I joined with one of their online Masses about a week ago. It was NO but celebrated facing the tabernacle. It took a while before I noticed the priest's orientation. That's one of my favourite churches for online Mass.
Yes, what matters is that the priest be properly ordained, that the bread and wine be valid matter, that the priest says the correct words of consecration, and that the Mass includes the Offertory, Consecration and priest's Communion. As far as I know but am not certain, the priest must also intend what the Church intends when he utters the words of Consecration. At least those were the fundamentals I was taught way back in the days before the new Mass. I'm pretty sure that the fundamentals haven't changed. I also think that even in the New Mass there are some prayers the priest should whisper, but I could be wrong about that. I'm certainly no expert. Back then, every church had a pulpit, usually raised to enable every see and hear better the priest as he gave his homily. Priests didn't use the pulpit for any part of the Mass other than the homily and homilies were rare enough.
I disagree. Ratzinger, while still a Cardinal, lamented that the Church’s crisis was “to a large extent due to the disintegration of the liturgy”. Cardinal Sarah suggested that the crisis had followed when God was displaced from the centre of the liturgy. Instead of directing worship towards the adoration of God, the Eucharist became dominated by merely human motives such as “the community’s celebration of itself”. +++++++++ And do you know how Bugnini masterminded the revolution of the liturgy? What I Didn’t Know about Bugnini and the Liturgy Julia MeloniApril 25, 2019 https://onepeterfive.com/bugnini-liturgy/#_edn1 As a Millennial who was weaned on the Novus Ordo Missae, I have been inescapably molded by its main architect, Abp. Annibale Bugnini. Yet there is so much that I didn’t know about Bugnini and his revolution of the liturgy. I didn’t know, growing up, that a man infamously alleged to have been a Freemason or “something far worse” was behind the freewheeling liturgy of my youth. I didn’t know that the Roman Canon was supposed to be shrouded in the silence of the Cross — or that my pastor’s altar theatrics were but the logical extension of abandoning ad orientem worship. I lacked a context to process the various haywire liturgies before me. I didn’t know that Bugnini allegedly used “subterfuge” to obtain what his “handlers” passed through him, to quote Fr. Louis Bouyer’s Memoirs. Notably, as secretary of Vatican II’s preparatory commission on the liturgy, Bugnini explained to some peers that they needed to strategically say things “in embryo” to foment postconciliar changes. As he put it: It would be most inconvenient for the articles of our Constitution to be rejected by the Central Commission or by the Council itself. That is why we must tread carefully and discreetly. Carefully, so that proposals be…formulated in such a way that much is said without seeming to say anything: let many things be said in embryo and in this way let the door remain open to legitimate and possible postconciliar deductions and applications: let nothing be said that suggests excessive novelty and might invalidate all the rest … It was a bald admission of a plan to load council texts with “liturgical time bombs” — ambiguous passages later subversively interpreted by Bugnini’s implementation committee. I didn’t grasp that I had been caught in the explosions, left with the rubble and ruin. I didn’t know that, in March 1965, Pope Paul VI celebrated a Mass almost exclusively in Italian, facing the people, to help validate the escalating liturgical upheaval. Two years later, Bugnini was pushing the Holy Mass to morph, Proteus-like, into increasingly unrecognizable forms. At a 1967 synod, he celebrated a “normative Mass” in Italian, ad populum, with three readings, reduced genuflections, more hymns, an altered Offertory, and a new Eucharistic Prayer III. I had no idea that Eucharistic Prayer II was brainstormed on a café terrace — on a twenty-four-hour deadline. I didn’t know that the bishops voted against unreservedly embracing this revolutionary Mass, in what Yves Chiron calls a “public disavowal” of Bugnini’s work. Pope Paul VI still assured Bugnini of his “complete confidence,” and two years later — exactly fifty years ago this month — the rejected 1967 “normative Mass” was “reintroduced and imposed” as the Novus Ordo Missae. I didn’t know that Paul VI’s apologias for this new Mass “calmly noted that Latin and Gregorian chant would disappear,” as Dr. Peter Kwasniewski puts it. No, I didn’t know just how much had been burned in the fires of aggiornamento. Bugnini’s writings patronize the “mute and inert” assembly of the past; his slogan is “active participation” via incinerated mystery. In the 1940s, Bugnini was already experimenting with a “paraphrased” Mass, in which a reader made the people say aloud Italian paraphrases of the Latin liturgy. I didn’t grasp that Latin was the great obstacle to the revolution’s time bombs — a veritable “arsenal of orthodoxy,” as Dom Prosper Guéranger puts it.[ii] I didn’t grasp that this sacred language was an inviolable “veil over the whole sacrifice” and liturgical silence was “a single great canticle” to God — to quote the marvelous Nothing Superfluous. I didn’t truly grasp the transcendence of Gregorian chant—its preternatural ability to awaken the soul’s deepest aches for God. Growing up, I loved hymns like “Gather Us In”; now I cringe at the narcissistic kitschiness of lyrics such as “We have been sung throughout all of history.” I never realized that this new cult of man was the logical consequence of turning away from facing God—or that Bugnini’s team loaded the new Mass with an Enlightenment aggrandizement of the people [iii]. Now I ache at all the liturgy’s discarded sublimity, cast off like so much meaningless detritus. I didn’t know that, against Bugnini’s iconoclastic impulse to “simplify” the Holy Mass, the Council of Trent taught that the Church’s rites “contain nothing unnecessary or superfluous.” For instance, the Tridentine Mass’s nine Kyries evoke the nine choirs of angels and nine kinds of sin; its prolific signs of the cross symbolize everything from the selling of Our Lord to His physical and mental sufferings.[iv] Nonchalantly, Bugnini suppressed — among other things — numerous genuflections, kisses of the altar, and signs of the cross because they allegedly caused “incomprehension and weariness.” I had no idea that he once said we must “strip” from the liturgy all that can be a “stumbling block” for Protestants — and called his revolution a “major conquest of the Roman Catholic Church.” But above all, I didn’t know how impoverished my understanding of the Holy Mass truly was. I still have a lingering image of my childhood priest, surrounded by extraordinary ministers, holding up the Eucharist and theatrically inviting us to the “Supper of the Lamb,” like a showman; I more or less deduced, from this dramatic climax, that we were at a celebratory communal “meal.” I had no idea that the Ottaviani Intervention had strongly criticized the new Mass for “obsessively” defining itself as a “supper” instead of emphasizing “the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary.” The definition of the Mass in the Institutio Generalis was soon amended, yet the intervention’s underlying criticism still rings true. “The mystery of the Cross is no longer explicitly expressed. It is only there obscurely, veiled, imperceptible for the people,” the intervention lamented. (cont'd)
Then I assisted at an unforgettable Tridentine Mass after reading Nothing Superfluous. The priest faced East, alone — save for the presence of a server — and I suddenly saw the embodiment of a line from Ven. Fulton Sheen’s Life of Christ: “The high priest must offer the sacrifice alone.” The priest solemnly said the Offertory, bowed at the altar, and turned and said, “Orate, fratres” (“Pray, brethren”) — and we were somehow present at Gethsemane, watching the high priest bend from sin’s heaviness and beckon us to prayer. Then a profound, mysterious silence enveloped the chapel, broken by speech exactly seven times from the “Orate, fratres” to the priest’s Communion. The eternal high priest was offering the sacrifice — Himself — alone. Then I knew that Calvary’s mystery had irrupted into that place; this was the silence of the Cross, pierced intermittently by Our Lord’s Seven Last Words.[v]Then I knew how to adore the sacrificial Victim spontaneously, unhindered by priestly histrionics, liturgical verbosity, or the chatty sign of peace. Then I knew, dimly, why the blessed ceaselessly fall down and worship the Lamb in the ethereal heavenly liturgy (cf. Rev. 7:11). Then I knew just how much I had lost in the Bugninian coup. Quoted in Ives Chiron’s Annibale Bugnini: Reformer of the Liturgy. Unless otherwise indicated, all subsequent facts about Bugnini, Pope Paul VI, and the Novus Ordo Missae come from this work. [ii] See Michael Davies’s Liturgical Time Bombs for this quotation and point. [iii] See Peter Kwasniewski’s Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis. [iv] See Fr. James Jackson’s Nothing Superfluous. [v] Nothing Superfluous points out that medieval commentators saw Christ’s Seven Last Words “expressed liturgically” in the seven times the priest speaks distinctly from the “Orate, fratres” to his Communion. +
https://onepeterfive.com/attacks-mass-fail/ The apostles’ liturgy was far simpler than the Latin Mass, and said in Aramaic or Greek. Why do you insist that Catholics today use an elaborate medieval Latin liturgy? We should imitate what the apostles did. One who makes this surprisingly common objection is adopting a Protestant notion of the Mass as a re-enactment of the Last Supper in the simple gathering of disciples to read Scripture and break bread, which obscures what it really is: the offering of the sacrifice of Christ within the living community of His Body, the Church. Like Mary, who “treasured up all these things and pondered them in her heart” (Lk. 2:19; 2:51), the Church too, treasuring up and pondering the sacred mysteries, elaborated their celebration according to the wisdom given to her from above. Christ promised His apostles: “When he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will teach you all truth” (Jn. 16:13). The development of the divine liturgy over the millennia – from Abel’s offering to Melchisedek’s bread and wine, from Hebrew sacrifices to apostolic eucharistia, from the age of monasticism and medieval cathedral chapters through Baroque splendor – is nothing other than the preparation, reception, and explication of the truth given to us in Christ and fully blossoming in the life of His Bride: “Amen, amen I say to you, he that believeth in me, the works that I do, he also shall do; and greater than these shall he do” (Jn. 14:12). Christian worship is not a stage re-enactment of Passover fellowship or time-travel to some chosen favorite century, but a living whole, built up slowly over time by lovers of God and cherished by the Church, who hands down the same liturgical rites from age to age, augmented with new beauties inspired by God to be in harmony with what is already there. As it develops into the full expression of its essence, the liturgy achieves greater definition and perfection in its secondary elements. This is why its rate of change slows down as time goes on, and what is added, though valuable, is small in comparison to the body of rites, chants, texts, and ceremonies already in place. This is what liturgical tradition means: we do not reinvent our worship by leaping over centuries of faith and devotion; we do not produce new anaphoras because we think we need some more variety; we do not cast off the cycle of readings hallowed by well over 1,000 years of consistent use and replace them with an altogether new cycle compiled by a group of scholars; we do not make optional the magnificent antiphons that are flesh and bone of the Roman rite; and so forth. Protestants invent liturgy, but Catholics receive it. It is therefore not only a bad idea, but contrary to the Church’s faith in Divine Providence and in the governance of the Holy Spirit to reject major elements of the Latin Church’s liturgical tradition and to replace them with a combination of artificial archaeologisms and novelties, as was manifestly done in the 1960s and 1970s. The massive rupture from the preceding liturgical tradition, which extends to every aspect and detail of the liturgical rites, cannot be papered over with platitudes. It is a gaping wound in the Body of Christ [3]. For, as St. Vincent of Lérins maintains: "The principle of piety admits of only one attitude: namely, that everything be transferred to the sons in the same spirit of faith in which it was accepted by the fathers; that religion should not lead us whither we want to go, but that we must follow whither it leads; and that it is proper to Christian modesty and earnestness not to transfer to postery one’s own ideas, but to preserve those received from one’s ancestors." (Commonitorium, ch. 6) It may be worth adding that the primacy of Latin in the Roman Church was solemnly stated by Pope John XXIII in the Apostolic Constitution Veterum Sapientia of 1962, which has never been rescinded. Conversely, the notion that liturgy ought to be in the vernacular was condemned at the Council of Trent and in Pius VI’s Auctorem Fidei. This does not mean that liturgy may never be in the vernacular, but only that no one may argue that it must be or even should be. To hold that the Roman Church was mistaken to keep her rites in Latin is a condemned opinion. +
https://onepeterfive.com/attacks-mass-fail/ Your position implies that nothing in the Ordinary Form is an improvement over the preceding liturgy. Indeed, you even seem to reject it altogether. I used to think there were some improvements in the Novus Ordo. For instance, I thought it was good to have more prefaces, more readings, and more flexibility for what may be sung (in other words, you can sing the Ordinary without the Propers or vice versa, enabling more chant to be used, instead of an “all-or-nothing” approach). But the devil’s in the details. As one examines these things more carefully, and most importantly, as one gains experience with both rites, one comes to see many flaws in these supposed “improvements” [6]. Unfortunately, few have the patience or the opportunity to compare the rites, to see what was changed and why, so superficial assumptions tend to rule the day. Apart from a handful of meager details [7], I see nothing in the Novus Ordo that represents an improvement on the Latin rite that came before it and has a pedigree of centuries and millennia. In general, the Novus Ordo is a dumbed down ritual, with a lot of specialist scholars’ pet ideas thrown in and a huge amount of verbiage. The results are as could be expected: many Catholics walked away in disgust at the desacralization of worship, and those who stayed or have come along later have absorbed from it flawed notions of what liturgy even is – and that, on the basis of what Vatican II said about liturgy in the first part of Sacrosanctum Concilium, which reads like a theological exposition of Solemn High Mass, not of the Consilium’s Missa normativa. The Novus Ordo Missae is sacramentally valid (the same may be said for the other sacramental rites), but after that, the whole experiment in modernization is a disappointment, not to say a scandal, once you get to know the riches of the usus antiquior. And I am not talking only about the Mass. The old rites of Baptism, of Confirmation, of Penance, of Matrimony, of Extreme Unction, and above all of Holy Orders are far superior to their “reformed” versions, from every angle of examination: ascetical-mystical, doctrinal, moral, aesthetic. Even the breviary of St. Pius X, which has its problems, is outstandingly better than the Liturgy of the Minutes, I mean Hours [8]. I do not reject the new liturgy. It is the Church’s own tradition that repudiates it as a stranger. Validity the sacramental rites must have, since Our Lord would not deprive His people of access to grace; a functional licitness they have as well. But none of this touches the question of the authenticity of a rite in the line of its own historical development from apostolic roots, or the profound questions of fittingnessthat surround the enactment of any liturgy. Paul VI engaged his authority to impose a new liturgy on the Church, and in doing so, he abused that authority as well as the People of God. +
I think it is like Our Lord' words to one of the saints (cant remember which one)When a bad priest says a Mass there are Graces of course because of the Mass itself but the Graces from a good priest in a reverent Mass are shaken out pressed down and overflowing. Both Masses are valid but the Grace's are not the same.
Based on what you have written on this thread, with allies like you neither the Pope nor the Mass needs enemies.
Could it be that you are attracted to this site because here you actually meet people who live under the mantle of our Lady & who are prepared to be martyred for the Catholic faith and will follow Christ to the cross.
What personal insults? You used a deficient understanding of Holy Mass to argue against the TLM. I merely pointed out the obvious and now you are issuing dire warnings about excommunication.
April 28, 2020 (LifeSiteNews) – Archbishop Víctor Manuel Fernández, a papal ghostwriter and personal confidant of Pope Francis, said in a recent interview that the precept of the Catholic Church that Catholics go to church on Sundays and Holy Days of obligation “is not indispensable” and could “fall.” This prelate has been a controversial clergyman for many years. Among other things, he has written a book about the “art of kissing.” When being the rector of the Pontifical Catholic University of Argentina and a close confidant of Pope Francis, some of his statements contradicting Catholic moral and sacramental doctrine were discovered to have found their way into Amoris Laetitia. Pope Francis ghostwriter’s scandalous book on kissing now available in English Archbishop Víctor Manuel 'Tucho' Fernandez writes erotically about relationships. https://www.lifesitenews.com/news/a...ascivious-book-on-kissing-now-available-in-en https://www.lifesitenews.com/blogs/...s-obligation-isnt-indispensable-it-could-fall
How is it a personal attack? It was a suggestion. If you truly believe we are schismatics and bad Catholics then why stay? Simple question!
I accept Pope Francis as valid Pope & never been to a Tridentine Mass in my life only Novus Ordo. You are flinging wild accusations scatter gun approach to all and sundry. Wild west style! Feel free to stay. I only made a suggestion believeing you were unhappy here!!
I think Ezdra the danger is that you establish a good 'Us' and bad 'Them' position. On the one hand the 'Good', 'Faithful' , 'Loyal' and 'Obedient' Catholics who do not find anything the least to critique about the Holy Father , his words and actions and current events in Rome and elsewhere.. On the other the , 'Schismatic', 'Disloyal', Disobedient' , 'Ultraconservative' and 'Traditionalist Catholics who are in League with Satan.. Thus you separate in your mind the Universal Church into two Distinct Camps, rather like a very old cowboy picture. The guys in the White Hats who think about things like you do. Then again the guys in the Black Hats who happen not to think about things like you do. Life is not quite so simple as that. The danger is when you view things in that, 'Good Guys', 'Bad Guys' way things always turn into a regular Bar Fight. The fact that other Catholics might see things differently from myself does not necessarily make them bad folks. It simply means that they look at things differently. Also they might very well be right about things you are wrong about, just as you might be right about things they are wrong about. A more relaxed view of things takes the steam out of things. None of us has the monopoly on the truth. Being only poor sinners we all of us tend to get some things right and some things wrong. Even the saints have had their disagreements. Placing labels on other people is a big part of how Bar Fights get started. You seem very fond of labels. People are people. Not cans of soup.
Ezdra, you come across as being very angry. I have provided a defence of my statement/position by giving those 'quotes', but you appear unwilling to read them. There can be no logical/ meaningful discussion then. Papolatry/ ultramontism is wrong. We must obey God before man. For example, do you think the Pachamama worship at St Peter's, which was definitely performed with PF's knowledge and presence, is something to be accepted or worse still, emulated, by Catholics? Also, are you saying that the TLM is not an official mass? +
Where are my arguments? Why would I have an argument? I told you already that I'm happy with both the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Mass although I would prefer that the Ordinary Form be offered ad orientem and I gave my reasons for that. You, on the other hand, made an extraordinary statement calling into question the efficacy of the prayers (and presumably the Mass itself) if the priest isn't speaking loudly enough for you to hear him. You have subsequently suggested that the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is somehow less official (valid?) than the Ordinary Form as though Christ's once for all sacrifice can't be adequately re-presented in Latin. And you call that a defence of the Mass and the Pope? Others here have given you reasons for their preference for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. Their reasons are well thought out. The best you can come up with is that you are somehow defending Pope Francis by dismissing those reasons and everyone who doesn't agree with you must be schismatic. Do you think that makes you a better Catholic than everyone else? For people who act like they hold the monopoly on God's mercy, I've never seen anything like the harsh judgementalism of the current crop of ultramontanists. I'll leave you to bask in your own sanctity and won't be responding to any more of your childishness. Goodbye.
Thank you for letting us know your position more clearly, Ezdra. This should help us all to put our swords back in our sheaves. It requires a certain level of tolerance for the opposing view. Safe in the Refuge of the Immaculate Heart!
