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Wednesday, February 5, 2014

WITH CHANGING FORTUNES, FROM APPEARANCE SAKE, IS CARDINAL BURKE'S LITURGICAL VISION OUT OF DATE OR AHEAD OF ITS TIME?

Money Quote from Cardinal Burke: The reform that was done, the reform of the rites, went beyond and in some senses perhaps not completely coherently, with what the Council Fathers had set forth. We need to go back and to…not negate everything that happened, and it’s not that everything that happened at the Council was bad and wrong. But we need to correct the abuses that entered in and so forth. I have the hope that some of those elements, for instance, that were taken away will be reincorporated again, so it will be more evident, the organic unity of the two forms of the same rite.

When you listen to Cardinal Burke in this 2012 interview, it sounds to me that he would have been very much involved in what the Anglican Use Mass has recovered in its Appendix to it new Roman Missal as Cardinal Burke was and still is a member of the Congregation for Divine Worship. So what he speaks must have been spoken in those meetings and certainly in the recent revision of the Anglican Use Mass which had to be approved by the new Holy Father, Pope Francis.

These are the things in the Anglican Use Liturgy that show the organic unity between the Extraordinary Form Mass and the Ordinary Form Mass and one can see here, in a clairvoyant way, what is in store for the rest of the Latin Rite Church's Ordinary Form Mass in a future minor revision of the Missal, with the following allowed but found in the Appendix (similar to the additional Penitential Acts with Form C that are in the Appendix currently).

I. The Prayers at the Foot of the Altar

II. Revised Order of the Introductory Rite when using the PATFOTA

III. EF's Offertory Prayers

IV. EF's Rubrics for the Roman Canon

V. The Last Gospel

We already know that Latin and Gregorian Chant are to have a place of pride in the Ordinary Form. That has been allowed since the Council and encouraged by Pope Benedict in one of the most formal ways he could:

And from   (Sacramentum Caritatis, n. 62) above, the most authoritative directive about the use of Liturgical Latin from the Holy Father, the Bishop of Rome:

The Latin language

62. None of the above observations should cast doubt upon the importance of such large-scale liturgies. I am thinking here particularly of celebrations at international gatherings, which nowadays are held with greater frequency. The most should be made of these occasions. In order to express more clearly the unity and universality of the Church, I wish to endorse the proposal made by the Synod of Bishops, in harmony with the directives of the Second Vatican Council, (182) that, with the exception of the readings, the homily and the prayer of the faithful, it is fitting that such liturgies be celebrated in Latin. Similarly, the better-known prayers (183) of the Church's tradition should be recited in Latin and, if possible, selections of Gregorian chant should be sung. 

Speaking more generally, I ask that future priests, from their time in the seminary, receive the preparation needed to understand and to celebrate Mass in Latin, and also to use Latin texts and execute Gregorian chant; nor should we forget that the faithful can be taught to recite the more common prayers in Latin, and also to sing parts of the liturgy to Gregorian chant. (184)

4 comments:

Henry said...

"Is Cardinal Burke's liturgical vision out of date or ahead of its time?"

Neither. But even more appropriate and needed now than in 2012 when this video was made.

John Nolan said...

It was interesting that the cardinal reminded us that the preparatory prayers had their origins in the Jewish temple. As more priests say the EF Mass, a good example of mutual enrichment would be the following, which would not conflict with the OF rubrics:

1. The priest says the psalm Judica Me and its antiphon Introibo to himself during the entrance procession. This is what happened anyway in pre-Tridentine Uses such as the Sarum.
2.On approaching the altar he says quietly the Aufer a nobis, with its direct reference to the Holy of Holies, followed by the Oramus te as he kisses the altar. The Mass then begins at the chair in the normal way.
3. After the Ite Missa est which concludes the Mass he recites the Placeat to himself as he leaves the altar. This was actually recommended in 1967 when the present concluding rites were introduced.
4. In the OF the priest puts incense into the thurible before the entrance. There is no reason why he should not use the blessing Ab illo benedicaris. When he blesses incense at the Offertory the GIRM instructs him not to say anything, but it was noticeable in Pope Benedict's post-SP Masses he said the traditional incensation prayers which includes the psalm Dirigatur. Was he subtly suggesting that since the EF and OF are forms of the same Roman Rite he was not in fact "mixing Rites" which is of course forbidden?

This type of enrichment can, and probably will happen in the natural course of events. When the Novus Ordo came in, many older priests still said many of the 'private' prayers of the older Rite, so ingrained had they become.

Henry said...

John, what is to prevent a priest celebrating an OF Mass now, praying silently and privately as you indicate? (Realizing, of course, that the passing generations of malformed priests likely would not do so, even if directed in a new instruction.)

As a simple worshiper in the pews at OF Mass, I say say a good many of these traditional prayers privately. Why wouldn't a pious and devoted priest do this as a matter of course? Do you assume that no priests do so? Do we assume that no priests are as devoted as the layman who prays privately during Mass?

John Nolan said...

Henry, not long ago I was at an OF Mass and I am convinced the (young) priest said the Suscipe Sancta Trinitas between the Lavabo and the Orate Fratres. What else could he have been praying at this point?