The most saddening part of reading this article is trying to read the old form of the Libera Nos prayer while unwillingly having the one you memorized at the Novus Ordo running loudly through your head. The unnecessary, mechanical wordiness of the New Rite is enough to make one cry. Oh, for the heavenly silence of the TLM!
For me, the solution has been to memorize the TLM prayers in Latin. It's true that it takes more work, but then there's no mixing up between the old and new.
Hm... I don't think I had ever thought of that. Still, I'm afraid that if I did memorize the prayers, they would start running through my head just as the ones at the N.O. do, and it would all turn into just... words. The advantage here would be that these prayers are utterly gorgeous and would still be something of a mystery to me (not knowing Latin). I think I'm just a bit traumatized at this point.
I find that nothing heals trauma like ancient Latin prayers said slowly, with faith. The problem you're talking about doesn't happen with the traditional prayers.
That’s a relief to hear. I’ll always wonder why English can seem so monotonous so easily, but Latin is always beautiful, especially when said with a reverent, balanced pace.
You have said many times that the Traditional Latin Mass is like a great cathedral, a great edifice, most recently in the latest Kennedy Hall interview (which was so inspiring.) In this piece you demonstrate that each detail of the edifice conceals treasures which will be opened to those who knock and seek. I aim to pray along with the “embolism” more attentively now.
Often I nearly despair watching our collapsing civilization. And of my sinful complicity. How can we fight the good fight of faith? Foes rage without and within. We are so far gone. But what you and the commentators say, gives me grounds for renewed hope. I see now we cannot liberate ourselves in an activist sense. There are invisible forces at play. But the prayer we need already is available from tradition. “Libera nos!” Each word in the embolism, as explored by the commentators, is powerful, not least that we stand in need of powerful intercessors.
So we fight on. We pray on. We fight for the Mass when we pray the Mass. We fight for the Civilization created by the Mass when we pray the Mass.
Do please take a look at Robert Royal and Fr Murray on the Synod, at the Catholic Thing video where they say that Acts 15 is being invoked (is it the IL or a working group?) as a way of setting aside things from the Church’s past which supposedly impede God’s universal salvific will. (Sexual morality?)
Some of these moves are right out of the Protestant playbook with which I am sadly familiar.
Anyway what you write here is an antidote to false, activist liberation from the Christian past which is a repudiation of our need for grace. The embolism gets liberation, and whence it comes, straight.
Thank you. Yes, I agree, the synodalists are taking their plays from Protestantism. But that means their ruses will be recognized for what they are, and resisting (and rejected) accordingly as time goes on.
The most saddening part of reading this article is trying to read the old form of the Libera Nos prayer while unwillingly having the one you memorized at the Novus Ordo running loudly through your head. The unnecessary, mechanical wordiness of the New Rite is enough to make one cry. Oh, for the heavenly silence of the TLM!
For me, the solution has been to memorize the TLM prayers in Latin. It's true that it takes more work, but then there's no mixing up between the old and new.
Hm... I don't think I had ever thought of that. Still, I'm afraid that if I did memorize the prayers, they would start running through my head just as the ones at the N.O. do, and it would all turn into just... words. The advantage here would be that these prayers are utterly gorgeous and would still be something of a mystery to me (not knowing Latin). I think I'm just a bit traumatized at this point.
I find that nothing heals trauma like ancient Latin prayers said slowly, with faith. The problem you're talking about doesn't happen with the traditional prayers.
That’s a relief to hear. I’ll always wonder why English can seem so monotonous so easily, but Latin is always beautiful, especially when said with a reverent, balanced pace.
You have said many times that the Traditional Latin Mass is like a great cathedral, a great edifice, most recently in the latest Kennedy Hall interview (which was so inspiring.) In this piece you demonstrate that each detail of the edifice conceals treasures which will be opened to those who knock and seek. I aim to pray along with the “embolism” more attentively now.
Often I nearly despair watching our collapsing civilization. And of my sinful complicity. How can we fight the good fight of faith? Foes rage without and within. We are so far gone. But what you and the commentators say, gives me grounds for renewed hope. I see now we cannot liberate ourselves in an activist sense. There are invisible forces at play. But the prayer we need already is available from tradition. “Libera nos!” Each word in the embolism, as explored by the commentators, is powerful, not least that we stand in need of powerful intercessors.
So we fight on. We pray on. We fight for the Mass when we pray the Mass. We fight for the Civilization created by the Mass when we pray the Mass.
Do please take a look at Robert Royal and Fr Murray on the Synod, at the Catholic Thing video where they say that Acts 15 is being invoked (is it the IL or a working group?) as a way of setting aside things from the Church’s past which supposedly impede God’s universal salvific will. (Sexual morality?)
Some of these moves are right out of the Protestant playbook with which I am sadly familiar.
Anyway what you write here is an antidote to false, activist liberation from the Christian past which is a repudiation of our need for grace. The embolism gets liberation, and whence it comes, straight.
Libera nos!
Thank you. Yes, I agree, the synodalists are taking their plays from Protestantism. But that means their ruses will be recognized for what they are, and resisting (and rejected) accordingly as time goes on.
Libera nos — a malo:
evil, and not the truths of the Christian past, is the true impediment to God’s salvific will.
Good Lord, deliver us!
Great 'research'. Well written!!