A Traditional Catholic in Iowa: In the End, Validity Isn't Enough: I cannot in good conscience say that the new translation adds any sort of continuity to the EF. The break is still there. The translation...
ST PAUL EXHORTS US: "Therefore, brethren, stand fast, and hold on to the traditions which you have learned." 2 Thessalonians 2:14
"The Novus Ordo will fail on it's own over time. We must simply endure until the Traditional Mass makes a full return to becoming 'the ordinary form.'"
ReplyDeleteIsn't this an argument for NOT 'Reforming the Reform'? For allowing it on its own to wither away and disappear? Give it enough of that proverbial rope and it will hang itself! What good would it be to prolong the agony by dressing up the N.O. to look as much like the TLM with the best combination of its own revisions, rubrical options, and pastoral pastoral necessities? At best such liturgical praxis might confuse the Faithful; at worse, it might really undermine the Restoration.
ReplyDeleteI've been convinced for years and now more than ever that there shall not be (short of divine intervention) a wholesale return to pre-conciliar liturgical use across the board anytime in the near future. I cannot fathom short of a miracle of grace that the novus ordo would be abrogated and replaced by the traditional Mass in my lifetime. Sadly, I suspect that until the generations of those whose identity, spirituality and piety (or lack thereof) have been formed by the post-Conciliar liturgy have passed to their reward, there is little hope of a full liturgical restoration to tradition.
I believe rather that since the great majority of Catholics worship daily and weekly according to the Missal of Paul VI (albeit in rupture with tradition and not in continuity with tradition), there will need to be rather an proliferation of celebrations of the Missal of Paul VI in continuity with the traditional liturgy: ad orientem, Latin ordinary, Gregorian chant, celebrated with maximum ceremony in as close a proximity with the traditional Mass as possible in order for a complete transition to take place on a grassroots level. The liturgical minimalism which is the trademark of the Missal of Paul VI alongside the widespread liturgical abuse has directly contributed to the loss of faith of whole generations of Catholics.