The Two Liturgies, revisited.

Things I could look up and compare:

Since I've plunged into comparing the Two Forms of the Roman Liturgy of the Mass already, I thought I might do some more comparisons.  But I thought I'd make it easier on myself by soing little chunks, or portions, of the two--it just makes sense, because to do it all at one could be too much work to do for me!

So, I'm going to compare the Introductory Rites of the the Two.  This might even go better , because I have a Missal that contains the Missa Typica in the Ordinary Form and so can compare differences in the Latin as well as the translation.  Well, I can point out where the Latin Text is different between the two Forms.  Hopefully someone who actually is competent in Latin can clue us in in the comments.

The first thing about the EF is that it uses the rubrics, norms and legislation of the 1962 Roman Missal.  That means that different levels of participation by the congregation are envisioned--there may be virtually none, or the congregation may recite with the priest the simple responses: Amen, Et cum Spiritu tuo, Deo Gratias, Gloria tibi Domine, Laus tibi est, and Sed Libra nos a Malo.  Or more participation, by reciting all the responses said by the server plus the riple Domine non sum Dignus.  Or finally, by all of the above and the Gloria, Credo, Sanctus-Benedictus and the Agnus Dei.

The 4th level of participation in the dialog Mass is the Introit, Graduale, Offertory and Communion Verse, but this is reserved to the Choir--the laity isn't expected to do this in the congregation.

In the OF the congregation is expected to make all the responses.

The thinking behind the participation levels in the EF and the OFs assumption of participation is to join the people close to the priest at the altar and to one another by comon recitation.  There was an instruction published by  the Sacred Congregation of Rites urging the use of the dialog Mass on 3 Sept 1958, and the 2d Vatican Council also urged the Laity to learn to make their responses in Latin.

I know that that was a bit obscure, but I think it is important, in order to compare the two.

In the EF, fora low Mass it starts at the foot of the Altar, whcith the Sign of the Cross.  After that, the priest declares "I will go to the Altar of God" and the server says "To God, who gives joy to my youth." (Ad Deum qui Laetificat juventutem meam).  Then the server (with the people in a dialog Mass) joins with the priest in reciting Psalm 42 "Judica me" antiphonicly, then the prayer "Introibo" is repeated, followed by the verse and response "Our help is in the name of the Lord" "Who made heaven and earth">

None of this carries through into the OF, which starts with the priest going to the altar and kissing it (except when he doesn't, bacuse he isn't doing the red) while the entrance antiphone is being  recited--although the verses from the Liber Usualis, the Graduale  or the Gregorian Missal are preferred, these are usually replaced by a hymn, which is a licit practice in the OF.  For the 22d Sunday of Ordinary Time in the EF the antiphon comes from PS 85.3-5; for the corresponding Sunday in the EF--14th after Pentecost is Ps83.10-11, 2-3.  In the EF we haven't even reached the Introit yet, so You wouldn't have heard that verse, yet.)  The Priest makes the Sign of the Cross, and greets the people wtith one the approved formulas, and people usually respond with "And also with you", in the current English translation.  In the Latin it reads "Et cum spiritu tuo."  Also worth noting is that in the ICEL version ther is an option I don't find in the Missa Typica: "Blessed be God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ..." .

Now we left the EF at the point of what I'm going to call the 2d introibo verse, which is where the Confiteor is said.  In the OF it is an option. it is not optional in the EF.  The priest will bow to the server and recite the confiteor, and the server says--in Latin but I will give the English here--"May Almighty God have mercy on you..." . If the people recite the confiteor, they do so with the priest.  Then the server recites the confiteor.  I noticed something about this--the people making their response died out in the western Liturgy in the early middle ages and this practice began to be restored in the 20th century.  In the 1958 instruction on the dialog mass the people are reciting with the priest, and use a version of the prayer that includes the phrase "...and you my brothers..." .  The server says "..and you Father..." when soliciting prayers for forgivness.  I wonder if it wasn't perhaps a bad idea to have the people recite the priests version of the prayer, instead of the servers.

The confiteor differs between the Two Forms, not just in the English Translation, but in the typical texts (in Latin) as well.  I will compare them, in the Latin, and you can see what I mean:

EF                                                                        OF
Confiteor Deo Omnipotenti                     Confiteor Deo Omnipotenti
Beatae Mariae semperVirgini                   et Vobis, fratres quia
beatu Michaeli Archangelo                       peccavi nimis
beato Joanni Baptistae                             Cogitatione, verbo, opere
Sancto Apostolis Petro et Paulo               et omissine:
Omnibus Sanctis, et Tibi Pater                  mea culpa, mea culpa mea maxima culpa
quia peccavi nimis                                    Ideo precor beatam
Cogitatione, verbo et opere                      Mariam Sempr Virginem
Mea culpa, mea culpa mea maxima          omnes Angelos et Santos
     culpa.                                                 et Vos, fratres, orare pro me
Ideo pecor beatam Mariam                      ad Dominus Deum nostrum
Beatam Michaelae Archangelum
beatum Baptistam (I'm sorry--I can't decifer my hand written note on this line--I'll fix it later!)
Santo Apostolos Petrum
omnes santos et te, Pater
orare pro me
ad Dominum Deum nostrum.

In the EF this is followed by further petitions for the remission of sins follwed by a beatuful set of versicles taken from scripture, starting with "Will you not, O god, give us life?"  (Deus tu conversus vivificabis nos) followed by the response "And shall not your people rejoice in you?" ( Et pleb tua laet abitur in te)  I really find the use of the word "plebs" to be interesting here, it could have been perhaps some form of the word "populo"  Hopefully, some latinist with a great kid will comment on this, and help me out with wondering why the word plebs was chosen and some of its implications (Hey Liz--You Readin'?)

There follows in the EF a petition fro purity and and expression of sorrow for sin, in which the priest  bows down and kisses the Altar.  At this point it is time for the Introit in the EF, which is followed by the Kyrie.

Here's quite a difference, the OF statred with the introit, and didn't have the prayer at the foot of the Altar.

The OF has several forms of the kyrie in English--8 in total, which I found in the Missa Typica as well, plus the greek, which is the only form in the EF, and has a complete new option: Form B which says "Lord we have sinned against you" followed by the response "Lord have mercy", then the versicle "Lord, show us your mercy and love" followed by "And grant us your salvation.", then the Absolution as in the Confiteor. (I don't recall ever seeing this done)

The Gloria follows at this point in both Forms.  The text reads the same in both Forms, in Latin.  In the OF it is said or sung on Sundays that are not in Lent or Advent, and on Solemnities and feasts and solemn local celebrations.  The EF has substancially the same rules, but also omits the Gloria on Septuagesima, which is suppressed in the OF, and at requiam Masses.   As I said the text is the same, but in the EF there is a sign of the cross at the words "...with the Holy Spirit..." and it is closed with the "Dominus Vobiscum/et cum spritu tuo .

This bring sus to the Collect, or the Opening prayer, which begins with the word "Oremus"--"Let us Pray" in both Forms.

My thought on the differences:

The first thing that comes to mind is how do we account for the abscence of the prayers at the foot of the altar?  I think--and note that I'm using  the word think, not the word Know, that these date very far back, and are related to the "pre-liturgies", or liturgical prayers that are used in the Eastern Churches prior to the Divine Liturgy, in some churches they last for hours, yet are not properly part of the Divine Liturgy, and the people don't usually atttend all of them.  That's my idea, any way.

But there is a notable difference in the two Forms already--the emphasis on Sin and Forgivness.  The Mass is the unbloody re-presentation of the Sacrifice on Golgotha.  It is, in fact, the self same sacrifice, offered by Christ our High Priest, who is continually making offerings on our behalf in the Heaven.  And the Sacrifice on Golgothat was a sin offering.  At it's base, the Mass is a sacrifice offered for the forgivness and remission of sins--and everything else about it flows from that fact.

It has been said, over and over again, by people who are smarter, better educated, better informed and better looking than me that the OF isn't as clear on this as the EF--and I now believe it.  From the start, there is a great emphasis on sin and forgivness.  And an emphasis that this action, the Mass, is seperate from any other action, a sense of entering, ascending, into the place of worship.  Sacred time and space are emphasized--"Go up to the Altar of God".

It also stand out that this is not something the "community does"--and that is a very important point.  For the "Community" of Israel didn't die on the cross.  The "Community" of the Apostles and disciples didn't get scourged.  The Passion was volatarily undergone by one person:  Jesus Christ.  The priest offers the Mass, not by virtue of his own person, but rather in personna Christi, Christ acting through him.  It is Christ who offers the Mass--not us.  The seperation inherent between the celebrant and the congregation clearly point to this.  It wasn't an obscure thing--every piece of catechal material I could find from the 50s back pointed it out, usually with graphics!

That's why I said ealier that I wasn't sure if the people reciting the confiteor with the priest in the dialog Mass was such a good idea.  Pehaps it would have been better for us to recite it with the server, asking the priest for his prayer for our forgivness, because the Mass is a sin offering, and he is offering our prayers, in personna Christi, for that very purpose.

The next thing that I noticed was the huge ammount of Scripture in the prayers--Verses, responses, psalmody, most of what is said comes directly from scripture.  It embodies the idea that Scripture is  the Prayer book of the church, especially the Book of Psalms, something that is much less evident in the OF--but I must say that Scott Hahn, is is steeped in scripture, waxes ethusiastic when he speaks of the Mass, and how much scripture the OF uses in it's celebration--not just the readings, but in responses, in what is spoken in the prayers, etc.  But there is more, much more, in the opening rites of the EF than the OF.

The last thing I'm going to talk about is the Confiteor:  The differences between the two.  The EF confiteor is steeped in two concepts that are watered down in the OF version:  The communion of Saints, and the Church Triumphant, which are linked.  If one recites the EF version, not only does one get the idea that they are praying forgivness, but that they are part of a greater whole, that exists in Heaven.  One is able to access the saints, to solicite their prayers.  And one can access the prayer of angles too.  And by accessing them, we see that our prayers for forgivness are in fact a part of that heavenly liturgy.  I nthe OF, one can get the impression that it is less important to confess to God, and to That part of the Church which is the Church Triumphant, residing in heaven, than to the other people in the pews--as if forgivness of sins proceeds not from the Sanctifying grace of the Sacraments, but from a communitarian perspective. 

I can see how this would give rise to a sort of congregationalism in sacramental theology, which is in fact what we have seen occur among the Laity in the last 40 years.

Any way, that's what I have looked at in the EF and OF Liturgies, and what my thoughts are.

NB: I'M OUT OF TIME, SO I'LL PROOF THIS LATER!  ANY MISTAKES IN THE LATIN ARE MY FAULT, WHERE I FAILED TO DECIFER MY HAND WRITTEN NOTES!  I ALSO FORGOT TO ATTRIBUTE THE EF TRANSLATIONS, AND DIDN'T WRTIE THEM IN MY NOTEBOOK, SO I'LL GET BACK WITH THAT.  THE OF TRANSLATIONS ARE ALL ICEL TRANSLATIONS.

"woman puts cat in dumpster"

Yes, that's gotten a lot of play--on the Internet, of course, where all things weird and wolley find a home, but on international news.  It's been on the NBC news too.

This has gotten a lot of play!  It has been refered to on the local news channels, with video and repitition.

Of course, here in Luoisville there was a baby put in a dumpster.  It's a done story.  Gor one short mention on a local TV channel then went  away.  The TV channel has played the cat video several times. 

The cat, put in an english dumpster, recieved more air time and video play than a baby, put in a local dumpster.

What a sick, sick world I live in.

I'm just fiddling around today...

...because I'm still fascinated with the differences between the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  I'll have another post about it, by Saturday, but it will be shorter and deal with the Ordinaries--not the propers--of the EF Low Mass, and the OF Mass.

Browsing

As I waited for my bus to come and take me across Le Belle Riviere to my beloved home, I browsed the magazine fronts at a local news stand. (No, not those magazines!  I don't think that they even sell them at that news stand!) Well, magazines and Newspapers.  So here are my comments on the headlines I read.

Headline the First:  "Flight Poll: Limit Kids Areas" (USA Today)--with the sub heading that nearly 60% of those polled want families with children to be segregated into their own part of the plane for air travel. 

*Insert scatological four letter word of choice here* on that!  HOw about this--let's segregate the planes by race.  Or how about headgear--all turbans and yarmulkes to the back?  How about by Tattoos--painted neosavages must sit over the wing tanks?  This is quite simply discrimination against families and children because people don't like setting close to them.

OK--there are groups of people whose conversational style annoys me, but that's no reason to make them be off in their own area, rather, that's a problem with me.

It's segregation on the basis of reproduction.  And, it's a new front in the War on Life--if you have the bad taste to reproduce you'll never get a good seat again, so you'd better contrecept or abort your little annoying offspring away.  Soy--if they do segregate families on planes, what about affluent families that want to fly first class?  And how will it fly when feminist single mothers are told they can't sit where they want?  Gay couples?  the possibilities are endless here.

And yes--I've sat on long flights with noisy kids aboard.  In fact, I flew a 747  filled with immigrant families from New York to Tel Aviv--non-stop.  So yeah, I know what I'm saying.

Headline the Second:  "Untamed Va-Jay-Jay--sexy new style...".  Ugh!  First, it has nothing to do with style, it's about a fashion.  Fashion and Style are nearly mutually exclusive, in my book.  Style is an aesthetic that endures, an not only reflects but cultivates the out look of individuals concerning them selves and their place in the commerce of human interaction.  Fashion just exists to sell tings to people who can't concieve of their own esthetic path.  Fashion is by nature ephemeral, and by practice in the US the product of various mavens who need to sell advertising to companies that in turn sell not so much product, but fear of not using the right products!

Not long ago, women were a bit more circumspect about how they groomed their genitals.  When first I was confronted by a casual acquaintance who discussed genital grooming and it's impact on sexual desirability and technique, my first thought was that she was a skank.  Actually, so were my second and third thoughts as well, and I still hold that opinion.  Women used to hold that their genitals were a kind of treasure, to be held and revealed, for the most part in intimate circumstance. 

Now, apparently it's OK to scream from the front of a magazine:  "Hey let's stop shaving our snatches genitals, it's the fashionable thing to do!"  I think that however well dressed paid, spoken or represented, this article is a product of skanky thinking, by skanks, and will be read mostly by the people who read Cosmo--high school girls who want to be cooler and more "adult" than they are.  They will absorb the central lesson:  you should be skanky and prepared to display your genitals

I thin that Cosmopolitan has played a much bigger role in the reduction of American women into thinking of themselves as sex objects than Playboy ever did.  IN fact, more than even Mr. Heffners most feverish, vodka fueled dreams concieved of.

Headline the Third:   "Bear to be Euthanized"  (From inside the a local news paper I read this morning--I forget which)  No, the bear isn't being euthanized.  And I can't decide if this headline is the result of subtle thinking on the parts of pro euthanasia animal rights activists who buy the theory the "A rat is a dog is a boy" and hope there fore to convince people to accept euthanasia, or the product of the crappy standards of English usage and vocabulary that are taught in American Journalism Schools.

The bear isn't sick or injured.  Therefore the bear isn't being killed to end it's suffering.  Therefore, the bear isn't being euthanized.  Period.

The bear is being humanely put down because it savaged and killed a keeper at the facility where it resided:  it is a vicious man killer and there fore cannot be maintained, or released.

That's not euthanasia--it's dangerous animal management.

You get paid to write--learn some English!

And Finally--and it makes me mad--from inside Leo Weekly:  Leo is the local "alternative" newspaper, and a more biased publication you will not find at the Falls of the Ohio.  Inside today's edition, on the "City Strobe" page there is a column called "What a Week", where they rate the "world classness" of Louisville numerically.  This weeks rating is -3, in part because of this: 

"The spawn of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin will speak at a fundraising dinner for the Christian pregnant women's shelter Lifehouse Maternity Center on Sept. 8, (presumably) about what it's like to lose a struggle with abstinence and then give birth in the loving grace of Jesus and the American news media."

OK--"Spawn"?  that seems to be hateful, and the tone of the blurb is about as nice as Leo gets about Christianity, unless discussing someone who is gay friendly and/or pro abortion who has just split from their parent ecclessial body.  That's just snide, and it's meant to be deliberately disrespectful of both Mrs. and Miss Palin.  BTW, Leo, what have you done to raise funds or help women who want to keep their child? 

And on the back pages--where they run the "news of the Weird", which I enjoy--they have a cartoon called the city, which is very often not only not Christian Friendly, but down right hateful.  This week it shows a Christian kneeling in front of a Burger King french fry that's shaped like a cross.  That's after depicting those who oppose the Mosque near Ground Zero as over weight, screaming ignoramuses, adorned with crosses.

I am now officially done with Leo.  Less and less has it provided me with insight in to the progressives in Louisville by actual journalism, and more and more has it become vitriolic and spiteful--rather like the late and largely unlamented Bloomington Voice.

The Good, The Bad, and the Exasperating

I'm still a bit tired from my liturgical studies type fest.  So, here are some little bullet items, or news snippets, or something, what ever you want to call them.

Good:  Archbishop Carlson has issued a clarification to the St. Vincent DePaul Society, concerning the teachings of the Church about Homosexual Relationships.  This blocked the nomination of  Jeffery Goldone to be the president of the St. Vincent DePaul Society in St. Louis, as the by laws of the society say one who is living a lifestyle in conflict with catholic teaching can't be the president of the society.  Mr. Goldone is living in an openly Gay relationship.  I got this over at Courageous Priest, where comments are running 22 in favor of the Archbishop, 0 for the man in question.

Bad:  Bishop Armando Ochoa of El Paso Tx has rebuked a Priest for publishing a column in which he uphold Catholic Teaching on Abortion and Gay Marriage, speaking in tune with both the USCCB and the Vatican.

Exasperating:  The CCHD is still funding groups and activities that are activly participating in contradicting and working against the teachings of our Church.  Why do they do this?  I think it's because the the Lay Bureaucrats who run the CCHD have set themselfs up as a "little magisterium" to define what is and isn't against the Catholic Church--even though anyone who can pick a up a copy to the Catechism can see where they are wrong.

Incomprehensible:  The Bishop of Agen France has stricly forbidden the Canons of the Institute of Christ the King Soveriegn Priest from celebrating the  EF Liturgy, and banned their catechesis program.  This is even though the ICRSP is therir by invitation and functions in the EF.  What's even wierder than this is that although weekly Mass attendence in France is just below 12%, 50% of those who do show up show up to the EF.  BTW--Agen has 1 seminarian.  ICRSP has simply said OK--we won't celebrate the EF in your area, because we are leaving your area.  I wonder though--since the moto proprio Sumorum Pontificum gives the right of any Roman Rite priest to celebrate the EF without further permission, how does the bishop justify this, and how is he avoiding being called on his comtument disobedience to the Pope?

And related to the above:  Sten Sandmark was a pastor in the (Lutheran) Church of Sweden.  He abjured protestantism in the Church of St Nicholas du Chardonnet, in Paris.  Now four years later, he has been ordained a priest and has clebrated his Mass of thanks giving in the same Church.  As a Solemn Mass of the EF.

I'm feeling a bit snarky and cynical after reading todays news.

Brave Monks in Louisiana

You may have heard of the Monastery in Louisiana that was making caskets to support themselves.  You may also have heard that the Funeral Directors have had the state tell them they can't--because of a state law, written and passed at the behest of funeral directors.  This law says you can't sell a casket without being a liecenced funeral director and having a fully equiped embalming lab.  So, you can't make and sell caskets in Louisianna without also provideing all other funeral services.

The monks are suing in Federal Court for restraint of trade.

Vocations: Some Thoughts

It seems that the Archdiocese of Milwaukee has a full seminary class this year.  That's good--we need priests.  I was going to write about this earlier, but I couldn't because of the super long post on the Liturgies of the assuption.  Unfortunatly the book mark to the news story about this expires--the news article is no longer up and I can't find it.  However, it had some good stuff in it.  One of the things that came up was, of course ordination of married men and womens "ordination".  The Diocesan spokesman who was interviewed for the story put that into perspective in one sentence:  He pointed out that the Mainline Protestant Denominations have a married clergy and ordain women, yet are every bit as troubled by a vocations shoratage as the Catholic Church.  he blamed it on a crisis of commitment.

I blame it on a crisis of Orthodox Teaching.  We are losing people, and the Church is shrinking, because we have tried to be trendy and relevant.  Salvation is relevant--fads in politics and social movements are ephemeral.  When those get to be very important in the "teaching" of a group, that is about the Gospel--the group dies.  Those who remain Orthodox will remain, and it will be from among those that vocations come. By not teaching clearly the Deposit of the Faith, and the Magesterial Teachings of the Church our Catechists have strangled vocations in the crib.  By promoting, celebrating and blocking traditional, reverent Liturgies, our Priests have rendered priestly service unpalatable to men.  Men are not usually comfortable with Emo-Fests.  And by prieaching not the Goxpel, not the Magisterial Teachings of the Church, they convert no one. (I once had the "privelege" of sitting through a Sunday Sermon on the "good work" that MoveOn.Org was doing.  (You know, like promoting the abandonment of Subsidierity, Gay Marriage, Abortion, etc.)  I don't think that Holy Spirit is going to call people who work against the Church to enter the priesthood.

At the same time, the Dominican Province of St. Joseph--the Eastern Province in the US--has recieved it's largest class of Novices in years!  Since 1966, in fact.  The Vocations Director attributes this to two things:  emphasising Dominican traditions, and Thomistic Theology, and not "toying or monkeying with the Liturgy" --(those are his words!). 

I have attended Liturgies at a local parish staffed by the Dominicans from this province, and can attest to higher standards of liturgical practice than ususual, as well as Holy Hours and devotions.

At St. Minrad Seminary they are operating at capacity this year.  That's not as hopeful as it sounds, since several other seminaries have closed, and St. Minrad draws its students from all over the Mid West, but it is at least showing Seminarians.

Tomarrow I will write about my idea of the Vocations thing--and I'm probably wrong!