Eastern Catholic Churches Poised To Novus Ordoize Their Liturgies

[MichaelFilo]

Well, to Chris, I only can sit and wonder why a symbolic christ-centered Mass makes any difference when Christ himself is at every Mass in the Eucharist. Councils have been wrong (amazing I know) in not what they teach, but in the practices they have chosen, the tones they have chosen, etc. Trent was an awesome council, but it set the tone for condemnation of non-Catholics which the second Vatican council has set to undo. I cannot help but feel a council can still get it.. wrong. Not on matters of faith or morals, of course.

Al, worship has taken many different forms over the last 1900+ years. In fact, one of the main problems of the middle ages was the variety of worship within the Latin Rite itself. No two liturgies were alike. I don't see the Novus Ordo as being completly different in character, and if I recall, it was intended to return to the style of the early Church. I imagine God constantly refines the Church and us so that today we are better than 10 years ago, and the same for the Church and her practice of the liturgy. Also, since we are doomed to an imperfect liturgy on Earth, maybe different variations are necessary at different times, all of which emphasize certain aspects of the Mass and when we die, we can see the symbolic unity of those variations in the Heavenly liturgy.

Vatican II was a huge rupture from the historical mindset of Christianity. Maybe it's time to accept that things will have to change. Not morality or faith, but alot of other things.

Ultimately, we cannot so easily and readily condemn the things in the Church we do not like, because we do not like them. The same Church that may call it a liturgical crisis is doing nothing to remedy it. I think the crises lay in the super-abuses. The pope doesn't even celebrate facing away. The reality is, if the Vatican thought something was up, don't you think their masses would represent the true form of what Mass ought to be under the Novus Ordo? It doesn't look too different from what we see in most any parish here.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='11 July 2010 - 01:19 AM' timestamp='1278832793' post='2141133']
Vatican II was a huge rupture from the historical mindset of Christianity. Maybe it's time to accept that things will have to change. Not morality or faith, but alot of other things.
[/quote]
The liturgy is of the faith, so if you change the liturgy you change the faith, and this point is precisely what many Westerners have failed to comprehend, but which my Eastern Orthodox friends understand all too clearly. Sadly, for those who long for the restoration of communion between the Eastern Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church (both Roman and Eastern), the modernization of the liturgies of the Eastern Catholic Churches signifies the end of any hope for the success of the ecumenical endeavor of the past forty years. Moreover, the liturgical turmoil that will ensue following this modernist agenda will spell the end for many of the Eastern Catholic Churches, which can ill afford to suffer the liturgical anarchy that has been experienced by the West since the late 1960s and early 1970s.

Tradition is not about constantly changing things within the Church in order to fit the "needs" of contemporary society, whatever that may mean, but involves instead the faithful passing on (paradosis) of the Apostolic kerygma.

[Aloysius]

liturgies have been different over the years, but the mindset of worship has remained the same until quite recently with the abuse of the novus ordo

if Christianity is to have a radical changing of mindset as you say it has had, then it has lost all credibility and the incarnation was a joke. I have 0 interest in such a Christianity. thankfully what you describe is what is called the "hermeneutic of rupture" and is incorrect; Vatican II should not be considered a rupture from the historical mindset of Christianity and the Novus Ordo should not be filled with innovations that are falsely antiquarian like the use of tables and the versus populum position that archnaeology shows were not actually part of the early Church.

[Aloysius]

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='11 July 2010 - 04:19 AM' timestamp='1278832793' post='2141133']
Ultimately, we cannot so easily and readily condemn the things in the Church we do not like, because we do not like them. The same Church that may call it a liturgical crisis is doing nothing to remedy it. I think the crises lay in the super-abuses. The pope doesn't even celebrate facing away. The reality is, if the Vatican thought something was up, don't you think their masses would represent the true form of what Mass ought to be under the Novus Ordo? It doesn't look too different from what we see in most any parish here.
[/quote]
it's beginning to look a bit different; but the popes have long feared a huge schism from the left and therefore walk on eggshells. also, theres no reason to think everything the Vatican does is correct. Somtimes I feel I'd trust the Patriarch of Constantinople more than the Pope, if only because I feel he's not as beleaguered by wolves in sheeps' clothing and red hats.

[MichaelFilo]

I can agree with you Apo, but the faith which East and West profess does not lead to a natural conclusion over what the liturgy ought to look like. It's hard to argue something like believing Christ was true God and true Man in itself leads to a liturgy like the TLM over the Novus Ordo.

Al, do you mind clarifying what you mean when you talk about a change in mindset exactly? How can a change in mindset make the incarnation a joke?

Vatican II itself was started with the intention of bringing the Church up to date with world as it has been since 1789, the atheistic French Revolution. What in the hell could it be? The Church also modernizes itself from time to time (such as Pope St. Gregory's reign.) Many people always oppose the change, but it really does change the Church. We could also look at the widespread changes after the first Vatican Council as well. Change comes with each council even if it isn't liturgical.


I also take into account the falsely antiquarian statement. Many early Christians only had tables to work with. Secondly, the ad orientem position seems to come from a fine theological point, and that too would have to develop over time. Maybe a short time, but still some time.

[LouisvilleFan]

[quote name='Nihil Obstat' date='10 July 2010 - 12:45 AM' timestamp='1278733502' post='2140411']
I still don't understand, but it makes a little more sense.
[/quote]

As just one example, the Novus Ordo never instructs the celebrant to face the congregation, but it is celebrated this way almost universally. Of course, it apparently isn't specifically instructed against either. Without getting into whether the reasons are good, bad, or pastoral, I doubt that when those who wrote the Novus Ordo pictured it their minds that they saw the celebrant turning his back to the liturgical east.

Of course all this has been hashed out many times and I'm not a "Rad Trad" by any means (I'm more in the "Reform of the Reform" camp). My point is that if one were to experience the Novus Ordo celebrated in full potential of her beauty, reverence, and joy, they wouldn't fear liturgical reform.

[Apotheoun]

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='11 July 2010 - 09:09 AM' timestamp='1278860942' post='2141181']
I can agree with you Apo, but the faith which East and West profess does not lead to a natural conclusion over what the liturgy ought to look like. It's hard to argue something like believing Christ was true God and true Man in itself leads to a liturgy like the TLM over the Novus Ordo.
[/quote]
It is not hard at all to argue that position, because in fact that is the traditional doctrine of the Fathers. The liturgy is the full expression of the faith, and so it is not a construct created by man in any substantive sense, but is itself a gift of God given to the Apostles, a gift which has been lived out in the Church's life.

The problem I have with the Western reform of the liturgy that took place after Vatican II, and the one that is now proposed for the Eastern Catholic Churches, is that it is not an organic flowering of the liturgy, but is instead the replacement of the existing tradition with one that is artificially constructed by so-called scholarly experts.

The faith is a holistic reality in which the truth revealed by Christ interpenetrates all that is believed and done by the Christian in worship of the Holy Trinity and as such it is not a creation of man, but a gift of God to man, who lives it by the power and energy of the Holy Spirit.

Edited July 11, 2010 by Apotheoun

[jeffpugh]

So much good stuff on here.

Just a few to point out:

Trent didn't make a new mass. It just codified the existing one.

Vatican II wasn't an "update". It was just called to help re-affirm the faith to Catholics and the world.

[ThePenciledOne]

At this point, I would blame the culture for inserting itself within the mass, it is not the Novus Ordo's fault. The people that have grown up around religion are not the same people 50 100 or 1000 years ago. I feel that I can at least say at liberty that it is the culture that has and continues to liturgically abuse the Novus Ordo and it is not Vatican II's doing or whatever other reason has been given.

As I mentioned before, I thought from my own perspective that Vatican II was just another Church council that organically happens such as the Council of Trent.

[Nihil Obstat]

[quote name='LouisvilleFan' date='11 July 2010 - 12:43 PM' timestamp='1278870234' post='2141218']
As just one example, the Novus Ordo never instructs the celebrant to face the congregation, but it is celebrated this way almost universally. Of course, it apparently isn't specifically instructed against either. Without getting into whether the reasons are good, bad, or pastoral, I doubt that when those who wrote the Novus Ordo pictured it their minds that they saw the celebrant turning his back to the liturgical east.

Of course all this has been hashed out many times and I'm not a "Rad Trad" by any means (I'm more in the "Reform of the Reform" camp). My point is that if one were to experience the Novus Ordo celebrated in full potential of her beauty, reverence, and joy, they wouldn't fear liturgical reform.
[/quote]
Ah, well now it makes perfect sense.

From that first post I commented on, it sounded almost as if you were saying that the "spirit of Vatican II" didn't go far enough in its changes.

[Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam]

[quote name='MichaelFilo' date='11 July 2010 - 04:19 AM' timestamp='1278832793' post='2141133']
Well, to Chris, I only can sit and wonder why a symbolic christ-centered Mass makes any difference when Christ himself is at every Mass in the Eucharist.
[/quote]

This may just be me but I prefer the symbolism of something to convey what it actually is (you know like how the sacrament is an efficacious sign that is what it represents and all). So if a mass in some way says that the community or something else is the center of the Mass rather than Christ even if the Eucharist is validly consecrated (even though a valid Mass will always at its heart be Christ centered in the Eucharist even if other aspects are distorted like music), I'd prefer the symbolism be changed so that the message of the symbol conveys what the reality is. Such messages conveyed in symbolism would help me better contemplate the divine and better help me prepare myself to receive the Eucharist. But then again maybe it is just me.