Were I asked to pick a favourite period in the history of the Church, I would say the 11th-13th centuries. The spring time of the Middle Ages didn't have Low Mass. Were I asked to pick a least favourite period, I would say the entire Counter-Reformation period, beyond that even - 1500-2010. In the Middle Ages, piety, devotion and Liturgy were more ''creative'' (a cant word confessedly! I am not a Modernist, and I do not approve of DIY liturgy, where you make things up as you go along, with many a Postcommunion dance in evidence and shaking hands etc - I mean ''natural;'' creative in the sense of arising from our subcreative abilities derived from the Creator, perfectly harmonious with the Kalendar and the dictates of ''decency'') or ''fluent'' (Liturgy growing naturally in an air of undiluted prayer and genuine Catholicism) than in the Counter-Reformation period, where centralization and a generally stern countenance seemed to be the norm for the Church. Piety and Liturgy became ''crystallized,'' as it were, where paranoia about a Protestant influence on the faithful through devotion and Liturgy increased to such an extent that real ''organic'' development (letting the tree of the Liturgy grow naturally...) was shunned, or at least looked upon with suspicion. The growth of the Liturgy became stunted, and so later approaches to ''liturgical reform'' were hopelessly misguided, coming from intelligible motives (some of the time), but just getting everything wrong; and if we skip a few centuries, the logical result of all this is the Novus Ordo.
I think that the Fathers of the Council of Trent erred in their approach to Liturgy. Instead of reforming the Liturgy in the way that they did (codifying a new set of rubrics for Low Mass and doing away with a plethora of beautiful Sequences (even if some were, as Fortescue says, about wine and beer!) and many things beside), the Fathers should have sat down and said: ''we don't need to do much here - except about this awful thing called Low Mass; it's a very Protestant and minimalist approach to Liturgy, which ought to be as solemn as our means can afford as mortal Men. It is to be declared a liturgical abuse and entirely obsolete. Liturgical devotion is to be fostered among priests in the newly built seminaries, where seminarians are to be taught the ceremonies of Mass that they might competently minister at the Altar. They are to be well-versed in plainsong and the Latin tongue, since these are the liturgical traditions of the Western Church. Where possible, the Office is to be sung in all parish churches. All parishes are to have a Deacon, and the Subdiaconate need not be treated as a Major Order - it has not been treated consistently so in the West anyway, and so a devout Server can provide this role where necessary;'' etc, etc. If they had decided to do things as things were always done, then later liturgical reform would not have been so botched. It is, however, noteworthy that the Pope put himself in charge of the liturgy at Trent, and we all know about Popes and Liturgy...
Since the natural growth of the Liturgy was crystallized by the Council of Trent, later approaches to ''improve'' it were rather ham-fisted - instead of pruning and cutting out cankers, cutting off branches, or even trying to dig the whole thing up became the norm. It is almost as if the Western Church lost a great and inherent ''liturgical sense'' - a grievous loss. We had Liturgy, but didn't know how to do Liturgy. If we go forward, past all the unfortunate changes under Pius XII, to Vatican II, and we see the same thing going on. The Fathers, and worse, the peritii (under the aegis of that sniveling little Orc Bugnini) rightly saw that by 1962 the Liturgy was in desperate need of ''reform,'' but they had little idea about how to do it, and so they ended up merely perpetuating the errors of their predecessors. Change for the sake of change is never a good thing, no matter how much you might dress it up as for making the Liturgy accessible; but then were the Fathers of Vatican II that interested in Liturgy anyway? Because the growth of the Liturgy, which is the most important thing in the treasure trove of the Church which comes from God, had been stunted so many centuries ago (largely a Protestant influence I think, but we can blame the logic behind Low Mass for that ultimately), the fruits of liturgical reform belong to the flora of Mordor, and we need not go into them. Suffice to say, the Church feels the affects now...
To conclude on a rather eccentric note, I think that a more ''Entish'' approach to the liturgical movement is called for; to see Liturgy in Entish terms (insofar as we are able - we do not live as long as Ents though), moving at a glacial pace. I am sure that the Ents would look down their noses at Low Mass. But alas, I don't think this is going to happen. The damage has been done, and as Treebeard, the most liturgical character in The Lord of the Rings, said: ''much that once was is lost, for none now live who remember it.''
The image is a silhouette of Whitby Abbey, a vision of that which has been left far behind by the flowing streams of Time (and liturgical reform) as it were.
Low mass "very protestant": for shame, sir. It is nothing of the sort. (I would recommend combining one Sunday attending a low mass, say put on by FSSP priests, or similar, and then popping into, say, a Church of Scotland service)
ReplyDeleteTo be sure the low mass can be conducted with varying degrees of reverence - but the silence, the respect for mystery, the reverence for the eucharist (understated, for sure, compared with high masses, but perhaps all the more powerful for that)....I think that is a million miles away from things protestantist, which often emphasise reason, elevating humanity over God; and, partly because of that, needing words to fill in every gap, being afraid of silence, let alone the sense that a congregation may be joined in largely silent worship.
But the general approach you outline about the effects of the Counter-Reformation - and I do think it kind of cast the liturgy in Amber, as well as, regretabbly, supressing local uses or rites - is most interesting.
But what of the intense beauty (not so "cast in amber", perhaps, as the classic tridentine) of the Orthodox Divine Liturgy?
Dominic,
ReplyDeleteLow Mass arose from a silly idea: if one Mass has a particular value before God, then two Masses must have double that. It is a fundamentally minimalist approach to Liturgy, and God, and in my opinion falls short of liturgy. It's not about reverence, and I doubt not that liturgical abuses exist as much in High Mass as in Low Mass (or at least used to - the presence of an Old Rite High Mass these days usually indicates that the people who minister and serve at the Altar are traditional and love the Liturgy, so this in fact lessens the chance of intentional abuse). It's about the Rite itself - because Low Mass exists, we have the New Rite, and if traditional Catholics were all to suddenly die off, what next?
But the general approach you outline about the effects of the Counter-Reformation - and I do think it kind of cast the liturgy in Amber, as well as, regretabbly, supressing local uses or rites - is most interesting.
ReplyDeleteSt. Pius V allowed various local rites and usages over 200 years old to continue. The Missal of St. Pius V was the work of many holy men including St. Charles Borromeo. They had a particularly difficult task to do, with the attack of the Protestant reformation and I daresay that anyone else could have done a better job than they. Since then, many saints used this very liturgy for their own sanctification and for others. I fear this is a point that Patricius misses completely, hence his obsession with blaming low mass for everything wrong.
Thank you, Patricius, for this most provocative and interesting Post. Magnificent pic of Whitby Abbey. Perhaps a forthcoming Post to come on St. Hilda ? Together with another one on Hildegard von Bingen ? I sense you would have readily accepted the habit during their tenures ?
ReplyDeleteI tempted to observe that you can have living tradition or bureaucratic centralism, but not both. But I won't. ;o)
ReplyDeleteO gone on Moretben, please do!
ReplyDeleteWith the benefit of hindsight the decision of the Fathers of Trent to hand over to the papacy the task of revising and publishing liturgical books was a mistake and necessarily ended organic development of the liturgy in the Roman rite. The creation of a specialist congregation of experts to minutely control aspect of the rite in 1588 was the final death blow. (As Adrian Fortescue so often observed the SRC were generally rather ignorant, with some notable exceptions, and not to be taken too seriously.)
Since then it has been liturgy by decree ever since. The Roman rite was indeed comparatively stable in the period 1634 to 1911 but after that change, change and more change with (almost) everyone lapping up the latest instruction from Rome (a bit like blogs such as Rorate Coeli today).
Pius V's reform of the Calendar was radical and basically consisted of removing canonisations from the previous two centuries. I regret the excision of the Presentation of the Mother of God in the Temple but little else. Some things found in the 1474 Missal and succesive editions like holding a certain number of candles to get a thousand years indulgence were scrapped (quite rightly IMHO) along with, from Pius' perspective as a Dominican, novelties like the Immaculate Conception.
However, the Mass rite is essentially the same in 1474 and 1570, there are only a few differences like introducing genuflections etc. The problem with the Tridentine Missal (apart from no one using it) is that it does not represent the best traditions of Rome. The 1570 Missal is a derivative of missals used for the papal court three centuries earlier and not a development of the parish churches of Rome. The liturgy of the parish churches of Rome represents the 'Old Roman Rite' and it that liturgy, generally more ornate, that spread and developed into various local rites eg. Sarum, Lyon and the rites of most of the Religious. The Franciscans were heavily involved in reforming the liturgy of the papal court into a streamline version. The best starting point for this is the classic 'The Origins of the Modern Roman Liturgy' by Van Dijk and Hazleden-Walker ( a lady liturgist, Hooray!). One sees uses like Sarum described as variants of the Tridentine rite which they are not. They are variants on the Old Roman Rite, the Tridentine rite and its successive editions are younger cousins.
I may be going soft but I would not describe Annibale as an Orc. I feel sorry for him, he was, according to two people who met him whose views I respect, a very good priest but rather 'pushy'. I lay the blame firmly on old Pius XII who appointed him.
This year, with the approach of Holy Week which will fall at the same time this year in both the Gregorian and Julian Calendars, it becomes more poignant how devastating the changes in the 1950's were. This Mandy (how it used to be spelt in English) Thursday those few people bothering with the traditional Roman rite with have Mass and Vespers in the morning just as Moretben will be having Vesperal Liturgy of St. Basil in the morning. On Good Friday some of us will be having Mass of the Pre-Sanctified and Vespers in the morning whilst Moretben will be having Vespers of the Un-nailing in the morning. On Holy Saturday some of us will be having Lucernarium, liturgy and Vespers whilst Moretben will be having Vesperal liturgy of St. Basil. On the evening of Holy Saturday a few of us will be celebrating the profoundly beautiful, and virtually extinct, Mattins and Lauds of Easter whilst Moretben will be celebrating the magnificent Byzantine version. There is an irony that people attending say the Brompton Oratory will come out of church carrying their candles and meet those coming from the Russian Cathedral around the corner also carrying candles having been to thinking they have been celebrating the same service when they have not.
(Cont'd)
(Continuation - sorry!)
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile the vast majority of Traddieland will be following the artificial, inorganic, committee work, 1950s travesty and happily celebrating novelty as tradition.
In terms of progress the ideal situation has to be less centralization and more variation at Diocesan level with local praxis. However, as there is a veritable campaign for 'direct rule' by Rome to overule the bishops I can only see the situation getting worse over the next twenty years...
An excellent comment Rubricarius! You have got it ''bang to rights'' as my mother would say. Moretben, you too havea point.
ReplyDeleteRe: the Immaculate Conception: I never liked St Pius V, but I suppose to his credit, although he suppressed the teaching of the Immaculate Conception (as you'd expect from a Dominican), he also suppressed teaching against it as ''offensive to devout ears.'' (He may have had St Augustine's maxim in mind at the time: Quae sunt contra fidem non approbat Ecclesia). It seems rather strange though for a Pope to go against what previous Popes and Synods said. The Council of Florence declared that the doctrine of Our Lady's Immaculate Conception was binding on all Christians, and later on Pope Sixtus IV, in his bull Cum Praeexcelsam, granted the same number of Indulgences to people assisting at Mass on this Feast as to those assisting at Mass on feasts of Our Lord. Trent, again to its credit, reaffirmed the decisions of Sixtus IV. I fail to see why it didn't define the doctrine then and there though.
As regards Bugnini, I think he was an Orc. All credit to John XXIII for getting rid of him! I feel more sorry for the old pious Pope though. In a book I read by Brother Roger, who met him several times (both before and after he was Pope), he said that he met him last on his deathbed in 1963, and that tears were in his eyes, for, said the old Pope, some of his intentions had been ''deliberately misinterpreted.'' He died in the ardent desire that the Council be stopped - I think because he finally realised that he had started something he could not control.
As regards the present state of Liturgy, it could be a lot worse. I said before that I thought it tremendously ironic that we rely solely on the authority of the Pope to sanction use of the Old Rite, when really that authority should never have existed in terms of Liturgy in the first place. Just leave it to pious local lay people to pick up the pieces and try best to reconstruct what Popes have well-nigh destroyed...I only hope that Pope Benedict's successors have as much liturgical sense as he, or if not, just quietly leave Liturgy alone.
I may be going soft but I would not describe Annibale as an Orc. I feel sorry for him, he was, according to two people who met him whose views I respect, a very good priest but rather 'pushy'.
ReplyDeleteThe same Bugnini who gloats with delight over the reformed Holy Week and the other changes of the 1960s in his memoirs?
Hestor,
ReplyDeleteThe same. I don't think we can solely blame the worker for the poor leadership and rot at the top. In any organisation, ultimately, the proverbial buck has to stop somewhere, in the RCC that is with the pope. Pius XII could have easily stopped the liturgical reform in its tracks but instead actively supported it.
As AB notes in his book, to which you refer, concerning the Commission to which Pius had appointed him Secretary in his book "In the twelve years of its existence (June 28(sic)[May 28], 1948, to July 8, 1960, the commission held eighty-two meetings and worked in absolute secrecy. So secret, in fact, was their work that the publication of the Ordo Sabbati Sancti instaurati at the beginning of March 1951 caught even the officials of the Sacred Congregation for Rites by surprise. The commission enjoyed the full confidence of the Pope, who was kept abreast of its work by Monsignor Montini and even more, on a weekly basis, by Fr. Bea, confessor of Pius XII. Thanks to them, the commission was able to achieve important results even during periods when the Pope's illness kept everyone else from approaching him." p.9
I see AB as rather like one might regard keeping a, potentially dangerous, snake. If the snake bites someone the person legally responsible would be the owner who would have to demonstrate they had taken all reasonable precautions to prevent the snake biting anyone.
I agree with Patricius that Low Mass is a "liturgical abuse". That's exactly what it is - not, of course, a liberal/modernist abuse of the type mostly familiar to us today. That's not the only spirit in which liturgy can be abused. Low Mass is a legal/scholastic abuse and - Patricius is quite right - a fruit of the very mentality (the relentless search for essences and "minimal conditions") that incubated classic Protestantism.
ReplyDelete