Worship must not become the province of ideology
Unity depends on seeing both forms of Mass as part of tradition, says Fr Leo Chamberlain OSB
17 April 2009

Clarifications were promised quite a long time ago on Pope Benedict's Motu Proprio and letter to bishops. In fact, all that is needed is to follow the whole guidance given.

A few minimise the possibilities offered by the Motu Proprio. On the other hand, some few priests are, in celebrating the ordinary form, refusing to give Communion in the hand; and some few of the laity refuse to receive communion except at a Mass in the old form. There have been extravagant suggestions that it's all been done wrong for 40 years. The outrageous remarks of Bishop Williamson may distract attention from the need for a fundamental and positive response from the Society of St Pius X. The Pope has said quite plainly that the new missal will remain the ordinary form of the Roman rite: "arbitrary deformations" have been the problem.

Those of us brought up with the old form know there were some arbitrary deformations in the Fifties. The bishops of the time were worried constantly about priests gabbling the Mass. The best time of which I know was an unbelievable 12 minutes. The urgencies of ordinary parish life required some adaptation in the celebration of the Mass. The long formula for the giving of communion was spoken as the priest gave communion to four or five people. The multiple signs of the Cross during the Canon were a blur of rapid action. The congregation used often to go their own way with the rosary or devotional prayers. The past was not a golden age. Of one thing I am sure: if the use of the old form became ordinary, the same problems would recur.

Some years ago, I was fascinated by the televising of one of the first priest members of the Society of St Pius X celebrating Mass. There was something inauthentic and prissy about it, though I do not doubt the Mass was valid.

It was very far from Hilaire Belloc's description of a priest saying Mass, of the craftsman stumping up to the altar with his apprentice, and getting on with it in a gruff and objective fashion. It was not at all like the devout and ordinary celebrations in the early morning by priests at the Ampleforth of my youth, or by Fr Michael Hollings at the midday Mass in Oxford that he was able to celebrate by then because of the relaxation of the fasting rules. Most good pastorally minded priests were not too interested in the niceties of the rubrics.

Yet the old form carried with it a sense of the sacred, and that is what, at its best, all of us old enough remember. I was rather pleased with myself at the age of 19 when I had parts of the Roman Canon off by heart and was able to say it to myself while the priest spoke it inaudibly. In his private writings the Pope as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger mentions the problem of too many words spoken aloud in the new missal. He suggested that only the first words of each prayer might be spoken audibly, to allow for each of those present to voice in their minds the rest of the prayer.

There is a problem here. We live in a culture that puts a natural priority on reading over hearing. Our eyes can shut out our ears. It may just be that the fewer words aloud of the old form present the most hopeful way forward for the new form. In any case, in both the old and the new form, we must speak so that the words be not just audible but carry meaning.

Pope Benedict wrote of the deformations of the rite. Creativity, so-called, has led to arbitrary changes in the way the new form is celebrated, so that the form of the Mass may be regarded as just a question of the taste of an individual priest. If we were all more obedient to the General Instruction as revised in 2002, the people might be able to concentrate more upon the rite and less upon the personality of the priest.

On the other hand, I have often celebrated Mass in informal ways in particular circumstances outside church, and when I read of Pope John Paul's custom of lashing canoe paddles together to make a cross when he celebrated Mass with his students on an expedition into the high Tatra mountains of southern Poland, I knew exactly what he was about. Yet reverence in an informal celebration, wherever it is, whatever need it meets, is protected because of the way in which we normally celebrate Mass.

I was among the first generation of priests who did not learn the old form. If I saw pastoral need, I could learn it. But there are things about the old form which there was reason to change. Sacramental actions should be expressive of the Mystery; not just inexplicable or complicated, accessible only to the understanding of the expert.

Most important is the Pope's suggestion which has had little attention, especially among the liturgically conservative, that the two forms can be "mutually enriching". The missal of 1962 is open to development. New saints, and the new prefaces, could well be inserted. We should work towards a single calendar with some allowed variations. Religious communities and particular groups with a full liturgical life should be able to celebrate feasts like Corpus Christi on the Thursday for which they were set in the old calendar. The riches of the new lectionary could well be made available in the old form.

I can recall dignified and reverent serving by the young. More can be done to promote that in the new form. A change of the timing of the kiss of peace would provide for greater quiet before Communion. But most important is the speedy introduction of a more adequate translation. What we have at present is a paraphrase which has lost much of the fullness of meaning of the Latin.

Prayer and liturgy must not be the province of ideology. I suggest some general guidelines. The first is that both forms be treated with full respect by all. The second is that the stable groups who might want the old form be treated as generously as possible: the means of small parishes are limited, nevertheless. The third is that we renew our efforts to use fitting music for the Mass. Too much of what is sung now is musically and textually unworthy. Gregorian chant is not so difficult.

Further, we should all use the terms used by the Pope. I have tried to do so in this article. It is offensive to speak of "traditional Mass" as do the advertisements of the Latin Mass Society. We are all of the tradition, we all celebrate within the tradition, and our unity depends on our recognising it.