by Fred Moleck
High Mass, Low Mass, Hybrid Mass – Part 2
Last week I received some reactions and interesting questions about “Now what?” with Benedict XVI’s blanket indult on the celebration of the Tridentine rite.One articulate musician from south of the Mason-Dixon line admitted she doesn’t have a clue about introits, high Mass, low Mass, Dies irae—all the stuff I ranted about.
All the terminology completely escaped her with its nomenclature and schema of the rite. She is one of many, I am sure.
I am also sure she would be equally baffled when she witnesses one of the nouveau Tridentine celebrants who exhibits great concern over the length of the maniple (a sort of forearm hanging of fabric matching the chasuble).
She has no apparatus constructed by past experience to plug into. She came into the church with a vision of church that she sees is eroding.
She has every reason to be disturbed. It is not the church she joyfully embraced at her conversion and baptism.
Another woman convert who is one of the brightest and most gifted students I’ve ever had in class has similar misgivings. What does she know from birettas and rochets?
Other observations dealt with which liturgical year in which lectionary the rite will be celebrated.
Will the Good Friday prayer about the conversion of the perfidious Jews—which deeply troubles again our Jewish brothers and sisters—be maintained?
There is also news of “training programs” for priests who want to learn the rubrics, how to wear that dangling maniple, and where the eyes focus when the priest turns from the altar for the Dominus vobiscum.
There is a DVD prepared for commercial release that shows how to do it for those who’ve never done it.
Some commentators worried about the rote learning of Latin for those—which is just about everyone—who rarely speak Latin in conversations, let alone pray with it.
They feared that the celebrant would be rattling off Latin texts without immediate cognition of what he is saying.
All in all, it appears that the document is not as innocuous as many would like to think.
Finally, someone has named the base problem from which this situation has stemmed.
Father Keith Pecklers, liturgy professor at the Gregorian University in Rome, hits the nail right on the head, which he states in the John Allen Jr.’s July 18 article on the reaction to the motu proprio in the National Catholic Reporter.
“Proponents of this rite largely disagreed with the Vatican Council’s view of the church in dialogue with the modern world, adapting the liturgy to diverse cultural situations, engaging in ecumenical dialogue with other Christians and interreligiously with Jews and Muslims.”
I see it as the Tridentine rite becoming their banner now waving over the whole church.
I think most of our fears are that the rite will not remain as an alternate rite or celebrated only on special occasions.
I can see a pastor incorporating the rite at all the Masses, at all times, and celebrating all the sacraments with the rite in his parish’s worship schedule.
It’s not a far-fetched idea. Look what happened shortly after Vatican II reforms set in. Churches closed down the organ, dismissed the choirs, and all leadership was done by guitarists and the amplified singers.
A new tyranny replaced the old tyranny.
The solution? Father Pecklers offers one in the last sentence in John Allen’s NCR article:
“Father Pecklers said he shares the pope’s desire to ‘recover the dimension of the transcendent, the symbolic, within Catholic worship,’ but said that in his view the best way to go about it is to continue efforts to improve liturgies using the post–Vatican II rites.’”
Do we see two ecclesiologies moving, perhaps, towards a hybrid Church?
You can reach Fred Moleck via email at fmoleck@earthlink.net