jesus Christ to the Most Holy Trinity—the sacrifice of a God worthy of a God, which thereby benefits man in reorienting him to the Alpha and Omega—was turned into a service in which a “presider” addresses himself to an “assembly,” facing the people all the time, even when he is apparently addressing God, praying toward the people when presumably praying for them to God, turning his back to the Lord for Whom modern man no longer has any time or any serious thought. And all the while, the miserable muzak grinds on, shredding peace, obliterating contemplation, severing Catholics of today from the Church of the ages.

Is all this a minor problem, one easily fixed—perhaps even one that is getting better with time? Or is it a serious problem, deeply ingrained, and getting worse?

It is the latter. We are now dealing with a generation of Catholics, multiple generations, that have known nothing other than abusive liturgical parenting; people who don’t know what reverent liturgy looks like, or what real sacred music sounds like, or what theocentric adoration feels like. The vast majority of believers around the world have never attended an authentically Catholic liturgy. With each passing decade, the way back to sanity and sanctity grows longer, harder, more remote, more countercultural.

Yet there is cause for hope. True liturgy appeals to something profound within man’s soul; it calls out to those who are serious searchers; it rewards those who stumble upon it by divine favor; it grows in attractive power as the rest of the Church evaporates into irrelevancy. It may still be a lamp barely taken out from under its bushel; it may still be a tiny light shining in a vast darkness, and blocked from view by mountainous ecclesiastical barriers; but it is really there, and the warmth and luminosity of it is unmistakable once you get within range of it.

The “Youth Synod” of 2018 yielded one of the most ridiculous propositions ever seen from the Vatican—namely, that Catholic sites on the internet be regulated and evaluated for sound content. We know, reading between the lines, that this proposal was directed at conservative and traditional sites successfully opposing the “new paradigm” on all fronts. One of the most poignant ways in which these resources have helped bring about a bit of springtime in the midst of the postconciliar winter has been the burgeoning display of photographs of magnificent solemn liturgies in all of the Church’s authentic rites. When practicing Catholics who are not already familiar with the glorious Roman liturgy see photos of it, their curiosity is piqued, their capacity for the divine provoked, their aesthetic sense awakened, their hunger for something more than Vatican II Catholicism stirred up. When they act upon this actual grace and seek out a liturgy that corresponds to the grandeur of God and to the greatness of His image in man, it is the first step toward a deeper conversion.

This is why the devil hates the return of the age-old Latin Mass so much. He hates, in fact, all things traditional, for they are the fruits and the tools of good parenting in every sphere of Catholic life, be it liturgy, devotion, doctrine, morals, or artistic culture. They were prepared for us by centuries of spiritual fathers who profoundly understood and fervently lived the fundamental acts of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication. These are the acts that save our souls from the world, the flesh, and the devil. It is never too late to adopt better spiritual parents and to begin one’s childhood anew.

The vernacularization and “options” allowed for in the modern Roman rite enable a priest and “worshiping community” to “make the liturgy their own.” This was often touted as a great strength of the reform: its elasticity and adaptability to local communities.

This approach suffers from a basic problem: the liturgy is never theirs or yours or mine to begin with. It belongs to Christ as His gift and to the Church as her inheritance. This is why the Church has always insisted that no priest has the right to deviate from the rubrics or text set down in the liturgical books and that every priest is obliged by his sacred office to conform his conduct to the principles and guidelines established by the Church for her public worship.

Nevertheless, far too many liberties have been taken and continue to be taken in the offering of Holy Mass. One may say, without exaggeration, that the modern liturgy of Paul VI exists in statu abusus, in an ongoing condition of abuse. The little ones are scandalized. Millstones with harnesses are prepared in their thousands by avenging angels. Woe betide him through whom the scandal cometh.

As soon as the Second Vatican Council proposed in Sacrosanctum Concilium what sounded like a program to modify everything,[2] an uncontrollable “tinkeritis” began to gain momentum, reaching its apogee in the late sixties and early seventies, and bequeathing itself to us in the strange form of a papally promulgated modular worship template, the Novus Ordo.

Whether the Council meant to polish up the old family silver or to revamp all of Catholic life from the ground up (interpretations of the Council vary a great deal—indeed, as much as, and in the same way as, one priest’s or parish’s liturgy varies from another’s!), the result was an industrial-liturgical complex that invaded the spiritual ecosystem of Catholicism and led to the extinction or grave endangerment of tradition, beauty, reverence, humility, sobriety, adoration, and contemplation. The Catholic conservation movement is well under way but still faces stiff opposition from the corporate giants.

The prevalence of clerically-driven liturgy produces a situation in which quite a few people attend a certain parish or liturgy because of what might be called a “cult of personality” of the celebrant. They like “how he does things”; they like his storytelling or humor, his flair, his spontaneity, his singing voice, his erudition and eloquence, or what have you.

Yet if the Mass is supposed to be the representation of the Sacrifice of Calvary by which we are ushered mystically into the celestial Paradise, the personality of a given priest, although it may have much to do with the quality of the sermon, should have almost nothing to do with the way the Mass as such is celebrated. If we took our venerable tradition of worship more seriously and put our egos off to the side, where they belong, liturgies would be solemn, dignified, beautiful, and prayerful everywhere. All the faithful would give to God the worship He deserves; all would derive from the Mass the benefits it is intended to bestow.

Many good Catholics feel understandable pain about unwarranted liberties, improvisations, distractions, bad music (amplified by speakers, in imitation of every secular venue, and drowning out interior quiet, reflection, or prayer), extended announcements and intercessions, and other pretenses of authenticity and solicitude. At a certain point, we say to ourselves: “Why are we still attending a liturgy where things are done unworthily? Why should we not seek instead a true spiritual home?” If you are distracted from the worship of Almighty God in the four great acts of adoration, contrition, supplication, and thanksgiving because of antics in the sanctuary, violations of rubrics, heretical homilies, hand-holding or bear-hugging neighbors, the posse of “extraordinary” ministers, or ivories jazzily tickled and guitars raucously strummed, then you are not only permitted to seek, but you have an obligation to seek a different parish or liturgy. To abandon a sinking ship is not cowardice or heartlessness but legitimate self-love and a desire to please His Heart. For God is the one who must be obeyed and pleased first and foremost.

Sacred liturgy should reflect and befit the Sacred Heart from which it flows in sacramental signs and to which it returns in hallowed prayers, chanted praise, clouds of incense, gestures of awe. If you go away from a disaster in search of a true home, you are not guilty of pursuing a more subtle form of the cult of personality; you are not “parish shopping” or “parish hopping.” Rather, you are rightfully searching for the sacred and for the face of Christ. He is your Beloved, your High Priest, your Lord and God—the only one who deserves a cult of (divine) personality.

The desire to give the Lord the glory due His Name and to obtain for our souls the nourishment they need may therefore compel us to flee our local parish in search of better liturgy. Yet the counterargument will always come, fast and furious: “Jesus is truly present in the Eucharist, no matter how bad the liturgy may be, as long as the words of consecration are valid. Are you looking for something more or better than Jesus? You won’t find it. He is all that matters.”

It is absolutely true that the Lord will be present under the forms of bread and wine whenever the words of consecration are pronounced by a validly ordained priest who intends to confect the sacrament. But if the argument stops here, something very important will be missing.

Our Lord through His Church has given the liturgy to us for our benefit, for our growth in holiness, not for His (He is already infinitely good and cannot be improved by anything we do), and He becomes present in our midst in order to accomplish this transformation in us wayfarers, since it is already accomplished in the citizens of the heavenly Jerusalem. The external form of the liturgy in all its details must prepare the souls of the faithful for the working of the Holy Spirit and remain ever supportive of this work of salvation. If we cannot get past the opening bars of guitar music or the Hallmark greetings without a groan of weariness or a quick surge of anger, how well disposed can we possibly be to receive the Lord when He comes? It is a false asceticism to pretend that one should buck up and suffer everything—including the distortion or demeaning of the worship owed to God! The Church has the duty of leading souls to perfection, not of setting up obstacles to it; her priests have mighty powers, but inflicting harm on their own flocks is not numbered among them. A parish does not serve a lofty penitential calling by punishing its members with a combination of bad taste and ignored rubrics. However much God is present in all places, including dens of Babylonian lions, we are not required to throw ourselves into them each and every Sunday.[3]

The words spoken by Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger to the Bishops of Chile in 1988 have lost none of their relevance:

We ought to get back the dimension of the sacred in the liturgy. The liturgy is not a festivity; it is not a meeting for the purpose of having a good time. It is of no importance that the parish priest has cudgeled his brains to come up with suggestive ideas or imaginative novelties. The liturgy is what makes the Thrice-Holy God present amongst us; it is the burning bush; it is the Alliance of God with man in Jesus Christ, who has died and risen again. The grandeur of the liturgy does not rest upon the fact that it offers an interesting entertainment, but in rendering tangible the Totally Other, whom we are not capable of summoning. He comes because He wills. In other words, the essential in the liturgy is the mystery, which is realized in the common ritual of the Church; all the rest diminishes it. Men experiment with it in lively fashion, and find themselves deceived, when the mystery is transformed into distraction, when the chief actor in the liturgy is not the Living God but the priest or the liturgical director.[4]

So do not be deterred from leaving your substandard parish for the sake of a better one by the argument that “the Eucharist is, after all, the Eucharist.” It is for good reason that there has never been in the history of the Church a liturgy of five minutes’ duration comprising only the consecration and distribution of hosts. If we were disembodied intellects capable of fixing our attention immediately and immovably on just one thing, then nothing but the Real Presence would make any difference, and we could institute the aforesaid five-minute liturgy—or for that matter, a fifty-five-minute liturgy of polyester, pop tunes, and pop psychology—because it would make no difference anyway. You’d still “get Jesus.”

But the Lord who instituted the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass—the Lord who knows all that is in the heart of man (cf. Jn 2:24–25), his spiritual needs and yearnings and limitations—wanted to provide nourishment for the whole man on every level of his being, the senses and the intellect, the mind and the heart. He says: “With desire have I desired to eat this Pasch with you” (Lk 22:15). He has inspired the same holy desire within us: we, too, eagerly long to share the sacred mysteries with Him. The liturgy is intended to nourish us in this holistic and comprehensive way, and to the extent that it impedes or undermines this purpose, it betrays Our Lord and becomes a Judas to His Real Presence.

1. “The Mass and the Four Most Important Lessons of Childhood,” LayWitness (April 2007), republished at CatholicCulture.org, item 7784.

2. See my article “The New Synthesis of All Heresies: On Nietzschean Catholicism,” OnePeterFive, May 16, 2018.

3. If that allusion is lost on anyone, that might be because the new lectionary has excluded the story of Daniel in the lions’ den (Dan 14:27–42). It is read every year at the usus antiquior on Tuesday of Passion Week, where it has been read for over a millennium as a parable of the condemnation of the innocent Christ, His abandonment to the powers of death, and His Resurrection and triumph over His enemies.

4. The full text may be found at CatholicCulture.org, under the title “Cardinal Ratzinger’s Remarks Regarding the Lefebvre Schism.” The history of Vatican-SSPX relations since 1988 has made it clear that the SSPX is not in formal schism and exercises an imperfect ministry in the Church; its exact status continues to be the subject of much controversy.

20
Helping Children
Enter Into the Mass

Parents today sometimes worry that if they attend the traditional Latin Mass exclusively, their children will not know what to do with themselves during Mass and get so bored that they’ll hate going, or at least not come away from it with the spiritual goods they need. And yet, every child-saint in the centuries of Christendom grew up in the ambiance of the traditional Latin Mass— there was no other for nearly the whole history of the Western Church. We wonder: How did the little Thérèses or Padre Pios of the world feel so drawn to the Mass? Was something different back then? Were children better catechized? Were parents more on the ball?

How times have changed

Lest we be too hard on ourselves, it’s only fair to recall a few advantages that people enjoyed in the past. Often, families would not even take children to Mass until they had grown to an age where they could sit still, read a book, pray a Rosary, and appreciate the pageantry. When older kids went to church, the youngest ones might stay at home, watched over by a relative or servant. Or parents took turns, to give each one a chance to pray: Dad went to early Mass with a couple of older children, then stayed home with the family while Mom attended a later Mass by herself or with a nursing infant.

The further back one goes, society at large tended to be more formal, polite, and respectful. Everyone knew how to sit still and keep quiet for long periods of time without seeking to be entertained or pleased. A large part of this training came from shared family meals, which included time for conversation and required a certain level of decorum. The self-control this practice developed carried over into church. One could realistically count on a majority of people getting into uncomfortable, fancy clothes, walking a decent distance or riding in a bumpy carriage to the nearest chapel, and sitting there in the freezing cold for an hour or two—the sort of thing that happened every winter throughout Europe and America. The comforts, conveniences, and distractions of our age have made it harder for us and for our children to do far less than our forebears did.

It helped, too, that the Church before the Council seemed to have her head screwed on straight. She had one spirit of the liturgy across the world, one body of doctrine, and one moral code. Whenever the unity and certainty of the Catholic Church is loud and clear, the faithful—including children and young adults—can respond with assent and trust. Where there is ambiguity, doubt, or pluralism, the response elicited becomes progressively weaker. The saints of the past grew up in a Church that was certain of herself, her faith, and her worship. We are living in rougher times, when parents need to become, in a sense, the guarantors of a faith of which the shepherds are sometimes ashamed. This is no easy task, since children have a disconcerting ability to detect the most subtle discrepancies and hypocrisies.

Last but not least, Catholic churches used to be built in a grand and magnificent manner, with beautiful images and symbols everywhere you looked—so much for children to wonder at and learn from! Fortunately, a sizable number of such beautiful churches are still in use. If you can attend Mass regularly at one of them, thank the Lord for it. The church building and its noble furnishings are already doing some of the work of catechesis for you, as they are meant to do. Far too many Catholics have to attend Mass at aesthetically God-forsaken structures, reminiscent of the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, that make prayer and contact with the loveliness of God so much more difficult, especially for children.

The challenge is worthwhile

Even where cultural, ecclesial, or artistic factors made (and, in fortunate situations, sometimes still make) a parent’s work easier, it’s fair to say that it will always be a challenge to initiate children into the richness and intricacy of traditional Catholic worship. As the history of the past fifty years has demonstrated all too plainly, it can never be taken for granted in any age that the next generation will be liturgically initiated. It is not an automatic process.

Embracing the challenge is eminently worthwhile for you and your family. The traditional Latin Mass is your point of contact with the greatest, longest, and deepest religious tradition in the world. As the fulfillment of the Old Covenant, the Sacrifice of the New Covenant supersedes Jewish worship and therefore most fully embodies all that God gave to Israel. The Mass is an act of sacrifice that, as the Roman Canon reminds us, links all the way back to the prefiguring sacrifices of Abel, Abraham, and Melchisedech. Within the Christian tradition itself, the rite of the Church of Rome is among the most ancient. Its single historic anaphora, the Roman Canon, is older in its core than the Byzantine Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom. Within the Western tradition, there is no loftier expression of the divine mysteries, no more nourishing access to them. The traditional Latin Mass has the incredible strength of something ancient, deeply rooted, full of inextinguishable life, and perennially fresh, ready to form our minds and hearts in the religion of Christ if we yield ourselves to it. The work it takes to enter into this liturgy is repaid a thousandfold in the never-depleted insights and consolations it affords. For this reason, the work of teaching another how to enter into it is a genuine spiritual work of mercy.

There are two distinct aspects of improving a child’s hold on the Mass and the Mass’s hold on the child: remote preparation (what we do at home), and proximate preparation (what we do at church).

The Catholic imagination

Remote preparation includes anything done at home to fill the imaginations of children with Catholic saints, great stories, perennial symbols, poetry, and music—anything done to steep the mind in truth and imbue the heart with goodness. I am an adamant proponent of John Senior’s ideal of reading aloud, singing, sewing, drawing, building ships or planes, and, in general, anything human, hands-on, and low-tech.[1] These sorts of things till and fertilize the soil of the soul, so that the seed of the liturgy can be planted and bear fruit.

Children who are immersed in good books and develop a habit of enjoying the world of the imagination not only will be better prepared for their school studies but, more importantly, will find the liturgy easier to enter into. Good resources include Marigold Hunt’s outstanding books (A Life of Our Lord for Children, The First Christians, St. Patrick’s Summer, A Book of Angels), Fr. Inos Biffi’s An Illustrated Catechism (which contains simple but profound reflections on the Creed, the sacraments, the commandments, and prayer, accompanied by neat illustrations), Fr. Demetrius Manousos’s Know Your Mass, Fr. William Kelly’s The Mass for Children, and Maria Montessori’s The Mass Explained to Children (in the original version).

The “domestic church” at home has to be strong. The family culture should be deliberately related in some way to the liturgical year, its feasts and fasts. For this purpose I recommend the books of Mary Reed Newland: We and Our Children: How to Make a Catholic Home (also in the original version published by Angelico Press) and The Year and Our Children: Catholic Family Celebrations for Every Season, as well as Maria Augusta von Trapp’s Around the Year with the Von Trapp Family (republished by Sophia Institute Press). Such books have practical ideas about how to bring the riches of the liturgy and the observance of the liturgical calendar into the home so that one is more “in sync” with the liturgy when one attends it. The significantly richer, more differentiated traditional Catholic calendar is a great help in this regard: see, for a charming and informative presentation, Enid Chadwick’s My Book of the Church’s Year (St. Augustine Academy Press).

The number one practical recommendation I would make is well described in David Clayton’s and Leila Marie Lawler’s The Little Oratory: A Beginner’s Guide to Praying in the Home (Sophia Institute Press), namely, that families should have a place of prayer in their homes, as used to be universal and traditional: an icon corner or prayer table, where there is a physical manifestation of sacred beauty, a little oratory that manifests the reality of the domestic church.

Latin and singing

For families that homeschool, it is crucial that there be some study of Latin, even if it be as simple as studying the prayers of the Ordinary of the Mass, so that an opportunity is created to think and talk about the meaning of these texts. The traditional Mass prays perfectly for (or about) everything we could ever need to pray for (or about), and does so in the most beautiful, humble, and fitting manner. It is the supreme school of prayer. No one needs to become a Latin expert to appreciate the classical Roman rite, but some exposure to and familiarity with this language will pay big dividends when it comes to praying at Mass without a missal, following along in a missal, serving at the altar, or singing in a choir or schola.

To capitalize on the natural love children have for singing and to foster an instinct for sacredness and Romanitas, it is important to sing Catholic songs at home, especially the simpler Gregorian chants: Salve Regina, Ave Maria, Salve Mater, Adoro Te, Ave Verum Corpus, Veni Creator Spiritus, and the like. Don’t worry if only one person in the family can sing well; that’s enough to start a tradition of daily singing, and people do get better over time. At the start of the homeschool day, at the start or the end of the Rosary, and before bedtime make good moments for singing a chant.

In addition to singing, make sure you have in your arsenal some good sacred music recordings of chant, polyphony, and traditional hymnody. The monks of Norcia and Heiligenkreuz and the nuns of the Benedictines of Mary in Missouri, among others, have produced fine chant CDs. Playing such music in the home forges a connection with our Catholic musical inheritance, inoculates the young against ugliness and banality, and, best of all, provides a stream of beautiful music and lyrics that children uncannily memorize and spontaneously reproduce if they hear it often enough. More generally, I would strongly recommend shifting the musical diet of the family towards “classical” music.[2]

Learning to sit still

Kids need to practice sitting still at home before they can do it well in church. We parents often make the mistake of trying to correct bad Mass behavior at Mass, where it is ineffective and awkward. A month or so of a family Rosary can teach most kids how to sit still, because at home one can be insistent about the expected behavior in a way one can’t easily do at Mass. The Rosary is an occasion to practice sitting still and, for older children, kneeling, so that their little bodies become familiar with a certain discipline of formal prayer, which feeds right into the Mass. One can really see the difference between children who have been given such opportunities and those who have not.

The ability to sit still comes more naturally to children in whom a love for peace and quiet has been instilled, which goes hand in hand with the habit of keeping themselves occupied (i.e., not having to be entertained, but being able to entertain themselves). To put it bluntly, if our homes are inundated with the noise of television, radio, movies, video games, or other potent audiovisual stimuli, the quietude of soul essential for participation in the traditional Latin Mass will not be nurtured. We need ample spaces of simply “natural noise” and even “quiet time” in the household. As Maria Montessori noticed and documented so well, small children have an innate ability to concentrate. Alas, modern parenting practices thwart this ability due to the mistaken idea that children must be “entertained” and endlessly distracted by all sorts of artificial stimuli. The created world is mysterious and wonderful in itself, and, if given the opportunity, even very young children can concentrate on something as simple as their own toes for much longer than adults think possible. The wife of a friend of mine watched her then-eight-month-old play with blocks for over twenty minutes. The key to this happening, however, is preventing others from disturbing the child who is concentrating.

One thing that works well for some families is having a quiet hour in the earlyor mid-afternoon, to acclimatize children to the need (and, dare one say, the possibility) of a general down time where they have to keep themselves occupied quietly.[3] The importance of such things cannot be overestimated: how else are young Catholics going to learn how to listen to the “still, small voice” (1 Kg 19:12) of the Lord? How will the soil be plowed for the meditation and contemplation characteristic of mature prayer? We are looking at nothing less than a training in the awareness of self and other that defines human interiority and relationality, and separates us from the beasts of the field. Making Holy Hours before the Blessed Sacrament in a church is another way to teach the art of silence. The home culture, Eucharistic adoration, and the Tridentine liturgy all play off of each other to reinforce good habits.

Many families have found it helpful to read aloud at home the Epistle and Gospel, and perhaps some of the other texts of the day’s Mass, either the night before, or on the road to Mass (if the drive is long).

Going to Mass

Having spoken of things we can do at home to dig furrows in the soul for planting the seed of the Mass, we should turn to the question of things we can do to make attending Mass more fruitful for everyone, especially the children. Contrary to the bloviating of progressive liturgists about the need for special “children’s liturgies” that hand-feed the kiddies bits of Gospel cake, children are not only content to attend the traditional Latin Mass but can become quite captivated and entranced by it.

Bring your family to a High Mass (Missa cantata) or even a Solemn High Mass (Missa solemnis), if available in your area. It may seem counterintuitive—such a liturgy is longer and more complicated. Yet the High Mass is a fuller celebration of the rite, with more going on to pay attention to and be shaped by. There is more happening in the sanctuary—processions, incensations, bows and genuflections, the carrying of this and that, vessels being handed around, the sacred choreography of the ministers—with the chanting of prayers and readings, and plenty of music along the way. It’s a feast for the senses that helps sustain interest and foster curiosity. A Low Mass, as beautiful as it is for adults who have learned the art of prayer and find comfort in the peaceful quiet, is much harder going for little ones who find anywhere from half-an-hour to an hour of almost total silence a rather large bucket to fill. So, while a Low Mass almost cries out for following along in a book, at a High Mass one can let oneself go and just watch.

Also, if a home is singing-friendly, and the chapel or parish you attend is singing-friendly (sadly, this is not always the case), children will quickly pick up simpler Gregorian chants such as the commonly-used settings of the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. In the period of my life when I directed a college choir, the people in the congregation would join in singing the Ordinary of the Mass. It always delighted me to hear little voices down below, singing with gusto. At home, the children will unexpectedly sing a snatch of chant while playing with toy cars or making mud pies. Again, we are in the realm of imaginative associations that grow, over time, into strong cords of allegiance.

I will be the first to admit that babies and toddlers present special challenges: they can make enough noise and trouble to discourage even the most valiant parents. Even in this case, though, we should not underestimate the subtle formation of the psyche that is taking place due to exposure to prayer-saturated silence, Gregorian chant, liturgical symbols, the pageantry of the Mass. After all, if, as we know, unborn children are already strongly affected by the music and voices they hear coming to them from outside the womb, how much more so after birth will their surroundings influence the development of their memory, imagination, intellect, and will? Let us not undervalue our children’s need for exposure to the mystical and disciplined atmosphere of the sacred liturgy, nor underestimate their ability over time to absorb it and to make it part of who they are.

Ways of entry

Whether you are attending a Low Mass or a High Mass, it is well worth your effort to get hold of a user-friendly children’s missal and teach your child how to use it. There are a number of missals available for little children, slightly older children, and young adults.[4] An older sibling or a parent can help the younger one to follow, but remember: the point of the missal is to aid in engaging the liturgy, and it should be used only if and when it is truly useful for that purpose. There’s no need to get stressed out if a child is looking at the wrong page or to insist that everyone be “on the right page.” You should think in terms of years, not months: it may take a child years of practice before he’s familiar enough with the Mass to know exactly “where we’re at” right now, and this is fine. We are all lifelong apprentices to the liturgy and we do not graduate until we enter the temple of eternal glory.

It takes time to become familiar with the liturgy, and so we need to give it time. I am very fond of this passage in Joseph Ratzinger’s memoirs (the “Schott” to which he refers was a famous German-Latin missal that came in different levels and went through many editions):

Our parents helped us from early on to understand the liturgy. There was a children’s prayerbook adapted from the missal in which the unfolding of the sacred action was portrayed in pictures, so we could follow closely what was happening. Next to each picture there was a simple prayer that summarized the essentials of each part of the liturgy and adapted it to a child’s mode of prayer. I was then given a Schott for children, in which the liturgy’s basic texts themselves were printed. Then I got a Schott for Sundays, which contained the complete liturgy for Sundays and feastdays. Finally, I received the complete missal for every day of the year. Every new step into the liturgy was a great event for me. Each new book I was given was something precious to me, and I could not dream of anything more beautiful. It was a riveting adventure to move by degrees into the mysterious world of the liturgy, which was being enacted before us and for us there on the altar.[5]

Books with high-quality Christian art and storybooks about saints also make good companions for the little ones.

If you have boys, get them into an altar boys’ guild as soon as they are old enough. One of the best ways to become familiar with the traditional Mass and to see the great reverence with which its every gesture is imbued is to watch it close up and be involved in the ceremonial. Often, boys find in such a guild a healthy combination of discipline and camaraderie. Priestly vocations can be born in this milieu as well. We all know of boys who are squirmy urchins until, donning cassock and surplice, they enter the serried ranks of altar servers and behave like soldiers.

We also see young ladies who, with a veil on their heads, give themselves over to prayer in a way that is truly edifying even for their parents. As a homeschool writing exercise many years ago, our then nine-year-old daughter was asked by her mother to write down her thoughts on the Mass. She wrote, in charmingly uneven handwriting and not without spelling mistakes:

Thinking about the Tridentine Mass

I have noticed that the Tridentine Mass is quiet for a while. I have also noticed that the priest says most of the prayers in the Tridentine Mass especially at consecration.

I think that the quiet part of the Tridentine Mass is like the Carmelite nuns who are mostly silent. I have also noticed that in the Tridentine Mass the priest says most of the Our Father.

There are only two liturgies that make me feel like I am in heaven, the Tridentine and Byzantine. I like both the High Mass and the Low Mass. I like the High Mass because I love to sing, especially chant. And the Low Mass because there is a lot of time to do silent prayers.

Also the priest says Amen for you at communion.

A Little Prayer by me

Yes, Lord, I believe that you are

present in the Eucharist

and I believe that you are with me

in all of your holy sacraments.

Amen.

How beautiful are these simple, unaffected sentiments, straight from the heart of a child encountering the mystery of the Lord! Ex ore infantium et lactentium perfecisti laudem propter inimicos tuos, ut destruas inimicum et ultorem, “Out of the mouths of infants you have perfected praise to foil the enemy and the rebel” (Ps 8:3). Would that more children could be exposed to the singing and the silence that help the soul to feel and to know that the Lord is truly present among us!

Preparing for Communion

The traditional Roman rite already contains powerful prayers of preparation for Communion—namely, the three prayers said by the priest between the Agnus Dei and his “Domine, non sum dignus.” But these prayers may not always speak directly to children, and, in any case, different people find different things advantageous when preparing to receive the Lord.

A prayer that has worked wonderfully in our family over the years is the Byzantine prayer before Communion. Years ago, we attended Byzantine liturgy regularly, so we memorized it at that time. But then we found that praying it in the quiet space before Communion at the Tridentine Mass, or even doing so while walking up for Communion, had a unique ability to focus our attention on the Lord. When the children were much smaller, my wife or I would lean over and start the prayer very quietly with our children at the appropriate time.[6] Another way to learn it is to print it on a card and keep it in a missal or prayerbook. This prayer works well after Communion, too.

O Lord, I firmly believe and profess
that you are truly the Christ,
the Son of the living God,
who came into the world to save sinners,
of whom I am the first.
Accept me as a partaker of your mystical supper,
O Son of God,
for I will not reveal the mysteries to your enemies,
nor will I give you a kiss as did Judas,
but like the thief, I confess to you:
Remember me, O Lord,
when you shall come into Your kingdom.
Remember me, O Master,
when you shall come into Your kingdom.
Remember me, O Holy One,
when you shall come into your kingdom.
May the partaking of your Holy Mysteries, O Lord,
be not for my judgment or condemnation,
but for the healing of soul and body.
O God, be merciful to me, a sinner.
God, cleanse me of my sins and have mercy on me.
O Lord, forgive me, for I have sinned without number.

My wife and I have found that the time right after Mass—particularly if we are not able to remain in the church to make a thanksgiving—is an important moment of family prayer, a way of reminding ourselves that Our Lord is sacramentally present among us and that we should carry the spirit of the Mass out of the church into our lives. For this reason, a car ride home that is full of chitchat and banter, or the noise of the radio, is not the best way to use those few minutes of transition. In our family we would sometimes pray the Chaplet of Divine Mercy or just keep silence for a while as we drove home.

If the Mass you attend is followed by a time of socializing, spend some minutes giving thanks in the church, and then make a point of joining the coffee hour afterwards. This, too, is healthy and important. Children who are happily playing or talking with their friends after Mass are, in an oblique way, strengthening their longterm attachment to the Mass and the Church.

Do not be afraid

I was once corresponding with a father who was telling me about his own family’s experience of transitioning from the Novus Ordo to the traditional Latin Mass, and how it has helped all of them to become more devout Catholics.

Our daughter is partially responsible for us being at a Fraternity of St. Peter parish now. She was involved in a girls’ program there and attended Mass every Saturday. She started to veil. Then she told me about how the Extraordinary Form impacted her, and her misgivings about the Novus Ordo. (At that time, my conversations with my children had dealt only with liturgical abuses.) She developed a devotion to the Little Flower, and become much more reverent. It was impressive. (She’s a normal girl: she competes in Irish step-dancing, takes horseback riding lessons, and jumps on the trampoline with her brothers.) But it was partially the wisdom of a child that brought us to the Extraordinary Form.

I am so fascinated by how otherwise faithful Catholics are so obtuse or just blind when it comes to the Mass. They must be much better people than I to be sustained by a guitar Mass. I really need all the Church can give me—all the smells and bells—to be able to make it through the week. The devil has so many avenues of communication today to get his message across. I think it’s time the Church pulled out the big guns.

Our daughter noticed the differences as early as age 10. She said she fell in love with the EF. She also said once she veiled, she became more effective at praying. She felt like she could concentrate more—fewer distractions. In addition, she felt like she could imitate Mary more because Mary is always depicted with her head covered. I often tell our sons that our daughter is going to get us into Heaven.

Our boys also noticed the difference in the reverence of the priests. Our oldest is 14 and now serves the Mass. He talks about the precision in the priests’ movements, and how they do not allow their eyes to lift above the altar rail when they turn towards the congregation. Also, he has been impressed with how the priests prepare for Mass, and how they attend to prayers of thanksgiving immediately afterward. No “meet-and-greet” after Mass. And that’s exactly why many of the faithful stay in the church to give thanks, which is something you almost never see elsewhere.

There was a good article in the most recent edition of Adoremus in which a priest described his experience in Chicago at a Catholic school where they were taught Gregorian Chant from the first grade. To think such formation is possible for young children, and we neglect it! I also think that the EF is not above them, although I do think parents need to be more engaged in explaining the meaning behind all the rituals. Then it comes alive for them. Our 11-year-old son loves to follow along in the Campion Missal. In addition, I try to go over the readings and the Propers the night before at the dinner table. So, I do think the EF demands more of us, but those demands are worth it.

Parents: be not afraid to embrace these demands, and be not discouraged by the challenges and setbacks! Your efforts will be rewarded. Priests who celebrate the traditional Latin Mass: thank you for making this profound education and sanctification available to us and our children! Priests who are not yet offering the usus antiquior or who are not doing so publicly: please consider what a powerhouse of grace and truth this venerable form of the Roman rite offers to the entire People of God—beginning with the littlest— and make it part of the way you imitate the Good Shepherd. “Let the little children come unto me, and do not hinder them; for to such as these belongs the kingdom of God” (Lk 18:16).

1. See John Senior, The Death of Christian Culture and The Restoration of Christian Culture (Norfolk, VA: IHS Press, 2008).

2. See my articles “Why I Threw Away My Rock and Rap Cassettes in High School,” OnePeterFive, February 28, 2019, and “Time to Start Your Library of Classical Music,” OnePeterFive, November 28, 2018.

3. St. Benedict instituted just such a daily “down time” for monks: “After the sixth hour, having left the table, let them rest on their beds in perfect silence; or if anyone wishes to read by himself, let him read so as not to disturb the others” (Rule, ch. 48, McCann trans.).

4. See the bibliography for recommendations.

5. Milestones, 19–20.

6. “Very quietly,” because nothing is more distracting to faithful in the nearby pews than minutes of well-intentioned didactic whispering. One should learn the prayer outside of Mass, so that only a prompt is needed, not a homeschool lesson.

21
Sorting Out Difficulties in
Liturgical Allegiance

Ayoung adult of strong faith and admirable family piety once sent a letter to me with certain questions and concerns that will resonate with many.

Dear Dr. Kwasniewski,

I have a few questions about the usus antiquior vs. usus recentior tension.[1] This summer, I do not have nearly as many opportunities to attend the old Mass as I do at school. Thankfully, there is one Latin Mass in our diocese every Sunday afternoon, offered by various priests who know how to offer it. My family, however, is faithful to our (mostly reverent) Novus Ordo parish. Nearly every Sunday I’ve been attending the morning Mass with my family and then the afternoon Latin Mass by myself. Going to the later Mass often means that I cannot enjoy lunch with my family. They usually don’t mind, but I can tell that it sometimes bothers my parents. Is it selfish to want to attend the Latin Mass rather than being with my family?

Also, I have heard from many traditionalists that it is better to never attend the Novus Ordo unless you have to. For example, they say you should give up daily Mass if there is only the Ordinary Form available on weekdays. I don’t think I agree, but I want to know what you think. Isn’t it better to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and receive Holy Communion daily, even if it is not as reverent as possible? Or is it a disgrace to God to participate in Masses which are irreverent? Does it depend on how irreverent the Novus Ordo Mass is?

Finally, where do you stand on the “reform of the reform” mindset? Do you believe that the Novus Ordo should or will always be around and so we should embrace it and make it as reverent as possible? Or should one seek to celebrate it as reverently as possible while still—as a final goal—moving people closer and closer to the old Mass so that the TLM might someday be the ordinary or only form there is again? Some of my friends who have listened to you or read your articles asked me where exactly you stand, so I thought I’d ask you before trying to answer.

Sincerely yours,
Amator Pietatis

Dear Amator,

With probity and insight, you have put your finger on some of the most difficult questions that Catholics have to face today—at least Catholics who have experienced (and then, to some extent, sought to know the causes of) the vast gulf that separates the conflicted and pluralistic state of the Church today from the luminosity of her constant doctrinal teaching and the treasure of her liturgy as it was handed down over the centuries. There are no easy answers, because we are living in a period of unprecedented rootlessness, amnesia, and confusion.

I remember going through exactly the same situation when I was around your age. I had grown up at a mainstream parish in New Jersey, and as I discovered magisterial documents like Mediator Dei and theologians like Aquinas, I began to see how messed up the parish was. My parents kept going there, but at a certain point I just couldn’t do it anymore. So I began to go elsewhere, attending both the Novus Ordo and the traditional Latin Mass, and it was a tense situation. I’m not sure they ever fully understood, in spite of my attempts—probably not very successful ones, come to think of it— to explain myself. But you’re a nicer, gentler, and more intelligent person than I was at your age, so you may have more success in your attempts to explain why you love the old Mass and wish to attend it. It also seems to me a sign of humility and filial piety that you continue to attend Mass with them; they cannot really complain that you are being anti-social or “elitist.”

The most important point is this: it is never selfish to want to nourish one’s own spiritual life with the rich food of the traditional liturgy. The order of love, according to St. Thomas, requires that we love God before and above all other things—this includes giving Him right and pleasing worship, as best we can—and then that we love the good of our own soul, which obviously includes the graces we ourselves receive from that right and pleasing worship in accord with tradition, itself a gift of God directed to our needs. Only after that should we love the good of other souls. One cannot, in other words, sacrifice one’s own sanctity for that of another. An extreme example: I cannot commit a sin in order to obtain someone else’s benefit, even if that benefit were a spiritual one. A more pertinent example for the case at hand: I should not put myself in a near occasion of sin in order to please someone dear to me. Cécile Bruyère, a disciple of Dom Guéranger and the first abbess of St. Cecilia’s Abbey, Solesmes, offers a candid warning:

Certain utilitarian tendencies of our times are a serious danger for the sanctification of souls, even in the religious state. All the energy of their mind is turned to the interests of their neighbour; and this ill-regulated charity causes them to neglect their own sanctification, or at least to be turned aside from that capital work, which, after all, is the Will of God in their regard. We cannot invert this essential order without loss. Now our duties to God precede our duties to our neighbour. God has a right to our service, a right to our perfect sanctification since He has given us all the means to secure it; His Will is that we should use these same means for the end He proposes to Himself.[2]

Put differently: the Lord has given each person infallible means for his or her own sanctification, not for anyone else’s. No success is guaranteed to any project of ours other than this sanctification; every other one is beyond our control and secondary.

As always, one needs to take circumstances into account when making choices between “competing” goods. In themselves, certain goods (e.g., praying, studying) might always be better than other goods (e.g., working, changing diapers), but goods do not exist in the abstract; we must look at the persons involved and their responsibilities. St. Francis de Sales says it is better—more conducive to holiness—for a woman to take care of her children at home than, neglecting them, to spend extra time in prayer at church. On the other hand, a woman who only took care of her children and never made time for personal prayer would end up being a bad mother and eventually a bad Christian. So we must take the needs of our souls quite seriously. I believe that once one tastes the beauty of the old Mass (and all of the other rituals, devotions, and customs that cluster around it in an “ecosystem of grace”), it is barely possible anymore to subsist on meager fare, thin gruel. Don’t forget what Pope Benedict XVI said in his letter of July 7, 2007 to the world’s bishops, speaking about the usus antiquior: “Young persons too have discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction, and found in it a form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist particularly suited to them.”

On a practical level: would your parents ever consider coming with you? Perhaps they could be drawn to love what you have been drawn to love. A kindly invitation is never amiss. If a special Mass will be offered outside of the regular Sunday schedule—a votive Marian Mass, a Rorate candlelight Mass, a patronal feastday, a pontifical celebration—I recommend inviting them to it, as it is more likely to be of interest, and will not seem to be “competing” with their usual Sunday plan.

In any case, other questions remain, and you frame them well. Where and when does one draw the line? Should one always go to daily Mass, regardless of how it is celebrated? Is there ever a reason not to attend a Mass? And could there ever be a reason to stop attending the Novus Ordo and simply attend the traditional Mass? Some of these questions are matters of prudential judgment, but this much we can say for sure: a Mass that is not correctly and reverently celebrated is offensive to God in those respects in which it is deficient. The liturgy is, after all, connected with the exercise of the moral virtue of religion, by which we give to God that which we owe Him in justice—and this we can fail to do in several notable ways. Moreover, such a Mass is unhealthy for us spiritually, inasmuch as it malforms us. And when we become distracted or irritated, we are poorly disposed to worship God and to receive Holy Communion, for which, as St. Thomas teaches, we are required to have a disposition of lively faith and devotion.

I believe we can learn something from the Eastern tradition, which speaks of “aliturgical days”—days on which the Eucharistic liturgy is not celebrated—and thinks of them in analogy with fasting: our desire for the Sacrament is intensified by other forms of prayer. The sacrifice of the Mass is the crown jewel, but it needs to be set within a golden diadem, which is the Divine Office and our personal prayer. The Divine Office is also liturgical prayer, and in its fullness enjoys the same kind of ceremonial as the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, with coped ministers, cantors, schola, and acolytes; but it has the benefit of being something any Christian can do, even on his own or in a small group, since it does not require a priest. By praying Lauds or Prime in the morning, Vespers or Compline in the evening—and any of the “little hours” of Terce, Sext, and None, if one can fit them in—we consecrate and offer up our day to the Lord, even as we offer ourselves in union with the divine Victim at Mass. It is part of the great sacrifice of praise that Jesus Christ, the Eternal High Priest, offers to His Father in the Holy Spirit.[3]

Joseph Ratzinger also spoke more than once of the benefits of making a “Eucharistic fast.” He said that in an era like ours, which is too prone to take Communion for granted and thus reduce it to a routine that lacks a deep hunger and thirst for God, we can benefit ourselves and make reparation for others by sometimes not going to Communion and by making an act of desire instead—a spiritual communion. It is a supernatural spin on “absence makes the heart grow fonder.” This is a way we can think positively about days without Mass, whether because it is not possible to find a Mass compatible with one’s schedule, or because, unfortunately, there is no suitably reverent Mass available.

Prescinding from deeper questions of the Novus Ordo’s degree of rupture with Catholic liturgical tradition and the impiety that at least those responsible for the rupture are guilty of, I would say that, at least for me, it is very difficult to pray at the modern Mass. When I am able to sing the Gregorian chants of the Ordinary and the Proper with a schola, it becomes easier to pray, because I can enter into the spirit of the liturgy through those authentic chants of our tradition, which were “built for praying.” They are a shelter in the midst of storm. But it remains a challenge nonetheless. Moreover, as you know, in the traditional Latin Mass, the celebrant makes far less of a difference than in the Novus Ordo, where the personality of the priest is inevitably on display—above all on account of the versus populum stance and the requirement that nearly everything be said aloud.

These are realities that deserve to be considered. In no way would it be right to force oneself to go to daily Mass “just because.” There is no “just because” in the spiritual life: we must be aware of what we are doing, how it affects us, and how it may please or displease the Lord. The Mass is not just a CDS (Communion Delivery System). It is a formal, structured, public act of worship consisting of prayers, chants, readings, ceremonies, and gestures, ordered to such movements of the soul as repentance, adoration, glorification, thanksgiving, and supplication. It is not simply a matter of “wherever Jesus is, God is pleased”; it is also a matter of what we are doing, what we are offering of ourselves to God, and how, and why.

The Mass was given by Christ to the apostles and reaches us through accumulated tradition, the path by which He willed that we should be enriched by the faith and holiness of every age of the Church. Nothing could be further from the truth than to think that liturgy is indifferent as long as the Eucharist is present. The Eucharist is present at a Satanic black Mass in an act of supreme sacrilege. The Eucharist is present as well at many licit and valid Masses that are nonetheless offensive to God and harmful to us precisely because of the manner in which they treat (or fail to treat) the Real Presence of Our Lord. The Eucharist is a culminating point; it does not cancel out everything else.

We want to avoid two extremes: a liturgical snobbery for which nothing is ever “good enough” (for indeed, nothing short of the beatific vision will ever be totally satisfying to us—although at its best, the sacred liturgy can be and ought to be a foretaste of heaven!), and, on the other hand, a false humility that pretends not to know the difference between fitting and unfitting, beautiful and ugly, noble and banal, reverent and irreverent—differences that have serious implications for our spiritual life and the exercise of the virtues of faith, hope, charity, and religion. The former attitude can harden into peevish discontent, and the latter can slide into a relativism that undermines ever-needed efforts at improving our ecclesial life.

If the great reforming saints had had the attitude that “it’s all good” and “who am I to judge?,” Catholic renewal would never have happened in many former centuries; but if they had been too impatient and severe, they would have ended up in despair. As always, virtus stet in medio, virtue stands in the mean or middle position; and as Aristotle repeatedly remarks in his Ethics, finding the mean is no easy task. But still and always, we must strive for it.[4]

There was a long period in my life when I did everything I could to improve the Novus Ordo; it was part of my work as a choir director, and I had the great good fortune to work with many outstanding priests committed to liturgical reverence and excellence. But I reached a point when I could not do it anymore. The stress of preparing the liturgies—negotiating the options, navigating the landmines, estimating potential fallout from reintroduced traditional practices (or abruptly discontinued ones), defending choices and mollifying skeptics, and, as if that wasn’t enough, starting all over again whenever a new priest or a new bishop came on to the scene—took away worship’s delight and put me continually in the position of a businessman or diplomat rather than a lover who could rest sweetly in the Church’s embrace. The word of the Lord tugged at my conscience: Nolite facere domum Patris mei domum negotiationis—which, with poetic license, could be translated: “Do not make my Father’s house a house of negotiation.”[5] How can we be humble servants of the liturgy when the very thing we are serving refuses to be itself, refuses to impose form and order on us who need it, and instead requires us to bring form and order to it, bailing it out, massaging and coaxing it, calculating the number and degree of compromises we can put up with? If the Novus Ordo “comes off well,” it is our victory, since it could have come off so badly. That is the most subtle danger of all: the danger of being the one who saves the liturgy from its own defects, even as we see progressive churchmen acting as if they have to save Jesus from His hard sayings, or save the Church from her embarrassing dogmas and anathemas. All this is fundamentally opposed to entering into the doctrine or the prayer of Christ and His Church in the manner of children, disciples, recipients, lovers.

My mind and my heart are firmly and forever with the classical Roman rite, which is our heritage, our treasure, our lifeline, our touchstone, our glory as Roman Catholics. Re-establishing this magnificent lex orandi and participating most deeply in it is the goal we should set ourselves, both for our own benefit and for that of countless fellow believers who are dehydrated of the divine and starving for the sacred.

Oremus pro invicem.
Dr. Kwasniewski

1. That is, the traditional Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo.

2. The Spiritual Life and Prayer according to Holy Scripture and Monastic Tradition, trans. The Benedictines of Stanbrook (London: Art and Book, 1900; repr. Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock, 2002), 71.

3. See my article “The Office of Workers and Fighters: Praying Prime,” OnePeter-Five, February 5, 2020.

4. See chapter 12 for a corrective to possible misunderstandings of this Aristotelian principle when cast as a via media theory.

5. The word negotiatio in Latin simply means “business”; it is neg-otium, that is, non-leisure. Over time, “negotiation” came to have the sense of a dealing between people over a matter of business.

22
Pro-Life, Pro-Liturgy,
Pro-Tradition

When people in the world hear the expression “pro-life,” they typically think of one and only one issue: abortion. When Christians hear “pro-life,” they might expand the definition to include opposition to the murder of human beings at all stages, whether in the womb, in infancy, or on the deathbed. When Catholics hear “pro-life,” they may add a further nuance: opposition not only to the worst abuses of human freedom but also to the more subtle causes of the anti-life mentality, such as sexual hedonism, feminism, contraception, the divorce mentality, and parent absenteeism.

All of this is true, as far as it goes. But there is yet more to being pro-life than this. The roots go deeper and the branches spread further.

Since man is a rational animal, human life is necessarily a rational life, which cannot be lived without some intellectual component. Every person is either well educated or badly educated; no one who lives to adulthood can avoid having his mind formed in some fashion, for better or for worse, be it in contact with natural truths and elevated by the Gospel, or suffering from ignorance and poisoned with errors. Sometimes, as we know, truth and error, insight and ignorance, are messily mingled. The quality of our intellectual life, its resonance with the primal truth that is God, is not incidental to our flourishing as creatures made to His image and likeness.

The healthiest periods of human history have been those nourished by a truthful vision of God and man, with the God-Man Jesus Christ at the center, even as the most harmful social movements—think of the hard and soft totalitarianisms of the modern era—have their roots in philosophical errors that spread like a contagious disease. We cannot realize our human potential or fend off evil as mature Christians unless we (collectively) cultivate our intellectual life in the great disciplines, from literature to philosophy, from the empirical sciences to the queen of all sciences, sacred theology. To be farsightedly pro-life is to be pro-intellectual life.

Because man is rational, he is also cultural. Not only does he sense, think, and know; he also imagines that which is not, and makes a world around him with his hands. He brings works of art into being, from humble homes to glorious temples, from furniture and utensils to mosaic-covered domes. He is architect and builder, poet and singer, painter and sculptor. Just as an intellectual life is unavoidable, so too is a cultural life: we cannot avoid making our world,[1] and we will make it either beautiful or ugly, life-affirming or life-negating. Our arts will give testimony and bodily form to the noble ideals or base appetites that guide us. Certain pagan civilizations produced lofty art from a lofty vision of the harmony of the cosmos and the nobility of man. In its Western and Eastern spheres, Christian civilization assimilated and surpassed the greatest accomplishments of the pagans.

Anti-Christian and post-Christian civilization has sunk far below the level of both ancient pagans and believers in Christ, as it sputters out in mass-produced tourist trinkets, humorless parody, and nihilistic self-indulgence. This, however, is a hostile environment for natural and Christian truth. In the fine arts and the useful arts, Wisdom builds herself a home on earth. Without the inspiration of a true artistic vision, we grow weary on our journey, we cannot see our way forward. It is like abolishing the sun, the moon, and the stars. To be fully pro-life, then, is to be pro-cultural life. A good culture emerges from, creatively celebrates, and dynamically sustains the love of human life.

The highest activity of the human person is to turn his mind and heart to God, His first beginning and last end, and to worship Him: “We praise Thee, we bless Thee, we adore Thee, we glorify Thee, we give Thee thanks for Thy great glory,” as we sing in the ancient hymn of the Gloria. We worship God not only because we are needy beings who seek good things from Him or the removal of evils, but above all for His sake, because He is the sovereign Truth, He is all-good, He is beautiful and supremely lovable. To worship God in spirit and in truth, as He deserves and as we were made to do, we must call upon all of our spiritual and bodily resources, bringing all of ourselves and all of creation to His heavenly throne.

Religious worship is a solemn, public turning to God, which originates in our intellectual nature and expresses itself in the language of culture, the vocabulary of the arts in their immediacy and grandeur. Liturgical worship is this very same thing when its principal actor is Jesus Christ, who offers and is offered, together with His Mystical Body, the Church: Per ipsum, et cum ipso, et in ipso, est tibi Deo Patri omnipotenti in unitate Spiritus Sancti, omnis honor et gloria per omnia saecula saeculorum. “By Him, and with Him, and in Him, is to Thee, God the Father Almighty, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, all honor and glory, world without end.” If man the rational animal and the builder of culture follows his natural and supernatural bent, he will always find his way to the threshold of the temple and enter its gates with rejoicing, laying his sacrifice upon the altar with and for his Lord.

That is why to be pro-life in its most profound sense is to be pro-liturgical life. As the Second Vatican Council says about the baptized: “Participating in the Eucharistic sacrifice, the source and culmination of the whole Christian life, they offer the Divine Victim to God, and offer themselves along with It” (Lumen Gentium 11). “The liturgy is the summit toward which the activity of the Church is directed; at the same time, it is the font from which all her power flows” (Sacrosanctum Concilium 10). The font from which all her power flows: the power to welcome children, to love them into the Church, to care for them over all the years; the power to value every human person, well or ill, hale or handicapped, conscious or comatose, embryonic or elderly; the power to build a culture of life, a culture of beauty, a culture of intellect consecrated to the truth—all this flows from the Holy Mysteries. Without the Church’s liturgy, we fail to grasp the infinite dignity God has bestowed on us in Christ. We miss out on the flesh-and-blood encounter with the Source of Life, Life incarnate, Life outpoured for eternal life.

Correctly understood, then, the pro-life movement is pro-human life, pro-intellectual life, pro-cultural life, and pro-liturgical life. When we see this movement in its full breadth and depth, we see the prerequisites of our vision, the scope of our struggle, the source of our strength, and the glorious destiny of our toil.

The corrosive effect of today’s popular church music on orthodox faith in and devotion to the Holy Eucharist would be difficult to deny.[2] Let me attempt to frame the problem with a comparison to ongoing battles over the meaning of the term “pro-life.”

The Catholic Church teaches that there is such a thing as a “right to liturgy.” What do I mean by this phrase? As an instruction from the Congregation for Divine Worship states:

Arbitrary actions are not conducive to true renewal, but are detrimental to the right of Christ’s faithful to a liturgical celebration that is an expression of the Church’s life in accordance with her tradition and discipline. . . . It is the right of all of Christ’s faithful that the Liturgy, and in particular the celebration of Holy Mass, should truly be as the Church wishes, according to her stipulations as prescribed in the liturgical books and in the other laws and norms. Likewise, the Catholic people have the right that the Sacrifice of the Holy Mass should be celebrated for them in an integral manner, according to the entire doctrine of the Church’s Magisterium.[3]

Here we have a clear statement of the right of each and every Catholic to worship the Lord in liturgical celebrations that adhere strictly, one might even say punctiliously, to the Church’s “tradition and discipline, laws and norms.”

However, as we know, this right is trampled upon daily in countless places, as the faithful are subjected to deviations, deformities, banalities, and distractions, or humiliated by the persistent negation of their legitimate requests for spiritual nourishment—for example, when access to the traditional Latin Mass is denied. And why does all this happen? Quite simply, because clergy, especially bishops, favor other principles and give them a primacy they ought not to have. For instance, the principle of “active participation,” today so poorly understood,[4] is used to obliterate centuries of tradition and discipline, laws and norms.

How might we compare this to abortion? Just as a generic “right to life”—in the fashionable “seamless garment” approach that makes so much of issues like the death penalty or immigration— tends to eclipse the specific and vastly greater evil of abortion, the generic concern for “active participation” in the liturgy eclipses the centrality of the specific and infinitely greater good of the Eucharistic sacrifice enacted by the priest on behalf of the people. Just as the right to life is unequivocally and primordially located in the right of each baby human to be born, so too the right to liturgy refers most of all to the right to “offer the holy oblation in peace” (as our Byzantine brethren say), to see and to experience the liturgy as the work of Christ in and for His Church, not as my or anyone else’s project or product.

Modern “romanticism,” which has degenerated into eroticism, distracts our attention from the greatest wonder of the natural order: the ex nihilo creation of a human soul by divine omnipotence, in conjunction with the provision of the body of the child by the mother and father, who are thereby brought into a special relationship with God and are responsible for the life of this child entrusted to their care. The greatest joy of marriage is not the evanescent nuptial act but the eternal fruit thereof—the immortal being who has begun to exist here and now, in space and time, a creature that has existed as a thought in the mind of God from all eternity, a person with a face that uniquely reflects the Face of the Creator.

Similarly, in the Catholic world, the “sign of peace,” the proliferation of lay ministers invading the sanctuary and handling the precious gifts, and execrably bad post-Communion songs conspire to distract us from the miracle that has just occurred and prevent us from praying most fruitfully in union with Our Lord and with other members of His Mystical Body on earth and in heaven. The music too often sung in churches today eclipses the great mystery we are celebrating in the sacred rites. It’s not just a matter of bad taste, it’s a real form of desecration, a profanation that deserves to be corrected for strictly theological and moral reasons. Much popular liturgical music, like the popular notion of love, is long on cheap sentiment, short on spiritual love and inward joy.

Life is for the sake of liturgy, and liturgy for the sake of life. We are given our natural life in order to acquire supernatural life, and this we are given for the sake of rising up to God in prayer and divine praise. In this way it becomes possible for us really to live, and thus to be of some help to one another in our journey heavenwards. The Catholic’s “right to liturgy” is nothing other than a right to the supernatural life Christ Jesus won for us at the price of His precious Blood and shared with us in baptism, a right to the fullness of that participation in the mysteries of God in which our sanctity here, and our glory hereafter, consist.

To be consistently pro-life, therefore, does not mean to oppose limits on immigration or the use of the death penalty, just as being pro-liturgy does not mean getting as many lay people involved in as many ministries as possible, in a sort of “open borders” policy for the sanctuary. Being pro-life means standing unequivocally in favor of everything that sustains the human person from conception to death—both natural goods and supernatural goods. This is why the pro-life movement and the movement to restore Catholic tradition are ideal partners. The traditionalist values above all what has been given, what is received from another. The accent is never on our own doing and making, but on the loving custody of a treasure entrusted to our safekeeping. Human life is the first and most basic gift from God in the natural order, entrusted to our hearts and hands. The sacred liturgy is the first and most basic gift from God in the supernatural order, likewise entrusted to us poor sinners—indeed, nothing more precious has ever been entrusted by God to man. We are pro-tradition for the same fundamental reason that we are pro-life.

1. Obviously, the world is already there; but what we do with its givens and materials in the human life we build up within our families and communities is largely left to our freedom. There are great civilizations and primitive or degenerate ones; the same can be seen analogously in the “little civilization” of the home. In that sense, although limited by factors outside our control, we do make a world for ourselves to live in.

2. See my article “Ecclesial and Ethical Consequences of Poor Church Music,” New Liturgical Movement, September 3, 2018.

3. The Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, Instruction Redemptionis Sacramentum (March 25, 2004), n. 12.

4. See chapter 3 above.

23
Is the Church Crisis Driving the Faithful to the TLM?

Judy Roberts
Interviews Dr. Kwasniewski

In your experience, are more Catholics seeking out Mass in the “Extraordinary Form” during this time of turmoil in the Church? What are they telling you as to why?

Statistics (to the extent that they are available), the steady creation of new traditional Mass apostolates, and anecdotal evidence shared via social media all point to a steadily growing base of faithful who are attending this form of the Roman liturgy. I’m not sure if it’s growing more owing to the current crisis, but this much is beyond dispute: the “progressives” or “liberals” are emboldened under this pontificate [of Francis] to show their true colors more and more openly; the “conservatives,” that is, those who would have been classified as “John Paul II Catholics” or “Ratzingerians,” are diminishing; and the “traditionalists,” who once seemed a negligible minority, have not only shown themselves more numerous than hitherto surmised, but are now occupying the intellectual and moral high ground. The serious work of Catholic restoration is happening in large part due to their efforts.

Who are these people? Are they older Catholics who grew up with the traditional Mass and are nostalgic for the way things used to be, or does this group also include younger people and converts?

This question can be answered most convincingly by paying a visit to one’s local Fraternity of St. Peter chapel or Institute of Christ the King oratory, or a parish where the TLM is offered, and having a look round at the congregation. There will be a number of grayhaired ladies and gentlemen who might remember the “good old days,” but the majority are middle-aged parents, children, and, need I say, infants—lots of them. And a large number of 20-something single folks. This can’t be a phenomenon of nostalgia for those born after the 1960s, by which time the old liturgy was nearly extinct. It’s a rediscovery of a treasure whose palpable beauty, sacredness, and dense Catholic content are its magnetism. It has survived and thrived not only without official encouragement, but very much in the teeth of official hostility—after all, it was more or less forbidden for nearly four decades. This tells you something about its inherent power. And also, perhaps, why its enemies fear and hate it so.

What is it that people say they are finding in the “old Mass”? Is it just the beauty of the liturgy that draws them, or are they finding other benefits?

I would sound like an aesthete if I said that everyone was coming for the sake of the beauty of the music, the vestments, and the ceremonies—although, for sure, these things are critically important in a religion that appeals to the senses and the imagination, as Christ always did in His parables. Beauty does attract the human heart. More than one Latin Mass-goer has admitted to me that it was the awful music that finally drove him or her away from the Novus Ordo world for good. I think what people find most appealing is how tremendously reverent the old Mass is: a thoroughly dignified ceremony that exudes reverence and calls it forth in the congregation. The prayers strongly express contrition, dependency, and gratitude with vivid, biblically resonant language. The whole is characterized by an otherworldly or supernatural perspective.

But no less appealing—and for some, perhaps, the clincher—is the near-guarantee that the homily is going to be sound Catholic doctrine, served up neat. And since we are social animals, as Aristotle said, we need to meet and get to know other like-minded serious Catholics, people who are striving to live and pass on the Faith. It’s true, as some say, that the congregation at a Latin Mass is “selfselecting.” But that tells us something significant, doesn’t it, about what many earnest Catholics want to select? One would think there’s a lesson in there somewhere, especially for bishops looking to renew their dioceses. The Latin Mass parishes could become the powerhouses from which deep and lasting renewal emanates.

Given that the number of places offering traditional Latin Masses [in the United States] has gradually grown, since 1988, from about 20 to more than 500, would you say this latest movement of Catholics toward the traditional Mass is part of that general trend or something altogether new?

The growth has been steady. There was, naturally, a notable leap when Summorum Pontificum came out in 2007. (As an aside, it’s remarkable how many bishops are still living in “indult land,” believing that they have to be asked about and then approve every TLM that starts up—which is contrary to the universal law introduced by Pope Benedict XVI.)

The accelerating confusion and turpitude of the contemporary Church is pushing Catholics towards the refuge of the traditional Mass. Not that fallen human nature is anywhere absent, but there is a level of sanity and seriousness in the TLM world that has almost no parallel elsewhere. Regardless of external circumstances, the movement will continue to grow because it has an immense internal strength. Priests who encounter and then learn the old rite say that it changes their lives. In his book Phoenix from the Ashes, Henry Sire quotes “a young French priest who discovered the old Mass at the Benedictine convent of Jouques”:

I confess that I was bowled over. I had never perceived the sacrificial reality of the Mass with such clarity. The altar is truly Calvary. And the priest, pronouncing quietly the words of Consecration, brings forth this great mystery, while the crowd of faithful, turned like the priest towards Christ who offers himself, is caught up in the movement of his offering . . . all in silence and in wonderment. Coming away from this great spiritual emotion, I said to myself: “But how is it that I was never shown this before? As if I had been deprived of part of the liturgical plenitude. This rite, all this Latin and Gregorian liturgy, they are mine, they form part of my inheritance as a Christian and as a priest. These are my spiritual roots, this is where I come from!”[1]

When laity discover it, they often become uneasy with mainstream alternatives and are drawn to seek out a fuller expression of their religion. Proliferating online photos of traditional liturgies here, there, and everywhere make more Catholics than ever aware of the fact that there is an alternative to the soporific jamboree.

A tweet by Rorate Coeli recently suggested that some of these people might well have left the Church and religious practice altogether had they not by chance found the traditional Latin Mass. Does this also confirm what you are hearing and seeing? If so, what is it about the traditional Mass that could serve as a lifeline and keep someone in the Church?

In my travels around the world I’ve met plenty of folks who converted because of the traditional Mass, or who reverted to the Faith or stayed in the Church because of it.[2] We shouldn’t really be surprised. In the first half of the twentieth century, when there were so many conversions to the Catholic Faith, it was often the splendor and solemnity of the liturgy that drew them in. The same thing is happening today. There was a huge exodus from the Church when the TLM was forbidden; some of those individuals are returning, too.

But I also want to add that it’s not just the Mass that draws people in, it’s a whole way of life, thought, and worship, including the other sacramental rites, blessings, customs, and calendar. For example, before Vatican II many parishes had well-attended Sunday Vespers. All of that got thrown out after the Council (contrary to its explicit wishes). Today publicly-celebrated Vespers may be found most often in connection with communities that use the traditional Mass. When people discover the old rite of baptism, they are overwhelmed by it—three long and earnest exorcisms, the placing of blest salt on the infant’s tongue as a preparation for the eventual reception of the Eucharist, the prayers about illumination and sanctification! Or the betrothal rite and the nuptial Mass, or the Epiphany blessing of water, or the many processions… It is a very rich world, one in which religion can actually be experienced as the central and dominant concern of life.

I find, too, that the moving experience of the Sunday High Mass lingers throughout the week and an appetite grows in me for attending the next High Mass. The memory of what has been is a comfort, the anticipation of what will be is an attraction. That never happened with the Novus Ordo; I experienced it to a great extent as a weekly obligation—something one does to be a “good Catholic,” but not as a gift to relish, a privilege to exercise. Many people have shared with me similar impressions.

These things help people stay in the Church because they respond deeply to the hunger for God that God Himself placed within us. They present a manner of worship obviously directed to Him, one that takes His reality, His attributes, His prerogatives, His words, seriously. God is real. If He is who He says He is, we should act like it. Conversion is based on an epiphany of truth. Traditional Catholicism is epiphanic, over and over, in a thousand bold and subtle ways.

We continue to hear rumors that Pope Francis wants to undo the permission Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI granted for priests to say Mass in the Extraordinary Form. How likely do you think it is that this would happen?

A pope in the future could certainly “make a mess” by trying to limit or scuttle Summorum Pontificum, but any such action would be terribly counterproductive; as a matter of fact, it would blow up in his face. If he pulled back Summorum, he would further alienate the Catholics who are most committed to the practice of the Faith and to the support of the papacy—namely, conservatives and traditionalists.

Moreover, a large number of those who are offering or assisting at the TLM would ignore the shift in policy, because they have already been convinced by the arguments of Joseph Ratzinger/ Benedict XVI that the old rite cannot in principle be outlawed or abolished. The rationale given by the pope in his letter to the bishops of July 7, 2007 is not based on positive law but on the very nature of things: “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.” This is a moral argument from natural and divine law, not an exercise of arbitrary papal legislation. Summorum Pontificum was regulating prudential policy, not fabricating new rights out of thin air. Its essential work has been achieved: a large number of clergy, religious, and laity throughout the world know that the classical Roman rite lives on with an imperishable legitimacy not bestowed but inherent.

1. Sire, Phoenix from the Ashes, 458.

2. See the end of chapter 7 for a particular example.

24
Rebuilding on the Ruins of the Conciliar Experiment

Radici Cristiane Interviews Dr. Kwasniewski

We are going through an historical period of crisis in the Church. Just think of the decline in vocations, churches more empty every day, abuses in the liturgy more and morenumerous… However, in churches where Mass is celebrated in the ancient rite, there is a high presence of young people. How can this be explained?

The phenomenon is not difficult to explain. The contemporary world presents constant temptations to young people, whether in the propaganda for intellectual fads or in the ubiquitous moral snares of unchastity and other vices. For this reason, most youths in the Western world are corrupted by the time of adolescence: they are practical atheists, hedonists, materialists, bored, indifferent to truth, addicted to easy stimulation. If, in the midst of this degrading morass, there are any young people left who really want to swim against the current and lay claim to the Christian Faith, they will be looking for something serious, demanding, countercultural—something that can satisfy the searchings of the mind and the desires of the heart.

Young people in the West have to fight to believe and to worship. So there has to be something worth fighting for. The ancient Roman liturgy and the customs, beliefs, artistic culture, and worldview that tend to go along with it offer the kind of rich, complex, all-encompassing framework of meaning that inspires confident self-surrender, the pursuit of virtue, the motivation to keep living and to share life generously. People are drawn upwards by the worship of the transcendent God and forwards by the pride of receiving and delivering a great inheritance; these things give us a sense of belonging at a time when so many are rejecting their families, their cultures, their identities, their very selves; they give us a sense of stability in an age that is formless and void.

The new liturgy was designed to appeal to modern people. Why do you think it has failed?

The reformed liturgical rites are characterized—both in their official books and in the universal manner in which they have been implemented—by a very modern emphasis on autonomy, spontaneity, local “ownership,” popular and secular styles of music and art, and a disregard, even contempt, for the way our ancestors worshiped for as many centuries as we have records. Those are not the values dear to the Catholic Faith. Catholicism reveres tradition, seeks the common good, and possesses a storehouse of artistic and musical treasures to lead us to God. The claim, for instance, that contemporary church music appeals to the young, or really to anyone, is certainly unverified and does not correspond to the tastes people manifest elsewhere; if anything, the music is dated and stale. Performed “well,” it might lead to a temporary emotional surge, but it has no ascetical-mystical power. When the going gets tough, when real spiritual maturity is demanded, the reliance on emotion fails to deliver the goods. In contrast, the music that will be encountered at the traditional Mass, usually a combination of chant, polyphony, hymnody, and pipe organ, is of a consistent sacred quality and suitable for the reverence demanded by the liturgy.

No church will ever flourish when, instead of initiating people into divine mysteries that are seen, heard, and felt to be mysterious, awe-inspiring, fearful, timeless, it merely hands them over to a banal and verbose prayer service of contemporaries imprisoned in their contemporaneity. The number one cause of the exodus of youth is the spiritual, moral, intellectual, and cultural bankruptcy of post-Vatican II Catholicism. It has nothing to offer young men and women that could ignite their curiosity, awaken their consciences, capture their imaginations, or open before them a path that is utterly different from the one our society is treading. The traditional movement offers a real alternative, one that has the strength of the centuries and the saints.

In one of your articles,[1] you quote Dr. Alice von Hildebrand saying that the devil hates Mass in the ancient rite. Why?

The devil hates discipline, order, beauty, humility, self-sacrifice, liturgical praise, tradition, and the priesthood. The ancient Roman liturgy—and I’m speaking here not just of the Mass, but also of the Divine Office and all the sacramental rites—is permeated with order and beauty. It calls for immense humility, discipline, and selfsurrender on the part of the ministers who undertake its correct and fitting celebration. It deliberately suppresses individuality and the desire to “shine” or to “be oneself ” as the phrase is currently used. It is ordered to the adoration and glorification of God, with Christ Himself as the High Priest, and everyone else as the servant. Paradoxically, it edifies and benefits the faithful themselves precisely because it is theocentric and Christocentric, not anthropocentric like modern philosophy and culture.

Lucifer, the most beautiful of God’s creatures, fell in love with himself. His sin was one of egocentricity, self-celebration. Therefore any movement in liturgy towards freeing or applauding or celebrating or cultivating the “ego” of the ministers or the faithful is diabolical in its origin and effect. The Church in her God-given wisdom had always understood the danger of the unleashed “charismatic” personality and had guarded against it by rites notable for their objectivity, stability, precision, dogmatic clarity, ascetical requirements, and aesthetic nobility. These characteristics, in and of themselves, counteract certain recurring tendencies of fallen human nature, such as emotionalism or sentimentalism, relativism, ambiguity, haphazardness, laziness, indulgence, and aestheticism (of which utter lack of taste or carelessness of appearance is a peculiar genetic mutation).

The ancient liturgy gives the unambiguous role of sacramental mediator to the priest and, in varying degrees, to his assistants. This mediatorial role is a living icon of the Incarnation of the one Mediator between God and man, against which Satan rebelled. The one “liturgical reform” Satan is always seeking is to pull the Church away from the Incarnation, from a sacramental economy rooted in the Eucharistic flesh of Christ, and from the whole structure of rites, ceremonies, and prayers that embody it.

In every aspect, the usus antiquior is like a perpetual exorcism of the devil, pointing again and again to the incarnate God’s triumph over the ancient enemy of human nature. The very fact that the new liturgy abolished or abbreviated exorcisms wherever they were found—in the rite of baptism, in various blessings, in the very rite of exorcism itself!—speaks volumes.

Really, there is so much one could say to unpack this extremely perceptive remark of Dietrich von Hildebrand, as reported by his wife. One could write a book on it: “The Devil’s in the Details: The Postconciliar Liturgical Reform and the Spirit of Satan.” One wonders if the confused and tormented Pope Paul VI was sensing the same truth when he said in 1972, only shortly after the introduction of the monumental rupture of the Novus Ordo: “From some fissure the smoke of Satan has entered the temple of God.”[2] Perhaps that fissure was nothing else than the incessant liturgical reforms of the twentieth century, which culminated in a change in the lex orandi of earthquake proportions.

At a convention for the tenth anniversary of Summorum Pontificum, it was said that “celebrating the ancient rite means looking with hope to the future.” How is the return of the usus antiquior an effective way to counter the crisis of the Church through which we are living in these times?

The solution to the mess we have fallen into by a long series of bad decisions is simple and at the same time exceedingly hard: we have to make the opposite decisions, again and again. The Church needs to stop thinking about new strategies, new programs, new pastoral initiatives, or any statistical measures of success, and resolutely throw herself again into the proclamation of the full Gospel, including its “hard sayings”; the celebration of solemn and beautiful liturgies; the building of monasteries and religious communities on the foundation of the usus antiquior; the cultivation of an intellectually robust curriculum in seminaries and universities; an encouragement of large families, as in the old days, and the promotion of homeschooling. Only by taking a seriously countercultural path is there any long-term hope for Catholicism. As a believer, I am convinced that the Faith will survive and prosper again, but only where such things are being done, or to the degree that they are being done.

What can be done to hand down the Mass according to the usus antiquior to future generations, and to make its importance understood?

As no man can believe what he has not heard, so no believer can learn how to think and live as a Roman Catholic without having access to the preeminent treasure of the Faith, namely, the Roman rite in its fullness. To get to know the old rite is equivalent to understanding its importance: this simply becomes evident to one who pays any attention.

Therefore, the number one practical goal is to try to multiply the number of places where the ancient liturgy is offered, in spite of all pressures to the contrary. Whenever and wherever these Masses are offered, worshipers will show up at them. I remember in college we had a chaplain who offered the traditional Latin Mass privately, but everyone who cared to know knew that it was taking place, and many students availed themselves of this opportunity—including future members of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter. This is how I was introduced to the old rite: as a sort of disciplina arcani,* as in the early Church!

Even thirteen years after Summorum Pontificum, it’s still the case that we must fight to win territory for the Mass of the Ages. In this time of official hostility, especially in Europe, priests will often have to learn the old Mass and say it in secret, as the undercover Jesuit missionaries in Elizabethan England had to do in their century.

Most of the time, however, our Masses are—at least for now— “above ground” and we are fully capable of advertising what we are doing, where, when, and why. Those who love the Church’s traditions need to be intelligently zealous about promoting the usus antiquior through social media, pamphlets, magazines, lectures, conferences, social gatherings, study groups, and invitations extended to loved ones and strangers alike.

Many people are “converting” from Novus Ordo “Catholicism Lite” to the traditional Catholic Faith, prompted in part by the travesty of Pope Francis’s pontificate. But there are also children growing up in Catholic families who drink it in with their mother’s milk; for them, learning the ancient liturgy is no different from learning the alphabet or the catechism. I know quite a few adults in the USA who, having assisted at the old Mass from their childhood, have never attended a Novus Ordo, or who see it for the first time when they get to college. To me, this is an enormously hopeful sign: a new generation of people uncontaminated by the false assumptions and principles of the liturgical reform, who can carry Catholic tradition forward into the future.

Do you think there are weaknesses in the traditional movement that need to be overcome?

The claim is sometimes made that advocates of the Latin Mass are bitter, judgmental, and arrogant—that they think they are holier than others and disdain their coreligionists who attend the Novus Ordo. Unfortunately, it is true that such people exist, but it is also true that they are a tiny minority. Some of them are just plain angry at the Church for having denied Catholics access to the Mass of the Ages and for having forced Catholics to attend Masses that they see (with plenty of justice) as sloppy and irreverent. The influx of new Latin Mass attendees has brought into the community those who carry no “baggage” except, perhaps, the disappointment that they had not been provided with an opportunity to discover the TLM sooner. Newcomers to the usus antiquior and its community gatherings will likely find joyful and grateful people, eager to know and practice their faith better.

I think lovers of tradition can often take for granted the riches we have, almost “hoarding” them, and not going out of our way to try to bring others into the movement so that they can be blessed with what we, through no merits of our own, have discovered and now couldn’t live without.

We need to exercise a generous Christian tolerance toward those who are showing an interest in tradition or starting to come to Mass but who are not yet “on board” in regard to how they speak or dress, what their social and political views are, etc. We need to be very patient with them, remembering that—given how much the Faith has been hidden and even suppressed in the past half-century—an intellectual and moral conversion to authentic Catholicism can take a very long time, sometimes years or decades. In my own life, it took many years of experiences, conversations, and study to reach the conclusions I hold today, and yet when I look back, it all seems so obvious: a matter of “connecting the dots.” As a result, I always try to remember how things used to look to me when I was in the charismatic movement, and then in the reform of the reform movement, or when I was, under John Paul II, an ultramontanist papolater. I realize now that what I was looking for in those earlier phases was something real and true, but not to be found there—at least not definitively.

How sad it would be if inquisitive people felt shunned or unwelcome among us because, initially, their hair was dyed purple or their nails were painted black, or they belonged to the wrong political party. I know there have to be standards of dress and behavior, but somehow we need to keep trying to reach the mainstream Catholics, and even the so-called “nones,” the people who have no religion at all, and then give them a warm welcome and time to grow into the Faith. The mightiest work of evangelization ever undertaken will be, in the future, the rebuilding of authentic Catholicism on the ruins of the conciliar experiment.

1. See chapter 9.

2. A detailed summary of the homily is available in Italian at the Vatican’s website under the title “IX anniversario dell’incoronazione di sua Santità,” Omelia di Paolo VI, Solennità dei Santi Apostoli Pietro e Paolo, Giovedì, 29 giugno 1972.

Conclusion
For a Darkening Church, the Light Is Tradition

Traditional catholics have been criticized, even punished, for their supposed “disobedience” to the Second Vatican Council—although no text of binding force is ever produced from which they actually dissent—while large numbers of parishes around the world are run by clergy who do not hesitate to dissent from the most basic Church teachings, including those of the New Testament and the first seven Ecumenical Councils. Throughout the Western world, heresy is not only commonplace but expected, de rigueur, a sign of sophistication and adaptation. Yet the Church makes few public moves against these heretics, except by promulgating documents that very few read.

The extremes on either side become every day more extreme, while the sought-after “center” is far from being obviously in continuity with Catholic tradition or even consistent with itself. Thus, heresy remains plentiful and unpunished, save for a few odd cases; liturgical experiments and abuses continue unabated in many parts of the world; cathedrals and churches are still being destroyed, desacralized, profaned by “renovations.” A counter-movement has gained momentum, without a doubt, but it sorely lacks institutional support. Recognizably Catholic renewal is predominantly lay-driven.

Perhaps saddest of all is the closure of church after church, for lack of worshipers. After the Council’s opening to the world and the corresponding reinvention of the Mass, the prognosticated influx of believers never happened; on the contrary, the tide of preconciliar conversions rapidly shrank to a trickle, many Catholics stopped going to Mass altogether, and priestly and religious vocations suffered a collapse from which they have never recovered.

How does a tradition-loving Catholic view all this? He sees that the Western Church is suffering a crisis of unprecedented proportions in its identity, inner life, governance, mission, and interface with the world. The traditionalist has been given the gift of knowing and loving the usus antiquior, the Mass of the Ages, in its beauty, profundity, reverence, symbolism, and silence. He sees a Novus Ordo Mass where a priest gives a squishy homily, the cantor booms out third-rate folksy songs, women and girls invade the sanctuary to assume all manner of ministries, and the congregation just gets up and leaves right after the final blessing (if they wait that long). In the old Mass, he catches sight of the awesome Sacrifice by which heaven and earth are united; what does the new Mass disclose?

He is not satisfied with simplistic answers like “the Mass is always the Mass”; “we should all just be humble and obedient to our pastors”; “we should not compare or make judgments.” These answers may be sufficient for a Cartesian skeptic who does not trust his senses or an enthusiast who abandons the use of reason, but they will never suffice for a believer who has eyes to see and ears to hear, who takes seriously everything that pertains to the fitting worship of God, the well-defined faith of the Church, and the pattern of holiness given by indisputable saints.

The traditionalist movement is growing throughout the world. Traditionalists in an irregular standing with the Vatican—most notably, the Priestly Society of St. Pius X (SSPX)—are thriving. Their communities are blessed with many large families (since they do not dissent from Humanae Vitae, unlike the majority of Catholics who are said to be “in communion with the Church”), and their seminaries are overflowing. The traditional Mass parishes and oratories in union with the pope—foremost among them, the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter and the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest—are also growing; their parishes and chapels attract young people and families with many children. Traditionalist monasteries and religious orders are blessed with numerous vocations. On every continent, in almost every country, Catholics are busy reconstructing a devout life from its essential building blocks. There are many young people who are repulsed by the liberal liturgical establishment, who have learned to worship God in a traditional way, and who will be the future backbone of the Church. I have met them all over the world. Never has the imaginary postconciliar “renewal” been less descriptive of the actual situation on the ground.[1]

This must be said as well: I know educated people who would have converted to Catholicism if the resounding witness to the Faith that they encountered among traditionalists were the rule, something to be expected throughout the world at every Catholic parish. But when they see that it is not so (far from it), they become disillusioned and cannot believe in the claims the Church makes for herself. They see that the typical manifestations of Catholicism today bear little resemblance to what they have read about in history or in theology books, from the Fathers of the Church through the midtwentieth century. They have trouble believing the true Church exists, because the traditionalists they admire are a minority. How can this minority, which carries forward in time what used to be taught and practiced by everyone, be persecuted by their own bishops, excluded, alienated, marginalized? How can an institution with insipid, trendy worship, ubiquitous doctrinal confusion, and moral standards equivalent to those of unchurched secularists, be, or represent, the Catholic Church?

These questions have to be answered sooner or later. The traditionalists will not go away—nor will their standing challenge to fifty years of forced modernization.

It never ceases to amaze me just how dark the world becomes in the month of December, as we of the Northern Hemisphere approach the shortest day of the year, the winter solstice. I wake up in darkness, thinking it’s the middle of the night, when it’s already almost breakfast time. I look around at a dismal sky at 4 o’clock in the afternoon and wonder why the sun has to leave us so soon. It is as if the dark is closing in, seizing and smothering the day.

Yet we are aware, from the experience of every year we have ever seen in our lives, that the upper hand of darkness is only temporary. We know that sure enough, right around the time when the Church celebrates the manifestation of the true Light that enlightens every man, the days will slowly begin to lengthen, each day a little more, until the motions of heaven and earth bring us to the summer solstice, on which our Catholic ancestors lit huge bonfires in honor of the Forerunner. We know that the cycle will repeat, back and forth, as long as the world endures—until it is transfigured by divine fire at the moment of the Last Judgment, and yields to eternal darkness for the damned, eternal light for the blessed.

This elemental cycle has always served Christians as a spiritual metaphor. Unlike nature’s strict cycles, however, history is made by free human beings under the gaze of a sovereignly free God; its days and nights follow no predictable pattern. Thus, after what seemed (and in many ways was) a period of tremendous growth between the World Wars, the Church entered into a fifty-year stretch of Siberian winter, surrounded by the darkness of heresy, apostasy, indifference, and abuse. “They shall eat, and not have enough; they shall play the harlot, and shall not increase; because they have left off taking heed to the Lord. Whoredom and wine and new wine take away the understanding” (Hos 4:10–11).

For the vast majority of Catholics alive today, there has been no alternative to the pablum they have been given and are still being given in the era of Vatican II. There is not even the awareness of how radically inadequate this neo-Catholicism is to the dogmatic, ascetical-mystical, liturgical, cultural, political fullness of the Faith. Modernism conquers territory after territory: victory goes to the only contestant. This is why the powers that be have striven for as long as possible to suppress the existence of any alternative to the official conciliarist narrative and agenda. Annibale Bugnini, the general construction manager of the Novus Ordo, went so far as to say that if the old Roman rite could remain extinct for just two generations, the liturgical reform would establish itself successfully.

Bugnini’s dream did not come true.

The good news, the gleam of light in the prevailing darkness, the evidence that winter will not have the final word, is the improbable growth of the traditionalist movement, from the mid-1960s to the present. When the long night of postconciliar “renewal” had descended and the bitter winds were howling, the traditionalist movement kept the flame from extinction. In spite of the imperfections of its members (could these ever be absent among fallen men?), the traditionalist movement is awake, alert, and aware—and it is growing. Traditionalists love their Catholic faith; they practice it and make sacrifices for it, study it and discuss it; they are ready by the grace of God to defend it to the death, and no one on earth, be he mitred or Masonic, or both, will take it from them.

“Aren’t traditionalists just a tiny minority?,” worldly wisdom asks. But Christ our King is not a democrat who rules by majorities; He is an absolute monarch who rules with an iron rod, as Scripture says (cf. Ps 2:9; Rev 12:5), and chooses the weak to shame the strong. Every great reform movement in the history of the Church has started out just as the Church herself started out: with a small band of zealous disciples acting on a vision of “how things ought to be” that harks back to an earlier fullness. Educator Michael Platt notes:

Revolutions in manners and morals often start with just one or two or a few persons saying “no” to something. Human things are often like an army in flight that will never turn until one soldier stands and fights. It is sometimes said “you can’t bring back the past,” but you can, and strong ages, such as the Renaissance and the [Counter-] Reformation, do precisely that—revive and renew something lost, forgotten, and good.[2]

Not to recover and reconnect with Catholic tradition, not to repent of our unwisdom, is to surrender to the insidious totalitarianism of the modern West. Modern philosophy and its sidekick modern theology brought about the progressive undermining of our tradition; only the resurrection of that tradition will prove an effective antidote to modernity’s poisons. We must be traditional, like Mary, who “treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart” (Lk 2:19).[3] We must be anti-modern, as were the Roman pontiffs from the time of the French Revolution to the early twentieth century.

To my fellow Catholics, I say:

If you are already beneficiaries of the Church’s authentic liturgy, stay faithful to it, and invite to it friends and acquaintances, relatives and strangers. As the movement for the restoration of the Church’s sacred liturgy grows and gains momentum across the world, now is not the time for discouragement or second thoughts; it is a time for a joyful and serene embrace of all the treasures Holy Mother Church has in store for us, in spite of the shortsightedness of many of her current pastors and the ignorance (usually not their own fault) of many of the faithful. It is a time to put our shoulders to the wheel, our hand to the plough. This is a renewal that must happen if the Church is to survive the perils and trials ahead. I pray that Our Lord will be able to count on us to profess and to live the “catholic and orthodox faith,”[4] and to help others discover the treasures of tradition that He, in His loving-kindness, bestowed upon the Church, His Bride.

If you do not yet know the beauty, purity, and depth of the traditional Faith, or the solemnity and intensity of its timeless rituals, don’t deprive yourself any longer of that which is most profoundly Catholic. Seek out the Mass and the other traditional sacraments and sacramentals, if they are anywhere near you. See for yourself the difference it makes just to have the traditional Latin Mass in your life. If you can, move your family to a town or city with better access to this powerhouse of “grace to help in time of need” (Heb 4:16). For us Latin-rite Catholics, this is where the true Faith, the Faith of the Church of Rome, is permanently at home; this is where the encounter with the Lord is most real, most efficacious, most exalted.

If you are wavering between old and new, ancient and modern, organic and fabricated, put off the decision no longer. The old Mass with its unique anaphora, virile orations, annual reading cycle, rich calendar, and detailed, dignified ceremonial has a 2,000-year arc of development and an army of saints behind it. The new Mass is a committee-fashioned stew of bits and pieces of prayer material from here, there, and everywhere, filtered and bowdlerized for modern sensibilities, with a healthy dose of ex nihilo novelties, puffed out with a giant though thematically narrower lectionary, denuded of ritual, fragmented by options, subject to uncontrollable manipulation. All of this is demonstrable fact, hiding from which does neither your soul nor the Church any good.

If Catholics want to survive the increasingly Satanic onslaught of late modernity and the even more diabolical disorientation within some parts of the hierarchy of the Church, we will need every last resource of tradition we can call upon—arms and armor, bulwarks and fortresses. We will need asceticism, beloved devotions, legitimate rites; priesthood, religious life, and holy matrimony lived with heroic generosity, including homeschooling. We will need what Roberto de Mattei calls a “spiritual and moral separation” from bad shepherds.[5]

“The days are evil,” said the Apostle to the Ephesians (5:16). He would repeat those words today with boldface italics. Almighty God put us here right now for good reason. He is calling us to embrace and support the fullness of Catholic tradition—without compromise, without apology, without fear, without counting the cost, without looking back over our shoulders like Lot’s wife, or like the Israelites pining for the fleshpots of Egypt where they thought they had it easier. Easier, yes, as far as tasty food was concerned; yet they were slaves building the palaces of their pagan masters. This is a time for freeborn soldiers of Christ. Baptism freed us, and confirmation prepared us for this moment. The Holy Spirit will not fail us in our hour of need.

Even in the deep of night, when hours pass with terrible slowness, there still shine the chaste moon and the host of stars. Our Lady and all the angels and saints never abandon us. They intercede for us from their thrones in glory and beckon us to be faithful and fight manfully, until we can join them ourselves. The children of the glorious Mother of God and ever-Virgin Mary will never be alone, never succumb to despair, never grow faint, and never be defeated in the end.

We are indeed looking out at a world submerged in darkness. We look at churchmen naïvely or cynically in collusion with the world, the flesh, and the devil. We look at the invasion of worldliness into the very sanctuary of God. In company with the Magi, we need to leave behind the inadequate wisdom of this age and set off in search of the Light that conquers the winter—the Light that still shines, burning with inextinguishable brightness, wherever the traditional Catholic Faith is believed, lived, prayed, suffered for, and rejoiced in. As the Latin Mass triumphantly proclaims in the Last Gospel: “The light shineth in the darkness, and the darkness hath not overcome it” (Jn 1:5).

1. See Claire Chretien, “US Bishops ask young Catholics why they stayed in Church. They respond it’s the Latin Mass,” LifeSite News, June 13, 2019; cf. the “2019 Status Report on the Situation of the Traditional Mass in the World,” at the Paix Liturgique website.

2. From the essay “A Different Drummer,” available at www.gw.edu/_elements/userfiles/Platt%20-%20A%20Different%20Drummer.pdf.

3. See “The Spirit of the Liturgy in the Words and Actions of Our Lady,” in Kwasniewski, Noble Beauty, 53–87.

4. This phrase is from the beginning of the Roman Canon.

5. See “Roberto de Mattei on how to resist Pope Francis’s ‘paradigm shift,’” Life-Site, November 30, 2018; cf. idem, Love for the Papacy, 153–54.

Glossary[†]

Acolyte. Not just a fancy name for “altar server,” but the fourth of the four ancient minor orders (the others being porter, lector, and exorcist), which became standardized over time as steps on the way to priestly ordination. The rite of ordination of an acolyte involves the touching of a candle and a set of cruets, to the liturgical use of which they are solemnly deputed. Despite Paul VI’s attempt to suppress minor orders in their longstanding form, they remain fully in use to this day in communities that avail themselves of the usus antiquior (see Subdeacon).

Aggiornamento. Italian for “updating” or “bringing up to date”: a word frequently tossed about at the time of the Second Vatican Council to explain why that gargantuan gathering and its tedious work of re-explaining the Faith through sixteen rambling documents were deemed necessary. Initially, Pope John XXIII’s idea was that, while nothing was really wrong with the Church, she was looking a bit frumpy and old-fashioned, out of touch with the modern world, and needed a fresh makeover for evangelistic purposes. The shortsightedness and rashness of this proposal was pointed out by perceptive observers at the time, who were ignored as naysayers; its abysmal failure, which has compounded like interest on an unpayable loan, is no longer a matter of dispute, although theories as to why it failed vary a great deal depending on whether you are talking to a progressive, a conservative, or a traditionalist.

Asperges. In the TLM, the ritual sprinkling of the congregation and ministers that takes place at the start of the principal High Mass on Sundays. The priest, having processed in with the ministers and wearing a cope, intones the antiphon Asperges me, which the choir and people take up: Domine, hyssopo et mundabor, Lavabis me, et super nivem dealbabor. V. Miserere mei, Deus, secundum magnam misericordiam tuam. “Thou wilt sprinkle me, O Lord, with hyssop and I shall be cleansed: Thou wilt wash me, and I shall be washed whiter than snow. Have mercy on me, O God, according to Thy great mercy” (Ps 50:9, 3). The Gloria Patri doxology is chanted while all bow, then the antiphon is repeated by all. During the singing the priest walks through the church sprinkling the faithful with holy water, not just as a reminder of baptism, but also as a present help in time of danger, and as a means for the forgiveness of venial sins. When the priest is back in the sanctuary, he sings a prayer asking the Father to “send Thy holy Angel from heaven, to guard, cherish, protect, visit, and defend all that are assembled in this place: through Christ our Lord.” The priest steps to the side to remove the cope and don the chasuble, and commences High Mass with the prayers at the foot of the altar, while the Schola chants the Introit. (In Eastertide, the Asperges antiphon is replaced with the Vidi aquam, and alleluias are added to the versicle.)

Baldachin. Also known by its Italian form, baldacchino: a canopy of wood or stone built over an altar or a throne, as a sign of honor for the one who comes to be present there. While the most famous is Bernini’s lavish Baroque baldacchino over the high altar and the tomb of St. Peter at the Basilica of St. Peter in Rome, thousands of baldachins are still to be found in older churches around the world—and happily in some newer ones, too, whose architects have taken up again this elegant ancient Christian structure, which does so much to draw attention to the place of the Holy Sacrifice by separating it visually from the rest of the sanctuary.

Breviary. See Divine Office.

Canon. See Roman Canon.

Collect. The Collect is one of the three Orations. Said aloud or sung by the priest after the Kyrie (or, if appointed that day, the Gloria), it “collects,” as it were, all of the people’s petitions together in one formal petition presented by the Church to God. Unlike the verb, however, the noun is accented on the first syllable.

Commons. The traditional Roman Missal and breviary feature sets of liturgical texts for categories of saints, e.g., Apostles, Martyr Bishops, Martyrs, Confessor Bishops, Confessors, Abbots, Doctors, Virgin Martyrs, Virgins, Holy Women Martyrs, Holy Women. When there are not customized or “proper” texts for a given saint, the Mass and Office would be taken from one of these Commons.

Communion cloth. Also known as a “houseling cloth” (from the Old English “Housel,” or Host): any cloth placed under or held beneath the mouths of communicants to catch particles of the host that might fall during distribution. The use of such a cloth is still ubiquitous in the Eastern rites, especially because of the practice of intinction (the consecrated bread is soaked in the Precious Blood and placed by the priest, with a spoon, into the mouth of the faithful). In the Western rites, due to the widespread use of a chin paten held by a server, the cloth is no longer needed for this purpose, but is often retained as a further sign of reverence. Most of the time, the cloth rests behind the altar rail; shortly before Communion, servers will flip it over the rail, in the manner of placing a cloth on a banqueting table, signifying that the divine sacrificial meal is about to be served. Archbishop Thomas Gullickson writes of how edifying he finds “the distribution of Holy Communion . . . when it is possible at a real Communion or Altar Rail, covered from end to end with a clean linen cloth, underneath which the kneeling communicants reverently place their folded hands. There is probably no other moment at Holy Mass which speaks to me so eloquently of the awe-filled reverence with which we come to receive our Eucharistic Lord. I am well aware of what such an arrangement costs in fine linen, talent, and effort to prepare and maintain, thinking especially of the hours for washing, starching, and ironing. It was and is done for Jesus, obviously, but very much so for the sake of the faithful who come to receive the Lord, Who gives Himself as food for the journey through life toward eternity” (“Solemn High Communion Rail with Cloth,” published on the bishop’s blog Ad Montem Myrrhae, March 5, 2020).

Confiteor. The Confiteor—named from its opening word in Latin, which means “I confess [to almighty God]”—is, from the tenth century on, the standard prayer for the public confession of sins in the Roman rite. In its original form, preserved to this day in the traditional Mass and Divine Office, the one confessing addresses God, “the Blessed Virgin Mary, blessed Michael the archangel, blessed John the Baptist, the holy apostles Peter and Paul, all the saints,” and either “you, brethren” or “thee, Father,” depending on whether it is said by the priest or by the ministers (at the start of Mass, the Confiteor is said twice: once by the celebrant and once by the ministers on behalf of the people). At Solemn Mass the deacon sings—at High and Low Mass, the servers say—the Confiteor immediately after the priest receives the Precious Blood, prior to the distribution of Communion. (Although this last Confiteor was suppressed in the 1962 missal as part of a rash of postwar simplifications, it has held on with a tenacious grip and is practiced in most places.) The differences between the text and liturgical usage of the required traditional Confiteor and those of its optional modern replacement make for an eye-opening study (see Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 75–80, 113, 204, 206, 297–98; Mosebach, Heresy of Formlessness, 101–4).

Consilium. The short way of referring to the Consilium ad exsequendam Constitutionem de Sacra Liturgia or “advisory body for the carrying-out of the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy,” a body created by Pope Paul VI in 1963—ostensibly to “implement” the Council’s program of liturgical reform in the document Sacrosanctum Concilium— and dissolved by him on April 10, 1970, with its remaining work then merged into the Congregation for Divine Worship, which was created on May 8, 1969. The Consilium consisted of voting members (ranging in number from 42 to 51) and consultors (149 scholars in toto), who divided the reformatory project into 45 study groups (in Latin, coetus); e.g., nine groups worked on different elements of the breviary, seven groups worked on different parts of the Mass, etc. (see Chiron, Bugnini, 105–65). The influential and masterful secretary of the Consilium was Fr. (later Archbishop) Annibale Bugnini.

Disciplina arcani. To guard difficult-to-understand doctrines from the contempt of unbelievers, the Church of the fourth and fifth centuries practiced a “discipline of the secret” by which the full content of the teachings of the Faith and its liturgical mysteries was kept hidden from anyone outside of the Church; even catechumens were not taught everything prior to initiation, since the sacraments of illumination and divine nourishment were believed to be the means by which they would be able to begin grasping the deepest truths of the Faith. Msgr. Nicola Bux (No Trifling Matter: Taking the Sacraments Seriously Again) has recommended that we recapture the spirit of the disciplina arcani by allowing the sacramental signs and rituals to speak for themselves rather than overloading them with deflating explanations or packaging them into otiose pastoral programs.

Divine Office. Sometimes called “the Liturgy of the Hours” or the “breviary,” the Divine Office is the daily round of psalmody-based liturgical worship offered by the Church in union with Christ the High Priest, especially by her priests and religious who are specially deputed to the lifting up of this sacrifice of praise. Traditionally it comprises seven “hours” or times of prayer during the day (Lauds, Prime, Terce, Sext, None, Vespers, and Compline), and once during the night (Matins). The term “breviary” derives from the priest’s portable version, printed in small volumes convenient for carrying and praying privately. The ideal, however, remains the public choral chanting of the psalms, at least for the major hours and/or for feastdays. Contemplative religious—monks and nuns—are consecrated by their rule of life to the full and fitting daily communal praying of the Divine Office, the voice of the Church as Bride singing to, and with, Christ her Bridegroom.

Epiclesis. The invocation of the Holy Spirit in the Eucharistic prayer, asking Him to transform the gifts into the Body and Blood of Christ. The epiclesis is a characteristic moment in all oriental rites. Under the influence of archaeologism, some Western liturgists maintained that the Roman Canon must have had such a prayer and lost it at some point, but better scholarship suggests that the Roman tradition never had an epiclesis because Rome was not wracked by the Eastern controversy over the divinity of the Holy Spirit, which prompted the dogmatically-motivated insertion of the epiclesis into the Eastern liturgy. Instead, the Roman Canon rests on the almighty Father’s good pleasure with His Son: the Father will do whatever the Son asks, and when His Son, represented by the priest, asks for the transformation of the offerings, they will be transformed by divine power.

Epistle. On most days of the year there are two readings in the traditional Mass: the “Epistle”—so called because the vast majority are from the Epistles of St. Paul, although passages are also drawn from other books, including those of the Old Testament—and the Gospel. In olden times, a book containing Epistles was called the Epistolarium, while a book containing the Gospels was called the Evangeliarium. Today, a single book, the Lectionarium, contains all the readings chanted at solemn Mass: the subdeacon chants the Epistle in the sanctuary facing eastwards, and the deacon chants the Gospel in front of the sanctuary facing northwards. At a Low Mass, the priest reads the Epistle from the “Epistle side” (south-facing) of the altar, and the Gospel from the “Gospel side” (north-facing).

Eucharistic fast. In the ancient Church, the Eucharist was always to be the first food to enter one’s mouth each day, with nothing else before it. Defending this practice, St. Thomas Aquinas (Summa theologiae III, q. 80, a. 8) cites St. Augustine, Ad Januarium, Epistle 54: “It has pleased the Holy Ghost that, out of honor for this great sacrament, the Lord’s body should enter the mouth of a Christian before other foods.” Hence arose the custom of the fast from midnight, the start of the new day, until the reception of Holy Communion. Pope Pius XII mitigated this fast to three hours in 1953; Pope Paul VI further reduced it to one hour in 1964, which is where the requirement stands in the current (1983) Code of Canon Law. A fair number of traditional Catholics voluntarily do the fast from midnight or for three hours, to prepare themselves more earnestly for receiving the Bread of Angels, in accordance with the wisdom of the ancients.

Fermentum. In ancient times, “in the Masses in the Roman titular churches the acolytes would hold a particle of the host consecrated in the Papal Mass on a reverently covered paten until this so-called fermentum was lowered into the chalice in order to express unity with the bishop of Rome” (Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 95). Even when this custom fell away, so conservative was the Church’s attitude toward liturgical rites that the ceremony was retained in the form of the subdeacon, at a Solemn Mass, holding the paten underneath the humeral veil for the duration of the Canon, until the end of the Lord’s Prayer when it is returned to the altar for use. (At a low Mass, the priest simply tucks the paten under the corporal, a vestige of the subdeacon and his humeral veil.) This reverential treatment of a sacred vessel is a poignant reminder of the sanctity of everything connected to the cultus of the Most Holy Eucharist: even an empty paten deserves special treatment, since it is destined to hold Christ’s Body. Among traditional Catholics, laity never touch the sacred vessels—or, if a server or sacristan must move them, he will wear gloves to do so.

Gradual. From the Latin graduale or responsorium graduale, the “interlectional” (i.e., in-between-the-readings) antiphon chanted or recited after the Epistle of the Mass and prior to the Alleluia (or in penitential seasons, the Tract). In Eastertide, the Gradual is replaced with an Alleluia antiphon. Its text is almost always taken from the Psalms. Its name may be derived from the Latin word gradus (step) because in ancient times it was chanted on the steps of the ambo or elevated platform for readings. For sheer beauty, the Gregorian Graduals are the crown jewels of the plainchant repertoire. The term “Gradual” may also refer to a liturgical book that contains the Gregorian chants of the Mass.

Introit. The first of the five Proper antiphons of the Mass, sung by the choir or schola at the start of the High Mass, while the priest and servers are occupied in the prayers at the foot of the altar. In a low Mass it is recited aloud by the priest after he has mounted the altar steps, kissed the altar, and gone over to the missal on the Epistle side. The text is usually drawn from the psalms and “agrees with the impending celebration and with the distinct mysteries of [the] feast” (Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 81). The Introit (or “Entrance antiphon”) technically exists in the Novus Ordo, but the almost universal replacement of the Propers with the “four-hymn sandwich,” the confusion caused by the lack of agreement between the altar missal and the Introits in the Graduale Romanum, and the awkwardness of having no prayers at the foot of the altar to occupy the ministers while the Introit is being chanted, have meant its virtual extinction in that environment.

Juring and non-juring. During the French Revolution, the Civil Constitution of the Clergy (July 12, 1790) reorganized the Church in France as a paid branch of the State and required bishops to swear an oath of loyalty to the State as dominant over the Church. In November 1790 the oath was extended to all clergy. “Juring” or constitutional clergy were those willing to take the oath; “non-juring” or refractory clergy were those who refused. By analogy, any time people are willing to accept false principles and compromise their Catholic faith in order to get along in the world—or in a Church that has allied itself with the world—they could be called “juring,” and if they refuse, “non-juring.”

Lavabo. A nickname for the priest’s washing of his thumbs and forefingers at the traditional Offertory rite, because of the seven verses of Psalm 25 he prays at this moment, commencing with verse 6: Lavabo inter innocentes manus meas: et circumdabo altare tuum, Domine, “I will wash my hands among the innocent: and I will compass Thine altar, O Lord.” He prays the verses while washing and drying his fingers, and ends with a doxology, bowing towards the tabernacle. It is one of several examples of how permeated with Scripture the old rite of Mass is. In the new rite, the Lavabo was replaced with one line: “Lord, wash away my iniquities, and cleanse me of my sins” (Ps 50:4).

Lectio divina. A monastic method of praying with passages of Scripture, consisting of four steps: (1) lectio, or reading the text slowly and attentively; (2) meditatio, or pondering its meaning; (3) oratio, or raising one’s mind to God on the basis of what one has seen in meditation; (4) contemplatio, resting in God. The classic work on these four steps is The Ladder of Monks by Guigo II the Carthusian (1114–c. 1193), ninth prior of the Grand Chartreuse.

Lectionary. The liturgical book that contains the “lections” or readings for the Mass; more loosely, the body of readings for Mass even when they are printed in the altar missal. In the early Church, readings were given straight from a Bible, often read sequentially. Over time, particular passages (see Pericope) were assigned to particular seasons and days of the liturgical year, leading to the formation of the great lectionaries of Christian tradition, East and West. In solemn Masses in the classical Roman rite, a book called the Lectionarium contains the readings to be chanted either by the subdeacon (the Epistle) or by the deacon (the Gospel). In the Middle Ages, for the convenience of priests offering Low Masses without deacon and subdeacon, the content of the lectionary was folded into the altar missal to form a missale plenarium or “complete missal,” which is what we have today in the 1962 Missale Romanum. In the liturgical reform, the traditional lectionary, which had been used for over a thousand years in the Roman Church, was scrapped and replaced with an entirely new lectionary, now always published as a separate book (or rather, as multiple volumes); apart from a few exceptions, the Novus Ordo altar missal does not contain the readings used at Mass.

Lex orandi, lex credendi. “The law of praying [is] the law of believing.” An ancient axiom to the effect that what and how we pray—the content of our worship and the manner in which it is carried out— express what we believe, and, unavoidably, form the minds of believers. For example, a liturgy that contains frequent mentions of human fragility, sinfulness, concupiscence, and the need for penance and God’s grace of healing (as the classical Roman rite does) will necessarily yield a different mentality or worldview among its participants than a liturgy that fails to mention these things, or mentions them only rarely (as the Novus Ordo does). To this axiom, some add the third member lex vivendi, “law of living,” as if to say: our prayer shapes our faith, and our faith shapes our way of life or morals.

Liturgy of the Hours. A popular post-Vatican II way of referring to that which had been known for centuries as the Divine Office (the phrase divinum officium is used, for example, by the Council of Aix-la-Chapelle in ad 800). The multiplication of terms has nevertheless been useful, inasmuch as the newer term can be reserved for the severely transmogrified product of the Consilium, while the more honorable ancient title can be kept for the traditional daily cycle of prayer.

Missa cantata. A sung Mass served by two to four acolytes, with incense permitted but not required, in which the priest does and sings everything that belongs to him as well as singing what would otherwise be sung by the subdeacon and the deacon in a Solemn (High) Mass. It may be thought of either as an elevated Low Mass or a simplified Solemn Mass (there are reasons one could say either).

Missale Romanum. The name given to the printed altar missal containing, from 1474 until the mid-1960s, the Ordo Missalis secundum consuetudinem Curiae Romanae, or “Order of Mass according to the custom of the Roman curia.” Although it sources stretch back far into the first millennium and across Europe, the first printed book entitled Missale Romanum was printed in Milan in 1474. This first edition (editio princeps) served as the basis for the revision undertaken by Pope St. Pius V at the request of the Council of Trent and promulgated with the Bull Quo Primum of July 14, 1570. The resulting “Tridentine” missal was the norm for the celebration of Mass in most of the local churches of the Catholic world thereafter, until it was replaced by the homonymic Missale Romanum of Pope Paul VI, which departs in so many and such notable ways from the traditional Ordo Missae that, for the first time since 1570, it no longer bore the papal Bull Quo Primum at its head.

Motu proprio. Latin for “by one’s own motion”: initially a manner of papal promulgation, when the pope issues an edict on his own initiative. Later it comes to be used also for any document promulgated in that way. The most famous modern motu proprio is the Apostolic Letter Summorum Pontificum of 7/7/07, liberalizing and encouraging the use of the venerable Roman rite.

Neoscholastic reductionism. An approach to liturgy that focuses so narrowly on the combination of “form and matter” (the correct formulae and the correct material items) required for the minimum threshold of sacramental validity that it fails to give adequate consideration to the dogmatic, pedagogical, aesthetic, ascetic, and mystical functions of liturgical rites in their traditional totality and integrity. This approach tends to cause neglect of the key notion of fittingness and the role of the dispositions of agents and recipients. See Peter Kwasniewski, “The Long Shadow of Neoscholastic Reductionism,” New Liturgical Movement, July 3, 2017, and “‘The Way is the Goal’: Against Reducing the Mass to a Sacramental Delivery System,” New Liturgical Movement, February 11, 2019.

Novus Ordo. A way of referring to the Mass created by the Consilium and promulgated by Pope Paul VI on April 3, 1969. While to some ears the phrase comes across as pejorative, it must be noted that Paul VI himself frequently connected the word “new” (novus) with his liturgical reforms. In his general audience of March 7, 1965, he spoke of a “new order [of worship],” a “new scheme of things,” “new liturgical books,” “new form,” “new liturgy,” “new habit,” and “liturgical innovation”—and all this, about changes far less drastic than those he would promulgate four years later! Many things that people today would assume must have entered with the Novus Ordo in 1969 were already around prior to it, as the traditional liturgy was progressively altered in the 1950s and 1960s: turning the priest toward the people, praying Mass in the vernacular, dropping the prayers at the foot of the altar and the last Gospel, bringing in new (ad experimentum) lectionaries, using multiple Eucharistic Prayers, having the people say the Lord’s Prayer at the liturgy together with the priest (something never done in the Roman tradition prior to 1955), discarding some liturgical vestments, etc. In the general audience of November 19, 1969, explaining why he had promulgated a new missal, Paul VI—this time with greater justice—referred to “a new rite of Mass” (four times), “a new spirit,” “new directions,” “new rules,” “innovation.” In the general audience one week later, he mentioned “the liturgical innovation of the new rite of the Mass” and mentioned the “new rite” seven times; he used words like “new,” “newness,” “renewal,” “innovation,” “novelty,” a total of 18 times. At a consistory for the appointment of twenty cardinals on May 24, 1976, he used the expression novus Ordo [Missae]: “usus novi Ordinis Missae” and “Novus Ordo promulgatus est” (“the use of the new Order of Mass”; “the new Order has been promulgated”). Readers should also be aware that the phrase “Novus Ordo” is broad enough to include the new lectionary, which is a set of books separate from the missal; at times the phrase can even mean “anything having to do with the postconciliar liturgical reform,” as in: “They did a Novus Ordo baptism” or “let’s avoid the Novus Ordo blessing of holy water.” This usage is not precise and should be avoided; it would be better to say, e.g., “let’s avoid the new rite of baptism” or “we prefer the old blessing of holy water.”

Office. The “office” of a Sunday or feastday refers to the changing parts for the Divine Office analogous to the Proper of the Mass, such as the antiphons for the psalms, the chapter or reading, the hymns, versicles, responsories, Collect, etc. This term can also be shorthand for the Divine Office itself (“I prayed the Office today”).

Orations. In a liturgical context, the trio of prayers in the traditional Roman rite of Mass, dictated by the Mass formulary of the day: the Collect, the Secret, and the Postcommunion (see separate entry under each word), all three ending with a full doxology in honor of the Blessed Trinity. Many of the orations in the usus antiquior are extremely ancient and exhibit a realistic understanding of man’s needs and weaknesses as well as the attributes of God and the power of divine grace working through the mysteries of the life of Christ and the sacraments He instituted. The venerable Roman rite often features two or more sets of orations per Mass, e.g., a Collect mentioning the main saint of the day or liturgical season, followed by a Collect commemorating a group of other saints or a particular need. Only 17% of the orations from the Tridentine missal were carried over untouched into the Novus Ordo; the remaining texts, regardless of their sources, were heavily redacted in accord with the reformers’ ideas of what was “suitable” for modern times. Moreover, the doxologies were cut from the Secret (renamed, with an antiquarian frisson, Prayer over the Offerings) and the Postcommunion.

Order of the Mass. In Latin, Ordo Missae: the complete structural outline of the celebration of the Mass, with the elements that remain (with rare exceptions during the liturgical year) constant and fixed from day to day. This Order would include, e.g., the prayers at the foot of the altar, the five great chants (Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Agnus Dei) sung by the choir or schola and sometimes the people, the Offertory rite, the Preface and Roman Canon, the Communion rite from the Lord’s Prayer to the ablutions, the dismissal, Placeat tibi, blessing, and Last Gospel.

Ordinary of the Mass. As most commonly used, the five fixed chants of the Order of Mass that are sung daily or weekly—the Kyrie, the Gloria, the Credo, the Sanctus, and the Agnus Dei, as distinguished from the “Propers” of the Mass, which, in a musical context, refer to the set of antiphons appointed for a given day. The chant settings of the Ordinary of the Mass, or the Kyriale, are among the oldest and most beautiful in the Gregorian repertoire. The monks of Solesmes grouped them for convenience into “Mass Ordinaries” recommended for different seasons or levels of feasts (e.g., Mass I for Eastertide, Mass IX for the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mass XI for Sundays “through the year”), although there is no hard and fast rule for their use. The Kyriale is found in all standard chant books, e.g., the Liber Usualis, the Liber Brevior, and the Graduale Romanum.

Pericope. A segment of Scripture that is either intended by its author to be a self-contained unit (e.g., the individual parables and miracles of Jesus) or is capable of being treated as a stand-alone reading. Early on, Christians read segments of the Bible at their Eucharistic worship, which forged associations between certain pericopes and certain days of the liturgical year. Over time this developed into lectionaries for Mass, which offer “lections” or readings for Sundays, feastdays, and Commons. The approach of the traditional Roman Mass towards pericopes is significantly different from the approach of the postconciliar lectionary that was built from scratch for the Novus Ordo. In the former, the readings are generally shorter and only very rarely omit or skip over verses. In the latter, the readings are much more numerous, very often longer, and frequently omit verses deemed too “difficult” for modern congregations. In comparison, the traditional pericopes that the Church has been using for over a millennium have greater impact, are more memorable, and convey a greater range of revealed truth.

Postcommunion. The oration said or sung by the priest after Communion (or more precisely, after the ablutions by which he cleanses his fingers and the vessels and covers them again with a veil). The prayer always relates to the holy mysteries just received; on a feastday, it will usually make mention of the saint or the mystery being commemorated.

Preface. The great prayer that prepares for and leads into the Canon of the Mass. In its opening dialogue, we are summoned to “lift up our hearts” and “give thanks to the Lord our God”; in its text, certain truths or persons or blessings are gratefully called to mind, leading into the hymn of the angels, the Sanctus.

Propers. In contrast to the fixed Order of Mass, the Propers are those parts that change from day to day; also called “Proper of the Mass.” These would include, more narrowly speaking, the “proper chants” (or “propers” for short) sung by the choir or schola—the Introit or entrance antiphon, the interlectional chants (Gradual, Alleluia/Tract), the Offertory antiphon, and the Communion antiphon—and, more broadly, the orations (Collect, Secret, Postcommunion), readings (Epistle and Gospel), and Preface. “Mass formulary” is another way to refer to that which is proper to a certain day.

Reform of the reform. “A movement in Latin-rite Catholicism dating to the mid-1990s and consisting of loosely affiliated organizations and individuals united around the goal of redirecting the reform of Roman rite liturgy originating from the Second Vatican Council. The advocates of a ‘reform of the reform’ generally regard the Council’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium of 1963, as having been justifiable and pastorally well oriented—the culmination of the sound ideals of the preconciliar liturgical movement. At the same time, they maintain that the official liturgical reform that followed Vatican II involved changes that were unwarranted by the Council and that, in many instances, break with liturgical and theological tradition. For this reason, they believe it is necessary to reshape Catholic liturgical practice according to the original intentions of the Council Fathers and in light of postconciliar experience” (Fr. Thomas M. Kocik, T&T Clark Companion to Liturgy, ed. Alcuin Reid [London/ New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016], 316). The phrase was coined by German liturgist Msgr. Klaus Gamber in 1989 (ibid., 323) and taken up by Joseph Ratzinger and, subsequently, by organizations like the Adoremus Society for the Renewal of the Sacred Liturgy and the Society for Catholic Liturgy.

Religion. The virtue of religion, explains St. Thomas Aquinas, is that habit of justice by which we give to Almighty God that which we owe Him as our Creator and Lord: His right to proper worship, both in our external actions (e.g., praising Him with the lips, bowing before Him) and internal acts (such as the humble submission of mind and heart in adoration). For unfallen man, this virtue would have taken the form of a rational sacrifice of praise; for fallen man, it took the form of a bloody sacrificial worship by which God is honored and placated. God gave the old Law to Israel as a system for offering a set form of worship that would strongly bring out the need for a Mediator and a Redeemer, one who in Himself could offer to God a worship truly worthy of His rights over all creation. It is only by the once-for-all bloody Sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, together with all His other actions and sufferings, that the virtue of religion is perfectly exercised by man towards God; we are inserted into this pleasing worship through the Church’s sacraments and liturgical prayer. From the virtue of religion is derived the more general sense of “religion” as a system of beliefs, morals, and rites by which we adhere to God. See chapter 3.

Roman Canon. The anaphora or Eucharistic prayer is the heart of any Eucharistic liturgy: it is the prayer in and through which the consecration of bread and wine into the Body and Blood of Christ occurs. The Roman Canon was the sole anaphora of the Western Church, prayed at every Mass by every Latin-rite priest from at least the fifth century until the 1960s, when a committee of scholars had the audacity to assemble several more anaphoras for the sake of variety. The Roman Canon is so ancient that its origins are lost in the early centuries of Christianity; echoes and fragments are found in texts of the Church Fathers. It was given its final form by St. Gregory the Great (reigned 590–604), and for this reason the classical Roman rite is sometimes called “the Gregorian rite.” One of its peculiar features is its lack of an epiclesis, due to the fact that the fourthand fifth-century controversy in the East concerning the divinity of the Holy Spirit, which led to the epiclesis being inserted in Eastern anaphoras, never occurred in the West (see “Reforming the Canon of the Mass: Some Considerations from Fr Hunwicke,” New Liturgical Movement, April 25, 2015). The silent praying of the Canon prevailed in Europe in the 9th century. On the sublime theology of the Roman Canon, see Fiedrowicz, Traditional Mass, 263–91. While we’re at it: the widespread claim that the super-short “Eucharistic Prayer II” recovers an ancient anaphora by St. Hippolytus is no longer accepted by scholars. The current view is that this anaphora may not have been written by Hippolytus, was not Roman, and was probably not even used as a real Eucharistic prayer. And then there is the story of its final redaction into EP II, which does not inspire confidence (see p.115, n.3).

Roman Missal. See Missale Romanum.

Rubrics. Derived from the Latin rubrica terra, red earth used to make ink; ultimately from the Latin word for red, rubeus: instructions printed in liturgical books in red type, indicating what the ministers are to do. Medieval scribes often wrote instructions in a color other than the one used for words to be said or sung, but it was only with the invention of the printing press that black for what is said and red for what is done became a universal standard—hence the famous slogan of Fr. Zuhlsdorf: “Say the Black, Do the Red,” i.e., do not deviate extemporaneously from what is given to us in the official liturgical books. The rubrics in the old rite are considerably more numerous and detailed than in the new rite, leaving nothing to improvisation, chance, or guesswork. Liturgical reformers criticized this approach as mechanical and “unspiritual,” calling it “rubricism”; its defenders see it rather as a praiseworthy source of order, beauty, and reverence in handling the awesome mysteries of Christ. For example, normally the priest turns fully towards the people from the center of the altar when greeting them with “Dominus vobiscum.” If, however, the consecrated species, a filled ciborium, or a monstrance with the host is present upon the altar, the rubrics instruct him to issue this greeting slightly to the side and at an angle, so that he never turns his back on the Lord, really present in the Blessed Sacrament. Every detail has been thoughtfully considered over the centuries and the best solution arrived at.

Sacramentary. Any codex or manuscript that contains texts (especially the orations) used by the celebrant at Mass and other liturgical ceremonies. The three most famous are the Leonine (6th/7th century), the Gelasian (7th/8th century), and the Gregorian (7th century). As time went on and the body of texts grew, they were distributed into various books: altar missals for priests, the Pontifical for bishops, the Ritual for blessings and exorcisms, and so forth. It is often said that the postconciliar liturgical reformers “enriched” the liturgy of the Catholic Church by extracting prayers from old sacramentaries that had long since fallen out of use. That practice might have been defensible, had they not then proceeded to modify almost every line to bring it into conformity with their theories about what “modern man” needed to hear. They could not even indulge their antiquarian appetites without bowdlerizing and innovating.

Schola. Short for “schola cantorum” or school of singers: in ancient Rome, the picked and trained choir of boys and men who sang the chant at the papal Masses. Subsequently, it came to be used either for any ensemble that specializes in Gregorian chant (especially the Mass Propers, which are more demanding), or as a fancy name for a church choir.

Secret. The “Secret” is the oration the priest says quietly over the bread and wine at the end of the Offertory rite. Originally referred to as the oratio super oblata or prayer over the offerings, and said aloud, the prayer came to be said silently in Carolingian times, under Eastern influence; hence its current name in the usus antiquior. The restoration of its original name and audible vocalization when an alternative practice had been stably present for over a millennium is an excellent example of the false antiquarianism condemned by Pius XII in Mediator Dei. See Kwasniewski, Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness, 250–55.

Solemn High Mass. Sometimes called a “Solemn Mass,” which corresponds more closely to its Latin name, Missa solemnis: a sung Mass offered by a priest with the assistance of a deacon, a subdeacon, and other ministers (acolytes). This is the normative form of the Roman rite of Mass; the High Mass or Missa cantata and the Low Mass are derivative from it and developed much later—a sign of which is that in these simpler forms, the priest by himself performs a number of actions that can only be understood by reference to their origins as actions performed by the deacon and subdeacon. If it is not already in place, Solemn Mass every Sunday and Holy Day is the goal toward which TLM communities should be patiently working.

Subdeacon. In the Roman tradition, the subdiaconate is one of the three “major orders,” the others being the diaconate and the priesthood; these follow upon the four “minor orders” of porter, lector, exorcist, and acolyte. The existence of these orders—a common heritage of the Western and Eastern churches—is witnessed in abundant ancient sources from the first millennium and indeed the first half of the first millennium. In spite of lip service to antiquity and the East, the liturgical reform—or more specifically, Paul VI—abolished the minor orders and the subdiaconate in 1972, redistributing their functions to “ministries” of “instituted” lectors and acolytes. Despite this attempt at suppression, the minor and major orders have seen an unexpected resurgence with the growth of religious and clerical communities devoted to the usus antiquior, wherein all of these orders are still conferred with the old liturgical books. It would therefore be incorrect to say that they no longer exist in the Roman Church. At solemn Mass, the subdeacon chants the Epistle and assists in a variety of ways with chalice duties; perhaps most noticeably, during much of the Offertory and all of the Canon, he holds the paten, enclosed in a humeral veil (see Fermentum).

Tenebrae. A special office of combined Matins and Lauds for the Triduum, traditionally celebrated in the evening prior to each day of the Triduum (thus, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday nights of Holy Week), and employing a large stand or “hearse” of candles extinguished one by one as the psalms are completed. The chants are exquisite. Some of the greatest polyphonic music ever composed was written for Tenebrae. It was awkwardly shifted to the mornings under Pius XII and then effectively abolished in the liturgical reform under Paul VI.

Tract. Opinions differ about the etymology of this word, but there is no doubt what it refers to: the tractus is the melismatic or florid interlectional (between-the-readings) chant that replaces the Alleluia in the penitential seasons of Septuagesima and Lent, at Masses for the Dead, and on other occasions when the joy of the Alleluia is not appropriate. The texts are often quite lengthy and certain set melodies appear regularly. For example, the Tract of the First Sunday of Lent comprises much of Psalm 90 (vv. 1–7, 11–16) and, when sung in full, evokes the forty days Our Lord spent in the wilderness and the temptations He faced and crushed: exactly what the Gospel of the day narrates.

Tridentine. The adjective formed from the name of the city Trent in northern Italy, location of the nineteenth Ecumenical Council of the Catholic Church (1545–1563). In the face of an accelerating and divaricating Protestant Revolt that had rejected the traditional faith of Catholics, the Council of Trent promulgated dogmatic decrees on many pressing matters, including, notably, the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass and the Holy Eucharist. Because this Council requested a restoration of liturgical books as a key step in Church reform, the resulting books, issued by Pius V, and therefore also the rites themselves, are often referred to as “Tridentine.” Some object to this nomenclature because it might seem to imply that the Missale Romanum of 1570 was invented by the Council of Trent’s command or by Pius V’s committee, that it received its authoritativeness solely from the will of a papal monarch, and/or that it remained frozen in that period; whereas, in truth, Pius V’s missal carefully transmits an immensely venerable liturgical tradition, which has also accommodated small changes since that time, such as the modification of rubrics and the creation of new feasts. However, the objection is beside the point. The 1570 missal gives us a definitively matured Roman rite that fully embodies the glorious and immutable dogmatic confession of Trent. Like the great composer who was christened Johannes Chrysostomus Wolfgangus Theophilus Mozart, the greatest rite of the Western Church can also bear many names, as long as each is given a correct interpretation.

Usus antiquior. Latin for “older use” (i.e., of the Roman rite). In the context of liturgy, a “use” is a certain variant of a rite, as the “Dominican use” is a variant of the Roman rite. Pope Benedict XVI referred to the traditional Roman rite as the usus antiquior in his letter to the bishops Con Grande Fiducia of July 7, 2007; similarly language may be found in the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum and in the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae. The term is comparative, implying an usus recentior or “more recent use,” namely, the Novus Ordo. Another pair of comparative terms is forma extraordinaria and forma ordinaria. As is clear from the motu proprio, Benedict XVI’s intention was to establish a canonical-juridical framework for a prudential solution; there remain thorny historical, liturgical, and theological problems with the unprecedented situation of two “uses” or “forms” of the same Roman rite.

† The reader is also directed to the more extensive (though less opinionated) glossary of traditional Catholic terms found in Rev. James W. Jackson, FSSP, Nothing Superfluous: An Explanation of the Symbolism of the Rite of St. Gregory the Great (Lincoln, NE: Fraternity Publications, 2016), 259–300, and the exquisite illustrated glossary in Lisa Bergman, Treasure and Tradition: The Ultimate Guide to the Latin Mass (Homer Glen, IL: St. Augustine Academy Press, 2014), 71–87.

Select Bibliography

Everyone has favorite books and authors, “must reads” on a given topic. As regards the themes of this book, my favorites are listed below. Books listed under the heading “General” would be my highest recommendations for where to go next. Fuller bibliographies can be found in my two books Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis and Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness, although the present bibliography includes more recent publications.

General

Fiedrowicz, Michael. The Traditional Mass: History, Form, and Theology of the Classical Roman Rite. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2020. [The best one-volume scholarly book on the subject ever published in English.]

Guéranger, Dom Prosper. The Traditional Latin Mass Explained. Trans. Dom Laurence Shepherd. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2017.

Jackson, James W., FSSP. Nothing Superfluous: An Explanation of the Symbolism of the Rite of St. Gregory the Great. Lincoln, NE: Fraternity Publications, 2016.

Kwasniewski, Peter A., ed. John Henry Newman on Worship, Reverence, and Ritual: A Selection of Texts. N.p.: Os Justi Press, 2019.

———. Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness: Why the Modern Age Needs the Mass of Ages. Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2017.

———. Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis: Sacred Liturgy, the Traditional Latin Mass, and Renewal in the Church. Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2014.

———. Tradition and Sanity: Conversations & Dialogues of a Postconciliar Exile. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2018.

Mosebach, Martin. The Heresy of Formlessness: The Roman Liturgy and Its Enemy. Revised and expanded edition. Trans. Graham Harrison. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2018.

———. Subversive Catholicism: Papacy, Liturgy, Church. Trans. Sebastian Condon and Graham Harrison. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019.

Ripperger, Chad. Topics on Tradition. N.p.: Sensus Traditionis Press, 2013.

Schneider, Bishop Athanasius, and Diane Montagna. Christus Vincit. Christ’s Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019.

Shaw, Joseph, ed. The Case for Liturgical Restoration. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019.

———. How to Attend the Extraordinary Form. London: Catholic Truth Society, 2020. [An insightful little booklet that ought to be read and distributed widely.]

Missals or Guides

Daily Missal 1962. Baronius Press. [This was my favorite missal for a long time, and I still use it occasionally. It is newly retypeset, which makes for optimal legibility, and includes an extensive addendum of saints proper to the USA and the British Isles. Follows the 1962 calendar and rubrics, which are still predominant in the traditional world.]

St. Andrew Daily Missal by Dom Gaspar Lefebvre, OSB. St. Bonaventure Publications. [This has become my favorite missal in recent years because of two features: first, its running commentaries on the liturgical seasons and feasts are unsurpassed; second, it cleaves to the liturgical calendar as of 1945, before the most regrettable of Pius XII’s changes had been made. As the pre-55 Holy Week and other observances slowly make a comeback, this missal has acquired a new relevance. For most days of the year, either this missal or the Baronius will “work” for you, regardless of which edition of the altar missal the priest is using.]

Bergman, Lisa. Treasure and Tradition: The Ultimate Guide to the Latin Mass. Homer Glen, IL: St. Augustine Academy Press, 2014. [Just what its title says. A book that fascinates and inspires, copiously illustrated. This and the next are also suitable for children to look at and learn from.]

Little, Derya. A Beginner’s Guide to the Traditional Latin Mass. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019. [This slender volume does not reproduce the text of the Order of Mass. Rather, with the aid of simple drawings, it explains the flow of Low Mass and High Mass: what is happening when, and why.]

For Younger Readers

Chadwick, Enid. My Book of the Church’s Year. Homer Glen, IL: St. Augustine Academy Press, 2019. [The best children’s book on the traditional liturgical year, full of charming and informative drawings.]

Kwasniewski, Peter. A Missal for Young Catholics. [I self-published this Order of Mass, replete with classic works of art in color, for the use of children who have graduated from a chickabiddy missal but are not yet ready for the full-on 2,000-page version. Available at www.amazon.com/Missal-Young-Catholics-Peter-Kwasniewski/dp/1497527988.]

Lefebvre, Dom Gaspar, OSB, and Elisabeth van Elewyck. A Young Catholic’s Daily Missal. Trans. Rev. John Gray. Engravings, symbols, and maps by René de Cramer. Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 2015. [Originally published in 1929. An exquisite book, with a method for praying the Mass, the full text of the Mass Ordinary, and paraphrased Propers for the entire Church year.]

Montessori, Maria. The Mass Explained to Children. Kettering, OH: Angelico, 2015. [A newly-typeset edition of the original version of Montessori’s classic. Later editions of her works were often decatholicized to varying degrees.]

Power, Rev. Robert J., CM. Jesus, Make Me Worthy. A Prayer-Book for the Young Boy and Girl. Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 2007. [Originally published in 1960. Color illustrations and copious prayers.]

Hoever, Rev. H. Latin Mass Children’s Missal. An Easy Way of Praying the Mass for Boys and Girls. Long Prairie, MN: The Neumann Press. [Originally published in 1959. Similar to the foregoing. Although TAN Books bought up the stock of Neumann Press, they do not seem to be keeping titles consistently in print.]

Liturgical Theology

Crean, Thomas. The Mass and the Saints. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2009.

Guardini, Romano. Sacred Signs. N.p.: Os Justi Press, 2015. [A pithy book on the profound symbolism of the items and actions involved in Catholic liturgy.]

Pristas, Lauren. The Collects of the Roman Missals: A Comparative Study of the Sundays in Proper Seasons Before and After the Second Vatican Council. London/New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2013.

Spataro, Roberto. In Praise of the Tridentine Mass and of Latin, Language of the Church. Trans. Zachary Thomas. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019.

Ratzinger, Joseph. The Spirit of the Liturgy. Trans. John Saward. Commemorative edition, with Romano Guardini’s Spirit of the Liturgy (1918), trans. Ada Lane, and a preface by Robert Cardinal Sarah. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2018.

Reid, Alcuin, ed. Liturgy in the Twenty-First Century: Contemporary Issues and Perspectives. London/New York: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2016.

History

Chiron, Yves. Annibale Bugnini: Reformer of the Liturgy. Trans. John Pepino. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2018.

Davies, Michael. Pope Paul’s New Mass. Kansas City, MO: Angelus Press, 2009.

De Mattei, Roberto. Love for the Papacy and Filial Resistance to the Pope in the History of the Church. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019.

———. The Second Vatican Council—An Unwritten Story. Trans. Patrick T. Brannan, SJ, Michael J. Miller, and Kenneth D. Whitehead. Ed. Michael J. Miller. Fitzwilliam, NH: Loreto Publications, 2012.

Kocik, Thomas M. Singing His Song: A Short Introduction to the Liturgical Movement. Revised and expanded edition. Hong Kong: Chorabooks, 2019.

Reid, Alcuin, ed. A Bitter Trial: Evelyn Waugh and John Carmel Cardinal Heenan on the Liturgical Changes. San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 2011.

Sire, H.J.A. Phoenix from the Ashes: The Making, Unmaking, and Restoration of Catholic Tradition. Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2015.

Fiction

Benson, Robert Hugh. By What Authority? Ed. Riley Hughes. New York: P. J. Kenedy & Sons, 1957; repr. Os Justi Press (for this and the next, one must enter the hyperlink: www.amazon.com/What-Authority-Robert-Hugh-Benson/dp/1726368599).

———. The King’s Achievement. Ed. Francis X. Connolly. New York: P.J. Kenedy & Sons, 1957; repr. Os Justi Press (www.amazon.com/Kings-Achievement-Msgr-Robert-Benson/dp/1726329054).

Buck, Roger. The Gentle Traditionalist. A Catholic Fairy-tale from Ireland. Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2015.

———. The Gentle Traditionalist Returns. A Catholic Knight’s Tale from Ireland. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019. [These two highly entertaining short novels, which may be read independently of one another, introduce a variety of memorable characters wrestling with secular materialism and secular spiritualism (the New Age religion). Brilliant apologetics without the slightest touch of preachiness.]

Houghton, Bryan. Mitre and Crook. New Rochelle: Arlington House Books, 1979; repr. Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2019. [One of the most insightful books ever written about liturgy and the ecclesiastical politics that surrounds it.]

Kent, Michael. The Mass of Brother Michel. Milwaukee: Bruce, 1942; repr. Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2017. [A deeply moving story about human loves transfigured through the Mass.]

Online Resources

Angelico Press: www.angelicopress.org

Catholic Music Association of America: www.musicasacra.com

Coalition Ecclesia Dei Latin Mass Directory: www.ecclesiadei.org/masses.cfm

The Divinum Officium Project: www.divinumofficium.com

Fr. Z’s Blog: www.wdtprs.com

Fisheaters: The Whys and Hows of Traditional Catholicism: www.fisheaters.com

Latin Mass Directory: www.latinmassdir.org

The Latin Mass Magazine: www.keepthefaith.org/latin-mass

The Latin Mass Society of England & Wales: www.lms.org.uk/resources

Maternal Heart of Mary: www.maternalheart.org/resources

New Liturgical Movement: www.newliturgicalmovement.org

OnePeterFive: www.onepeterfive.com

Os Justi Press: www.peterkwasniewski.com/osjusti

Resources for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass (Traditional Latin Mass): www.extraordinaryform.org/index.html

Sancta Missa: www.sanctamissa.org; see especially FAQ for Newcomers to the Traditional Latin Mass: (www.sanctamissa.org/en/faq/newcomers-to-the-traditional-latin-mass.html) and other FAQ (www.sanctamissa.org/en/faq)

Thesaurus Preces Latinae (Treasury of Latin Prayers): www.preces-latinae.org/index.htm

Why the Extraordinary Form: www.fssp.com/why-the-extraordinary-form

About the Author

DR. PETER KWASNIEWSKI, Thomistic theologian, liturgical scholar, and choral composer, is a graduate of Thomas Aquinas College in California and The Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. He taught at the International Theological Institute in Austria and the Franciscan University of Steubenville’s Austria Program, then helped establish Wyoming Catholic College in 2006. There he taught theology, philosophy, music, and art history and directed the choirs until leaving in 2018 to devote himself fulltime to writing and lecturing. Today he contributes regularly to many websites and publications, including New Liturgical Movement, OnePeterFive, LifeSite News, Rorate Caeli, The Remnant, and Catholic Family News, and has published nine books, including three previous books on traditional Catholicism: Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis (Angelico, 2014), Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness (Angelico, 2017), and Tradition and Sanity (Angelico, 2018). His work has been translated into at least thirteen languages. Lectures may be found at YouTube and SoundCloud; his website is www.peterkwasniewski.com.