I found this little book in our stash. Neither of us can figure out its provenance, but here it is.
Published in 1960, written by the well-known figure in the U.S. Liturgical Movement, Fr. Hans Reinhold, the book is a slim (very slim) summary of where the liturgical movement stood at that point.
(I’m thinking I don’t have to do Liturgical Movement 101 for this crowd – not that I actually could, if pressed, but you probably know that modern, intentional liturgical “reform” didn’t begin with the end of the Second 
Vatican Council. For almost two hundred years, scholars and others had been thinking through liturgical issues, beginning with music in the early 19th century, with work done on Gregorian Chant. Fueled by the 19th century interest in history, in ancient origins of religious beliefs and practices, early documents such as sacramentaries and so on were the subject of new research. In the early 20th century, the Popes took an interest in liturgical spirituality, particularly Pius X and then, moving on, Pius XII, whose Mediator Dei functioned as a foundation of the thinking and work that accelerated after World War II.)
The goal was, in essence, bringing out the reality at the heart of the Mass so that the laity might spiritually benefit and that their relationship with Christ through the Eucharist might be nourished more directly and powerfully.
I think that probably is a decent, if basic summary of the basic intentions of the liturgical movment. Many other ideas and purposes flow from that. But I do think that the great concern (very evident if you read Mediator Dei) was that the laity come to understand and experience Christ in the Eucharist as the center of their spirituality. The thinking was that the shape of the Mass and the way it was celebrated and experienced in the 20th century obscured this. To understand this a little better, know the other dimension of the “liturgical movement” in the 20th century, other than what scholars and monasteries and some dioceses were doing in terms of reforming the Mass (using the vernacular and so on) was the move to bring laity to the Eucharist more knowledgeably and consciously.
So, for example, there were movements during the 20th century, before Vatican II, to increase the number of people receiving Communion – not by simply telling them to get up there and go, but by encouraging more frequent Confession. There was a great emphasis on helping the laity understand what was going on in Mass and connect with it directly. Missals – now allowed to offer vernacular translations of texts – were very detailed. May books and booklets with this aim were published. Catechetical materials for children and young people devoted a great deal of space to this purpose. I have a couple of examples around here that I will try to scan sometime today, perhaps. Everyone from Ronald Knox to Romano Gauardini to Fulton Sheen was on the case. Oh, and Pius XII, too, in case you’ve forgotten.
So you’ve got two factors working here – connect the laity more consciously to Christ in the Eucharist – and take a look at the structure of the Mass from various perspectives.
Notice the absence of Freemasons.
I’m not saying that there weren’t people involved in the Liturgical Movement who had less than lofty motivations, skewed theologies, or who were working from very flawed assumptions (and incomplete historical knowledge), but I think before you can discuss the liturgical movement, you really have to try to see it, as best we can, through their eyes.
There was, indeed, a great deal missing from the equations they were constructing, which became abundantly clear later. From the perspective of the present, we can look at some of what was proposed (and done) and say, “What were they thinking? ” But I’m saying that from my perspective of a half-century or more down the road, and it’s never fair to expect historical actors to have 20/20 hindsight.
Which actually, and finally, brings me to the book. It’s a really interesting little book, and easily available – AbeBooks turns up copies for under $5.00. In it, Reinhold gives a little background, then goes through the Mass and summarizes the major changes that were envisioned by the majority of scholars by 1960. His primary points of reference, aside from the scholarship of the time, were various 20th century papal encyclicals as well as the 1958 reforms of the Holy Week liturgies. He does not take much time to discuss language because he assumes, I think, that replacing Latin with the vernacular most of the time was definitely on the way.
…as were the rest of the reforms. A blurb on the back from Jungmann says, “The book, concise and to the point, may be helpful in the task of preparing the Christian people for the reforms to come.”
What would this Mass look like? Essentially what we have now with a few particular exceptions and some general assumptions that definitely did not carry over, and did not even seem to last a decade. Since I’m not that familiar with the pre-Vatican II Mass, it’s easier for me to discuss it by comparing it to what we have now, rather than what came before. (For example, he devotes several pages arguing against the double elevation, but I am not familiar with that, so I can’t discuss it.)
Entrance Rite: (Which is what he calls it - most the “parts” of the Mass, in his schema, have the names by which we call them today). Essentially the same except for Asperges and no Confiteor. The celebrant wears a cope, the other ministers, albs.
“Service of the Word” – Old Testament, Gradual, Epistle, Alleluia, Gospel, homily, “bidding prayers” Confiteor follows Bidding Prayers. By the way, the form of the Bidding Prayers offered by Reinhold is very Eastern in feel, which is interesting.
Offertory Rite: Credo. While Credo is being sung, altar prepared, ministers vest. Very stripped down offertory (this was one of the main objects of reform – the offertory, which was felt to be overextended). Silent prayers by celebrant, Offertory antiphon (or “other suitable song”)
Canon: Reformed Canon, audible, chanted, but only one. No other Eucharistic Prayers envisioned (at least here). Congregation stand except during Consecration.
Communion Rite: Lord’s Prayer, Kiss of Peace – using Pax tablets. Agnus Dei. Pretty extensive prepatory prayers from celebrant. Distribution of Communion (altar rail is mentioned). Various prayers. Dismissal.
Several points about this and the broader vision were quite interesting to me:
1) The various classifications of Masses remain – Solemn, Chanted, Low (of which there are two types – Recited, with vocal congregational participation, and Recited with no congregational participation.). Reinhold struggles with what to call Private Masses – he clearly sees the end of them in sight, but determines that as as long as they remain they might be called “devotional Masses.”
2) Reinhold, at least, does not state any sense of elimination of subclerical states with their specific roles in the Mass. He also holds up the continued role of the choir. In fact, he sees the quality of music during Mass as very important and sees congregational participation in music a good, but risky thing. For example, in speaking of the Gradual, Alleluia, Tract and Sequences, he writes:
They are elaborate compositions, both in their chant settings and in polyphony, and cannot, therefore, be sung congregationally. I think this is all to the good: a reflective mood should now settle over the congreationa as being now an audience, definitely receptive during the Service of the Word. Here they should be given a “break” in constant response and activity (quite apart from the fact that some phase of the service should be allotted to good music as such.)
Where a good schola is not available and the danger of mediocre or poor music exists, there is still the possibility of using a soloist, or psalmodic singing or recitation by a chorus, or of a choral hymn, which of course should conform to the minimal requirements for such hymns as expressed in the Instruction: It should be good musically; in content it should express teh thoughts and moods of the displaced texts; and it should be in the spirit of the season if not of the very texts which are read on this occasion. (54)
I am not familiar with what was going on in the world of sacred music at the time, but from reading this, as well as other texts from the period, it seems to me that aside from the allowance of “other suitable songs,” these chants and other traditional musical elements of the Mass were envisioned to remain in a form largely in continuity with the past, perhaps in translation – but even that is not assumed.
3) Reinhold speaks strongly against “unauthorized experimentation” with the liturgy and seems to assume, based on the experience with the Holy Week Rites and what was happening in the Curia, that liturgical reform, when it came, was going to come from Rome (which it did, of course, but with many, many actors and forces involved). Of course this would be the assumption – no Council was on the horizon. I sometimes wonder how things might have gone differently if reform of the Mass had occurred without the Council happening. Do you know what I mean? Maybe not.
4) Reinhold’s summary of the purposes of a reform are not news to anyone familiar with the movement, but bear repeating in his own words: “The clearer the essential outline of the Mass becomes, the better.” “Since parish liturgy is for the parishioners, it should be made as lucid and simple as possilbe without oversimplifying its nature as a mystery…or losing its dignity, and its beauty”…”Empty and now meaningless rites, excessive allegorism, wordiness and foreign elements should be eliminated.”…”The structural lines and the main points of emphasis should be unmistakable…” “A maximum of participation should be made possible with a proper division of functions: the laity are no longer silent spectators, nor do they take over the role of any of the sacred ministers”….”…freeing the core of sacramental worship from all unncessary pomp…” “
5) But…note this prophetic passage:
There is serious danger of overshooting the aim, once one embarks on the exhilerating task of putting things in order. Room must be left for “solemnity,” to avoid triteness, a romantically conceived “evangelical simplicity,” formless individualism, or the victimizing of the congregation by a tasteless and uninspired mystagogue. All that is noble and dignified, all that rises above ephemeral inspiration, must be preserved. The Roman liturgy is magnanimous, solemn, sober and warm: it should never lose these qualities, even when carried out in the smallest chapel. (37)
Sigh.
The book ultimately left me with a feeling of “What were they thinking?” Easy for me to say, again, with the convenience of hindsight.
I mean…think of it this way. How could anyone think that taking an ancient form of the Mass and totally reforming it in a matter of less than a decade would not turn out to be problematic? Reinhold refers to it as a “thorough reconstruction.” How could they not see that taking what Catholics had been taught was the “Mass of the Ages” and that in some way represented truths about their faith, not just in the content, but in the fact of its antiquity and universality and what those qualities expressed about the antiquity, solidity and universality of the faith itself…and then saying, “Oh, here’s a new one..” – how could they not see that as disruptive and a recipe for confusion?
It wasn’t, I know, a totally academic exercise. There had been experiments with reform and revision in various places, and perhaps the popularity of, for example, the Dialogue Mass, made people think that this would work just as they had envisioned.
I don’t know.
As I said – there are many points of this program I understand, intellectually. I can understand the intellectual direction of this, even as I disagree with some points of it. And there was, indeed, as I attempted to point out at the beginning of this post, a sense of liturgical reform in the air, even among the laity. But what I just can’t grasp is the blindness in two areas: pastoral blindness as to how a wholesale, complete and relatively fast-paced reform would impact people’s sense of the Church, how it might even cause them pain, and a kind of spiritual blindness that can’t see that there is a lot more to spiritual life and health that rational schemas, and that sometimes “lucidity” works to obscure, rather than reveal.
Update: Please check out Zadok’s post on this, in which he makes an excellent point:
Personally, I think the Church needs to engage with a number of issues. The question of a liturgical spirituality amongst the priests and the faithful needs to be tacked – the best way of avoiding the excesses (coming from both ends of the left/right spectrum) of archeologist, activism, hyper-traditionalism (Angry-Trad Syndrome), rubricism, anti-rubrisicm, etc… etc… is the nurturing of an authentic liturgical spirituality. Such a spirituality respects the liturgy and is formed by the liturgy, but is not blind to the social aspect of worship and the reciprocal relationship between the liturgy and the broader life of the Church.
Secondly, we have Marini’s account of how Bugnini et al ‘won’ the post-conciliar battle concerning the liturgical reform. We also have a number of strong critiques of the resultant liturgy. The missing part of the equation is an analysis of how the ‘traditionalists’ (for want of a better word) lost the battle against Bugnini. Objectively speaking, because they lost, we know that there was some political or intellectual or spiritual flaw in the case which they advanced or in the manner in which they pressed their case. An appreciation of the weaknesses and tactical failures which helped determine the course of events is essential if a New Liturgical Movement is to be built on a solid foundation.
P.S. – I found another one. It’s called The Mass of the Future, published in 1948, and it’s fascinating. A little longer, but I’ll blog on it this weekend. If anyone has read it, let me know.
Update: If anyone wants to take a quick look at the “deepen lay liturgical spirituality” end of the liturgical movement, the anthology Habits of Devotion is an excellent place to start.
Much to chew on, Amy. I am not very familiar with the Liturgical Movement (apart from very broad outlines). The little stuff I’ve read is from the post-reform “What were they thinking?” perspective (Aidan Nichols “Looking at the Liturgy” comes to mind, and that’s no hysterical book either).
One thing struck me as I was reading this: there seems to have been (and correct me if I’m wrong) absolutely no awareness of the anthropological or sociological dimensions of ritual and symbol: how ritual tends to function in these “background” ways.
The eminent British anthropologist (also a devout if at times unorthodox Catholic) Mary Douglas bemoaned this. This (long) article from Commonweal back in 2001 is worth reading.
Quote: “We read Douglas’s Natural Symbols (1970), which expressed deep skepticism about Vatican II’s reforms and took “reforming bishops and radical theologians” to task for “their doctrinal latitude, their critical dissolving of categories and attack on intellectual and administrative distinctions.” Douglas argued that too many of the council’s reforms were carried out with little appreciation for what makes rituals and symbols meaningful, and with even less understanding of how attitudes toward religious conformity depend on a person’s social location. It was Douglas’s contention, for instance, that the abolition of Friday abstinence from meat did away with a vital symbol of Catholic identity and solidarity. To those who argued that abstinence was more spiritually authentic if it was a personal decision, not a group discipline, Douglas pointed out that dispensing with such shared symbols would not make self-denying acts more likely or more intelligible, but quite the opposite.”
I think Eamon Duffy made similar points in “Faith of our Fathers.”
Perhaps we are now a little more aware of these things. Again, this is all 20/20 hindsight.
Thanks for this, Amy (if nothing more than for the very “vintage” book cover : )
It’s always interesting to see the mindset of people leading up to momentous events (i.e. the liturgical reforms after Vatican II) in order to form a cause and effect of how we arrived at this point in history.
I was born after Vatican II but prefer the Tridentine liturgy and see the Novus Ordo as too open for abuse and misinterpretation at the whims of the specific priest or parish in question. This book (although I have only read your article on it) seems to provide some insight here as to what was leading up to the changes in the American church. Oddly, it does harken back to the “cultural Catholicism” debate in which some of us were engaged on the other thread.
Because we are modern academics and clergy, and know God’s business better than anyone else ever.
I like this post for a number of reasons.
First, I think it helps move us beyond a simplistic narrative where the Second Vatican Council’s intent with respect to liturgical reform was betrayed during the subsequent period of implementation. The more I study the history of this era, the more I see a broad continuity in perspective between the period prior to the Council, the development of the Constitution of the Sacred Liturgy itself, and the post-conciliar implementation. To the extent that there are problems in contemporary liturgy (and when have we ever been without them?), they are not merely problems with implementation but have their roots in the concepts embedded in the Constitution itself, which in turn reflect the debates of the pre-conciliar period.
By and large, the bishops gathered at the Council were excited by the vision that Reinhold and others like him were laying out. They were excited because they believed in the underlying premise that facilitating the participation of the faithful in the liturgy would draw them closer to Christ and set them aflame with the fire of the Gospel. The renewal of the liturgy was connected to other movements of renewal that were occurring at the time, including the flowering of lay spirituality and the renewal of biblical studies.
I also don’t think you can underestimate the impact of the historical studies of the liturgy that were beginning to emerge at this time. The work of Jungmann and others undermined the idea that there had been a single universal form of the liturgy that had existed virtually unchanged for almost two millennia. Again, all of this generated a tremendous sense of excitement. The reformers believed they could recover important things that had been lost (e.g. the Easter Vigil rites) and eliminate accretions of relatively recent origin.
It’s true that there was some degree of hubris here, a self-confidence that is almost disturbing. But I think it’s important, as Amy suggests, to get inside their heads and to see it with their eyes. These folks really believed that a renewed liturgy was the key to evangelizing the modern world.
To the extent that something was missing, I think it was—ironically enough—an anthropological dimension. Aidan Kavanagh—a strong supporter of the liturgical reforms of Vatican II—has commented that ritual systems do not generally lend themselves to this kind of disciplined, rational control. They generally grow and change organically. They preserve language and actions that seem, at first glance, to be archaic. Their symbols are polyvalent and rarely submit to a single, didactic explanation.
Kavanagh, however, defended the reformed rites and felt that they were an “incomparably more rich, vital and traditional liturgical settlement in the truly Catholic sense than that of Trent, given its times, ever could have been…even a Mozart concerto can be badly played.” Kavanaugh was exceptionally clear eyed, however, about the problems with how that liturgy is often celebrated.
How could anyone think that taking an ancient form of the Mass and totally reforming it in a matter of less than a decade would not turn out to be problematic?
Indeed that’s the $64,000 question, not to put a dollar figure on it of course.
Perhaps it’s a product of the optimism of the era. To further mix the sacred and profane, it sort of reminds me of the e-commerce bust in the stock market back around 2000. Even though the market always – always – corrects “irrational exuberance”, investors have to re-learn it every time, even investors who recognize a bubble when they see it.
A market top is always preceeded by the phrase “this time is different” – meaning this time market fundamentals are different and the market can keep going up.
Maybe there was that with the liturgy. Maybe they thought that they could monkey with the liturgy because “this time is different”.
I was reading a book of Catholic education written during the mid-40s and “modern” and “progressive” were extremely positive terms. The prose felt very “the future’s so bright I gotta wear shades”-like. And long before Vatican II of course.
Is that the sort of optimism that precedes a disaster? Or is it different with the Church, which is entitled to some degree of optimism since we are dealing with the Spirit-led instead of the mere human?
there were movements during the 20th century, before Vatican II, to increase the number of people receiving Communion
I wonder if there’s an inverse relationship between percentage of Catholics who go to Mass and Communion reception – Mexicans have a much larger Mass attendance record though a smaller percentage receive.
This is an interesting post, but it’s hard to fathom, even when you try to get inside their heads, that the experts and historians would have done what they did to the Mass. I certainly understand retrieving the Easter Vigil, but that happened under Pius XII, not after Vatican II.
Basing one’s work on historical studies or studies in the ancient liturgy (which is a minefield) should have seemed naive at the time, not just now. They exhibited the very archaeologism that Pius XII cautioned against. [It always amuses me when people go to experts, whose whole mode of answering questions is: "We assume," or "It may well be," etc., without one, single definite statement in a whole interview].
There was also the theological aspect, i .e., the content of the prayers of the old Mass, which should have been more thoroughly evaluated than it was (talk about polyvalency in prayers). The originators of the NO seemed to think that simply piling on Scriptural quotation after Scriptural quotation was the equivalent of TLM texts that had gradually incorporated many layers of meaning, by which one not only prayed to God, but was also made a part of the prayers of those who had been part of the Church in previous ages. This was truly the “communion of saints.” And judging which parts of the Mass were relatively recent accretions and eliminating them also eliminated some of the voices of those who had worshipped before us.
So now we have to do it all over again. But, even if the NO is reformed, it will not have the richness or the collection of “voices” that the TLM has simply because it’s generic (of course, it’s also new, so perhaps in a few hundred years it might be richer). But I remember that Cardinal Ratzinger once suggested that the TLM itself be updated (not in the slovenly way the NO was created), by adding new saints to the Canon of the Mass, etc. That would have made sense, even back in the 60s.
“How could anyone think that taking an ancient form of the Mass and totally reforming it in a matter of less than a decade would not turn out to be problematic?”
This is what I wonder too. Didn’t you say once that you were in a church somewhere and found some old bulletins or documents from the 1960’s where they told to the parish about the changing of the mass to English, etc..? And it all took place in about a month or so. Just like that. I’m post vatican 2 as well, so I have no experience with the latin mass. I did ask my older sister (18 yrs older) about the change. She confirmed that it sort of just happened quickly and most people went along with it. So it seemed to implemented awfully quick. I’m fascinated by this stuff too. Thanks for posting on this.
The one blessed for Puerto Rico, “Charlie” Manuel Rodriguez Santiago, was known for his work in the Liturgical Movement in Puerto Rico, and passed away just before the council, I believe. I haven’t been able to get a hold of more than a few articles with some of his thoughts, but he was in a sense ahead of his time, really focusing the liturgy on the Easter Vigil, getting fellow layfoks more involved in the Mass and understanding what was going on, etc. He seemed to me to be another person in the Liturgical Movement who really had a good, solid outlook on necessary reforms.
See: http://www.lasculturas.com/aa/bio/bioBlessedCharlie.htm
RICK,
I have spoken to people about what happened during “the change” as well (since I, like you, was not around). They also mentioned that it was very quick, and far from gradual. That is, the vernacular was imposed immediately. The rubrics were left up to the individual parishes, wherein if they were under a liberal priest to begin with, he simply seized the opportunity to “clean house” (i.e. rip up the high altars, communion rails and empty the church of all artwork not made of burlap).
I spoke to my grandmother (buon’anima) about this one time, and she mentioned that at first the priests tried to rally the people with the catch phrase of “You are the church now!” and pumping them up by the fact that the laity would now have a larger say and role in it. But in some parishes, when that failed, the priests resorted to “we know what’s best for you here”, which ironically was exactly what the whole movement was trying to move away from. She also mentioned a book she had read once called “The Deliverance of Sister Cecilia” about how the Czechoslovakian church and religious education was infiltrated and eventually dismantled by the Communist party, and how similar that appears to be to what happened with the Catholic church in the last few decades.
I think the pastoral and spiritual blindness you name are just two sides of the same coin. I am guessing that most of those involved in the liturgical movement full-time were academics or religious not involved in pastoral care. Things that make sense in an environment where everyone involved understands the applicable theories may not make so much sense outside of that environment.
It would be interesting to compare the effect of the transition from the Tridentine Mass to the Novus Ordo with, say, the suppression of the Gallican rites in 19th century France and their replacement with the Roman Rite (granted that the effect of the latter was not as great as the former). Perhaps there wouldn’t have been a great liturgical collapse after the Council if there really had been organic development of the liturgy all along.
Here’s a thought experiment (inspired by TSO’s comment above). Suppose that the ritual reform envisioned by Reinhold was what we would have now if the liturgy hadn’t been ossified in 1570 (Quo Primum). What existed afterwards was a command-and-control liturgy. In 1970, the old order was toppled. People sensed a new spirit that had not existed before. But things degenerated and we entered a period where we had gangster liturgies. Does the issuance of Summorum Pontificorum mean that we are entering a period of market liturgies?
Dare I ask what Pax tablets are? I have a mental image of people passing little white pills to each other.
And y’all Catholic Christians got line art just like us’ns Protestant Christians got in “Good News for Modern Man” translations. What was it about the 70’s and line art?
Oh, there was a Catholic version of the Good News Bible…
Ha. A pax is a liturgical instrument (think a gold or silver etc tablet fixed to a handle of some likewise worthy material) which is presented to the celebrant at the appropriate point after the consecration: he kisses it and it is then presented to those attending for them to kiss, the pax being transmitted hierarchically in this way from the Source of peace to all those receiving it. A papal and monastic custom which apparently was thought to be suitable for introduction to parish life. Ha.
What were they thinking? indeed.
[i]Caveat lector[/i]: I’m someone who thinks that the reformed Missal, while not perfect (the revision of the collects for the Sundays of Advent is a scandal), is vastly richer than the 1962 Missal. So some may wish to read no further.
I think there is a lot of Monday-morning-quarterbacking going on here. If people really want to know “what were they thinking!!!???” I recommend following Amy’s suggestion and reading the book. I’ve read it through a few times over the years and think it explains quite well what they were thinking. And a lot of it made a lot of sense.
It’s not like these suggestions for reform were, as is often claimed, a purely academic exercise. They were made by men who celebrated the old Mass on a daily basis, who loved the Mass, and who had a keen sense of how disconnected people were from its riches. They also had been trying for several decades to fix this through measures such as fostering congregational Gregorian chant, hand missals, and dialogue Masses. But if you read things from the 50s, it seems that most felt that it just wasn’t working, at least in most places (I suspect that the percentage of Catholic parishes that had success with Gregorian chant and dialogue Masses was roughly equivalent to the number of places now celebrating the Extraordinary Form). Something more was called for. Reinhold’s book represents one version of what that “something more” might be.
At the same time, I agree with Peter Nixon that “there was some degree of hubris here, a self-confidence that is almost disturbing.” But if one thinks of other initiatives of the era, it seems that reformers like Reinhold were simply reflecting a general cultural hubris in the West. Just like America thought it could engineer a democracy in Vietnam, so too the reformers thought they could engineer the liturgy. In my judgement, they actually did rather better than Robert McNamara, though, like I said, the product wasn’t perfect.
Marc: I agree that the custom would not be very desirable to re-introduce today, and thank goodness it wasn’t, but I believe it was done in parish life in the Middle Ages.
In concordance with FCB at #15, I’ve heard it said by an OD spiritual director that the way in which the TLM was said, in his country, before the change was “perfunctory.”
I found Amy’s piece fascinating because I feel sure that as historians look more closely at the theology and spirituality of the late 1950s and early 1960s, they will see continuity rather than discontinuity between this and the theology and spirituality of the immediate post-Vatican II era. I don’t mean that’s a good thing, I just mean, that’s probably a fact.
I grabbed a couple of Reinhold’s book including this one, on AbeBooks after spotting them on an eBay auction that went too high, about 4 years ago.
What I remember most from reading them was feeling a profound sadness at his optimism, and his reassuring various Chicken Littles that, no, that wasn’t going to happen; no, nobody would tell a priest he couldnt’ say Mass in Latin; no, the universal dimensions of the Rite would not be obscured by local variations; no, no, it’s not going to be some enprmous change…
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
I’m 63 and was in college during VII. I remember learning the dialogue Mass in high school – in Latin. So there were small changes going on for years. Another pre-VII change was the reading of the Epistle and Gospel in English instead of just singing them in Latin. Before the change to the vernacular we had such things as the “Missa Luba”, sung in Latin but in African rhythms. It’s still really cool.
Then all of a sudden, we switched to English for the whole Mass. That’s when there was this sudden search for English things to sing – enter the Jesuit scholastics at SLU strumming away in their dorm. The change to English was not entirely jarring because it was just a translation. What happened in 1970 changed most of the structure of the Mass, too, and it became more like what my Lutheran friends had at their services. I fianlly dropped out in the 80s when I no longer recognized my church.
I have my dad’s old missals from the 30s and mine from the 50s and one just before the 1962 Missal. These books (very worn from actual use) had elaborate explanations of the Mass and the liturgical calendar. The missals kept getting smaller and smaller with less and less explanations. Then there was no missal any more and the throw-away paper things started showing up in pews. I think there was a mental change in how you perceived the Mass. We were moving from college-level to grade school level. It was as if previously we were considered smart enough to get what was going on from our missals and then somehow we were not considered so smart any more. The assumption that Catholics would understand the Mass better when in English (with no explanations necessary) turned out to be wrong, wrong, wrong.
Just re-read Gashwin’s post and I couldn’t agree more.
Symbols and allegories are useful when there just aren’t sufficient words to express the ineffable in black and white. It is just not possible to be “clear and lucid” (from that book) about some mysterious things. We are communing with God at Mass – what’s more mysterious than that?
Where did we lose the appreciation that the Mass is essentially a rite, a ritual? Did that become a bad thing? Was it embarassing when the academics were at meetings with the more rational Protestants?
The fact remains, the Mass is the Mass and is efficacious in spite of how badly it is “performed”. It is a ritual. If we can’t accept that, then we are not seeing the world as Catholics. Maybe some of these reformers thought it was high time we got over such childish and embarassing beliefs.
I remember being very moved at silent, mumbling low Masses. Sometimes you don’t have a lot of time or a choir isn’t available, etc.
Permit me another thought. The attempt to get all in attendance at Sunday Mass to participate as if they were all equally invested in knowing all the details is bound to fail. Nothing is going to make that happen. The average parish Sunday Mass is not the same as the monks or seminarians at St. Meinrad. Most Catholics fall on a spectrum of being there to please the wife to being there with 100% understanding of it all. Almost all believe (or used to believe) that something holy and awsome happens at Mass. Isn’t that enough?
Try an experiment – start a conversation with some of the folks who go to Mass with you on Sunday. Bring up all this high-faluting theorizing and watch their eyes glaze over. I come to this blog because I only know 2 people in my real life who are really interested in Catholic stuff beyond the real basics. That includes choir members and regular Mass attenders. Why wasn’t it enough for people to believe that Jesus is really present in the Eucharist? And now we have lost even that, for the most part.
Friends,
I have a question that doesn’t seem to be addressed. Everyone keeps asking “what were they thinking?” and “how could this have happened?”
What if… just what if… this was all inspired by the Holy Spirit? I mean, is God in charge or not? Is He protecting His Church?
Don’t you think the early Jews in apostolic times were disconcerted by the audacity and speed with which the new church chaged the “old ways?” Perhaps Jesus should have told His disciples to take it more slowly so the peoples’ sense of “anthropological or sociological dimensions of ritual and symbol” wouldn’t be put in jeopardy.
I’ve heard the argument about “people’s free will messing up God’s plan” more times than I’d like to admit and it just seems to easy. No one (on either side of the debate) ever seems to want to even think about the Spirit inspiring change. You can’t have growth without change, can you?
When I was a graduate student at Duquesne University in the 1965-66 era, I worked as Father Reinhold’s amanuensis–so to speak. He suffered from Parkinson’s disease and I took his dictation for a book he was working on then on art and liturgy. I had not seen his name in recent memory, but he was a person living under the aegis of Bishop Wright of Pittsburgh, Pa. I have fond memories of Father Reinhold.
thelrd in TEXAS
Solid agreement with Peter, and thanks, Amy, for this post.
In reading the Vatican II documents and the follow-up legislation in liturgy, one is struck by the hope the bishops had. One might interpret that as hubris. I might not disagree. But there was a sense of confidence, and I’m sure I detect much of that was in God, not in the reforms themselves. After all, who had ever experienced a council firsthand. Why wouldn’t they have put a great reliance on that.
Was that hope misguided? I’m sure they would have been aware of the tradition of detractors following in the wake of the great council sin the past. It’s really no different today. It may be hubris on a similar scale to expect that the 1570/1962 Rite is the magic construction that perfected the Church. We’re better off liturgically today than we were fifty years ago. Which isn’t to say more reform and renewal is needed.
“We’re better off liturgically today than we were fifty years ago. Which isn’t to say more reform and renewal is needed.”
I beg to differ. Not that I’m in love with old things because they’re old. Most symbolism is gone, the sense of ritual is gone, the language has been dumbed down to 5th grade level, it often feels like an Elks Club meeting, we threw the baby out with the bath water, younger people no longer believe in the real presence, we threw out our magnificent musical heritage.
You’ll have to excuse me a bit. My secular chorale just performed Mozart’s Coronation Mass on Saturday night and we blew away the audience at the venue – which was a Methodist Church. At Christmas time my secular singing group has done Vivaldi’s Gloria, O Mangnum Mysterium by Victoria, Faure’s Requiem. But us Catholics are trying to ape Praise Bands. Why?? What could beat O Bone Jesu by Palestrina or Ave Verum by Mozart? Our wonderful stuff is only heard in a very few parishes (like mine, sometimes) , some Cathedrals, St Peter’s thanks to Benedict, and on concert stages. How truly, truly sad. We’ve sold our patrimony for a bowl of porridge.
I’m reminded of a scene from a news documentary I saw recently, but which was made shortly after Vat 2. The reporter was standing in the street in the Vatican, saying that introducing the vernacular into the Mass was being made with the intent that “now people would be able to pray to God in their own language.” My brain processed it in two ways simultaneously: how I think I remember reacting then to this line of thought (“Oh Wow, Great!) and how I react now (“What’re you guys thinking? Who’s ever been prevented from praying to God in their own language? The Reformation happened four centuries ago, weren’t you paying attention? And the Mass is God’s action, not ours.” ) This was a moment of cognitive dissonance for me.
Please read the book The Reform of the Roman Liturgy: Its Problems and Background by Monsignor Klaus Gamber. This scholar gives an historical background for all of his conclusions. In fact, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in the preface to the book’s French edition, “What happened after the Council was (that)…in the place of liturgy as the fruit of development came fabricated liturgy. We abandoned the organic, living process of growth and development over centuries, and replaced it…with a fabrication, a banal on-the-spot product.”
I was raised in the Novus Ordo Church. After some brief exposure to the Extaordinary Form of the Roman Rite, I fell in love with the Latin Mass and now have an even deeper appreciation for Our Lord’s Sacrifice and His Eucharistic Presence. I found a lost treasure and thank God quite often for this gift. The beauty of the prayers is profound. We lost so much in the change.
the form of the Bidding Prayers offered by Reinhold is very Eastern in feel,
YES!
The first time I went to the Liturgy of St John Chrystostom, I thought “Ah! This is what the Missal has in mind!”
The English pre-Reformation bidding prayers are also quite different from what usually turns up at Mass these days (see e.g. Eamonn Duffy’s Stripping of the Altars
Friend Tefft: Fruits, old bean, fruits. You shall know them by them
I haven’t heard it suggested or seriously considered that the Second Vatican Council and it’s consequences, while a long time in coming, could not have occurred in the 1950’s, nor in the 1970’s. The popular perception of the “reforms” were SO strongly shaped by the cultural forces of the 1960’s, particularly in the U.S. This combined with a very visible and strong Youth Movement in the U.S which was bent on destroying everything from the past and questioned ANYTHING that was associated with authority (think SDS, college campuses, the Ant-War movement, etc..), and the result was an attitude that the Second Vatican Council reforms were a blanket permission to create an all-new church. So while many “reforms” were not actually suggested or even condoned by the Church, they took on a grass-roots type momentum and became a “popular” movement.
The “hermeneutics of discontinuity and rupture” (B16) RE the Roman Liturgy can historically be traced along the following lines:
1) Representational, Pre-Conciliar works of Bernard Alfrink of Utrecht & Cardinal Julius Döpfner of Berlin
2) The first “working instrument” results from the world’s bishops prior to VC-2 session 1.
3) The second “working instrument” results from the world’s bishops prior to VC-2 session 2.
4) See the members, workings, and documents of the CONCILIUM OF THE LITURGY… see especially Leo Jozef Cardinal Suenens… ouch!
5) See non-majority vote of the bishops that implemented the sacramentally valid Novus Ordo
6) See Cardinal Ottaviani’s intervention RE revised liturgy
7) See writings of Cardinal J. Ratzinger RE VC-2 & true Liturgical Reform
The written expectations RE liturgical reform from the VC-2 doc’s were exploited and ignored in turn by the Concilium group charged with their implementation. This was prior to and during the period of Bugnini’s greatest influence. Others appear to more culpable that he. The new mass was then implemented in an experimental fashion w/o a clear majority vote by the bishops. Good intentions-terrible results: empty churches, empty seminaries, empty convents, confusion, desertion, liturgical abuses, schism, in-fighting, lack of belief in the Divine (Transubstantiated) Presence, etc.
Corrections or additions to the above would be most welcome.
Julia,
saddly, I agree with everything you said there.
Not that I’m trying to get the last word in or anything like that… but barenike mentioned fruits. Seems to me that we aren’t yet seeing the true fruits of the Council. What we are dealing with today are the fruits of dissent from the Council… from both sides. Both the so-called “progressive” and the “tradtionalist” sides appear to me to be saying, the Church isn’t doing what I want so the Church must be wrong.
I know this is an old post, but I would like to share with you this link, to a general Audience of Paul VI, November 26 1969, right before the new mass was to go world wide
http://www.ewtn.com/library/PAPALDOC/P6691126.HTM