A Blog for Dallas Area Catholics

Fr. Ray Blake dissects the differences between the Traditional Missal, and new August 22, 2013

I have an occasional commenter who has come by several times to chide me that I apparently have no conception of the differences between the TLM and Novus Ordo. I find that a bit strange, and have to assume that commenter missed the numerous posts I did from mid-2012 until early this year, which dissected those differences from many angles in great detail. Such as the post that lamented how 1 Corinthians 11:27-29 has been completely excised from the Novus Ordo.  I also have to say, having assisted predominately at the TLM over the past 3 years, I’ve come to recognize those differences in increasingly detail.  But, whateves, as I said, I hang around the local TLM parish quite a bit, and I’ve yet to see her there.  But it is true, I don’t feel the need to very carefully identify ALL the changes between TLM and Novus Ordo, or to stress all the perceived failings of the Novus Ordo, in every single post.  Such would give me a terrible case of tired head. So, I guess Barb will just have to continue being disappointed.

But, to make her feel a bit better, perhaps, below are some excerpts by Fr. Ray Blake which notes many of those differences in the prayers of the two forms of the Mass. Fr. Blake doesn’t use the term “negative ecclesiology,” but that is exactly what he is getting at.  The revolutionaries in the Church sought to radically change belief and practice, and there was no better way to do that than by altering the Mass.  As such, concepts the revolutionaries found offensive, so called negative theology (sin, death, judgment, atonement, suffering, mysticism, rejection of the world, etc., etc), were simply removed from the Mass. Fr. Anthony Cekada’s study on this subject found that 85% of the Orations from the TLM were either totally excised (70%), or so changed as to be radically altered in meaning (15%).  The rest of the vast new prayers – the Propers, or Orations – for the 3 year liturgical cycle were manufactured (to use Pope Emeritus’ Benedict XVI’s term) by a small committee of self-anointed liturgical experts over a period of a few years.  I add emphasis and comments below:

In last Sundays readings Jesus says to his disciples: “Do you think I came to bring peace on earth? No, I tell you, but division”. It is the type of reading that the compilers of the Lectionary normally move to the Wednesday of the 22nd Week of Ordinary Time, or there abouts. [If they leave it in, at all.  But I will say the 3 year liturgical cycle has absolutely butchered the flow of the liturgical year.  Readings at Mass most often no longer correspond at all to the given Saint’s feast, or even from the portion of the liturgical year then ongoing.  We frequenty have readings that have nothing to do with either the Saint, or the season.  It’s all discombobulated]

The lectionary for Extraordinary Form seems to present Christ in a more vivid way than the Ordinary Form Lectionary. It was organic,hammered out over the centuries, although the Sundays are basically those in use at the time of Gregory the Great……. [And the Roman Canon is, according to numerous sources, much older than that.  Even among many of the most radical of 20th century liturgical revolutionaries, it was always thought the Roman Canon would be, must be, inviolable. When John XXIII made the first small change to the Canon in 1962, they knew they would be given free reign to change everything.] The Church’s theology until the 20th Century was built on her Liturgy and the scriptures presented there and most especially in the Lectionary of the Missal. [Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi.  The law of prayer is the law of belief – we believe as we pray.  Radical changes in the prayers of the Mass led to radical changes in belief.  I’ll go ahead and stress, for Barb’s sake, the fact that the prayers of the Novus Ordo Latin Mass are the basis for all this, and very different from the Latin prayers of the TLM]

I can’t help thinking of Abp Annibale Bugnini writing the Missal of Paul VI and composing the present Lectionary through a haze of whatever was smoked in 60s. Maybe I am being unfair and he didn’t smoke anything but the Pauline Lectionary has a decided 60s feel to it.  [Actually, Bugnini himself wrote in his book (which I most assuredly do NOT recommend) that he and his chief collaborator, Carlo Braga, stayed up late many nights drinking wine and smoking……whatever they smoked, composing the new Orations for the Novus Ordo]  The image of God, of Jesus is not organic, it has the feel of one particular period in history, to me it is decidedly Beatnik to early Hippie. If it hadn’t been compiled after two World Wars and the Holocaust it would probably have been quite different, if Bugnini or Paul VI had been different types of men the image of God presented to us would be quite different. Because fundamentally it is their image of God, it is not the image that St Thomas Becket, St Francis, St John of the Cross, St John Vianney, or Padre Pio met every day at the altar. [No question Bugnini asserted much of his personal theology into the Novus Ordo.  That philosophy was dominated by modernism and ecumenism, with one of the highest concerns of the changes to the Mass being that it must not offend protestant sensibilities. There were wild hopes running rampant, that desired the Mass to continue to change, to continue to become more protestant, until there would be one great big kumbayah super-ecumenical “mass” for protestants and Catholics. The Orthodox, were, of course, not much consulted in all this, as they found it abhorrrent]

The OF Lectionary presents us with a new theology; the ancient Lectionary formed the theology of the Church, it was an unchanging ‘given’. What Bugnini produced was very much the product of the Council and 20th century theology. [So, Father Blake is staking out his claim that the Novus Ordo, contrary to what many conservative Catholics try to claim, was not produced contrary to what the Council proclaimed, but fully in union with those proclamations. This is certainly a hot topic of debate, but I’ll say this: the conciliar documents were deliberately left very imprecise and open to interpretation, so that almost any liturgical change could be justified. That was the whole point.  The revolutionaries did not think they could get away with a Council, even a pastoral one, that proclaimed error.  So, they filled it with ambiguities that could be easily taken advantage of to justify about anything, liturgically. And thus, a wretched table replaces the Altar of God.]   It comes from the same school that applied the scalpel to excise the cursing psalm, that separated that bit about eating and drinking one’s own condemnation from the Epistle for Corpus Christi and so many other bits and pieces that they were uncomfortable with, that simply did not reflect the theological fashion of the time. [“negative” ecclesiology]

Yes, we now have a lot more scripture but it is carefully selected, carefully edited and from a very particular time in Church history and produced by very strange men indeed, some of whom were quite unsaintly, who had their own image of God they wanted to impose on the Church. [Very strange indeed. I think it fair to say that putting a mason in charge of the liturgical reform qualifies as strange.  Fr. Blake is dead on when he said there is more Scripture used in the Novus Ordo, but it has been very carefully screened, to insure those dread topics of “negative ecclesiology” aren’t around to frighten very delicate, very feminine modern man.]

In a sense the new Lectionary gives a new image of God, in that it has change the Church fundamentally because it has changed the face of God. [Yup]

——————-End Quote————————

I should make clear, Fr. Blake offers both the TLM and the Novus Ordo on just about a daily basis.  But he, like Traditional Catholic Priest, like Fr. Rodriguez, and like so many others who have delved into the treasures of the Traditional Mass from a Novus Ordo background, has concluded unequivocally that the TLM possesses so many efficacious aspects that the Novus Ordo simply lacks. It simply speaks to their souls much more.  As it does to the vast majority of lay people who give the TLM a fair chance.  The Traditional Mass is, quite simply, the greatest creation of Western Civilization, by far, but then again it’d have to be: its the product of centuries of cooperation with Grace.