In the last part, we refuted the notion that the Novus Ordo is “more ancient” or that it resembles early Christian liturgies; on the contrary, its (1) construction out of freely chosen materials, (3) filtered via committee, (2) all of them reworked, makes it ultramodern.
A friend of mine sent this comment privately and I'd like to share it here:
"I really believe that the lust for the new in the mid 20th century was fallout from the horrors of WW1 and WW2. The generation that came of age in the 1950s was taught to scorn everything that came before as somehow tainted and responsible for the horrors they heard about and saw. Modern art, architecture, medicine, science-- was sold to them and subsequent generations as superior and indicative of a more elevated, educated age. The Church was both an active participant and a proponent of this gigantic fallacy. Today the Church is disintegrating because of this."
The Mass is the source and summit, the heart, of our holy religion. The New Mass is an ecumenical rite, an anemic heart transplant, with all the attending problems that come from liberal Catholic ideas on ecumenism. If we have heart problems, that has a ripple effect throughout the Body of Christ. The Revolution failed miserably and Catholics are falling back on what’s proven to work. Tradition and everything that goes with it.
Great series, Peter. Thank you. I have often wondered why the current pontiff, bishops and others have led such a concerted attack on the TLM and have sought vainly to eliminate it. I have come to the inescapable conclusion that at some point, like Martin Luther, Thomas Cranmer and other 16th century heretics, they could no longer bring themselves to believe in the Real Presence. For them, the Mass is just an empty ritual, a task to be completed. The TLM doesn't allow you to lapse into such heresy with its emphatic reminders of the most sacred truths of the faith concerning the Eucharist, especially in the prayers of the Offertory and the Roman Canon. The replacement of the beautiful Offertory prayers by a faux Jewish table prayer and the virtual elimination of the Roman Canon with artificially constructed replacements has sapped their faith in the fundamental beliefs of Holy Mother Church. Unfortunately they hold all the high ground in the Church and are prepared to exert their will in a tyrannical fashion.
I agree. Not that this rejection of the Real Presence has to be explicit; it is enough for it to be redefined in such a way that the Catholic dogma is effectively evacuated of its content, e.g., "the people are the Body of Christ and the Eucharist is the sign that we belong to this body." That, by the way, is correct - when understood as Augustine and Aquinas understood it, but not as Schillebeeckx or Rahner or Powers et al. understand it.
Thank you, Dr K, for this amazing series. I am one of those who has no access to the TLM. When I was a teenager, I left the church because of the unbelievable horrors overnight in the liturgy. I did return decades later and had access to the TLM again, but no longer, while I take care of my elderly father far away from the TLM. I now regularly attend daily Mass at an NO parish and I often shrink inside at seeing how the NO especially endangers the absolute reverence that must be afforded the Holy Eucharist. As you point out, the people don't even understand what is happening. Even though our priests here are sticklers for handling the Eucharist correctly and reverently, the whole thing falls apart as soon as someone receives in the hand or an "extraordinary minister of Communion" stands next to the priest. And the priests will say nothing against these practices, even though my pastor agrees with my concerns. So many crazy spiritual mind benders in the NO. So why do I go? Well, since the consecration is valid, I would otherwise be bereft of the truly physically present Lord, and I try to make the best of that time of consecration and, in my mind, sometimes the ridiculously short NO consecration feels much longer, as if I have been with my Lord for a time before receiving. I have no other recourse at the moment. But all the observations you've made are so right and true. I agree, we should be willing to die for the TLM, if it comes to that.
May the Lord bless you abundantly for going to take care of your elderly father! This love will certainly count for much, and your humble offering of the best you can do.
"Crazy spiritual mind benders": well said. I have noticed that the NO's inadequate rubrics and manifold options and plethora of bad customs (all the communion-related things you mentioned especially) have a sort of neutralizing or neutering effect on clergy: even when they see the problems, they feel powerless to do anything about them, and I think their wills are just worn down by the sheer magnitude and immobility of the problems. That is, from within "the system," there is no real repair possible - even small victories are costly, like World War I warfare at the Western front.
I so agree. That, plus the archdiocese offering videos of the 2 ways to receive. There is nothing the priests can do if they are undermined by the archbishop, etc. All the real magisterial teachings get undermined by the NO Mass.
I found the quote in your post that sums up my experience of the decade from 2010 - 2020: "...Benedict XVI observed accurately that 'in vast areas of the earth faith risks being extinguished, like a flame that is no longer fed. We are facing a profound crisis of faith'." After I discerned out of the monastery (that celebrated the normative Mass and Office) mid-decade and returned to my home Novus-Ordo parish, for years I kept stewing in my juices about what constituted "right worship." Why wasn't I being fed at my parish? What was missing? Yet I still could not bring myself to go to the Old Mass over (what now seems like) stupid qualms like "but I don't speak the language" or "ugh I'll have to wear a coat & tie every Sunday." It's amazing what lies we believe to maintain our comfort and convenience. But when the "prison guards of treachery" (HA! love it!) document was posted, I received an internal movement; a "poop or get off the pot" moment that finally hit in 2023 when I - without any fanfare - decided one Sunday at my parish, "I can't do this anymore" and said "I'm going to the TLM." And at my blessed Oratory I will stay. In the 13 months since assisting at the Old Mass, I've found the prayers, rituals, sights & sounds so formative as to have friends ask me, "what's different about you?" I'm finally becoming Catholic - that's what.
It's very true that we fallen human beings are talented at making excuses. Usually we just don't want to go outside our comfort zone, or fear the loss of human respect, or think "I don't want to be a weirdo." But we often deprive ourselves of the choicest treasures through these modes of self-persuasion.
I consider it a great grace to break through to tradition. We must pray for the grace to be given to many.
I've been told that as long as the priest "intends what the Church intends," and prays the words of Consecration correctly, it is a llicit and/or valid Mass. But that's not a very comforting criteria, because what exactly does the Church intend regarding the Novus Ordo? And where did this criteria come from? Maybe soemone here on Substack knows more. On the other hand, it's very troubling to think that most Catholics are attending illicit liturgies. My hope is that God in His Mercy is allowing this for some reason I will never understand and accepts the offerings of those who sincerely love Him and are ignorant of the TLM or no longer have access to it.
Licit means properly promulgated in accord with all relevant canonical requirements, including adherence to divine and natural law, and for the Church's common good.
It is not difficult to prove that Paul VI's act of promulgation wasn't even adequate to mandate the Novus Ordo (Siscoe and Salza demonstrated that in their "True or False Pope?" book a few years ago; sadly they have turned in a very different direction since then), nor that it violates constitutive principles of liturgical tradition, the "status ecclesiae," and harms the common good. This could have been known beforehand, not simply by 20/20 hindsight.
I am confident that God will not punish those faithful Catholics who do not know any better: the Lord's prayer "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" is a prayer He prays for the whole of time, not just at the moment of His crucifixion. However, those who crucify the Lord, and who become aware of what has happened and what is going on, need to repent of that, and take a different and better path.
I find this a particularly difficult question, and I am scrupulous about not telling others what they should do, as I am not a spiritual director for anyone.
Speaking for myself, I would never attend the Novus Ordo for its own sake, to fulfill an obligation or otherwise. But I would tolerate a Novus Ordo for a family funeral or wedding, if no scandal would be given by my presence (and this is indeed unlikely, because the whole world knows what I think of the Novus Ordo by this point, so no one could construe my presence as approval).
I have tried to articulate the principles behind my decision here:
I have to go to a NO mass on a regular basis as I work at a Catholic school. Interestingly, this is partly why I have come to the conclusion that the Novus Ordo is illicit, as the contrast between what I experience at the TLM on the weekends with my daily experience at the new mass has made the defects of the latter all too apparent. In fact I have found that the more reverent the Novus Ordo is, the more obvious its rubrical deficiencies become.
In any case, as I no longer feel comfortable participating, I simply meditate and pray the rosary, trying to be respectful of Our Lord's presence in the Eucharist. I also agree that it is inappropriate to tell others what they should or shouldn't do in this regard, especially given the confusing nature of the times we are living through.
As always, I appreciate the nuance and charity (no pun intended) that you have brought to this issue.
Long story short, tonight, at NO, I decided to take an opportunity to meditate and pray. I did all of the physical postures, but, had my head bowed in prayer the whole time. I said the Creed and The Lord’s Prayer, I tried not to be obnoxious, but, I did try to tune out the noise and try and be still.
I don’t know if that was good, bad, or, otherwise, mind all over the place, but, the challenge of stilling my body felt good.
Stillness comes with difficulty in a physical world constantly in motion (and the modern world obsessively so). That is a virtue we all need to practice, when and as we can, rising up to the edge of the eternal domain where God is all in all.
Thanks for the question. A fuller answer to your question has been given in a series that was published here at Tradition & Sanity back in September/October 2023:
Speaking briefly here, I would say "spiritual value" is too vague of a phrase to pin down. Subjectively, any exercise of the theological virtues and of the principal moral virtue, that of religion, is good and beneficial; but one also must ask about the objective rightness of what one is doing. Hence a Protestant may derive benefit from a Protestant service but later on realize, as the truth of Catholicism dawns on him, that he should not be attending it; similarly, a Catholic may draw benefit from an Eastern Orthodox service but realize that he should not be attending it because of schism, or even the danger of apostasy.
It is best that we worship in a way that is valid, licit, fitting, and authentic, and yes, some harm could come to us to the extent that a given way of worshiping is either invalid, illicit, unfitting, or inauthentic.
Agree. But I wonder if God allows NO Mass because we are in such a very different world than the 50s when I first went to Mass. Jesus told the Apostles once that their hearts could not bear what He wanted to tell them at that time. Jn 16:12. So he knows what the sheep can bear in this world of so many and new troubles and fears.. I also wonder who wrote 675 of the Catechism about false church. Did he have inside scoop? And what was a prediction doing in Catechism. IDK. I'm a pewsitter. Thanks.
If anything, the modern world needs the powerful aids of Catholic tradition *more than ever.* It was bizarrely shortsighted to think that reconstructing things according to a postwar 1960s mentality was somehow going to speak to the deepest spiritual needs of mankind. And the results have shown that it did not; far fewer Catholics, percentage-wise, ever visit a church. The revolution in liturgy had (and has) a lot to do with that.
A friend of mine sent this comment privately and I'd like to share it here:
"I really believe that the lust for the new in the mid 20th century was fallout from the horrors of WW1 and WW2. The generation that came of age in the 1950s was taught to scorn everything that came before as somehow tainted and responsible for the horrors they heard about and saw. Modern art, architecture, medicine, science-- was sold to them and subsequent generations as superior and indicative of a more elevated, educated age. The Church was both an active participant and a proponent of this gigantic fallacy. Today the Church is disintegrating because of this."
So strange, I was thinking about the same thing earlier. Glad to know others are thinking along the same lines.
The Mass is the source and summit, the heart, of our holy religion. The New Mass is an ecumenical rite, an anemic heart transplant, with all the attending problems that come from liberal Catholic ideas on ecumenism. If we have heart problems, that has a ripple effect throughout the Body of Christ. The Revolution failed miserably and Catholics are falling back on what’s proven to work. Tradition and everything that goes with it.
Great series, Peter. Thank you. I have often wondered why the current pontiff, bishops and others have led such a concerted attack on the TLM and have sought vainly to eliminate it. I have come to the inescapable conclusion that at some point, like Martin Luther, Thomas Cranmer and other 16th century heretics, they could no longer bring themselves to believe in the Real Presence. For them, the Mass is just an empty ritual, a task to be completed. The TLM doesn't allow you to lapse into such heresy with its emphatic reminders of the most sacred truths of the faith concerning the Eucharist, especially in the prayers of the Offertory and the Roman Canon. The replacement of the beautiful Offertory prayers by a faux Jewish table prayer and the virtual elimination of the Roman Canon with artificially constructed replacements has sapped their faith in the fundamental beliefs of Holy Mother Church. Unfortunately they hold all the high ground in the Church and are prepared to exert their will in a tyrannical fashion.
I agree. Not that this rejection of the Real Presence has to be explicit; it is enough for it to be redefined in such a way that the Catholic dogma is effectively evacuated of its content, e.g., "the people are the Body of Christ and the Eucharist is the sign that we belong to this body." That, by the way, is correct - when understood as Augustine and Aquinas understood it, but not as Schillebeeckx or Rahner or Powers et al. understand it.
Thank you, Dr K, for this amazing series. I am one of those who has no access to the TLM. When I was a teenager, I left the church because of the unbelievable horrors overnight in the liturgy. I did return decades later and had access to the TLM again, but no longer, while I take care of my elderly father far away from the TLM. I now regularly attend daily Mass at an NO parish and I often shrink inside at seeing how the NO especially endangers the absolute reverence that must be afforded the Holy Eucharist. As you point out, the people don't even understand what is happening. Even though our priests here are sticklers for handling the Eucharist correctly and reverently, the whole thing falls apart as soon as someone receives in the hand or an "extraordinary minister of Communion" stands next to the priest. And the priests will say nothing against these practices, even though my pastor agrees with my concerns. So many crazy spiritual mind benders in the NO. So why do I go? Well, since the consecration is valid, I would otherwise be bereft of the truly physically present Lord, and I try to make the best of that time of consecration and, in my mind, sometimes the ridiculously short NO consecration feels much longer, as if I have been with my Lord for a time before receiving. I have no other recourse at the moment. But all the observations you've made are so right and true. I agree, we should be willing to die for the TLM, if it comes to that.
May the Lord bless you abundantly for going to take care of your elderly father! This love will certainly count for much, and your humble offering of the best you can do.
"Crazy spiritual mind benders": well said. I have noticed that the NO's inadequate rubrics and manifold options and plethora of bad customs (all the communion-related things you mentioned especially) have a sort of neutralizing or neutering effect on clergy: even when they see the problems, they feel powerless to do anything about them, and I think their wills are just worn down by the sheer magnitude and immobility of the problems. That is, from within "the system," there is no real repair possible - even small victories are costly, like World War I warfare at the Western front.
I so agree. That, plus the archdiocese offering videos of the 2 ways to receive. There is nothing the priests can do if they are undermined by the archbishop, etc. All the real magisterial teachings get undermined by the NO Mass.
I found the quote in your post that sums up my experience of the decade from 2010 - 2020: "...Benedict XVI observed accurately that 'in vast areas of the earth faith risks being extinguished, like a flame that is no longer fed. We are facing a profound crisis of faith'." After I discerned out of the monastery (that celebrated the normative Mass and Office) mid-decade and returned to my home Novus-Ordo parish, for years I kept stewing in my juices about what constituted "right worship." Why wasn't I being fed at my parish? What was missing? Yet I still could not bring myself to go to the Old Mass over (what now seems like) stupid qualms like "but I don't speak the language" or "ugh I'll have to wear a coat & tie every Sunday." It's amazing what lies we believe to maintain our comfort and convenience. But when the "prison guards of treachery" (HA! love it!) document was posted, I received an internal movement; a "poop or get off the pot" moment that finally hit in 2023 when I - without any fanfare - decided one Sunday at my parish, "I can't do this anymore" and said "I'm going to the TLM." And at my blessed Oratory I will stay. In the 13 months since assisting at the Old Mass, I've found the prayers, rituals, sights & sounds so formative as to have friends ask me, "what's different about you?" I'm finally becoming Catholic - that's what.
Amen to all this!
It's very true that we fallen human beings are talented at making excuses. Usually we just don't want to go outside our comfort zone, or fear the loss of human respect, or think "I don't want to be a weirdo." But we often deprive ourselves of the choicest treasures through these modes of self-persuasion.
I consider it a great grace to break through to tradition. We must pray for the grace to be given to many.
I've been told that as long as the priest "intends what the Church intends," and prays the words of Consecration correctly, it is a llicit and/or valid Mass. But that's not a very comforting criteria, because what exactly does the Church intend regarding the Novus Ordo? And where did this criteria come from? Maybe soemone here on Substack knows more. On the other hand, it's very troubling to think that most Catholics are attending illicit liturgies. My hope is that God in His Mercy is allowing this for some reason I will never understand and accepts the offerings of those who sincerely love Him and are ignorant of the TLM or no longer have access to it.
Certainly valid.
Licit means properly promulgated in accord with all relevant canonical requirements, including adherence to divine and natural law, and for the Church's common good.
It is not difficult to prove that Paul VI's act of promulgation wasn't even adequate to mandate the Novus Ordo (Siscoe and Salza demonstrated that in their "True or False Pope?" book a few years ago; sadly they have turned in a very different direction since then), nor that it violates constitutive principles of liturgical tradition, the "status ecclesiae," and harms the common good. This could have been known beforehand, not simply by 20/20 hindsight.
I am confident that God will not punish those faithful Catholics who do not know any better: the Lord's prayer "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do" is a prayer He prays for the whole of time, not just at the moment of His crucifixion. However, those who crucify the Lord, and who become aware of what has happened and what is going on, need to repent of that, and take a different and better path.
I just saw you answered this question in your footnotes. Sorry!
This raises a serious question (which you alluded to in the article): Can the NO ever be said to fulfill one's Sunday obligation?
Similarly, given its illicit nature, can a Catholic in good conscience ever actively participate in the NO?
The SSPX would unequivocally say "no" to both questions, most traditionalist writers outside that sphere seem to give a qualified "yes". What say you?
I find this a particularly difficult question, and I am scrupulous about not telling others what they should do, as I am not a spiritual director for anyone.
Speaking for myself, I would never attend the Novus Ordo for its own sake, to fulfill an obligation or otherwise. But I would tolerate a Novus Ordo for a family funeral or wedding, if no scandal would be given by my presence (and this is indeed unlikely, because the whole world knows what I think of the Novus Ordo by this point, so no one could construe my presence as approval).
I have tried to articulate the principles behind my decision here:
https://traditionsanity.substack.com/p/the-sunday-mass-obligation-in-a-time-ae2
This is essentially my position.
I have to go to a NO mass on a regular basis as I work at a Catholic school. Interestingly, this is partly why I have come to the conclusion that the Novus Ordo is illicit, as the contrast between what I experience at the TLM on the weekends with my daily experience at the new mass has made the defects of the latter all too apparent. In fact I have found that the more reverent the Novus Ordo is, the more obvious its rubrical deficiencies become.
In any case, as I no longer feel comfortable participating, I simply meditate and pray the rosary, trying to be respectful of Our Lord's presence in the Eucharist. I also agree that it is inappropriate to tell others what they should or shouldn't do in this regard, especially given the confusing nature of the times we are living through.
As always, I appreciate the nuance and charity (no pun intended) that you have brought to this issue.
Long story short, tonight, at NO, I decided to take an opportunity to meditate and pray. I did all of the physical postures, but, had my head bowed in prayer the whole time. I said the Creed and The Lord’s Prayer, I tried not to be obnoxious, but, I did try to tune out the noise and try and be still.
I don’t know if that was good, bad, or, otherwise, mind all over the place, but, the challenge of stilling my body felt good.
Happy Feast of the Assumption!
Stillness comes with difficulty in a physical world constantly in motion (and the modern world obsessively so). That is a virtue we all need to practice, when and as we can, rising up to the edge of the eternal domain where God is all in all.
I’ve really appreciated this series. It’s really helped me begin to put things in context. There is so much to discover.
Best you have ever written!
Does this series mean that attending the NO has no spiritual value and could even be spiritual harmful?
Thanks for the question. A fuller answer to your question has been given in a series that was published here at Tradition & Sanity back in September/October 2023:
https://traditionsanity.substack.com/p/the-sunday-mass-obligation-in-a-time
https://traditionsanity.substack.com/p/the-sunday-mass-obligation-in-a-time-c50
https://traditionsanity.substack.com/p/the-sunday-mass-obligation-in-a-time-ae2
https://traditionsanity.substack.com/p/the-sunday-mass-obligation-in-a-time-a95
Speaking briefly here, I would say "spiritual value" is too vague of a phrase to pin down. Subjectively, any exercise of the theological virtues and of the principal moral virtue, that of religion, is good and beneficial; but one also must ask about the objective rightness of what one is doing. Hence a Protestant may derive benefit from a Protestant service but later on realize, as the truth of Catholicism dawns on him, that he should not be attending it; similarly, a Catholic may draw benefit from an Eastern Orthodox service but realize that he should not be attending it because of schism, or even the danger of apostasy.
It is best that we worship in a way that is valid, licit, fitting, and authentic, and yes, some harm could come to us to the extent that a given way of worshiping is either invalid, illicit, unfitting, or inauthentic.
That was excellent
Agree. But I wonder if God allows NO Mass because we are in such a very different world than the 50s when I first went to Mass. Jesus told the Apostles once that their hearts could not bear what He wanted to tell them at that time. Jn 16:12. So he knows what the sheep can bear in this world of so many and new troubles and fears.. I also wonder who wrote 675 of the Catechism about false church. Did he have inside scoop? And what was a prediction doing in Catechism. IDK. I'm a pewsitter. Thanks.
If anything, the modern world needs the powerful aids of Catholic tradition *more than ever.* It was bizarrely shortsighted to think that reconstructing things according to a postwar 1960s mentality was somehow going to speak to the deepest spiritual needs of mankind. And the results have shown that it did not; far fewer Catholics, percentage-wise, ever visit a church. The revolution in liturgy had (and has) a lot to do with that.