Perigrina Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Over at New Liturgical Movement there is a review of The Sacred Liturgy, Source and Summit of the Life and Mission of the Church. The Proceedings of the International Conference on the Sacred Liturgy – Sacra Liturgia 2013. Ed. Alcuin Reid. http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2014/06/book-review-sacred-liturgy-source-and.html#.U6K_0vldVYs The review opens with a description of the book: Have you ever wished you could bring together a dream team of scholars, pastors, monks, liturgists, musicologists, all of them completely orthodox and totally committed to the sacred liturgy, and then have them commit to writing their finest insights, born of careful study, deep reflection, and pastoral experience? When I attended the Sacra Liturgia conference last summer in Rome (June 25–28, 2013), I found to my immense joy and profit that that was exactly what had been done by the conference’s organizers. The results are now in print for all the world to see, in the form of the complete proceedings of the conference, just published by Ignatius Press. The reviewer clearly has a high opinion of the book and strongly recommends it. The review contains some excerpts from the book and they are interesting. What struck me about these is the view of the EF. So often on forums and blogs people speak as if the two forms of Mass were in competition with each other. These conference participants speak of the EF, not as something that must be restored to replace the inferior OF, but as something that enhances the life of the Church. Here is an example of what I mean, from Archbishop Alexander Sample: I would urge bishops to familiarize themselves with the usus antiquior as a means of achieving their own deeper formation in the liturgy and as a reliable reference point in bringing about renewal and reform of the liturgy in the local Church. Speaking from personal experience, my own study and celebration of the older liturgical rites has had a tremendous effect on my own appreciation of our liturgical tradition and has enhanced my own understanding and celebration of the new rites. I would further encourage bishops to be as generous as possible with the faithful who desire and ask for the opportunity to worship in the usus antiquiorin their dioceses. Allowing for its natural flourishing will have its own effect on the liturgical life of the whole diocesan Church. It must never be seen as something out of the mainstream of ecclesial life, that is, as something on the fringes. The bishop’s own public celebration of it can prevent this from happening. (p. 270) He is describing functions of the EF that I have rarely seen in online discussions. It promotes deeper formation in liturgy. It is a reference point for improving the OF. The EF enhances one's understanding of the OF. It is a vision of the two forms as complimentary rather than in opposition. This vision is something we miss out on when EF/OF is primarily a subject for flame wars. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Sigh. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Make the EF the OF and we won't have to worry about enhancing a liturgy that was created by some learned advisors and protestant scholars supposedly just attending. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perigrina Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 Make the EF the OF and we won't have to worry about enhancing a liturgy that was created by some learned advisors and protestant scholars supposedly just attending. This is a good example of the sort of comments that I mentioned in the OP as what I typically see online. This position is upsetting and threatening to people who are attached to the new Mass. It leads to them being understandably hostile towards trads and the traditional Mass. It causes division in the Church. The traditional Mass is a gift to the whole Church, but it won't be that if it is promoted in a harmful way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 They'll get over it Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perigrina Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 They'll get over it I find that unlikely. At any rate, there is no reason to think that anybody with the authority to do so is considering replacing the OF with the EF, so the question is moot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Eventually such a Pope will have to arise, we can't continue living in confusion and widespread apostasy and material heresy. Either we were wrong on the past all those thousands of years or were wrong now. Can't fuse opposites. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perigrina Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 Eventually such a Pope will have to arise, we can't continue living in confusion and widespread apostasy and material heresy. Either we were wrong on the past all those thousands of years or were wrong now. Can't fuse opposites. What the Church is teaching and doing now is not the opposite of what she taught and did in the past. They are in continuity. Why do you make tradition seem like such a horrible thing? Of course people will have a negative reaction to trads and traditional liturgy, if they associate it with the positions that you espouse. The excerpt from the Archbishop represents the best of what traditional liturgy can mean for the Church and your post represents the worst. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Fidei Defensor Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Eventually such a Pope will have to arise, we can't continue living in confusion and widespread apostasy and material heresy. Either we were wrong on the past all those thousands of years or were wrong now. Can't fuse opposites. The EF is only about 400 years old. The Church itself is much older. Was the Church wrong before the EF came into existence? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 The EF is only about 400 years old. The Church itself is much older. Was the Church wrong before the EF came into existence? "Essentially the Missal of Pius V is the Gregorian Sacramentary; that again is formed from the Gelasian book, which depends on the Leonine collection. We find the prayers of our Canon in the treatise de Sacramentis and allusions to it in the 4th century. So our Mass goes back, without essential change, to the age when it first developed out of the oldest liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that liturgy, of the days when Caesar ruled the world and thought he could stamp out the faith of Christ, when our fathers met together before dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as to a God. The final result of our inquiry is that, in spite of unsolved problems, in spite of later changes, there is not in Christendom another rite so venerable as ours." Adrian Fortescue, The Roman Mass At least we used to be able to say such things... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 What the Church is teaching and doing now is not the opposite of what she taught and did in the past. They are in continuity. Why do you make tradition seem like such a horrible thing? Of course people will have a negative reaction to trads and traditional liturgy, if they associate it with the positions that you espouse. The excerpt from the Archbishop represents the best of what traditional liturgy can mean for the Church and your post represents the worst. I appreciate you expressing your opinion and of course I am not trying to make Tradition a horrible thing. We are living in confusing times and I'm trying to make the best sense of things. It may be that I am completely wrong and my position will change as I learn more but so far, with what I know currently, my conscience is leaning me towards a different position than yours. For this reason I follow my conscience and do what I can to preserve our liturgy and defend our holy religion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CountrySteve21 Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 Eventually such a Pope will have to arise, we can't continue living in confusion and widespread apostasy and material heresy. Either we were wrong on the past all those thousands of years or were wrong now. Can't fuse opposites. I've often heard this; what exactly is this "widespread apostasy and material heresy" that we have had since the Second Vatican Council? And if the Mass of Paul VI is wrong, doesn't that just undermine the Church's authority? And how exactly is the OF Mass "wrong" Pax Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mortify ii Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 I've often heard this; what exactly is this "widespread apostasy and material heresy" that we have had since the Second Vatican Council? If you don't see it then you don't see it. And if the Mass of Paul VI is wrong, doesn't that just undermine the Church's authority? And how exactly is the OF Mass "wrong" Pax No one is saying the Mass of Paul VI is wrong, nor is anyone saying it is invalid. As per the text it is a valid mass and can be said very reverently. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nihil Obstat Posted June 19, 2014 Share Posted June 19, 2014 The EF is only about 400 years old. The Church itself is much older. Was the Church wrong before the EF came into existence? It was codified four hundred years ago. It existed in its essential elements for far, far longer, and many elements, especially some Propers, are Patristic in origin. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Perigrina Posted June 19, 2014 Author Share Posted June 19, 2014 I appreciate you expressing your opinion and of course I am not trying to make Tradition a horrible thing. We are living in confusing times and I'm trying to make the best sense of things. It may be that I am completely wrong and my position will change as I learn more but so far, with what I know currently, my conscience is leaning me towards a different position than yours. For this reason I follow my conscience and do what I can to preserve our liturgy and defend our holy religion. The OF is our liturgy and you are not trying to preserve it. Trying to convince people that there is something wrong with the Mass that the Church has adopted is harmful to individuals and the Church as a whole. I dare say you mean well, but it looks to me like what you are actually doing is creating division and confusion. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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