I'd Like The Novus Ordo Mass With A Side Of... . Hold the... .

[ 7 minute read ]

What's on the menu?

Decades of impromptu and unsanctioned changes to form and content by clergy and laity have frequently rendered celebrations of the Novus Ordo liturgy a mess, even a disaster. Those who have participated in liturgical abuses of one kind or another may have their ideas and actions judged as those of:

1. the rebel Catholic: a willfully disobedient individual who imagines there are no absolutes except those he or she demands the right to impose. His or her disdain for liturgical law, rubrics, norms and principles that preserve the ars celebrandi and the integrity of the Mass, reveals a latent hostility toward the authority of Jesus Christ and His Church.
2. the woefully ignorant child of a rebel whose comfortable religion (of compromise) is the predictable outcome of a well entrenched generational bias.
3. the enthusiastic but woefully ignorant proponent of popularism (liturgical democracy?) emanating in various forms that pretend at authentic engagement.

The willful rebel, deprived of humility, worships power.

The celebration of the Mass according to the Pauline Missal is not improved by devious means such as adding or deleting texts, or by appointing lay preachers or by enlisting a hoard of extraordinary ministers of Holy Communion. Let's recap a bit of papal teaching on the matter of 'don'ts'.

Redemptionis Sacramentum (2004)

59. The reprobated practice by which priests, deacons or the faithful here and there alter or vary at will the texts of the Sacred Liturgy that they are charged to pronounce, must cease. For in doing thus, they render the celebration of the Sacred Liturgy unstable, and not infrequently distort the authentic meaning of the Liturgy.

General Instruction of the Roman Missal (2002)

Nevertheless, the priest must remember that he is the servant of the Sacred Liturgy and that he himself is not permitted, on his own initiative, to add, to remove, or to change anything in the celebration of Mass. [GIRM§ 24]

Constitution on the Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, 22.3

Therefore no other person, even if he be a priest, may add, remove, or change anything in the Liturgy on his own authority.

The celebration of the Ordinary Form of the Roman Liturgy needs a little nip and tuck here and there.

1. Take away hand-held microphones. How many priests suddenly become wandering talk show hosts when they are handed a microphone? Don't be a liturgical huckster.
2. Drop the drama. Priests who adopt an affected delivery sound ridiculous. Don't ham it up. Stop channeling your inner Laurence Olivier or Fishburne. Priests who preach like a drunken thespian tend to enable drippy emotionalism, a cheap substitute for a gospel witness to authentic communion with God.
3. Ad orientem. The priest faces in the same direction as the congregation, i.e., toward the altar cross, which symbolizes liturgical East and the Lord returning in glory. Why ad orientem? 
• The ancient orientation preserves belief in the Real Presence. The Holy Eucharist is the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus Christ. Too often in the Novus Ordo liturgy, communicants handle the Body and Blood of Christ in a manner that hardly suggests an awareness of the Real Presence. Studies show that most Catholics do not believe in the Real Presence (see Additional Reading Note #4).
• Ad orientem preserves the proper focus of the Mass by shifting the focus away from the priest gawking at the congregation by having him face toward the altar of sacrifice, toward the Lord.
• So that people are not too traumatized by a return to this ancient practice, provide catchesis up front: notices in the parish bulletin; brief comments in homilies; a colloquium after Mass. Ad orientem weekday Masses can be a gentle way to inform and form the community. The practice might be started at the beginning of Lent. Of course, the bishop must be consulted. He is the chief liturgist of every diocese.
4. Ease up on the "I'm your buddy" introduction, and the happy-go-lucky Sign of Peace rumpus. Arguably, the moment 1) the Greeting turns into "Won't you be my neighbour", the congregation turns inward toward itself and away from the One in Whose Name they are gathered; 2) It's enough that the Celebrant (or Deacon) reverently bids the Peace (that comes from Christ, not from the priest nor from the congregation!) and then carries on with the Fraction. People lose focus when the Mass turns into a circus of glad-handing and awkward touchy-feely exchanges.
5. Sacred music. Because the bar has been set so very low for so very long, Catholics in many dioceses have little or no awareness of the vast number of great musical works driven into forced exile. Some critics might respond by whinging that a typical parish cannot mount the necessary resources to sing, for example, a Mass by Byrd or a motet/anthem by Palestrina. Well,... great works have been done (for centuries) and can still be done with a dedicated group!
• Pray and work!
• Start small, build big.
• There are plenty of audio and print resources online to assist the development of a group dedicated to sacred polyphony and English and Latin plainchant.
• https://www.cccb.ca/liturgy-sacraments/resources-in-english/liturgical-music/
• https://musicasacra.com/resource-lists/
• Create rehearsal audio tracks to assist individual learning.
• Here is another excellent site to consider: https://www.ccwatershed.org/
• Communicate!
• Engage people in conversation about the nature of the Mass.
• Put the word out across a diocese that there is a developing initiative.
• Invite like-minded parishioners and organize them into a team.
• Beauty and goodness!
• Choose hymns that are theologically sound and well composed.
• Add some chant (e.g., the Kyrie and the Agnus Dei).
• https://atreasuretobeshared.blogspot.com/2019/05/minor-and-major-propers.html

Seek and ye shall find.

If you're experiencing difficulty finding a reverent Novus Ordo liturgy, try clicking on the following link, and then click on the Novus Ordo or Diocesan section.

Traditional Mass Finder: click HERE to visit.

Additional Reading

1. https://restlesspilgrim.net/blog/2015/07/28/improving-the-novus-ordo/
2. https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2014/08/22/a-letter-on-divine-worship/
3. https://dwightlongenecker.com/horizontal-or-vertical-religion/
4. https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2019/08/05/transubstantiation-eucharist-u-s-catholics/

Definitions

Agnus Dei: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01221a.htm

ars celebrandi

In the course of the Synod, there was frequent insistence on the need to avoid any antithesis between the ars celebrandi, the art of proper celebration, and the full, active and fruitful participation of all the faithful. The primary way to foster the participation of the People of God in the sacred rite is the proper celebration of the rite itself. The ars celebrandi is the best way to ensure their actuosa participatio. The ars celebrandi is the fruit of faithful adherence to the liturgical norms in all their richness; indeed, for two thousand years this way of celebrating has sustained the faith life of all believers, called to take part in the celebration as the People of God, a royal priesthood, a holy nation (cf. 1 Pet 2:4-5, 9). | Pope Benedict XVI, Sacramentum Caritatis

Kyrie: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08714a.htm

Lex orandi lex credendi

The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: "The Church's faith precedes the faith of the believer who is invited to adhere to it. When the Church celebrates the sacraments, she confesses the faith received from the apostles – whence the ancient saying: lex orandi, lex credendi, or legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi (the law of praying is to establish the law of believing) according to Prosper of Aquitaine. The law of prayer is the law of faith: the Church believes as she prays. Liturgy is a constitutive element of the holy and living Tradition."

In the encyclical Mediator Dei, Pope Pius XII elucidates but strongly limits this principle and address errors that can arise from a misunderstanding of it. He states:

46. On this subject We judge it Our duty to rectify an attitude with which you are doubtless familiar, Venerable Brethren. We refer to the error and fallacious reasoning of those who have claimed that the sacred liturgy is a kind of proving ground for the truths to be held of faith, meaning by this that the Church is obliged to declare such a doctrine sound when it is found to have produced fruits of piety and sanctity through the sacred rites of the liturgy, and to reject it otherwise. Hence the epigram, "Lex orandi, lex credendi" - the law for prayer is the law for faith.

47. But this is not what the Church teaches and enjoins. The worship she offers to God, all good and great, is a continuous profession of Catholic faith and a continuous exercise of hope and charity, as Augustine puts it tersely. "God is to be worshipped," he says, "by faith, hope and charity." In the sacred liturgy we profess the Catholic faith explicitly and openly, not only by the celebration of the mysteries, and by offering the holy sacrifice and administering the sacraments, but also by saying or singing the Credo or Symbol of the faith - it is indeed the sign and badge, as it were, of the Christian - along with other texts, and likewise by the reading of holy scripture, written under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost. The entire liturgy, therefore, has the Catholic faith for its content, inasmuch as it bears public witness to the faith of the Church.

48. For this reason, whenever there was question of defining a truth revealed by God, the Sovereign Pontiff and the Councils in their recourse to the "theological sources," as they are called, have not seldom drawn many an argument from this sacred science of the liturgy. For an example in point, Our predecessor of immortal memory, Pius IX, so argued when he proclaimed the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary. Similarly during the discussion of a doubtful or controversial truth, the Church and the Holy Fathers have not failed to look to the age-old and age-honoured sacred rites for enlightenment. Hence the well-known and venerable maxim, "Legem credendi lex statuat supplicandi" - let the rule for prayer determine the rule of belief. The sacred liturgy, consequently, does not decide or determine independently and of itself what is of Catholic faith. More properly, since the liturgy is also a profession of eternal truths, and subject, as such, to the supreme teaching authority of the Church, it can supply proofs and testimony, quite clearly, of no little value, towards the determination of a particular point of Christian doctrine. But if one desires to differentiate and describe the relationship between faith and the sacred liturgy in absolute and general terms, it is perfectly correct to say, "Lex credendi legem statuat supplicandi" - let the rule of belief determine the rule of prayer. The same holds true for the other theological virtues also, "In . . . fide, spe, caritate continuato desiderio semper oramus" - we pray always, with constant yearning in faith, hope and charity. | WP