The new papal permission given to the use of the Tridentine Rite of the Latin Mass can only bring happiness to the more artistic among Christians and those lovers of Christian language and ritual. While news outlets (even the New York Times, which should know better, though it rarely does) are heralding the return of the "Latin Mass," their usage is imprecise. The post-Vatican II Eucharistic Liturgy's first language is Latin; what people hear in their own countries is a translation into the vernacular. Pope Benedict XVI has sanctioned the use of the rite that was replaced by the liturgical reform.
There were reasons for this replacement, not the least being the shockingly negative view of the Jewish people promulgated in the old rite, especially in the Good Friday prayers; one hopes (and prays) that they will not be allowed back. Another reason, as Pope John XXIII (the last pre-media-savvy pope?) said, was to bring a breath of fresh air back into the Church.
MFoD is as fond of fresh air as anyone else, but, having learned the liturgy as an altar server in the original Latin, has missed it ever since. Although now not a Catholic, MFoD treasures a Catholic Latin Missal, with all of the Tridentine flourishes intact. Just reading it brings one back to the days when Catholicism had a liturgical language, a set of beautifully-composed words and prayers that, in the words of Joseph Campbell, "pitched (one) out of the everyday connections of one's domesticity," and sent one into the realms of mystical communication with the Divine. Just opening the Missal sends MFoD to those halcyon days when Church was a beloved mystery.
There are those, however, whose welcoming back of the Tridentine Rite is fraught with heretical overtones. Those people, as one priest of their ilk recently said, "were the crazy old aunties in the attic," but he feels that they are no more. Sorry, Padre, but you are as much a nutty auntie as before; the "traditionalist" rejection of any Liturgical Prayer not said in Latin is still a scandal among the Catholics. As if Jesus spoke in Latin himself!
No, the possibility of Gregorian Chants returning (they don't "travel" well to other languages), the glorious prayers being intoned with medieval splendor, and the priest facing in the same direction as the people ("pitching out" once again) do not represent the only way, but they do represent a beautiful alternative.
There were reasons for this replacement, not the least being the shockingly negative view of the Jewish people promulgated in the old rite, especially in the Good Friday prayers; one hopes (and prays) that they will not be allowed back. Another reason, as Pope John XXIII (the last pre-media-savvy pope?) said, was to bring a breath of fresh air back into the Church.
MFoD is as fond of fresh air as anyone else, but, having learned the liturgy as an altar server in the original Latin, has missed it ever since. Although now not a Catholic, MFoD treasures a Catholic Latin Missal, with all of the Tridentine flourishes intact. Just reading it brings one back to the days when Catholicism had a liturgical language, a set of beautifully-composed words and prayers that, in the words of Joseph Campbell, "pitched (one) out of the everyday connections of one's domesticity," and sent one into the realms of mystical communication with the Divine. Just opening the Missal sends MFoD to those halcyon days when Church was a beloved mystery.
There are those, however, whose welcoming back of the Tridentine Rite is fraught with heretical overtones. Those people, as one priest of their ilk recently said, "were the crazy old aunties in the attic," but he feels that they are no more. Sorry, Padre, but you are as much a nutty auntie as before; the "traditionalist" rejection of any Liturgical Prayer not said in Latin is still a scandal among the Catholics. As if Jesus spoke in Latin himself!
No, the possibility of Gregorian Chants returning (they don't "travel" well to other languages), the glorious prayers being intoned with medieval splendor, and the priest facing in the same direction as the people ("pitching out" once again) do not represent the only way, but they do represent a beautiful alternative.
1 comment:
Your *best* posting yet, MFoD. Yet, I look forward to "hearing" a Tridentine Rite Mass and not having the crazies focused more on its exclusivity than on its original aim: universality and Counter-Ref punch.
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