Does the New Mass fulfill the notion of Catholic liturgy?

[Bakuryokuso]

Pete, why did you call this thread "Does the new Mass fulfill the Sunday obligation?" when the title of the article is "Does the New Mass fulfill the notion of Catholic liturgy?"

The article actually doesn't mention the Sunday obligation at all...

The new rite in a certain sense worships a God of its own making—a God not offended by sin, Who is not interested in ritual sacrifice, Who has little respect for His own physical Presence at Mass, and Who places religious truth and religious error on similar footing.

I really get the sense that a lot of these SSPX articles are meant mainly to scare the shit out of the SSPX faithful and steel the will of SSPX clergy rather than generate any sort of meaningful discussion about the issues at hand.

I agree with the SSPX's criticisms - that so many NO masses omit the confiteor ("a God not offended by sin") are so vague about the issue of mass as sacrifice ("Who is not interested in ritual sacrifice") allow the laity to touch the sacred vessels, distribute the host themselves and Communion in the hand ("Who has little respect for His own physical Presence at Mass") with sometimes bizarre homilies ("Who places religious truth and religious error on similar footing").

But to then say that "The new rite in a certain sense worships a God of its own making" is a bit much. I find this time and again with SSPX articles. The criticisms are spot-on but the conclusions require a bit of a leap of faith. The problem is maily modernism, and then on top of that the NO is too weak and flexible to be any sort of bulwark against silly clergy and laity.

[Petertherock]

Pete, why did you call this thread "Does the new Mass fulfill the Sunday obligation?" when the title of the article is "Does the New Mass fulfill the notion of Catholic liturgy?"

Edit: My apologies...I mis-read the title when I posted the topic.

[The_Harlequin_King]

Then why would the "deacon" be acting like a priest during the consecration?

Based on the picture alone, the deacon is probably just being goofy with his hand posture. But since he's a deacon, it's not a concelebrated Mass. If the typical Novus Ordo cleric on the street follows any one rubric, I've noticed they never get this one wrong: that in the Novus Ordo Missal, a priest is never to dress in the vestments of a deacon or serve the liturgy in a role lower than priest. A priest in the Novus Ordo has basically three options only: celebrant, concelebrant, or sitting in choir. There is no acting as deacon, acolyte or lector. And for all their disregard of rubrics otherwise, I've never seen or heard of a Novus Ordo priest who violated this one.


And this is real reason why so many Novus Ordo Masses are concelebrated, by the way. If a priest is attending Mass and has only two options (concelebrate or sit in choir), he's going to choose concelebrating 99% of the time. There are very few American churches, even built pre-Vatican II, that have choir stalls. This leads me to believe that sitting in choir was not done very often in the U.S. even before the Council.

[Petertherock]

Then why would the "deacon" be acting like a priest during the consecration?

Based on the picture alone, the deacon is probably just being goofy with his hand posture. But since he's a deacon, it's not a concelebrated Mass. If the typical Novus Ordo cleric on the street follows any one rubric, I've noticed they never get this one wrong: that in the Novus Ordo Missal, a priest is never to dress in the vestments of a deacon or serve the liturgy in a role lower than priest. A priest in the Novus Ordo has basically three options only: celebrant, concelebrant, or sitting in choir. There is no acting as deacon, acolyte or lector. And for all their disregard of rubrics otherwise, I've never seen or heard of a Novus Ordo priest who violated this one.


And this is real reason why so many Novus Ordo Masses are concelebrated, by the way. If a priest is attending Mass and has only two options (concelebrate or sit in choir), he's going to choose concelebrating 99% of the time. There are very few American churches, even built pre-Vatican II, that have choir stalls. This leads me to believe that sitting in choir was not done very often in the U.S. even before the Council.

The exception being monasteries.

[The_Harlequin_King]

The exception being monasteries.

True, and thank God for that.

[Bakuryokuso]

However the largest concelebration I've ever seen was at a monastery.

[Pheo]

The Anglicans know a thing or two about concelebrating.

[The_Harlequin_King]

However the largest concelebration I've ever seen was at a monastery.

Yeah, funny how that works.

My diagnosis of that problem is in the attitude (also predating Vatican II) that "if you're gonna be celibate, might as well be a priest". Even many discussions on this forum refer to celibate vocations by the catch-all "priests and nuns", rather than also including deacons, brothers, oblates, etc. So in monasteries you'll find them stacked with priests, despite the fact that some of those orders were established specifically to focus on lay membership.

[SCG]

Our deacon has never raised his hands like the priest during any part of the Mass. His hands are always folded.. except for during the "through him, with him, in him.." when the deacon raises the chalice and the priests lifts the Host.

This cannot be a "concelebrated" a Mass, as others have said.

[SCG]

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