![[SMMMHDH]](http://www.mgilleland.com/music/smmmhdh.png){kind=small}
If you’re Catholic, do you think it’s a sin to chant?
–Meadows
What is the big deal about the “Latin Mass” Amy Giglio wanted to know. She was asking an honest question
I promised I’d write this weeks ago, and promptly didn’t get around to it. Before anyone thinks I just blew this off, I had some really good reasons
Honest… I ran out of gas. I, I had a flat tire. I didn’t have enough money for cab fare. My tux didn’t come back from the cleaners. An old friend came in from out of town. Someone stole my car. There was an earthquake. A terrible flood. Locusts. IT WASN’T MY FAULT, I SWEAR TO GOD.
To continue a tradition, I’ll advise Beth she can stop reading now.
Now that Beth’s gone., we’ll continue. The basic question is, what is the Mass?
We’ll let EWTN give the answer, since I think we can acknowledge a strong foundation in the Faith among those who run that station.
The Mass is the Sacrifice of the New Law in which Christ, through the ministry of the priest, offers Himself to God in an unbloody manner under the appearances of bread and wine.
OK, so the Mass is a sacrifice. It is Christ Himself who offers Himself to God through the consecration of bread and wine by a priest.
If we can agree that that is the reality of the Mass, I believe it would follow that the Mass itself should be conducted in a manner befitting that reality.
Now, how did Protestants view the Mass? After all, the Mass itself became a main point of contention between Catholics and heretics Protestants.
First, let’s look at the view of John Calvin:
1. The chief of all the abominations set up in opposition to the Lord’s Supper is the Papal Mass. A description of it.
2. Its impiety is five-fold. 1. Its intolerable blasphemy in substituting priests to him the only Priest. Objections of the Papists answered.
3. Impiety of the Mass continued. 2. It overthrows the cross of Christ by setting up an altar. Objections answered.
4. Other objections answered.
5. Impiety of the Mass continued. 3. It banishes the remembrance of Christ’s death. It crucifies Christ afresh. Objections answered.
6. Impiety of the Mass continued. 4. It robs us of the benefit of Christ’s death.
7. Impiety of the Mass continued. 5. It abolishes the Lord’s Supper. In the Supper the Father offers Christ to us; in the Mass, priestlings offer Christ to the Father. The Supper is a sacrament common to all Christians; the Mass confined to one priest.
I think you can gather even without reading the entire treatise that Calvin didn’t care for our definition of the Mass. He preferred something he called “The Lord’s Supper”, which replaced the sacrificial nature of the Mass with a communal meal.
As for the other foundation of the Reformation (so called), Martin Luther objected to the Mass and to private confession.
According to Reality Magazine (A Protestant publication)
In his Babylonish Captivity of the Church, Luther denied that the mass is a sacrifice offered by the priest to God.
So Luther wasn’t down with the Catholic interpretation of the Mass either.
Jean Guitton was one of Pope Paul VI’s closest friends, and a man of some credibility. According to him, the Pope confided his reasons for promulgated the new order of the Mass:
Guitton made public the fact that the Pope had confided to him that his purpose in reforming the liturgy was not simply that it would correspond as closely as possible to Protestant forms of worship, but with that of the Calvinist sect, one of the most extreme manifestations of the Protestant heresy.
Why would Paul VI do this? It was out of an effort towards “ecumenism”. The promulgation of the New Mass was to create an atmosphere of worship suitable to both Catholics and Protestants, which would lead to a unity of the two. Unless I missed the memo, that didn’t happen. Did Paul VI do this out of some sort of personal heresy? Did he believe the Mass was what Luther and Calvin believed, and not what the Church has always taught? I doubt that. Had the Pope thought so, he most likely would had a much more obviously Protestant worship service designed. Pope Paul VI made a /prudential/ judgment. He thought what he was doing wasn’t a matter of Faith or Morals. He believed this was a judgment call he could make for the benefit of the Church and the world. He didn’t create a “Protestant” service, he stripped as many Catholic elements as the possible in order to please Protestants.
Guitton’s revelation shows how perceptive was the comment by Monsignor Klaus Gamber that the drastic curtailment of solemnity in the liturgy means that Catholics “are now breathing the thin air of Calvinistic sterility.”
Did somebody excommunicate Msgr. Gamber, or is he still considered a respected liturgical historian?
What we have in the New Mass is a prudential decision by a Pope to make a move in order to foster unity with Protestants and help the Church grow. Do you think it worked? Have we had saints and great Catholic leaders arise due to the New Mass, or have we had to constantly re-stress and reteach the basic beliefs about the nature of the Mass? Have we had a reunion with the Protestants?
The good work that has come in our recent past has come from two sources Marian devotion and Eucharistic Adoration. No one’s been blown away by the mystery of the Mass. It’s as if the center of the faith has been torn asunder.
I knew quite well that in matters of faith no one would ever find me transgressing even the smallest ceremony of the Church, and that for the Church or for any truth of Holy Scripture I would undertake to die a thousand deaths.
Is this the spirit which motivates us as we join the universal prayer of the Church, the Sacred Liturgy?
That was worth waiting for!
I found a missal from 1959 in my office and I’m ready to go. I do promise to go to an indult Mass (or 3). How do you handle that with your kids? Would you recommend trying to take 4 and two year old children?
Thanks for the insight Tom!
Comment by Amy — September 19, 2005 @
Amy,
No one knows your children better than yourself. How do they behave when they attend Mass? There are some things, in actuality, that recommend themselves better for children in the Traditional Mass over the New Mass.
The short answer is, “smells and bells”. Kids so love stimulation at this age, and if the Mass is held in a nice environment, they can be held entranced for nearly all of it. If the Mass is sung, that would also be a help. Chant can hold a kid’s attention.
You may want to call ahead and ask the priest (or layperson in charge of Mass questions) if the Mass will be sung, is there a cry room if necessary, etc. We have a six year old and a four year old that attend Mass with us. The older one has been good for around three years. The younger one is just starting to get the hang of it.
Taking them to the New Mass is actually worse. There is generally such a buzz and chatter at most of the Masses here it’s near impossible to expect them to be silent and reverent.
Comment by Der Tommissar — September 19, 2005 @
“Did somebody excommunicate Msgr. Gamber, or is he still considered a respected liturgical historian?”
I believe our current Supreme Pontiff referred to the late Msgr. Gamber as, “the only scholar, facing an army of pseudoliturgists, whose thought truly springs from the heart of the liturgy of the Church.”
It should be noted though that the good Domestic Prelate was more of a Reform of the Reform or disillusioned reformer (ala Fr. Bouyer) than what we would call a Traditionalist. Which, when you think about it, makes his arguments against the Novus Ordo even more poignant…
[DT: *Puts finger to nose*]
Comment by GFvonB — September 20, 2005 @
Tom,
Expect changes, and soon. During the month of October, the Vatican will host a General Synod of Bishops. The Instrumentum Laboris for the synod indicates a strong desire by the Episcopate to redirect the priest to face the altar, not the table, to re-introduce Latin (though how isn’t mentioned), and to replace profane and popular music with chants.
I examined the working document a few months ago here: http://www.billhennessy.com/?p=806
You can read the document here:
Also, Pope Benedict has written in favor of all three of these. The good Dom Daniel Oppenheimer of Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem reminded us Sunday to pray that the Pope implements his idea of the proper Mass–the Tridentine Mass with vernacular epistle and Gospel.
Comment by Bill Hennessy — September 20, 2005 @
I wonder if the I.L. is a sign of an unsuspected, long-repressed (-suppressed?) love of Catholic Tradition amongst the Hierarchy, an attempt to suck up to the new Pope, or both…
Comment by GFvonB — September 20, 2005 @
Interesting
A few points as a priest. I and many other young priests have been frustrated with working with pastors, DREs and others who organise/co-ordinate liturgy (or worship as some call it) on parish and diocese level. Many have been drawn to celebrate the older Roman Rite. Many have. Others insist that the Rite was in need of reform and the newer Rite, properly celebrated according to the rubrics with worthy vestments and vessels in curches of beauty is better. What all are in agreement over is the way that it is currently celebrated is in need of reform. One of the problems that we encounter is that many people, wether they are liberal or conservative are legalistic. Let me illustrate.
A friend of mine who is something of a liturgist (he knows the liturgy rather than folk music and dance)was harping on for years how we should not concencrate the Precious Blood in a decanter (or whatever they called it) because of the danger of spilling it. People fought him tooth and nail. However as soon as Rome decreed and our diocese promulgated Redemptionis Sacramentum people were all ready to institute the decree, gushing over how great it was. You see people were unwilling to move or accept what a lone voice in the wilderness was crying until someone with “authority” had to say. We respect authority, yes, but not blindly. As to wether people should receive the Precious Blood on a regular basis of course in the older Rite this was unheard of and for most countries apart from the US it is still unheard of this is why Rome cant understand why it is a problem here. There are many other things that I could write but I will leave it at that. I have to add though I was interested in Calvin’s argument. Not what he had to say but his technique. His way of arguing by making a statement and objections with answers is the same as Aquinas’ Summa. Anyway lets see what people have to say …
Comment by Fr. Liam Foley — September 20, 2005 @
Pope to Promote Tridentine Mass
How timely was Tom’s blog on the Latin Mass?
I just received this holy news from Karl Keating’s newsletter:
Last Thursday Catholic World News transmitted this story, filed out of Dublin, regarding what might happen to what is commonly…
Trackback by Hennessy's View — September 20, 2005 @
Love the bells! We have them, and we don’t even do Latin in our parish. They are a great help with kids, though, because they are a signal to the grownup to remind the child, “Jesus is HERE!” My three-year-old looks forward to, and expects, the bell-ringing.
Comment by Barb Szyszkiewicz, sfo — September 20, 2005 @
Tom, you always lose me on your religious posts…
But…while on the subject of sinning…
Isn’t it written somewhere that it’s a sin to be stupid?
It should be. ;)
Comment by Wench — September 20, 2005 @
:-P
Comment by Beth — September 21, 2005 @
Haha, I read it when you weren’t looking! ;-)
(These just take me a little longer to process!)
Comment by Beth — September 21, 2005 @
Missed this post until today. I always said I was slow.
Glad you wrote it.
Comment by Captoe — November 11, 2005 @