Monday, January 07, 2019
Ten Reasons Not to Prefer the Novus Ordo: A Reply to Fr. Longenecker
Fr. Longenecker has written some fine books and articles. Years ago, I enjoyed and benefited from his book on St. Benedict and St. Thérèse of Lisieux, and his recent book on the historical veracity of the Magi is interesting.
Lionel: Fr.Dwight Longenecker and Peter Kwasniewski offer/ attend Holy Mass by reinterpreting Magisterial documents with a false premise .Then with this public heresy they condone sacrilege.
There will be no denial from them. They agree that they interpret invisible cases of the baptism of desire(BOD), baptism of blood(BOB) and being saved in invincible ignorance(I.I) as being visible exceptions to Feeneyite extra ecclesiam nulla salus (EENS).There is no denial from them since they do not want to affirm EENS like the Magisterium and missionaries in the 16th century.
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It would appear that in matters liturgical, however, Fr. Longenecker is out of his depth.
Lionel: They both are out of their depth on matters doctrinal and theological when they assume unknown cases of the BOD, BOB and I.I are known exceptions to the strict interpretation of the dogma EENS.They mix up what is invisible as being visible and what is subjective as being objective.
They assume unknown cases of LG 8, LG 14, LG 16, UR 3, NA 2,GS 22 etc in Vatican Council II are known exceptions to EENS, the past exclusivist ecclesiology and an ecumenism of return. So Vatican Council II is interpreted as a rupture with Tradition. With all this heresy, now known in public, they offer/attend Holy Mass.
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Each claim he puts forward in his article “Twelve Things I Like about the Novus Ordo Mass”
can be and has been refuted in the ample literature written on the
subject, of which he appears to be ignorant. Indeed, the article betrays
minimal knowledge of the history, process, and content of the
liturgical reform (as, for instance, well documented in this biography of Annibale Bugnini) and of the contrasting richness of the traditional Mass.
Let us walk through Fr. Longenecker’s Twelve Things (printed in boldface).
Let us walk through Fr. Longenecker’s Twelve Things (printed in boldface).
1. It’s accessible. Having the liturgy in the vernacular helps it to be understood by the people. How can that be a bad thing?
It is characteristic of the rationalism of the liturgical movement (based on its Enlightenment precursors) to prioritize verbal comprehension over a more synthetic and holistic understanding of the mystery of faith, which draws on all the senses and appeals to the heart as well as the intellect. The use of Latin, in addition to being simply what the Western Church did for over 1,500 years, creates for worshipers a numinous and sacral atmosphere that invites meditation and adoration.
It is characteristic of the rationalism of the liturgical movement (based on its Enlightenment precursors) to prioritize verbal comprehension over a more synthetic and holistic understanding of the mystery of faith, which draws on all the senses and appeals to the heart as well as the intellect. The use of Latin, in addition to being simply what the Western Church did for over 1,500 years, creates for worshipers a numinous and sacral atmosphere that invites meditation and adoration.
Lionel: However for 1500 years Catholics at Mass meditated on how there is exclusive salvation in Jesus and His Mystical Body the Church. They did not separate Jesus from exclusive salvation in the Catholic Church.They did not separate membership in the Church from entry into Heaven.They did not offer/attend the Tridentine Rite Mass as a rupture with the necessity of being a member of the Catholic Church for salvation.
Now Kwaniseki and Longenecker deny exclusive salvation in the Church.They deny it in public.They also project BOD,BOB and I.I and LG 8, LG 14, LG 16 , GS 22 etc as exceptions.They agree with me.
So when they deny Feeneyite EENS with a bad premise, they also change the meaning of the Nicene Creed, the Apostles Creed and the Athanasius Creed. This would be first class heresy for 1500 years. They would not be allowed to attend Holy Mass without a recantation.
But they could not care less. Since at Holy Mass and in their writings, they have to be politically correct with the Left, which generally represent Satan. Mass.
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Moreover, seeking the goal of easy intelligibility led the reformers to dumb down much of the content of the Mass so that it might not be “too hard.” What is the heavy price we pay for the all too obvious “accessibility” of the Novus Ordo? Superficiality and boredom. It’s so accessible that it “fails to grip,” as P.G. Wodehouse would say. This is why we have a new self-help genre on getting over one’s boredom with Mass and various faddish movements like LifeTeen for pumping up the Novus Ordo. In contrast, the traditional Latin Mass is steep, craggy, and sublime, offering the worshiper the kind of challenge that befits his rational dignity and supernatural destiny, and opening up an endless vista of new discoveries in the age-old prayers and gestures.
Moreover, seeking the goal of easy intelligibility led the reformers to dumb down much of the content of the Mass so that it might not be “too hard.” What is the heavy price we pay for the all too obvious “accessibility” of the Novus Ordo? Superficiality and boredom. It’s so accessible that it “fails to grip,” as P.G. Wodehouse would say. This is why we have a new self-help genre on getting over one’s boredom with Mass and various faddish movements like LifeTeen for pumping up the Novus Ordo. In contrast, the traditional Latin Mass is steep, craggy, and sublime, offering the worshiper the kind of challenge that befits his rational dignity and supernatural destiny, and opening up an endless vista of new discoveries in the age-old prayers and gestures.
Lionel: I attend the Novus Ordo and Latin Mass and I am not bored at either.
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Finally, no literate person is incapable of using a daily missal, where all the antiphons, prayers, and readings may be found in vernacular translations – but without any attempt at an “official” translation of the impossible-to-translate ancient Latin texts, thus avoiding the intractable battles over what “style” and “register” of vernacular should be used in the liturgy. The major prayers of the Mass are fixed and repeated from week to week, so it is not difficult to follow them, as one can see from wee lads and lasses who do this at the traditional Latin Mass.
Finally, no literate person is incapable of using a daily missal, where all the antiphons, prayers, and readings may be found in vernacular translations – but without any attempt at an “official” translation of the impossible-to-translate ancient Latin texts, thus avoiding the intractable battles over what “style” and “register” of vernacular should be used in the liturgy. The major prayers of the Mass are fixed and repeated from week to week, so it is not difficult to follow them, as one can see from wee lads and lasses who do this at the traditional Latin Mass.
Lionel: They are there at the Latin Mass(, which is not the Traditional Latin Mass) with a new ecclesiology, new theology, new evangelisation etc,.Otherwise they would not have permission to attend/offer this Latin Mass.Pope Francis encourages the Latin Mass and so do the bishops.
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2. It’s flexible. We’re supposed to honor Latin as the language of
our church and it is easy enough to integrate a little or a lot of Latin
into th e Novus Ordo Mass. It is also flexible musically. You don’t have
to use Haagan Daz, hootenany and soft rock music. Learn Gregorian chant
and polyphony. It fits.
The idea that a liturgy should be a matter of “picking and choosing” among options is foreign to the historical development of Christian liturgy in East and West, which has always been toward greater definition, consistency, and stability of liturgical texts, chants, and ceremonies. A liturgy is a ritual action in which the actors lose their idiosyncratic individuality and adopt a persona that befits the mysteries enacted. The clergy should come across not as the ones steering and coloring the enterprise, but as stewards of a treasure they receive and place humbly before the people; the people, for their part, find it easier to pray when the liturgy is not a moving target, but one can enter again and again into the same sacred routine. This intrinsic quality of good liturgy is absent from the Novus Ordo by design.
The idea that a liturgy should be a matter of “picking and choosing” among options is foreign to the historical development of Christian liturgy in East and West, which has always been toward greater definition, consistency, and stability of liturgical texts, chants, and ceremonies. A liturgy is a ritual action in which the actors lose their idiosyncratic individuality and adopt a persona that befits the mysteries enacted. The clergy should come across not as the ones steering and coloring the enterprise, but as stewards of a treasure they receive and place humbly before the people; the people, for their part, find it easier to pray when the liturgy is not a moving target, but one can enter again and again into the same sacred routine. This intrinsic quality of good liturgy is absent from the Novus Ordo by design.
Lionel: I would attend the Latin Mass offered by the late Mons. Ignacio Barreiro in Rome.He was not willing to affirm Feeneyite EENS like St. Ignatious or Loyola, St. Robert Bellarmine, St. Thomas Aquinas....He was protecting his career.
So the liturgy was there but he was not allowed to express the traditional ecclesiology of the Church as for example in the 16th century. This was not the Tridentine Rite Mass of the past.
Then I would attend the Latin Mass offered by the FSSP priests in Rome after Pope Benedict issued Summorum Pontificum. Again they were afraid to affirm EENS according to the past Catechisms.They would not answer questions from a Catholic about the strict interpretation of EENS.They would not provide their telephone number with a pamphlet citing Dominus Iesus and the CDF Notification on Fr. Jacques Dupuis sj. They were afraid.
So there were the vestments and rituals but the traditional faith was missing.
So there were the vestments and rituals but the traditional faith was missing.
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Concretely, what does this flexibility end up looking like? We can choose the Roman Canon, that which defines the Roman Rite, or a Eucharistic Prayer patterned after a pseudo-anaphora written by pseudo-Hippolytus and finished on a napkin in Trastevere. We can have the chant that grew up for a thousand years with the rite, or some sentimental piano tune by an ex-Jesuit. We can have Mass facing East in accord with apostolic tradition (as St. Basil and others testify), or we can try our luck with the novel “closed circle” approach of versus populum. We can have people line up for communion in the hand like customers queuing for bus tickets, scattering fragments of the Body of Christ hither and yon, or place the Lord on the tongue of believers kneeling in a posture of adoration. All this great flexibility! The devil delights in it, since it usually plays in his favor...
Concretely, what does this flexibility end up looking like? We can choose the Roman Canon, that which defines the Roman Rite, or a Eucharistic Prayer patterned after a pseudo-anaphora written by pseudo-Hippolytus and finished on a napkin in Trastevere. We can have the chant that grew up for a thousand years with the rite, or some sentimental piano tune by an ex-Jesuit. We can have Mass facing East in accord with apostolic tradition (as St. Basil and others testify), or we can try our luck with the novel “closed circle” approach of versus populum. We can have people line up for communion in the hand like customers queuing for bus tickets, scattering fragments of the Body of Christ hither and yon, or place the Lord on the tongue of believers kneeling in a posture of adoration. All this great flexibility! The devil delights in it, since it usually plays in his favor...
Lionel: The new doctrines with heretical conclusions could also be attributed to the flexibility of Mass in Latin.-Lionel Andrades
http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2019/01/ten-reasons-not-to-prefer-novus-ordo.html#more
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