Monsignor R. Michael Schmitz

"The Classical Roman Rite and the Renewal of the Liturgy"
Conference by Monsignor R. Michael Schmitz
February 19, 2007

Centrality of the Mass in the Life of the Church

My talk to you today is about the Classical Roman Rite and the renewal of the liturgy. First of all, I believe we are all convinced here that a renewal of the liturgy, in whatever way, is urgently needed for the good of Universal Church. And the good thing is that we are not the only ones who think this way, but there is a man on the Throne of Peter who is as convinced as we are that something has to be done, and something has to be done very soon. He has made that very clear in many books that he published as Prefect of the Congregation for the Faith, and he has repeated this publicly and privately many times.

In a preface to a book that Dom Alcuin Reid has published about the organic growth of the liturgy, the Holy Father compares the Church to a gardener and says that every change in the liturgy has to be organic growth. So you cannot cut away pieces, you cannot simply destroy a plant that you want to grow, but you must be very careful to find for this plant a good time in the year to plant it, the right nourishment, the best place for it to be and grow, and then you must take care of it with great prudence daily and without interruption. It is very important that our Holy Father has made this remark because this is implicitly a critique of so many things that have happened in the last forty years. People have believed that the wonderful plant of the liturgy that God has planted in the midst of the Church can be treated like a plastic plant, that you can expose it as you want to your whims, that this plant is more beautiful than a real rose.

The outcome of that is much too obvious to all of us, and I do not want to spend this evening by enumerating stories that you all know about the numerous abuses that the liturgy has undergone in these last years. The Holy See, in the famous document has far as I recall, enumerated at least sixty types of abuse that are prohibited and still continue, and with that has shown that there is a problem.

Well, the Institute of Christ the King is very clear about how to resolve the problem. The problem is, first of all, to recognize the place of the liturgy in the Church. This will be the first of my topics today. We have to understand that the liturgy is not a decoration on a cake, like a little bit of whipped cream that you place on a wonderful birthday cake to make it more beautiful. The Church, even today in the crisis that we are undergoing, is still a very impressive worldwide operation. If you only think that the Church most certainly has the greatest number of charitable organizations in the whole world, that the church has hundreds and thousands of hospitals, of kindergartens, of orphanages, of schools, of universities, of all kinds of operations that take care of the needs of people in our times. The Church is like -- and this is not a word coined by me but by a German scholar -- the Church seems to be like a frozen giant. It is sad that She is frozen, She seems paralyzed, but She is still a giant, and she is everywhere present, and under the rags and underneath the dust that seems to cover Her, She is still the powerful queen that She has always been.

But all that is not Her center. All this is only a consequence. The wonderful social doctrine of the Church -- everything we can do in this state and in politics to bring the realm of Christ to real brilliance and to power -- all this is a consequence. A consequence that is very important and cannot be belittled if we do not want to destroy society, but it is still a consequence because the call of the Church is not there. The call is a liturgy. The call is the foremost and grandest liturgical act ever. The call is the sacrifice of the cross that is perpetuated on our altars. If we belittle the fact that the drama of the redemption takes place on the most forlorn altar in Gabon in the middle of the jungle every day, if we belittle in our parish churches that what our parish priest does is the most important action that can ever happen in the world, if we do not understand that the great and magnificent apparatus of the Church is all about protecting and promulgating the flame of love that has been sacrificed for us in the Heart of Jesus on the Cross, we have totally misunderstood the Roman Catholic Church. And therefore, we have to go back to a deeper understanding of the Liturgy.

I do not want to hurt any feelings. I have studied with wonderful men in the past that had Catholic theology in their fingertips. The fathers of an order that I do not want to mention, have wonderfully preserved, even at that time, the orthodoxy. But as a young priest, as a young seminarian, I learned nearly nothing about the liturgy. The only thing that I really learned about the liturgy in depth, I may say a little jokingly, was in a half-course, how to purify the chalice in the quickest way. I am not an exception. There are many young priests or not so young, like me now, that have never been introduced to the mystery of the liturgy. And with the many priests, innumerous faithful have not been taught that the most important action of the Church is the liturgical action, is to honor God, is to put God in the middle of all what we do. God comes first. This reality has been totally forgotten. And we know that what has afterwards been called the anthropological change has dethroned God and has centered our attention on poor human nature. All of a sudden the Church, with Her majesty, cannot seem to turn any longer around the mystery of the altar but seems to incline Herself in front of this little slave of sin that is called Man.

It is the great grace that the Church has received in this Pontificate that we have a Pope who has always understood the centrality of the liturgical mystery. I have to say that I am deeply grateful to the founder of the Institute of Christ the King, Msgr. Gilles Wach, that he has always said that we have to go out and proclaim the Faith, but that before we do this, before we take any action, we have to concentrate on what the first task of the priest is -- the liturgy. There is no time, there is no amount of money, there is no energy too precious to foster a more solemn celebration of this first calling, which is the heart of the Church.

If the Church has been subjected to so many heresies in the last forty years, if ever the Church has been subjected to heretical thinking, it is because people have wrongly understood that God acts only on our brain. But God is a God incarnate, and He acts, therefore, as he has shown, in the heart, through the heart, and on our heart. And He does that also in the Church, and the Church has as Her heart the liturgical mystery from which all Her blood, all the pulsations of Her heart, all Her energy comes. If the Devil wanted to destroy the beauty of the handmaid of the Lord, the beauty of Holy Mother Church, he had to attack the liturgy. He had to weaken the heart. He had to undermine the understanding of Catholics that it is more important to be on your knees than to be activists alone. First, you have to be on your knees and then you can be active because God gives you grace for that. If you understand that, then, with our Holy Father, you put emphasis on the celebration of the liturgy.

Therefore, the liturgy is in the first place to be understood as the direction of our whole being toward God. In a few moments I will come back to this, but be assured that it is totally wrong to believe that the Mass is only for us. The consequences of the Mass are for us because we are poor beings and God knows it, and therefore sacrificed Himself on the cross knowing that the re-establishment of the glory of God would heal this sinful world. But the first step, the first sense of the sacrifice of the cross is to re-establish the glory of the Father. The Second Person of the Holy Trinity came into this world not only to heal a bunch of unrepentant sinners, but in the first place, to re-establish the glory of God and the possibility of Divine Love being poured on these creatures of God that are weak.

So the aim of the first liturgical act, the sacrifice of the cross, is much larger. It is, as a matter of fact, infinite, and it aims toward God and His eternal beauty and glory. And this is true for every Mass. If you assist at a Low Mass where the priest, silently perhaps, says and follows the rubrics, the glorification of God is always the goal and the aim of the celebration of this Mass. The glory of God is present at what the Chuch does because the good Lord asks her to do it because He has instituted it by His Sacrifice.

Can you imagine what it means if you destroy this universal outlook, this glorification of God, this invocation of His majesty that comes down on our altars, though human banality? Certainly, the call and the validity of the Mass, by the grace of God has not been touched, but if God, over 2,000 years, has taken time and effort and grace to really instruct us in every detail about how He wants to be glorified, how could I, because I have read a few books, believe I could do it better than the Holy Ghost. If I do it I will be rewarded with my own stupidity.

Therefore, the first step we must take, along with the Holy Father, within our own life and existence, is that we recognize this powerful reality of the centrality of the Mass in the life of the Church. And with the Mass, of the whole liturgy, the liturgy of the sacraments, the liturgy of the Divine Office, the liturgy that the whole Church lives from morning to evening, the liturgy that still today is celebrated without end, 24 hours a day throughout the entire globe for the glorification of God. This used to be a uniform liturgy with many beautiful expressions, but it would always incessantly say “holy, holy, holy,” with all of its details and expressions throughout the whole world. If you destroy that, if you diminish it, if you touch it, then, the heart of the Church perhaps does not stop beating, but the beats of this heart will be weakened and the energy of the Church, the energy of the proclamation of the truth, the energy to battle the enemy, will get weaker and weaker. And that is what we are witnessing.

So let us be grateful to the Holy Father that he insists that the clergy will rediscover the mystery of the liturgy. If my confrères will allow me to say a word about the clergy.
I do not want to offend the lay people present here. We know that the laity is very much, like us priests, called to holiness. And we know from our own mothers that we would not be here without the laity. And we know we would not have had a wonderful education without the efforts of our parents. We would not be the Church who has kept the Faith of our Fathers if not for the faithful lay people who have brought back the Latin Mass in so many locations, against the will of the clergy. And I thank you for that.

But still, St. Hildegard von Bingen, the great Benedictine, has said, omni malo ab clero, all evil comes from the clergy. That means if the clergy is forgetful about the mystery of the Mass, if the clergy does not grasp what the liturgy really means, then this disease will pass over to the lay people and weaken their own dedication and devotion.

Blessed Pope John XXIII, once said that “The devotion of the lay people, if it is authentic, has to be an objective liturgical devotion.” You can have many devotions, as I have, to many saints, but the core of your devotion has to be the Mass, has to be the liturgy. Whatever graces the Holy Ghost gives you to understand it [the liturgy] better, it is your attending daily Mass, Sunday Mass, your presence at the manifold liturgies of the Church that gives more meaning to your own private devotion and the strength you need in this world. And we the clergy have the task and the calling to help you gain an ever deeper devotion and understanding of the centrality of the liturgy.

Specificities of the Traditional Latin Liturgy

Let me therefore come to the second part of my talk. There are specificities of the traditional Latin liturgy that we have to rediscover if a renewal of the liturgy in the Church will be possible. Two so-called specificities of the old rite are also to be found in the so-called Novus Ordo if it is celebrated according to the rubrics. The first is Latin, and the second is the direction of the altar.

9

Ad Orientem

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The Holy Father, as perhaps you know, has written a Preface to a book by a very learned member of the London Oratory, Father Michael Lang, who is a very holy priest, about the direction of the altar. And the Holy Father fosters the results of that book. Father Lang has discovered that never was there anything else in the history of the Church other than an eastward-bound altar. And everyone would look toward the same direction together with the priest, toward the east, toward the resurrecting Son—toward Christ—toward the center of the liturgy. Father Lang makes it very clear that any other direction of the altar is not traditional. It is simply a recent introduction. And even if you go through the Novus Ordo Missae you will find a few rubrics that indicate that this Mass was meant to be celebrated at an altar facing the tabernacle. So even the new liturgy was not meant to be celebrated exclusively facing the people.

Latin
Latin is still the language of the Church. Personally, I find it embarrassing when the members of the clergy do not understand Latin. It makes them victims of ignorance because if one cannot read and understand Latin, one cannot read and understand the original documents of the Second Vatican Council. One cannot read and understand even most of the Fathers of the Church that have been so widely propagated in the last forty years.
When the clergy would be made national, then all of a sudden, we would not have a Roman Catholic clergy anymore. We would have an American clergy. We would have a German clergy. We would have an Italian clergy. And when they come together, they have no language with which to communicate. This is not the intent of the Church. This has never been the intent of the Church.

The same Pope John XXIII, in the famous encyclical, Veterum Sapientiae, during the Council, asked that all clergy be instructed in the Latin language. Just recently, Benedict XVI has again underscored the importance of the Latin language for the Church and for the liturgy.
So if we are for the orientation of the altar toward the tabernacle, and if we want Latin as the language of the Church, we are just doing what the Second Vatican Council wanted, even though the Second Vatican Council is often misrepresented as being against these.

I will give you an important argument to make for the Traditional Latin Mass. The Traditional Latin Mass, from the beginning to the end, was the liturgy of the Second Vatican Council. Not one of the Fathers celebrated any other Mass privately or publicly [during the Council]. And the great liturgies during the Council were the Solemn Papal Masses according to the traditional ritual, every time the Pope was involved.

The liturgy was changed slowly, and with pressure by others, long after the Council was finished. No Father during the Council ever had to see, nor endure what many of us have to endure sometimes today.

With these two points, we are simply going with the direction of the Church of all time. And for the next points, which are much more clearly anchored in the Traditional liturgy, you will see that they also are most important if we want a real and lasting renewal of the liturgy.

The Mass – A Sacrifice

First of all, we have to understand that the Mass is in the first place a sacrifice. I will not linger on that because you all know it. In primi sacrificium est. In his famous letter, Dominicae Cenae, John Paul II said that the Church teaches, as always, that the Eucharist is in the first place a sacrifice. We cannot emphasize this too much. Even the part of the Mass that has the form of a meal -- and I speak of communion (and you know that communion of the people is not necessary for the validity of the Mass) -- even this part of the Mass is clearly a sacrificial banquet. It is not an ordinary meal. Everyone has known, right from the beginning, that this meal is the consequence of the sacrifice that God gives to him in order to strengthen him with the sacrificial fruit of the sacrifice of Christ. The Traditional Latin Mass makes that very clear.

If you have some time, and we don’t have that time this evening, go through the prayers of the Offertory and you will see that it is full of allusions and very clear statements about the Mass as a sacrifice: the oblatio munda, the pure sacrifice, the immolatio, the offering, the sacrifice even of the host that the priest offers to the good Lord, is already called an oblatio. It is all about bringing to God a gift to be sacrificed, and the priest at the very end of the Mass says again that he has sacrificed the host for the people. He says ”Placeat tibi, Sancta Trinitas, obsequium servitutis meae, et praesta, ut sacrificium quod oculis tuae Majestatis indignus obtuli, tibi sit acceptabile.” “Be pleased, Holy Trinity, with the observance of the rite that I have just offered, and grant that this sacrifice that I have offered to Your Majesty unworthily may be acceptable to you.”

The fact that the Mass is a sacrifice brings about the glorification of God and the honor of God that is objectively given to God in every valid Mass will be enhanced greatly if the priest knows that he is the priest of the sacrifice; that, accordingly, his life should be a life of sacrifice, and that sacrifice in our own lives is something extraordinarily positive.

The faith that is proclaimed today is a faith of comfort. We have comfort food; we have comfort houses; we have comfort faith. This is a lie. It is a lie because we know that our lives are not comfortable. We know that there is a cross in every life. You can be so successful: you can have a thousand acres in La Jola, California, you can have a big bank account and a Bentley, you can even be the President of the United States, but you know that somewhere there is the cross that God has prepared for you for your holiness. But if you do not hear about that in the most important celebration of the church, how can you understand it?

Go read in the Old Rite how many times the word sacrifice, offering, oblation, immolation, is used. You will understand that the priest who does not use these words daily anymore, does not understand the sacrifices in his own life. Then you understand why so many priests walk away, why so many priests in the moment of temptation get weak, why so many priests are led astray by a comfort faith that they have to offer to the faithful in the name of what-not. And therefore, try, if you can, to introduce young priests, if not to the actual celebration, at least to the texts of the Old Liturgy and you will see that their priesthood will deepen, as your own faith as lay people will deepen, from the understanding that the sacrifice of the Lord is identically brought about every time that the priest utters the words of the consecration. The sacrificial aspect of the celebration of the Mass has to be once again understood, in order for their to be a renewal of the liturgy, for it to once again become the center of the Church.

Adoration
Another aspect that I want to touch briefly on is adoration. Here I will be very brief. Fortunately in the United States there is a new and wonderful movement to bring back adoration of the Blessed Sacrament. More and more priests expose the Blessed Sacrament, more and more faithful adore the Blessed Sacrament. The traditional liturgy lives from this Adoration. The numerous genuflections in the course of the Mass show how wonderfully the church teaches the adoration of the mystery in the liturgy. I do not know whether you have assisted at the Mass of a very elderly priest when he says the Traditional Latin Mass. Sometimes these priests -- and I will be in this situation some time soon -- have a hard time genuflecting. But isn’t it always the witness of a wonderful act of faith to see the old priest grabbing the altar, and making slowly the twentieth genuflection and then getting back up again? This expresses the spirit of adoration. He should be on his face; he should be prostrated, if were possible to be say Mass this way, because indignus, unworthily, we say the Mass.

The most beautiful thing happens right after the consecration. When the priest has uttered the words of consecration, the rubrics of the Mass say: “quibus verbis prolatis, statim Hostiam consecratam genuflexus adorat.” “When he says the words of the consecration, he,” the priest, “will immediately adore the host on his knees.” This genuflection has been abolished. It had been there for a thousand years, in order to demonstrate that the consecration and the reality of the real presence is not dependent upon our own faith. It is an immediate reality: from the moment that the words of the consecration are uttered, according to the will of the Church and the commandment of God, God is present. There is no need to show the host to the people in so that they may believe in the presence, in order to make the presence real. The presence is real in spite of our weak faith. And every time a priest, immediately after the consecration, kneels down, we all know that he, like we, witnesses adoringly the real presence of the Lord. We have to bring back this adoration of the presence of the Lord to the liturgy if we want the renewal.

Realism
Then there is something that I want to mention because it touches again upon the priesthood. The Missal that I have the grace to use is very realistic. Sometimes we are accused of the purported fact that the Old Liturgy does not take care of reality: that it is distant from the people, that we do not really know what the situation of the world is, and so on and so forth.

But, first of all, the liturgy knows all about me as a priest. It addresses me all the time as a sinner. Already when I ascend the altar I have to say the Confiteor and I have to beg the forgiveness of the congregation represented by the altar boy. Then, when I ascend the steps of the altar, I say “Aufer a nobis, quaesumus, Dominue, iniquitates nostras, ut ad Sancta sanctorum puris mereamur mentibus introire.” I ask God to take away my iniquities. And then afterwards, still bowing over the altar, when I kiss it I say, “Oramus te, Dominue, per merita Sanctorum tuorum, quorum reliquiae hic sunt, et omnium Sanctorum ut indulgere digneris omnia peccata mea.”” When I kiss the altar where the relics of the saints are embedded I ask for the forgiveness of my sins before I dare to begin the holy sacrifice of the Mass and go to the side of the Missal to begin the Introit.
I cannot give you all the places where the priest is reminded of his own sinfulness, but this seems to me -- as we know from the recent past -- utterly realistic. The priests are sinners, as we all are. But in comparison with the layman – and this I quote from a saint -- a priest has not just one private devil; he has about five, who try to bring him to betray the good Lord. Therefore the church always reminds him that he is a sinner, that he needs purification and that he is not worthy to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

But there is another point of realism. This Missal knows about our sorrows. It knows about our needs. The prayers in this Missal -- every single little prayer, the Collect, or the other prayers -- are full of descriptions of our miserable situation. And, furthermore, in an annex to the Mass there are so called “special prayers.” You will find there prayers for everything and anything. There are special prayers for those who travel, for those who have died, for those who need rain, for those who need good humor, for those who need tears, for those who are persecuted, for those who need other blessings, for the Pope, for married people, for everyone and everything. And the priest is free to add these prayers in the private Mass every time he is asked to do so, or he himself needs prayers.

This Missal is also a document of the human need. In the first place it is a document of the need of the church for the glorification of God. But the Church, as a good Mother, has never forgotten that the glorification of God brings about the consequences of grace, and She knows about all the needs of us, her poor children. The Church is a realistic Mother and so is the liturgy. If sometimes we hear only about very theoretical social justice issues, this seems to me much less realistic than these down to earth prayers that the Church has developed in centuries.

Heaven
Another point that we need to especially emphasize if we want to bring back a beautiful liturgy and the renewal of the glorification of God in the Church, is Heaven. The liturgy has to reflect Heaven.

Well, ask yourself: does your parish church and her liturgy reflect Heaven? I don’t want answers. I can tell you, come to our Seminary, come to our churches [of the Institute of Christ the King] in the United States, go to other Traditional Latin Masses, especially High Mass, and particularly the pontifical High Mass; in these you know that you have a glimpse of Heaven. It is true what St. Jerome said: “He who has never had a foretaste of Heaven will probably not go to Heaven.” Well, the Church gives us a foretaste of Heaven. If you go to a small parish church where nothing has been changed and the liturgy is celebrated in a Missa cantata on Sunday with a nice choir that sings Gregorian Chant, there, in the middle of nowhere, in the middle of the jungles of Africa, you have a glimpse of Heaven, a glimpse of something that is so overwhelmingly divine that you understand that God is present.

So many people have been converted simply by being present at the heavenly beauty of the Mass. Among many others the Duke of Oldenborg, who came to a Low Mass at one of our houses and after the Low Mass said: “Now I have to become Catholic.” This comes from the fact that every detail in the Mass is not a human invention but an inspiration of the Holy Ghost. That every detail has been shaped into a harmonious unity, and if we change a tittle of it, then we will easily destroy the presence of the beauty that God, from heaven, wants to give us. We have to go back to a worship that is worthy of Heaven, and therefore, every human detail has to be as beautiful as it can.

Hierarchical Order

And finally, if we want a renewal of the liturgy we have to go back to the hierarchical order that the Traditional Latin Mass reflects. I do not know how many of you have ever seen a Pontifical High Mass, but if so, and if it was celebrated according to the full rubrics, you will have seen, at the beginning, that the pontiff is vested at the throne. It is a little lengthy procedure, but I am always astonished how fascinated everyone is to see that the human being who comes into the chapel or church is slowly changed by Holy Mother Church into the sovereign high priest and the representative of Christ. [At the Institute] we have had bishops from the whole world, some pleasantly astonished at what was happening to them; but after the vestition no one could have mistaken the bishop except for what he really is -- a bishop, the representative of Christ, Christ on earth.

The Pontifical High Mass includes the bishop, the presbyter assistens, the deacon, the subdeacon, and all the servers of the minor clergy. They stand on different levels of the sanctuary. This shows you at one glimpse what otherwise has to be explained at length -- that the Church has a gradation of hierarchy, and this hierarchy is instituted by Christ, from the liturgy for the liturgy, to make clear that we need steps, that we need help, that we need support and elevation to come to the sancta sanctorum, [the “holy of holies”], to midst of it all, to the sacrifice and to the presence. If you assist at a beautifully celebrated Solemn High Mass you will come out a changed person because you will have seen the reality of the Church. You will have seen that she is still the beautiful queen. You will have seen that she is still the powerful queen of angels and saints. And you understand why the Church teaches that at these Masses, and at every Mass, the whole heavenly court is present, in gradations, in hierarchies, in the hierarchies of the angels and of the saints that lead to the culminating point – to the revelation of the Holy Trinity in the presence of Christ.

The liturgy has not been destroyed in her center, but perhaps weakened in her hierarchical expression, and this has bee reflected in the perception of the laity. And we cannot be astonished if lay people do not approach a bishop with a notion of his hierarchical station if he is not presented to them as the sovereign high priest during the liturgy.

Renewal Through the Traditional Latin Mass

So, that is what we can learn, and we shall learn, and we will learn if there is a renewal of the liturgy -- the Sacrifice, the Adoration, the Realism, the Beauty of Heaven, and the Hierarchy have to come back in the liturgy of the church. And to be frank, I know a solution. We, in the Institute of Christ the King, by the grace of God, live part of this solution in our humble condition, in our frailty, by the gracious permission of the Holy See. We can only hope that the renewal that the Holy Father wants to bring about is linked to a universal, generous permission of the Traditional Latin Mass to all groups, to all priests who want to say it.

It has already been confirmed by many canonists that the canonical situation seems to be such that every priest can already say the Mass privately. The public Mass will hopefully soon be reinstated at least as an opportunity for everyone.

In the last forty years we have heard so much about liberality, liberty and liberalism. I am for the liberalization of the Traditional Latin Rite. I’m very grateful to the Holy Father that he has brought about this discussion. When I was in the seminary in 1976, speaking about the Latin Mass was a reason to be thanked and showed out the door.
I want to be very optimistic, in the sense of Christian hope. What has happened in the last ten years is a miracle. That many other traditional groups and the Institute of Christ the King are everywhere now, that we have this wonderful church in St. Louis or the wonderful church in Wausau, and everyone can come and worship in the Traditional Latin Rite, would have been unthinkable under other popes. So we want to be very grateful to Pope Benedict XVI and to Pope John Paul II for having opened the door, first a little bit, and now hopefully more.

Well, this talk is taped, but still I want to say that we joke sometimes at table at our community, saying “Well, in thirty years we will all be here, white-haired, and we will say ‘The indult will come out any day now’.” Well, I hope not. To close this short talk, I can only tell you at least that the document is ready and that the person who is responsible for all of it does not want to discuss it any longer. We have now only to pray that the appropriate time to publish it will be found soon. This will bring about a great strengthening not only of Traditional Latin Mass groups -- it will bring about a renewal of the liturgy, it will bring about a renewal of the clergy, it will bring about a renewal of the beauty of the Church. It will be like seeing your mother all dusty and in rags on the streets; you go up to her and rip off the old dusty clothing and below that you see the golden clothes that she has brought for the most beautiful ball she has ever attended.

And that will be Holy Mother Church with the Traditional Latin Rite liberalized for everyone.

Nuns on a Comeback---Recruiting with Blackberries!

The seeds sown by His Holiness John Paul II, bearing fruit:

PRO MULTIS! FOR MANY! DEO GRATIAS!

Pro multis means "for many," Vatican rules

Vatican, Nov. 18 (CWNews.com) - The Vatican has ruled that the phrase pro multis should be rendered as "for many" in all new English-language translations of the Eucharistic Prayer, CWN has learned.

Although "for many" is the literal translation of the Latin phrase, the translations currently in use render the phrase as "for all." All new English-language translations will use "for many" when they appear.

Cardinal Francis Arinze (bio - news), the prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship, has written to the heads of episcopal conferences of the English-speaking world, informing them of the Vatican decision.

The translation of pro multis has been the subject of considerable debate because of the serious theological issues involved. The phrase occurs when the priest consecrates the wine, saying (in the current translation):

...It will be shed for you and for all so that sins may be forgiven.

The Latin version of the Missal, which sets the norm for the Roman liturgy, says:

...qui pro vobis et pro multis effundetur in remissionem peccatorum.

Critics of the current translation have argued, since it first appeared, that rendering pro multis as "for all" not only distorts the meaning of the Latin original, but also conveys the impression that all men are saved, regardless of their relationship with Christ and his Church. The more natural translation, "for many," more accurately suggests that while Christ's redemptive suffering makes salvation available to all, it does not follow that all men are saved.

Vatican liturgical official seeks recovery of the sacred

It can't be much longer before Rome acts once and for all to end the unfortunate liturgical errors and confusion since the implementation of the 1970 Mass of Paul VI. Even the period between the council's desire for some reform of the liturgy and the Novus Ordo was a time of experimentation and confusion. Forty years is such a common theme in scripture and this is how long we have been wandering in a liturgical desert.

If one takes the time to read Sacrasanctam Concilium there were eleven specific requests of the Council Fathers. Yet, what was thrust upon the spirit and mind of every Catholic was far from what was expected. Many of us can take the position that it was a "conspiracy" on the part of certain Vatican officials but the real crime was the "conspiracy of silence" that existed by almost every bishop alive in 1970 who were at the council and accepted the banal and spiritually weak Mass of Paul Vi. Perhaps Paul was part of this conspiracy, perhaps he was gullible and weak. Regardless, history has shown him to be a weak and ineffectual Pope.

After two months now conducting the choir at a Tridentine Mass it has really come home to me how bad the reform really was. I always knew it; and I had attended Tridentine masses perhaps a half-dozen times since the age of eight, so I was not unfamiliar with it; but I defy anyone with an open mind to look at what we had then and what we have now and not believe that we lost something.

Take one example, clearly an abuse that was never called for in the documents. How many churches still have altar boys/girls holding the paten under the chin to catch the Eucharist or crumbs if it falls? Of course there is no need if it is given in the hand. But I can clearly recall serving in the transitional period and we used the patens. Taking it back to the altar, we used two hands and it was never tipped. We placed it on the altar and I could clearly see little crumbs--like white pepper--on the paten. The priest wiped these particles of the Body of Christ with his finger into the chalice. I would the pour water over the priests fingers to wash the particles into the chalice which he then consumed. So where are these particles now and what does it say about our belief in the Real Presence?

I lost something! So did the generation that grew up with the Novus Ordo. We lost solemnity and a sense of the sacred. We changed the sacrifice of Calvary to a communal supper. Just look at the beginning of the Tridentine Mass and the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar; "I will go in unto the Altar of God, the God who gives joy to my youth." The first words from the priest indicated that he was about to do something holy and worthy. Now we are lucky if the first words even conform to the rite and don't end up as a rehash of last night's hockey or world cup game.

So what will Benedict do? Clearly in the English-speaking world, the least will be the re-translation of the English Novus Ordo. This is an exercise almost complete and hopefully will be implemented soon. As one example, rather than "This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world, happy are those who are called to his supper" we will hear, "Behold the Lamb of God, behold He, who takes away the sins of the world, blessed are those who are called to the supper of the Lamb." Who said English cannot be poetic and uplifting?

We most certainly should see some broader return of the Tridentine Rite, perhaps with an updated missal with a new saints calendar. If not, then the old rite simply is "old" and not living. Will we have two rites, the Tridentine and a Novus Ordo which takes more from the Tridentine to make it more sacred?

The real mistake was that the changes were not "organic". The new mass was a different rite and inferior at that. A priest could consecrate bread and wine to the body and blood of Christ at a picnic table. Technically you don't need to surround it with the "mass." But that would not make it licit. We are dealing with a liturgy that has caused a falling away from the church and the seminaries and that is the greatest sadness.

The news article below indicates that we are not far from some new order. We can pray for courage for Benedict XVI and Cardinal Arinze who will no doubt have a fight on their hands. The protestant Catholics are not going quietly, but go they must. Christ said that in the last days there would be many who would lead astray even the elect. The time has come for all Catholics to see the last 40 years for what it is--a spiritual desert!

Vatican, Jun. 23 (CWNews.com) - The secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship has conceded some "negative results" of liturgical changes since Vatican II, and voiced his support for reform of the post-conciliar liturgy, in an interview with the I Media news agency.

Archbishop Albert Malcom Ranjith Patabendige Don told I Media that the Council fathers had hoped to reinvigorate the sense of an active encounter with God through the liturgy. "But unfortunately," he said, "after the Council, certain changes were made rapidly, without reflection, in a burst of enthusiasm, in a rejection of some exaggerations of the past." The result, the archbishop said, was quite different from the Council's intent.

Asked to provide some examples of the negative results, the Sri Lankan prelate listed "the abandonment of the sacred and the mystical," the confusion between the common priesthood of all the faithful and the ordained ministry, and the concept of the Eucharist as a common banquet rather than a representation of Christ's Sacrifice.

These changes, Archbishop Patabendige Don said, have produced negative consequences for the Church even beyond the liturgy. In the face of a growing secular trend in society, he said, the Church urgently needs to cultivate a deeper sense of the sacred and a more active interior life.

Fortunately, the archbishop said, there is a growing sense among Catholics of the need to recover the sense of the sacred. He said that the work of the Congregation for Divine Worship entails helping bishops and episcopal conferences to refine the liturgy by incorporating the strengths of the past.

Asked whether he was hinting at approval of the use of the old Missal of St.Pius V, the Sri Lankan archbishop said that the requests for the use of the pre-conciliar liturgy have become more common. But the question is in the hands of Pope Benedict XVI, he said. "The Pope knows all this," he said; "he knows the questions, he is very conscious of the situation, he is reflecting, and we are waiting for his indications."

Archbishop Patabendige Don adds that the use of the Tridentine rite "has never been abolished or banned." However, he said, because of the split in the Church caused by the traditionalist followers of the late Archbishop Lefebvre, the old Mass "has taken a certain identity that is not right."

Whether Pope Benedict will now encourage the use of the Missal of St. Pius V, or call for a reform of the 1962 Missal-- "what some people call 'the reform of the reform'"-- is not yet known, the archbishop said. What is established, he said, is the need for a liturgy that is "more beautiful, more transcendent." The secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship cautioned that it is imprudent to press for quick decisions, running the risk of falling into new errors because of haste. "We have to reflect a great deal," he said; "and above all, we have to pray for the Holy Father and the Church, and listen to what the Lord wants of us."

New book shows Pope's concerns for liturgy

Rome, Apr. 27 (CWNews.com) - The Italian publication of a book on the liturgy, with a preface by Pope Benedict XVI, is calling fresh attention to the Pope's interest in liturgical reform, and particularly in recovering the elements of the traditional Latin liturgy.

The Italian publisher Cantagalli held a public presentation on April 27 to introduce Rivolti al Signore, a book written in 2003 by Father Uwe Michael Lang, with a preface by then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. In the book, Father Lang argues in favor of celebrating Mass ad orientem-- that is, with the priest and the congregation facing in the same direction. Rivolti al Signore appeared in English as Turning Towards the Lord, published by Ignatius Press in 2004. The introduction of the Italian-language edition drew special notice because the preface highlights the Pope's desire for a "reform of the reform" in the liturgy.

The April 27 presentation came at a time when Vatican-watchers are still speculating on whether Pope Benedict might issue a document allowing broader use of the old Latin Mass. Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith, the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship, made one of the presentations at the conference introducing Rivolti al Signore.

His participation added further evidence of the importance of the book. In his preface, written in 2003 when he was prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Ratzinger notes that Vatican II did not require the celebration of Mass with the priest facing the people, nor did the Council abolish the use of Latin in the liturgy. The future Pope writes that Father Lang's book provides a valuable opportunity to discuss the liturgical changes of Vatican II-- a discussion which Cardinal Ratzinger says is long overdue. The effect of such a discussion, the preface argues, could be to correct erroneous interpretations of Council documents and provide for a more dignified and reverent liturgy.

In his own 2001 book, The Spirit of the Liturgy, Cardinal Ratzinger made arguments similar to those found in Turning Towards the Lord. He expressed regret that liturgical changes had decreased the spirit of reverence, and particularly that the Mass sometimes appeared to be a "one-man show" featuring the priest-celebrant. Father Uwe Michael Lang, the author of Turning Towards the Lord, is a priest of the Oratory of St. Philip Neri in London, who studied theology in Vienna and Oxford and has written several works on patristics.

Cardinal Arinze discourages "liturgies to order"

Signs are growing that Benedict XVI intends to bring the liturgy back to a more traditional form after a top Vatican official protested the use of "do-it-yourself" services.

In a keynote speech delivered at Westminster Cathedral recently, Cardinal Francis Arinze, Prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments, also said that individual priests should not add to or subtract from the approved rites, mentioning the practice of playing background music in particular as one practice that should stop. "The Mass is the most solemn action of the sacred liturgy, which is itself the public worship of the Church," the cardinal said.

Quoting John Paul II, he said liturgy is not a "private property" and that priests and lay faithfuls are "not free to add or subtract any details" from the official liturgy. He said communities that are faithful to the Church's liturgical norms demonstrate their love for the Church.

"A do-it-yourself mentality, an attitude of nobody-will-tell-me-what-to-do, or a defiant sting of if-you-do-not-like-my-Mass-you-can-go-to-another-parish, is not only against sound theology and ecclesiology, but also offends against common sense," the Cardinal said." Unfortunately, sometimes common sense is not very common, when we see a priest ignoring liturgical rules and installing creativity, in his case personal idiosyncrasy, as the guide to the celebration of Holy Mass."

The cardinal's comments come a week after proposals were announced by a Vatican commission to outlaw the use of drums and electric guitars from church services. The commission outlined 50 proposals on reforming the liturgy, with Vatican insiders saying that the commission also proposed to increase the use of Latin during mass. But Fr Tom Jordon from the National Conference of Priests, said he was unaware of any deviation from the Rubrics provided by the Roman Missal in the nation's churches but added that since Vatican II in was inevitable that the personality of priests shone through during Mass.SOURCETop Vatican Cardinal Slams "Do-It-Yourself" Liturgies (The Universe 6/4/06)LINKS (not necessarily endorsed by Church Resources)Cardinal Francis Arinze: Hearts and Minds - Thinking about and Celebrating the Liturgy (Text of address)ARCHIVECardinal says pope will opt for 'gentle' fix of liturgical abuses (CathNews 13/2/06)7 Apr 2006

Gregorian Chant in Parish Life

Sacerdos July-August 2005

Gregorian Chant in Parish Life
By Arlene Oost-Zinner and Jeffrey Tucker

Many observers expect the pontificate of Benedict XVI to promote excellence in sacred music. Doing so would be in continuity with John Paul II's homily of February 26, 2003, in which he reminded the world that music can assist in salvation.

Between heaven and earth a sort of channel of communication is established in which the action of the Lord and the song of praise of the faithful meet. And truly, we live in times that cry out for sacred spaces, places to preserve us from trouble where we might find songs that point our senses toward eternity.

The tradition of Latin chant in the Roman Rite, provides songs that meet that need for all ages, classes, races, and not just in our times but in all times. The chant, of late, has been revived in recordings and, to some extent, in popular culture. It remains largely unheard at parish liturgy where it most belongs. Yet the chant can again become familiar to nearly every Mass-going Catholic.

Chant is Catholic Music

Authoritative documents of the Church convey an unmistakable message concerning music at Mass: Gregorian chant holds pride of place in the Roman Rite.

It is the cantus firmus of the liturgical life of a Catholic. This is the message of the new General Instruction on the Roman Missal, which restates the message of Sacrosanctum Concilium (1963): "Gregorian chant holds pride of place because it is proper to the Roman Liturgy. Other types of sacred music, in particular polyphony, are in no way excluded, provided that they correspond to the spirit of the liturgical action and that they foster the participation of all the faithful."

This is also the message of Voluntatis Obsequens, the pastoral letter than was published in 1974 along with a book of chants, called Jubilate Deo. Pope Paul VI wanted these chants to serve as the minimal repertoire throughout the world: "Those who are trying to improve the quality of congregational singing cannot refuse to Gregorian chant the place which is due to it."

Again, we find the same emphasis in John Paul II's 2003 Chirograph on the Centenary of Pius X's Moto Proprio on Sacred Music: "Among the musical expressions that correspond best with the qualities demanded by the notion of sacred music, especially liturgical music, Gregorian chant has a special place." He adds that the chant is an element of unity in the Roman liturgy.

The Practical Fears

Does it really have a place in suburban parishes that have no prior experience with chant?
Perhaps it belongs only in Cathedrals or at Masses at the Vatican. Surely it can only serve to alienate people. This is the view of many pastors who lack experience with the chant, worry about pushing something new on their congregations, wonder whether the chant is outmoded in our time, and have doubts about the pastoral benefits offered by the difficult process of initiating a change in the parish music program.

Yet the Second Vatican Council restated a teaching that dates from the earliest statements by Popes and theologians on the place of music in worship. The musical tradition of the church is inestimable in value not only because it consists of beautiful compositions. Its pre-eminence subsists in this reality: as sacred melody united to words, it forms a necessary or integral part of the solemn Liturgy.

Sacred music, said Sacrosanctum Concilium, is to be considered the more holy in proportion as it is more closely connected with the liturgical action. This is why the Council also became the first in the history of the faith to specifically name Gregorian chant and polyphony as having pride of place in the rite. There thus needs to be no bitter feud about contemporary versus traditional music at Mass. The chant tradition exists not as a time-bound statement about musical fashion but rather as timeless melodic means of community prayer. Since its foreshadowing in the Jewish tradition and its codification in the 5th and 6th centuries, it has existed alongside two other forms of music: religious music used outside of liturgy and purely profane music of both popular and serious styles. Chant encourages reverence, prayer, and an awareness of the transcendent purpose of liturgical action. Chant catechizes and serves an evangelistic purpose.

There is no group of parishioners for whom chant will not have an appeal, provide it is presented properly.

Where to Begin

Jubilite Deo was distributed 30 years ago by Pope Paul VI in response to trends that contradicted the original aim of the Council. The booklet remains an excellent basis for starting a parish on the proper path of integrating chant into its liturgy.

The settings are well chosen and can be learned by anyone. This booklet was distributed with the explicit call for this to be the basis of parish song so as to make it easier for Christians to achieve unity and spiritual harmony with their brothers and with the living tradition of the past. Hence it is that those who are trying to improve the quality of congregational singing cannot refuse Gregorian chant the place which is due it.

A next step after Jubilate is the Liber Cantualis, a wonderful book of essential chants from Solesmes for every parish. This includes 8 eight settings of the Mass, 40 popular chant hymns and psalms, four sequences, and other selections that can serve as the foundation for all Masses in any parish. These are the songs sung by the people.

The Gregorian Missal, also from Solesmes, is available in English, French, Italian, and Spanish. It includes Mass settings and propers that correspond with the Sundays and Feast Days. It follows the Graduale in assigning to Masses the Introits, Offertorio, Communio, Psalms, and other antiphons and includes many chants that had fallen into obscurity. In the readings, Latin is one side and the vernacular on the other. All propers are translated. The great merit of this book is that it fully seals the understanding that there is no strict separation between the text and the music in liturgy. They are wedded to each other in the whole history of the church.
With the revival of chant, many new publications offer selections, and this newfound popularity is all to the good. Some are particularly appealing because they are written in modern notation, which permits people who already read music to make a quick transition to the chant repertoire. And yet, the Solesmes books use medieval square notes for good reason: this notation is more authoritative, easier to sing in the long run, and causes the music to take more of a liturgical shape.

Introducing Chant

An overnight, wholesale reversal of decades of popular music would be both unfeasible and unwise. The melodies that have shaped people's liturgical sensibilities over the decades are also an integral part of people's lives. For this reason, progress should be counted in years, not weeks or months. Some favorite hymns of the parish, even the modern ones, will take on a more prayerful sense when sung without instruments. Reducing the music at Mass to the human voice alone will encourage more singing and provide for a more aesthetically appealing integration of the text of the liturgy with its sung prayer.

The choir should lead. Their voices should flow through the congregation, ideally from the rear or the balcony, so that the music created by the human voice becomes part of the liturgical action. Another aid in introducing chant would be to introduce a very simple Kyrie, intoned by the celebrant or cantor and answered by the people. A similarly simple vernacular Gloria can follow (our parish favors the effective and easy setting Kurt Poterack, found in the Adoremus Hymnal).

Parts of the Mass that previously had music might employ the use of sacred silence, a point urged by Pope John Paul II. If these steps are taken over a period of months and people come to appreciate the new solemnity, the introduction of chant hymns such as Ave Maria, Ubi Caritas, Jesu Dulcis, will go far more smoothly.

Once the ground is prepared, the quiet solemnity of chant will take root and grow, persuading people of its merit by the hearing and doing.

Actual Participation

Of course voices can be hired, if the money is there, but there are serious dangers associated with this approach, insofar as people do not see or hear people from the parish doing the singing.
The best approach is for the pastor to talk to people from the parish who might be willing to undertake a weekly practice in the chant. They need not come from existing choirs. It need only be two to five singers at the start. With the aid of recordings and practice, they can learn three or four chants in the course of a month or two. In time, more ambitious singers can receive formal instruction or use self-study materials on CD that are ever more available. The propers sung in Gregorian chant are the most difficult to learn. A lay group attempting them week-to-week can expect to spend an hour or two on each chant, at least at the outset. Enthusiasm, vigor, and beauty is what will draw people back to sacred music, whereas a dirge-like and duty-bound routine can only inspire a backlash.

Recordings can aid in gaining a sense of the style, none better than those done by the Solesmes Abbey. At this pace, it is remarkable what can be accomplished in two to four years. In time, the parish schola could be singing full communios and introits, and using motets by Vitoria and Palestrina for offertory.

Children and Chant

The children of the parish should not be neglected or overlooked. They can learn the chant alongside adult members of the parish; they might even prove to be the most enthusiastic for the chant.

In addition, a person in a position to organize a children's chant choir should do so. This can make a great impression on the parish community. To hear children sing at Mass is to remove the intimidation factor from the chant (if the children can do it, surely the adults can, too) and poignantly demonstrates that the Latin chant is not only about the past but about the future.

Examination of Conscience before Change

Pope John Paul II called for renewed interest in truly sacred music.

But in his general audience of February 6, 2003, he cautioned that this renewing conversion must begin on the level of the individual soul. "The Christian community must make an examination of conscience so that the beauty of music and song will return increasingly to the liturgy."

This is a call for humility above all else. The motivation must be love of liturgy and its source, love of sung prayer and its purpose, and a genuine desire to hear the people of God united in one voice in praise and thanksgiving. The Vatican and the Pope have been thoroughly consistent on the question of music but genuine change cannot be dictated from above. It must begin in the parish community.

It must come from the people and their pastors so that it can really take root in the life of Catholics again.

Arlene Oost-Zinner and Jeffrey Tucker are, respectively, president and director of the St. Cecilia Schola Cantorum in Auburn, Alabama.
contact@ceciliaschola.org