A thought on the Liturgy

[theculturewarrior]

The Liturgy is an organic tradition, handed down from Jesus and the Apostles themselves. GK Chesterton once likened the Church to a tree. Jesus planted the acorn, and the tree grew, and Jesus and his gardeners [b]prune[/b] the tree, water it, and guard it.

Chesterton said that the tree could only stop growing if it died. But because it grows, doesn't mean it has different DNA that it did when it was an acorn.

I think this analogy is applies to the liturgy. We recently had a pretty difficult pruning. Our shoots are just beginning to sprout.

But if we didn't grow...we'd be dead!

[amarkich]

Okay, that is a nice analogy, but Chesterton did not intend that this apply to the Liturgy. The Liturgy [b]cannot[/b] be constantly developing. That is a cause for Mass confusion, in more ways than one. Of course the liturgy has to stop developing at one point. That point was [i]Quo Primum[/i]. It is crazy to think that the Mass is always changing. This has NEVER been believed in Church history. NO Church Father, no Doctor, no Pope, no Saint has ever said something so crazy. If the Mass correlates to the Faith and the Christian Life (Lex orandi, lex credendi), then it cannot be ever-changing, or that would mean that the Faith is ever-changing, that the Christian Life is ever-developing into something new. This is false. The liturgy organically developed, but it cannot be ever-developing. The Mass has been substantially the same for 1500-1600 years; once Christianity was legalized, the rites were able to develop organically and become more elaborate. This is not an ever-changing event, though. The rites became stricter and fully developed. The Mass became normalized by [i]Quo Primum [/i]as the only acceptable Mass (with the given exceptions), but it had already been following the same developed rubrics for 1000 years before [i]Quo Primum[/i]. By the way, making up a new Mass via a committee with Masons and Protestants does not constitute organic development, sorry.

[theculturewarrior]

[quote name='amarkich' date='Nov 29 2004, 12:32 PM'] By the way, making up a new Mass via a committee with Masons and Protestants does not constitute organic development, sorry. [/quote]
I don't believe it is a "made-up" mass. It is the same mass Jesus celebrated with his Apostles. Yes, there are problems, but the Pope promulgated it, and it was well within his authority to do so.

I can understand your anger. I love the traditional prayers and rites too. But many people feel the same way you do about the Novus Ordo and modern language translations of prayers and Bibles (I'm one). We are without sin in this.

[homeschoolmom]

[quote name='amarkich' date='Nov 29 2004, 12:32 PM'] By the way, making up a new Mass via a committee with Masons and Protestants does not constitute organic development, sorry. [/quote]
This statement keeps getting tossed out. Could someone please provide some evidence?

[popestpiusx]

TCW,
The ritual was made up, in so far as it is not an organic development of the Traditional Mass.

You are correct when you say "It is the same mass Jesus celebrated with his Apostles" in so far as that can be said of any valid Mass and on that level, it is equal to every other Mass: it is infinitely meritorious. However, the ritual, which is what directly affects man as the vessel through which the graces of the sacrament descend to us in the pew, can be more or less meritorious depending on any number of things that I shall not go into right now.

[cmotherofpirl]

"By the way, making up a new Mass via a committee with Masons and Protestants does not constitute organic development, sorry. "

Its a lie that never dies, and has no place on the lips of anyone Catholic.

Edited November 29, 2004 by cmotherofpirl

[cmotherofpirl]

[quote name='amarkich' date='Nov 29 2004, 02:32 PM'] Okay, that is a nice analogy, but Chesterton did not intend that this apply to the Liturgy. The Liturgy [b]cannot[/b] be constantly developing. That is a cause for Mass confusion, in more ways than one. Of course the liturgy has to stop developing at one point. That point was [i]Quo Primum[/i]. It is crazy to think that the Mass is always changing. This has NEVER been believed in Church history. NO Church Father, no Doctor, no Pope, no Saint has ever said something so crazy. If the Mass correlates to the Faith and the Christian Life (Lex orandi, lex credendi), then it cannot be ever-changing, or that would mean that the Faith is ever-changing, that the Christian Life is ever-developing into something new. This is false. The liturgy organically developed, but it cannot be ever-developing. The Mass has been substantially the same for 1500-1600 years; once Christianity was legalized, the rites were able to develop organically and become more elaborate. This is not an ever-changing event, though. The rites became stricter and fully developed. The Mass became normalized by [i]Quo Primum [/i]as the only acceptable Mass (with the given exceptions), but it had already been following the same developed rubrics for 1000 years before [i]Quo Primum[/i]. By the way, making up a new Mass via a committee with Masons and Protestants does not constitute organic development, sorry. [/quote]
Since when is more and more elaborate better? When is adding on too much?
Was the Last Supper an elaborate formal ritual?

[popestpiusx]

[quote name='homeschoolmom' date='Nov 29 2004, 01:57 PM'] This statement keeps getting tossed out. Could someone please provide some evidence? [/quote]
Sure, if you want to get us kicked off or suspended.

Let me say it this way. Organic development of the liturgy, by its very definition, does not take place at committee meetings made up of so-called litugical experts with little or no pastoral experience in many cases. This is even more fundamental than whether or not there were freemasons and prots on the committee.

Did Paul VI have the right to reform the liturgy? Sure. No one questions whether or not the pastoral guidance of the liturgy falls within the jurisdiction of the Holy Father. The question is what are the limits of that guidance and prudentially, where they exceeded? Ratzinger addresses this question in several articles and chapters of books. I can send those to you if you like.

[CatholicCrusader]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Nov 29 2004, 02:09 PM'] Since when is more and more elaborate better? When is adding on too much?
Was the Last Supper an elaborate formal ritual? [/quote]
What your argument appears to be would fall under antiquarianism condemned by countless Popes, most noteably and most recently by Pope Pius XII in Mediator Dei.

[cmotherofpirl]

It wasn't an argument it was a question

[CatholicCrusader]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Nov 29 2004, 02:25 PM'] It wasn't an argument it was a question [/quote]
Hence "What your argument APPEARS TO BE". If it is merely a question--then with what purpose? I wouldn't put you as one to engage in idol talk.

[theculturewarrior]

Why can't organic development be something radical? The word doesn't exclusively denote a centuries long process. The mass had not developed very much organically or otherwise since Trent. We needed a pruning.

[popestpiusx]

Amarkich,

There is plenty of traditional commentary on the issue of liturgical development as it took place prior to Quo Primum and the results (not all of them positive) of ending organic deveopment at Trent. In fact, Klaus Gamber points to that as one of the seeds of the problem today, insofar as it contributed to the separation of the faithful from the liturgy to such an extent that a radical overthrow of the Traditional Mass was even possible without much of an outcry. (I'm not saying I agree totally, but it's something to think about. There are plenty of other traditional writers who have made the same obsevation, while acknowledging, of course, that in the wake of the Prot. revolution St Pius V had little choice but to act decisively).


You see the opposite in the East, whose liturgy is intimately bound to their culture and spirituality. Can you imagine the same kind of liturgical revolution taking place in the east? It's been tried in a few of the rites and it always results in a major outcry from the faithful (except for some of the eastern churches in the US where the faithful are often less bound to anything traditional and more easily accept change). Even where some of the Eastern bishops have successfully Novus Ordicised their liturgy, they have met with great opposition and have had to do it slowly over the course of many years. In fact, Rome has even intervened a few times requiring them to return to the traditional methods (such as when some Indian bishops tried to get the Syro-Malankar (or syro-malabar) rite to be said versus populum. Rome made them return to the traditional practice of saying the divine liturgy ad orientem.

[qfnol31]

[quote name='cmotherofpirl' date='Nov 29 2004, 12:05 PM'] "By the way, making up a new Mass via a committee with Masons and Protestants does not constitute organic development, sorry. "

Its a lie that never dies, and has no place on the lips of anyone Catholic. [/quote]
You know, I always thougth the first Liturgical changes, the way we celebrate the Easter Triduum, came from Pope Pius XII who wrote those.....

[amarkich]

I believe you are correct. The first inorganic changes were from Pius XII in the revision of 1955 (at least those were the first missal changes; the Holy Week changes may have pre-dated this; this is a topic that our altar boy crew often discusses--what was the best missal, pre-changes, 1955, 1962, something in between, etc). That was not organic, either, but the Novus Ordo after Vatican II actually changed the rite of the Mass itself rather than just the specific feasts and the calendar, so it is specially inorganic. It changed the calendar and the ceremonies for Holy Week, etc, but it also formed a new rite of the Mass, so that is why it is usually spoken of specifically and most widely. The other changes retained the same Mass.

[qfnol31]

What would you say is different between that and Trent though?

[amarkich]

Are you speaking of Trent or [i]Quo Primum[/i]? All [i]Quo Primum [/i]did was state that the Mass was promulgated for the whole Latin Rite and that it would last in perpetuity. This essentially just normalized the Traditional Latin Mass as the only acceptable rite of Mass. As far as Trent is concerned, I do not know the specific changes, if any, that were made by Trent. As far as I know, Trent simply served as a means of making the Mass universal under the same form, not inorganically changing the Mass. Also, at that time, there was more than one rite within the Latin Rite. It did not simply exterminate (for all purposes) the only acceptable Mass and then promulgate a new one (N.B., the Old Mass was never abrogated, but it was essentially discarded upon the promulgation of the new Mass). In other words, Trent made the Mass universal; it did not sit down with a committee and re-write a liturgy as was the case with post-Vatican II conventions. This is the main problem making it inorganic--it was made by a committee, not by developed traditions.

[qfnol31]

A lot of the Novus Ordo parallels directly with the Tridentine Mass.

In both the Priest should face the same direction (according to Ratzinger). They both have the same Concecration prayer (the Novus Ordo takes Concecration prayers from other rites as well, one of which is 1400 years or more old). They both have the Scripture. They both are supposed to be in the same language for the most part. They both should have the same music...

[popestpiusx]

The consecration prayer was changed in the N.O. That is something that had never happened, as far as anyone knows, since the first centuries. What are you referring to that is 1400 years old?

[amarkich]

Qfnol, I agree, the Latin Novus Ordo is very similar (at least to the untrained eye) to the Traditional Latin Mass, but they are inherently different rites. One is a sort of conglomerate of older parts of different Masses (including a Jewish table prayer for the Offertory, which apparently was used in some rites in the 6th century--not much of a reason to abandon the Offertory of the TLM, though), and one is a Mass that has developed organically throughout the history of the Latin Rite. One is an invention of a committee, the other a development. One is an abandonment of the Prayers, which had been around for 1500 years, the other a guardian of them. The one is a departure from the tradition of the Latin Rite, the other the epitome of tradition. As far as aesthetics are concerned, the two appear similar, but they are really not very similar. You should read two short little books: [i]The Problems with the Prayers of the Modern Mass [/i]by Fr. Anthony Cekada (published by TAN) and [i]The Problems with the New M[/i]ass by Rama P. Coomaraswamy, M.D., F.A.C.S (I think this might be from TAN also). The first deals with the problems in the Propers of the Mass, the second with the Ordinary.