Banal Insipid Prayers

I was initially delighted that at long last the lawful authorities in Holy Mother Church had noticed a glaring omission in the modern  Roman Missal – the absence of any Votive Mass in Time of Mortality (that is, by Pestilence and Plague) – and had issued a new Mass in Time of Pandemic, for the professed purpose of "implor[ing] God to bring an end to this pandemic" (A peste perambulante, Decree of the Congregation for Divine Worship, 30th March 2020).

This Mass proper may be used on all days not solemnities or of equivalent rank, so it may replace even Feasts of Our Lord, his Mother, his Apostles, and the Saints, as well as Sundays of Ordinary Time (no great loss, that), and both Sundays of Christmastide and Days within the Octave of Christmas! 

There are only 47 days of the year when it may not be used! These are the Sundays of Advent, Lent and Eastertide (including Pentecost Sunday of course); Ash Wednesday, all the days of Holy Week, the Easter Triduum, the Easter Octave, the Ascension of Our Lord, and Trinity Sunday; and also the Solemnities of Corpus Christi, the Sacred Heart, and Christ the King – all these being "movable feasts", amounting to 36 days – and moreover 11 solemnities that occur on fixed dates: those of Christmas, Mary the Mother of God, the Epiphany, St Joseph, the Annunciation, the Nativity of St John Baptist, Saints Peter & Paul, the Assumption, All Saints, All Souls, and the Immaculate Conception.

However, and most unfortunately, the prayers of this new formulary are disappointingly banal, insipid and uninspiring. I trust the good Lord will bear with such limp and timid effusions, for he knows mankind all too well; but we must acknowledge that this is a jejune and feeble production of the CDW, unworthy of the sacred liturgy. Compare this to the EF Votive Mass in Time of Mortality, drawn up by Clement VI in 1348 at the onrush of the Black Death! The comparison is extremely telling.

To begin with, in the Novus Ordo the readings are usually taken from those of the ferial day, but if desired, a selection (itself extracted from those For Any Necessity) is proposed for use with these appointed prayers – yet none of these readings actually mentions plague, disease, pestilence or illness! 

To be fair, the suggested Epistle is the magnificent ending of Romans chapter 8 (verses 31b-39), but while a most uplifting passage, it is not explicitly ad rem. The alternative Lesson (Lamentations 3:17-26) is also pleasant enough, but not directly concerned with epidemics or universal contagion. The same can be said of the two alternative responsorial psalms – abbreviated from Psalms 79(80) and 122(123) – and the Gospel Acclamation (2 Cor. 1: 3b-4a): they are by their very nature as inspired Scripture written for our edification, but they do not directly address the matter at hand. The Gospel pericope, even more peculiarly, is not one of the many in which Our Lord heals the sick, but rather concerns him stilling the wind and the waves (Mark 4:35-41), when the disciples cry out in fear.

What of the EF Mass from the days of the Black Death? Its Lesson speaks of the Davidic Plague and its averting by God's mercy, when he relented at the prayer of the repentant King, and restrained the destroying angel he had sent, in his wrath at David's sin, to inflict the punishment of pestilence. The Gradual recalls that the Lord sent his word, and he healed and saved men from death. The Gospel relates how Christ in his days on earth healed the sick and drove out demons. The Offertory refers to Aaron's propitiatory offering of incense (cf. Numbers 16:46-48), which appeased the anger of God and stilled the plague he had sent to punish rebellious Israel. But such themes are evidently strong meat, despite being truths taught explicitly in the Bible, and would be too, too much for effete, delicate moderns who can bear only the milk of a milk-and-water religion.

To return to this new OF proper Mass, the appointed Entrance and Communion Antiphons are well-known, indeed beloved texts offering consolation (Is 53:4; Mt 11:28), but have no direct reference to a pandemic. By contrast, the Introit and Communion of the EF Mass pro vitanda mortalitate (to use its older title) are much more relevant: the former refers directly to the Davidic Plague (as does the Lesson), while the latter refers to Our Lord's healing of the sick.

Now, to the prayers of the just-published Mass in Time of Pandemic, which include the special Lenten feature of a Prayer over the People after the Prayer after Communion:

Omnípotens sempitérne Deus, in omni perículo singuláre præsídium, qui fílios tuos in tribulatióne fide supplicántes exáudis, nobis propitiáre benígnus, et præsta, quǽsumus, defúnctis réquiem ætérnam, solámen plorántibus, salútem infírmis, moriéntibus pacem, operántibus pro fratrum sanitáte robur, spíritum sapiéntiæ illis qui nos in potestáte moderántur, et ánimum ad omnes benévole accedéndi ut cuncti nomen sanctum tuum glorificáre valeámus. Per Dóminum. 

Súscipe, Dómine, múnera quæ, in hodiérnis perículis, tibi offérimus, et fac, quǽsumus, ut, omnipoténtia tua, in fontem sanitátis pacísque convertántur. Per Christum. 

Deus, a quo recépimus vitæ ætérnæ medicínam, concéde, quǽsumus, ut, per hoc sacramentum de cæléstis remédii plenitúdine gloriémur. Per Christum. 

Protéctor in te sperántium, Deus, bénedic pópulum tuum, salva, tuére, dispóne, ut, a peccátis liber, ab hoste secúrus, in tuo semper amóre persevéret. Per Christum.

What can be said of the immensely long, almost wearisome Collect? If divided up, as I am about to demonstrate using its official English version, it would be better as a series of petitions in the Universal Prayer:

Almighty and eternal God, our refuge in every danger, to whom we turn in our distress; in faith we pray[:]
(1) look with compassion on the afflicted,
grant
(2) eternal rest to the dead,
(3) comfort to mourners,
(4) healing to the sick,
(5) peace to the dying,
(6) strength to healthcare workers,
(7) wisdom to our leaders and
(8) [to us] the courage to reach out to all in love,
so that together we may give glory to your holy name. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever.

Note carefully: petitions 1 and 2 ask for what cannot be seen (God's compassionate eye cast upon the afflicted, and eternal rest granted to the dead); petitions 3, 5, 6, 7 and 8 ask for good emotional and intellectual states of mind; and petition 4 alone actually asks for a visible benefit (healing for the sick) that, frankly, will come to most anyway (since only a small percentage die of this disease). Certainly God is our refuge in danger and distress; certainly we ought pray for all these benefits; but where is the prayer that this pandemic cease? Isn't that the professed purpose of this whole Mass? So why does it nowhere ask for it?

Do the author(s) and those who have promulgated this formulary perhaps not believe that God can bring this pandemic to an end, whensoever and howsoever he has decided in his all-wise providence?

The new Orationes super oblata, post communionem and super populum are reasonable, but could be used generally as they contain hardly anything more than vague references – the first refers to "the perils of these days" ("this time of peril" in the official translation), and prays that the offered bread and wine become a source of healing, but nothing more than that, which many such offertory prayers express in similar terms; the second is even more general, even as regards its allusions to Holy Communion as medicine and a heavenly remedy (which expressions are again commonly used in such prayers); the third of these is much the best, as it asks God, the Protector of those who hope in him, to bless, save, protect and dispose them to persevere, but I don't think that we generally regard this present pandemic as an "enemy", and the prayer – of course – has to end with an embarrassingly glib reference to "love".

Those prayers of the almost-seven-centuries-old Missa in tempore mortalitatis, on the other hand, are most explicit in their insistence that pestilence is the just punishment due on account of our sins, and so we must repent and cry to God for mercy:

Deus, qui non mortem, sed pænitentiam desideras peccatorum: populum tuum ad te revertentem propitius respice; ut, dum tibi devotus exsistit, iracundiæ tuæ flagella ab eo clementer amoveas. Per. 

Subveniat nobis, quæsumus, Domine, sacrificii præsentis oblatio: quæ nos et ab erroribus universis potenter absolvat, et a totius eripiat perditionis incursu. Per. 

Exaudi nos, Deus salutaris noster: et populum tuum ab iracundiæ tuæ terroribus liberum, et misericordiæ tuæ fac largitate securum. Per.

In the Collect, the first oration above, God is confessed as desiring not the death, but the repentance of sinners, such that he is implored graciously to regard his people turning back to him, that he may mercifully remove from us the scourges of his wrath.

Likewise, in the Secret of this traditional formulary, we beg the Lord that the offering of this present sacrifice may both powerfully absolve us from all errors, and deliver us from every incursion of perdition; and in the Postcommunion, God our health and salvation is asked to hear us, that his people be freed from the terrors of his wrath, and made secure in the gracious gift of his mercy.

How much more concise and to the point these prayers are.

Luckily, given that worldwide Masses are more and more said only in private, and less and less in public – how annoying to proud modern liturgists! – it is more and more the case that priests, unfettered by any de facto constraints on their free choice, are able to offer Mass according to the Vetus Ordo, and thus may sensibly choose the older of these two opposed propers, for "the old is better" (Luke 5:39).

Hybrid Mass

For various reasons I was late to Mass (OF, at Carmel, being the usual sung Votive of Our Lady of Mt Carmel) this morning. Foreseeing this, I had earlier read over the Mass of the day (EF, Our Lady on Saturday, Vultum tuum) down to the Gospel. It struck me how much better prepared I was, by the prayers of the EF, for the OF (at which I eventually arrived just in time for the Gospel, as it happened). Now that’s a “hybrid Mass” – EF first half, and OF second half! – indeed, the reverse of the awful “hybrid Mass” ordered by some bishops in recent decades, who mandated the OF Liturgy of the Word at the EF Mass (having attended it, I can assure readers it just doesn’t work).

I was struck by the beginning of the (EF) Gospel, being the account of the Adoration of the Shepherds (St Luke ii, 15b-20) from the Dawn Mass of Christmas:

In illo tempore: Pastores loquebantur ad invicem: Transeamus usque Bethlehem, et videamus hoc verbum quod factum est, quod Dominus ostendit nobis.

 

(At that time: The shepherds said to each other: Let us go over to Bethlehem, and let us behold this word that “has been made”, which the Lord hath shewn unto us.)

For in truth at that time I was running (festinans) to get to church, that is, to the mystic Bethlehem, “the House of Bread”, there to behold the “Verbum quod factum est” beneath the Sacramental veil, as the Lord hath shewn us (when He said, “Do this in commemoration of Me”), and indeed yet more marvellously to find and receive Him, before, like those shepherds, to the world I “returned, glorifying and praising God”.

******

This afternoon I fly to Melbourne, there to stay for a few days, before work resumes...

To Hobart, to Hobart

No, not "to buy a fat pig" (!), but "to M.C. at Mass" – that's why I'm setting off for the 200 km drive this afternoon, then staying the night with dear friends (pray for Ben, who's been very ill with pneumonia, but thank God has recovered after a fortnight in hospital), before assisting at the sacred Liturgy, lunching, and motoring back up north to-morrow.

Readers lucky enough to have weekly or even daily Traditional Masses handy may forget how it is to have the Latin Mass available only rarely, and at a distance; as it is, this Sunday presents to me the great luxury of the third Sunday in a row of E.F. Mass.  How I miss my old parish in Perth, where I had this every Sunday, and almost every day.

I am even more focussed than before on daily Mass, and I do love the Mass, OF as well as EF; but I believe the latter is the better, and if I had the chance I would attend it ever, and the former, never.  Still, it is an imperfect world, we cannot have all things as we would like, and both forms of the liturgy are valid and licit and truly propitiate God in the offering of Christ in His Sacrifice, truly give us Christ in His Sacrament in Holy Communion.

All men know, of course, that the way the OF is often done does permit many unfortunate abuses: even this morning, at Mass at Carmel, our celebrant, who is, bless him, increasingly bringing himself to deign to use the new translation, ostentatiously said "Cup" for "Chalice" each time the word appeared in the relevant part of E.P. III, even in the words of consecration!  It was doubtless valid, but entirely illicit, not to say a stupid and prideful pretended correction of the text, as if dear Father were wiser than and above the authority of Pope and Bishops.  Such lunatic self-love!  We as laity have a right to the liturgy as laid down by the Church, and not to be patronized by a distorted clericalism.

But leaving aside egregious errors, I do honestly hold, with my own theologian education (almost now to Masters level) to support me, that the traditional Roman liturgy has a greater cognitive content, greater reverence, greater solemnity, greater strength than the modern form, and that, while I will gladly attend the Ordinary Form – especially when offered devoutly by a priest not given to tinkering! – I will more gladly attend the Extraordinary, and make greater sacrifices to do so.  "The old is better."

Sundays, then Saints, then Ferias

Pruning the calendar of feast days gets things exactly backwards, since historically speaking Mass was celebrated firstly on Sundays, then on the feasts of martyrs and other saints.  The development of the whole suite of feasts and seasons around Easter and Christmas paralleled this – hence the days of Lent have proper Masses, as they lead into the celebration of Holy Week.  Penitential times such as the Ember Days early on acquired proper Masses also.  But the very last days in the calendar to acquire their own Masses were ferias, and in two senses they never did: in the Traditional Roman Rite, on all free weekdays, the Sunday Mass was either repeated, including its readings, or a Votive Mass of some sort was celebrated – hence the way that old Missals specified which Votives were to be said on which weekdays.  Some mediæval Missals, such as the Sarum, provided Epistles and Gospels for Wednesdays and Fridays, so that, if those days – which were once both fast days – were without any feast, the Sunday Mass would be repeated but with those readings instead.

All this changed in 1969 or thereabouts (for experimentation had begun earlier), when an entirely new Lectionary was given to the modern Roman Rite.  Some of its features – such as extending to Advent, on the analogy of the Lenten Masses, daily readings and prayers and chants for weekday Masses; and doing the same for all of Christmastide and Eastertide, based to some extent on the ancient provision of proper Masses for each day of the Easter Octave – were logical extensions of existing practice.  Given, too, the precedent of providing Wednesdays and Fridays of old with their readings, to provide ones for every day could be seen as reasonable.

However, the Roman Rite is not the Byzantine Rite (which has had for over a thousand years a semi-continuous cycle of readings at the Divine Liturgy, such that almost the whole New Testament, except for the Apocalypse, is read through once a year), and the exaltation of the ferial Mass (most evident in Ordinary Time) that has gone with imposing a new Lectionary is in fact a reversal of the historical development, in that the readings (whether from the Proper or from the Common) for saint's days are now overshadowed by the panacea of semi-continuous Scripture readings.

I believe that this problem has arisen from confusion of Mass and Office.  In the case of the Office, the exact contrary is true, in that the ferial Office is the older, and later rather overgrown with feasts: by reason of the structure of the Office, with a weekly system for reciting all 150 psalms, and a yearly system for reading a good deal of Holy Writ at Matins, there is an impulsion in the Office toward retaining the ferial and pruning the sanctoral Office.   But in the case of Mass, I argue that the opposite is true.

Green Time

Fr Rowe detests green vestments – he avoids wearing them whenever possible. (So he told me when I was one of his parishioners over in Perth some years back.)  Luckily, being a priest who only uses the Extraordinary Form, he has his wish, given the multiplicity of saints' days even in the somewhat pruned 1962 calendar, and so in most cases wears green solely on Sundays after Epiphany and after Pentecost.  I can well understand this rejection of green, recalling that when a priest in the old rite, er, form celebrates a feria in green (as one of Fr Rowe's many supply priests likes to), he reads the whole Sunday Proper all over again, complete with the very same readings repeated – which is incredibly tedious for the laity also.

Let us consider the awful suffering of most priests, however, who are constrained in various ways to celebrate the Ordinary Form more or less exclusively!  Even after Bl John Paul II canonized umpteen hundred new saints, more than all his predecessors put together, even after adding some of these into the General Roman Calendar, there are still so very many green weekdays per annum.  It is true that, in the new Mass, er, Novus Ordo, er, present normative liturgy, the readings do vary from day to day; but Boring Time is still very boring, semi-continuous readings of Scripture being very over-rated in my opinion, and the threat of us poor layfolk having to hear E.P. II, complete with its Preface, each and every day, being ever-present.

Compare and contrast the ways the E.F. and O.F. deal with the smaller of the two halves of "green time" now upon us: in the E.F., or traditional Roman Rite, this slice of "green time" begins on Saturday the 14th of January, the day after the Octave of the Epiphany, and concludes this year on Saturday the 4th of February, the day before Septuagesima, giving a total of 25 potentially green days before any feasts are considered; whereas in the O.F., or modern Roman Rite, this first taste of "green time" begins this year on Tuesday the 10th of January on the day after the Baptism of the Lord (in lands such as Australia where Epiphany is transferred to Sunday, and the Baptism, otherwise kept on the Sunday after Epiphany, to the Monday, when that Sunday falls on the 7th or 8th), and does not end for the time being until Shrove Tuesday, this year the 21st of February – so allowing for 43 days of Ordinary Time in 2012, or 70% more than in the E.F., owing to the foolish deletion of Septuagesimatide by an ill-advised Paul VI.

But it gets worse: in this initial span of green time, the modern Roman calendar provides only 12 mandatory feasts (10 white, 2 red), plus 11 optional memorials, including those of Our Lady on Saturday (in total 9 white, 1 red, and 1 either white or red ad libitum), leaving 20 days unaffected in their viridity, including six Sundays in Ordinary Time (2nd to 7th).  Yet Fr Rowe, and other lovers of tradition, have the great consolation of nearly every weekday filled with at least a 3rd class feast during the days in question, and the three remaining days are commemorations, meaning that at choice the saint's Mass can be said or not – hence each and every weekday is at least potentially white or red as to shade of vestment.  Extraordinary Mass-sayers and -goers need endure green only on the three Sundays after Epiphany, Deo gratias.

Now of course any priest using the modern Missal has the right, on a feria, to celebrate either a Votive Mass, or a Requiem, or a Mass in honour of any saint mentioned on that day in the Martyrology – and so avoid the colour green.  However, in practice it is rare to do so, and according to the General Instruction to do so on twenty days within a month and a half would be a little naughty (though it would glad the heart of this unwilling endurer of ferial Masses); and even if it were done, the O.F. priest and people must bear with green on six Sundays, double those the E.F. celebrant and congregation must put up with.  O the humanity!

Noveritis EF and OF

Know, dear brethren, that, as we have rejoiced at the Nativity of our Lord Jesus Christ, so by leave of God's mercy we announce to you also the joy of his Resurrection, who is our Saviour. [On the 5th day of February will be Septuagesima Sunday. ‡] On the 22nd day of February will fall Ash Wednesday, and the beginning of the fast of the most sacred Lenten season. On the 8th day of April you will celebrate with joy Easter Day, the Paschal feast of our Lord Jesus Christ. On the 17th* / 20th† of May will be the Ascension of our Lord Jesus Christ. On the 27th day of May, the feast of Pentecost. On the 7th* / 10th† of June, the feast of the Most Holy Body and Blood of Christ. On the 2nd day of December, the First Sunday of the Advent of our Lord Jesus Christ, to whom is honour and glory for ever and ever. Amen.

— Noveritis, 
the Announcement of Easter and the Moveable Feasts:

proclaimed after the Gospel on the Epiphany of the Lord 

(Roman Missal 2011 edition)

* Extraordinary Form and normative Ordinary Form date (as in Germany, where I will be for Corpus Christi);

† Ordinary Form date in some countries, where these solemnities are transferred to the following Sunday (as in Australia);

‡ Extraordinary Form only (translated from the Latin).

Omitted Prayers

At Ordinary Form Mass, the following texts are sometimes omitted by unliturgical priests, despite the illicitness of doing so:

1. the Entrance Antiphon when nothing else is sung in its place;
2. either the Kyrie, when the Penitential Act does not contain it, or the Penitential Act, when the Kyrie is said by itself, as if it suffices alone (this shows ignorance of the distinction in fact and history between the two);
3. (one suspects) the priest's private prayer "Cleanse my heart" before reading the Gospel, and his private prayer "Through the words of the Gospel" when he kisses it after reading it;
4. (one suspects) various of the private prayers of the priest at the offertory (which occurs particularly if the priest, when saying Mass without a server, re-orders the offertory rites on his own initiative, and so first adds wine and water to the chalice at the credence, then carries across to the altar both the mixed chalice and the paten with hosts, offers them with a single prayer (see 5.), and decides not to bother washing his hands, omitting even the In spiritu humilitatis that should precede it – for one not conformed to the true spirit of the liturgy would see "With humble spirit" and "Wash me, O Lord, from my iniquity" not as what they are, short but potent priestly apologiæ, but as meaningless doublets of the Penitential Act and of the Orate fratres);
5. omitting saying a prayer of offering for each species, when instead illicitly combining the two prayers of offering of the bread and wine into one ("Blessed are you, Lord God of all creation, for through your goodness we have received the bread and wine we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands, they will become for us our spiritual food and drink" or somesuch mish-mash);
6. (one suspects) the commingling prayer "May this mingling" (because the fraction takes place during the Agnus Dei, especially if the priest doesn't have the Missal open before him at that page, he may forget or neglect that prayer and simply attend to the singing or saying of that chant);
7. (one suspects) the priest's private prayer of preparation before Communion (which also could easily be forgotten or neglected in favour of the Agnus Dei);
8. the Communion Antiphon when nothing else is sung in its place;
9. (one suspects) the prayer at the purification of the vessels, "What has passed our lips" – especially when the purification is carried out, not by the priest, but by another liturgical minister (this last I think is the most commonly omitted of all, because commonly the ablutions are carried out at the credence, with no Missal there, let alone open to that prayer).

These abuses boil down to three: omitting the Entrance and Communion Antiphons (a consequence of the way the Proper chants of the Mass are neglected everywhere in favour of poor quality hymns if sung), mixing up the Penitential Act with the Kyrie (encouraged by the option to trope the Kyrie and thus combine the two), and neglecting to say any and all of the private prayers of the priest (the very fact of their great reduction in number at the time of the reform of the liturgy has encouraged the neglect of those remaining, what with the radical change in self-image of the priest encouraged by such, from sacrificing priest to genial presider).

Obviously it is hard to be sure that the private prayers are omitted, but by the unusual speed of a priest at certain points, and, at the offertory at least, his seeming omission of certain accompanying gestures, one suspects that sometimes they are.

If the priest tends to vary and ad lib the prayers out loud, or otherwise behaves at the altar in an odd way, all the more reason exists to wonder if he is leaving items out.

I would say that I have seen or at least very strongly suspected celebrants of having committed all these errors at various Masses I have attended over the years, though thankfully they are a minority.

Indeed, another even worse, though rarer, springs to mind: entirely omitting the Orate fratres!

Remember, liturgical minimalism leads ineluctably to the temptation to liturgical abuse.

The Shortest Options

Given the love for a quick Mass that causes many a Catholic to languish, I thought it might be a service to servants of the Liturgy (i.e. priests) to list all the shortest, fastest, quickest options in the Ordinary Form (especially in this Olympic year):

1. Never use incense;
2. Never sing (stick to Low Mass, in other words, just like in the old days);
3. Always employ a server (to hold the Missal, set the altar, and so forth, rather than yourself having to wander back and forth to the credence at the offertory, for example);
4. Say Mass facing the people (this saves on turning round to face them a couple of times);
5. Have the reader read the Entrance Antiphon while you march in via the shortest route (yes, it must be read, no, it's illicit not to, despite how common its omission is);
6. Always say "The Lord be with you" at the start of Mass;
7. Always say "Brethren" not "Brothers and sisters" (let alone the unrubrical "Sisters and brothers");
8. Never ad lib the introduction to the Penitential Act, or change the words of any formula, let alone make introductory comments (permissible, alas, as they are) to the Mass of the day right at the start, or to the readings, the Preface and Eucharistic Prayer – all such temptations usually end in ungrammatical and banal wastings of time;
9. Always use the second, the least-used form of the Penitential Act, the one employing those versicles "Have mercy on us, O Lord" and "Show us, O Lord, your mercy", since (believe it or not) they have fewer words than if three invocations (tropes) are employed to interlard the Kyrie (although, yes, the Kyrie must still be said, and even then doing so is quicker; and, yes, while some just say the Kyrie followed by the Misereatur, that, too, is illicit) – then again, perhaps saying those tropes yourself, and having the people simply repeat the invocations "Lord, have mercy" and "Christ, have mercy" after you, is after all quicker (you'll have to time it to be sure);
10. Make sure the reader is forbidden to read anything other than what he has to – so none of that nonsense about saying "The First Reading is..." or "The Responsorial Psalm. The Response is..." or "Please stand for the Gospel Acclamation" (if people can't work out all that, they shouldn't come – Mass has been in English for fifty years by now, after all);
11. Omit the Alleluia or Verse before the Gospel when there is only one reading before the Gospel (this is perfectly legitimate, especially when it isn't sung);
12. Never preach, except when obliged to do so, as on Sundays – and if you must, make it short (the people will love you for it, especially if you are of usual preaching ability for a Catholic priest);
13. Never use the Prayer of the Faithful (it's not compulsory – if it really must be, though, use one of the handily short examples thereof in the back of the Missal, they are much briefer than the longwinded rubbish usually composed by well-meaning persons – and above all never let people ad lib their own intercessions, that turns the Mass into a Quaker prayer meeting which goes on world without end);
14. Always use the Apostles' Creed (when a Creed must be said);
15. Never have an offertory procession (of course, on a Sunday, the collection can still be taken up – and taken straight to the sacristy for safekeeping);
16. Always say the Offertory prayers sotto voce (it saves time, especially as the people don't have to respond "Blessed be God for ever" – but, while offering up the bread and wine together with one prayer mashed together from the two provided is even faster, it is still most illicit, so don't try it);
17. Always use Eucharistic Prayer II (any of the three Memorial Acclamations will do, they're all almost exactly the same length whether compared by number of words or syllables);
18. Always consecrate enough hosts for all present, on weekdays at least (that saves on going to the tabernacle unless you have to, either to get more or put alway the excess later – you can tally how many hosts to ready while surveying the congregation during the readings earlier on, thus giving you something to keep you occupied profitably at that point);
19. Never allow the Sign of Peace (it saves both saying "Let us offer each other the sign of peace", and then much tedium while the overzealous exchange the sign of peace per omnia sæcula sæculorum); 
20. Only use one priest's host (it being the sole one to break at the fraction) and the rest small people's hosts (so no more need to be broken, and the subsequent purification of the vessels will be less of a messy hunt for Crumbs);
21. Always say the second alternative prayer for preparation for Communion, Perceptio (it's shorter than the first);
22. Have the reader read the Communion Antiphon;
23. Only give Communion under one species (this saves on time and on much dithering giving chalices to yet more EMHC's);
24. Get the faithful to come and line up across the sanctuary for Communion (it is definitely faster and more ergonomic to walk back and forth briskly communicating them in workmanlike fashion than to stand at the head of the queue as up they come dawdling one by one);
25. Never go to the chair after Communion, but straight back to the altar;
26. Leave the vessels to be purified, suitably covered, on the altar and purify them immediately after Mass, after the dismissal (as is perfectly permissible);
27. Never make announcements before the end of Mass (print them on the parish bulletin - it gives the people something to read during the Mass);
28. Always use the short form of the blessing (never those long solemn ones to which the people never quite know when to say "Amen");
29. Always use the shortest dismissal – "Go in peace".

The congregation will indeed acclaim, "Thanks be to God."

It is amusing how several of these options are quite traditional, in the various senses of that word, throughout the Church!

Jokes aside, celebrating ad orientem shouldn't really make the Mass at all slower, especially as the priest for almost the whole second half of the liturgy won't be distracted and discouraged by staring out at the congregation – indeed, he may be able to focus more easily and proceed more swiftly, joy to the world!

While I have seen Masses at which, juxta rubricas, the Alleluia is indeed omitted before the Gospel, in practice the reader and congregation may be discomfited by its omission, as they expect it, printed as it is in the Lectionary and their hand-missals.

It could also be argued that purifying the paten, chalice and ciborium, especially with a server standing by with the (wine and) water, ought really be a swift action whose accomplishment gives the congregation a moment's peace ere the Prayer after Communion be uttered.

Likewise, in Latin at least, Ite, missa est is just as quick to say as Ite in pace.

My heart rebels against replacing the Confiteor and Nicene Creed with shorter alternatives, and as for not using the Roman Canon... but many priests happy with the Ordinary Form are evidently unconcerned by such sentiments.

Oh, and if you want the quickest Mass, but in the traditional Latin form, either find your way into a Charterhouse (which could prove difficult) or, more realistically, attend a Dominican Low Mass, which is satisfyingly fast, and certainly faster far than the Roman Low Mass, what with its Psalm 42 at the foot of the altar and those long offertory and communion prayers!

The Most Holy Name

By mistake, I read the ferial Office yester-day, when I should have said the Office of the Holy Name of Jesus (according to my Dominican Diurnal and Breviary); so, instead of reading the ferial Office to-day, I'm saying the Office of the Holy Name.  "Office for Office", after all, is the principle.  In addition, to-day, the 3rd, is the Optional Memorial of the Most Holy Name in the Ordinary Form, so Lauds in my Diurnal coincided with the Mass I attended.

I was struck by how the very long-winded and indeed rather bizarre orations in the Extraordinary Form (though not in the Dominican Rite – alas, I live far from a friar) have been replaced by, frankly, rather better ones in the Ordinary.  For example, the Postcommunion in the 1962 Missal is:

Omnípotens ætérne Deus, qui creásti et redemísti nos, réspice propítius vota nostra: et sacrifícium salutáris hóstiæ, quod in honórem nóminis Fílii tui, Dómini nostri Jesu Christi, majestáti tuæ obtúlimus, plácido et benígno vultu suscípere dignéris; ut grátia tua nobis infúsa, sub glorióso nómine Jesu, ætérnæ prædestinatiónis titulo gaudeámus nómina nostra scripta esse in cælis. Per eumdem...

(Almighty eternal God, Who hast created and redeemed us, graciously regard our desires, and deign to receive with a placid and benign countenance the sacrifice of the saving Victim, which we have offered to Thy majesty, in honour of the Name of Thy Son, our Lord Jesus Christ; that, Thy grace infused into us, we may rejoice that our names are written in heaven, under the glorious Name of Jesus, a pledge of eternal predestination. Through the same...)

Is this not a terribly overlong prayer, hardly fitting the expected concision of the Roman Mass?

This, I believe, has been abbreviated to advantage, to become the Prayer after Communion in the current Missal, which I append in the Latin and in the new English translation:

Hostia sumpta, Domine, quam Christi nomen honorantes tuæ obtulimus majestati, gratiam tuam, quaesumus, nobis infundat uberrime, ut et nostra in caelis esse scripta nomina gaudeamus. Per Christum Dominum nostrum.

May the sacrificial gifts offered to your majesty, O Lord, to honour Christ's Name and which we have now received, fill us, we pray, with your abundant grace, so that we may come to rejoice that our names, too, are written in heaven. Through Christ our Lord.

I have underlined the words common to the new and old forms of this prayer, demonstrating how the one derives from the other, the necessary grammatical changes being made.  The new is definitely a tighter, more effective composition, whereas the older was too diffuse.

In Case Anyone Thinks...

In case anyone thinks one shouldn't find Mass amusing sometimes, let alone, say, arrange eccentric passages in a satirical manner, consider this actual instance of how the first reading in the Ordinary Form Mass concludes:

... The ark of God was captured too, and the two sons of Eli died, Hophni and Phinehas.

The word of the Lord.

Thanks be to God. 

—Thursday in the 1st Week of Ordinary Time, Year II

Thanks be to God?!

For some reason,  I always misremember this as involving Hosni Mubarak... who may well soon suffer a like fate, and a justly deserved one.

Ad Orientem at Perth Seminary

A Western Australian correspondent informs me that, for some time now, Mass on Saturdays at St Charles' Seminary, Perth, has been said ad orientem versus; and that for the first time – when my friend was there a month ago – the same Eastward stance has been taken at Sunday Mass.  I hear that the singing of the Ordinary (including Latin for the Sanctus) and the choice of decent hymns were both pleasing, and that it was good to see the seminarians alike all in cassocks: indeed, the Rector, Monsignor Long (who was the chief celebrant), sets a very good example to them by always wearing his.

I recall how Bp Jarrett of Lismore likes to quote the Apostle's words "Let all things be done decently and in order" (I Cor. xiv, 40) when describing the unpretentious and sober manner in which Mass ought be said, the priest being thus a servant of the sacred liturgy, not a third-rate actor in a melodrama, nor a robot: I recall the then Fr Long saying Mass in the Catholic college chapel at the University of Western Australia, and such was the ars celebrandi he employed then, and still does now: without affectation "doing the red, saying the black".  I would think that this is one very important aspect of Pope Benedict's patient hopes for resacralization of worship – a making clear what it really is.

At Communion, it was also pleasing to hear of various of the seminarians quite unselfconsciously kneeling to receive Our Lord, as a godly freedom obtained as to which of the lawful postures for reception were employed, for the particular spiritual good of each person (for it stands to reason that, given the choice between Communion "kneeling on the tongue" or "standing on the hand", one should receive in the method best calculated to increase one's reverence).

Do spare a prayer, gentle reader, for the seminarians and staff of this seminary, which, ever since its reopening by Archbishop Barry Hickey (now very soon to retire) has produced a good crop of new priests.  Pray that the Archdiocese of Perth may be granted a strong, confident, Catholic successor in due time, that this work, and all else, may continue to grow and flourish.

By contrast, I recall attending one Mass, about a decade ago, at the Melbourne seminary, which got the priest who said it into enormous trouble (and some of the seminarians as well), just because, celebrating a Marian feast day by using the altar in the adjacent grotto, he said Mass ad orientem; the rumour – itself revealing – was that he said a Latin Mass (this in the days when to even imagine doing so was considered naughty if not worse), whereas it was just a normal vernacular celebration at which, by reason of the altar used being up against the back wall of the grotto, he had no option but to stand facing it.  

What a difference a decade makes!

Ordinary Mass in Wellington Cathedral

This morning I went along to Mass in the Blessed Sacrament Chapel of the Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, Wellington, at 8.30am on Wednesday 12th January.

The chapel after Mass, the candles &c. having been packed away.

Mass, being in the Ordinary Form, was for Wednesday of the 1st week in Ordinary Time [sic].

The liturgy, a simple said service, was basically normal for a weekday celebration in the Ordinary Form in Australasia (no server, a layperson coming up to read the first reading and later to act as Extraordinary Minister of Holy Communion, a short boring homily), excepting:

1. The celebrant said “In the name of the Father…” in Maori:

Ki te ingoa o te Matua, o te Tamaiti, o te Wairua Tapu.

2. In N.Z., the new words and responses for the Ordinary of the Mass are being introduced already; there were booklets provided, endorsed by the local episcopate, which many were using; it was good to say “And with your spirit” (though I noticed some didn’t, I forgot later on, and the priest himself got confused between the old and new words at points, such as during the formulæ of offering up the bread and wine at the Preparation of the Gifts, and in the Embolism – switching over to the new version takes practice).

3. Instead of the responsorial psalm, a portion of Psalm 105 was read chorus contra chorum: I don’t know if this is the correct psalm for today; I do recall that the psalm can be read in this manner, but what of the response? and furthermore, the version was the Grail version, but “inclusified” by replacing references to God as “he/him” with “God” – the manic avoidance of pronouns is very clunky, not to mention illicit – yet this curious translation is in a book printed for the Cathedral!

4. There were, thankfully, no prayers of the faithful: I say so because too often, if the priest asks the congregation to add their own prayers, and as too often all remain seated on their behind rather than standing, the whole thing degenerates into a Quaker prayer meeting rather than integrates into the larger liturgical act.

5. A wooden paten was used – surely Redemptionis Sacramentum reprobates this?  Maybe it was gilded on the inside…

6. To my surprise, no one stood at the Orate fratres, but followed the former practice of standing only for the Prayer over the Gifts – hasn’t N.Z. implemented this yet?  Even in the booklet with the new words there is no mention of this, but it says to stand at the old point instead.  I noticed the same in Italy – even at Mass in St Peter's!

7. Greatly to my shock and scandal (I think I may have gasped), the priest didn’t genuflect or even bow afte elevating the Host, and only bowed, not genuflected, after elevating the Chalice – it is a foolish abuse to only “reverence” the Sacrament once, just perhaps betraying a distorted idea of the consecration of the Host as not complete until the Chalice is also consecrated, or more likely out of misguidedly overzealous liturgical minimalism; at the end of Mass he only bowed (I didn’t notice what he did at the start).  He may have a health problem meaning he cannot genuflect, but otherwise it was a sorry example of gross irreverence that certainly scandalized me and set a bad example for the faithful.  "Irreverence can scarce be separated from impiety" (Council of Trent, Decretum de observandis et evitandis in celebratione missæ, l7th September 1562).

8. The priest elevated, not the paten and chalice, but the Host over the chalice at the Doxology at the end of the Eucharistic Prayer (which was the “Swiss” one, using the variant referring to Christ as Mediator and including “joys and sorrows”, quoting Gaudium et spes).  How amusing that he thus did something Tridentine!

9. The annoying N.Z. modern version of the “Our Father” was used – I cannot bring myself to do so, so I said the traditional one under my breath (their booklet contains both).  Where exactly does permission for this N.Z. peculiarity come from?  Won't it ipso facto be done away with by the new translation, seeing as there will be one English-language Missal?

I shouldn't gripe too much, as I suspect Mass in the vernacular is usually done in a pretty slapdash manner in most places: I joked years ago with a friend that when at Mass in a new place, one tends now to classify the liturgical abuses (and oddities) present as "normal" or "unusual".

And they wonder why – even without any other motive – I prefer the Extraordinary Form...