Just a little reminder that the New Rite is 40 years out of date today. It seems an anniversary worth commiserating, since we have all had our run-ins with it - I am sorry to say that I grew up with it. When I was a teenager, I read about the Second Vatican Council, and making my mind up about the doctrinal and liturgical shortcomings of the post-Conciliar Church, I ''converted'' to the Old Rite and haven't looked back since. I only wish I had done so rather further back than a mere 4 years ago.
I wonder if the misguided old people (people generally over 60) so attached to the New Rite hate the Old Rite so much because their only experience of it was Low Mass, and that the priests who celebrated Mass were mumbling, clumsy and just garbled the whole thing? A little while ago, I attended a ''lecture'' (let's call it that), where arguments for the aliturgical practices of the New Rite were propounded by several old men, and my only thoughts (other than I have heard these arguments before, and I am even less convinced by them when conveyed in so hackneyed and impertinent a manner) were that I feel sorry that you are so insane and that your faith is clearly rather lukewarm and severely damaged - it just reminded me of the general marring of the human soul by Sin and I felt sick that they were so Protestant. These misguided people are, I presume, sincere in their beliefs - but then I guess so are members of the Flat Earth Society. I, of course, blame Low Mass and the '62 Missal for the New Rite, so I think I shall start praying for the end of both these unfortunate things; less Low Mass and more Sung Office as I have always said - Mass is so commonplace, and the miracle which occurs at Mass, which ought to be the high point of anybody's day, has just become somewhat stale and samey because of it...
I wonder if misguided old people (people generally over 60) so attached to the New Rite hate the Old Rite so much because their only expierience of it was Low Mass
ReplyDeleteI think you are dead wrong on this. Their hatred of the traditional mass comes from the fact that the Old Rite (in either it's low or high form) expresses a faith which they clearly cannot identify with. The fall-out after the council could not have proceeded with such pace, had there not been a liturgical revolution to accompany it. It would have been near impossible for Paul VI to perform his ecumenical gestures with the Anglicans, if he still prayed the with a rite that fortified those who died at the hands of the "Church" of England.
I do agree with you, that the 1962 Missal was just one of the last storms before the deluge. Most serious liturgical scholars will admit that the changes from the early 50s onwards were all geared towards to 1969.
Worth commemorationg with a black armband perhaps.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately is seems to have been the custom of the West to perpetually tinker, as if what we had received from our fathers wasn't good enough. It makes me very sad. The danger is that once you've messed about with something too much it might become impossible to restore to its original state. That's a real danger, and I fear it. Is there really anyone brave enough in the Church right now, or in the near future, and with the appropriate authority, who would just do the right thing and abrogate the NO and the reforms made to the traditional Roman Rite? This is what needs to be done. I'll always have a hope, but, to quote Gandalf, maybe it's "Just a fool's hope".