Thanks to one Rubricarius, I am to-day in receipt of a handsome, detailed, all-Latin Ordo for 2011. Unfortunately, since in conformity with the 2007 motu proprio of our sovereign lord the Pope, I use the 1962 edition of the Breviary (whether Roman or Dominican), I therefore anticipate that this gift, based as it is upon the 1939 edition of the Roman liturgical books, will prove less useful to me than to others who continue to prefer the pre-Pius XII forms of the classical Roman Rite. It will at the very least save me from such embarrassing errors as the one I made some weeks back, mistaking which Sunday it was!
(Furthermore, as I have never fathomed the intricacies of the double and semi-double rites and their various classes, to say nothing of the complexities of which and how many orations may or must be said at Mass on days of different rank, I am unable to intelligently critique this doubtless perfect product – sorry, R.)
I understand the strong desire to follow such earlier forms as arguably truer to the genius of the Roman Rite, since of course the immediately pre-conciliar abbreviation in particular of Matins on Sundays and many feasts, all formerly of nine lessons, to say nothing of the annoying changes made to Holy Week, or of many other points such as the almost total removal of the preces from the Roman Breviary, are deplorable, and were evidently intended as steps towards the wholesale liturgical reform that followed Vatican II; nonetheless, I prefer to pray the liturgical forms now officially in active use, whether modern or '62, rather than, say, the pre-Pius X Breviary with its far more traditional disposition of the psalms. Indeed, some may think it already sufficiently eccentric of me to use the Dominican Breviary!
May I take this opportunity, however, to again thank my learnèd correspondent for sending me a gift I fear I have insufficiently praised: it is evidently a labour of love and patient scholarship.
