I'd like to see some more details, but I found this tidbit from Sacra Liturgia 2015 interesting:
"Cardinal Sarah revealed that, when he was appointed to be Prefect of the CDW, he asked Pope Francis what he expected him to do in this new role. The response of the Holy Father, according to Cardinal Sarah’s letter, was twofold:
1. Implement the reforms of the Second Vatican Council 2. Continue the liturgical vision of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI"
It goes without saying that I'm happy to hear this news, but I only have one question for whatever it's worth:
If the Benedictine "reform of the reform" is supposed to continue, then what exactly was the meaning of New Catholic's report at Rorate Caeli blog which detailed what he called "the de-Ratzingerian purge" at the Congregation for Divine Worship?
The claim was made in that article that two Ratzingerians at the CDW, Msgr. Ferrer and Msgr. Grenesche, were let go in favor of Bugninians. Msgr. Ferrer and Msgr. Grenesche, as Sandro Magister has reported, had plans to revive Gregorian chant, among other fine objectives.
P.S. It's reassuring to know that the Holy Father has given his blessing to the good work in the liturgy begun by Pope Benedict, but today's news makes the pope's remark (as reported by Zenit) to the Roman clergy in February that "priests and bishops who speak of a reform of the reform . . . are mistaken" all the more puzzling.
FWIW, of the proposals I have heard here in NYC, Fr. Kocik's was most striking regarding RotR (I am paraphrasing, going by memory): The Novus Ordo is NOT what the Council intended in Sac. Conc.; and, it isn't going to easy to reform the current Roman Missal because it is so far a departure from what came before it: the only real thing to do is to go back to the Traditional Mass and implement the requests of Vatican II, at least those that have been deemed, more or less, a success. Basically the "Vatican II Mass" should really look more like the 1964 Sacramentary/Missal than the Novus Ordo as we know it today.
Perhaps it is just wishful thinking, but I think that Card. Sarah plans on attending Sacra Liturgia 2016 is promising news.
Also, in general, I find Francis to be an-enigma-wrapped-in-a-mystery-wrapped-in-a-huh?
@Salieri, I would love to see something closer to the 1964 missal but those who prefer the EF are the least likely to welcome reform. Besides, right now within the rubrics, you can probably get closer to the 1964 missal through the OF than you can through the EF.
Besides, right now within the rubrics, you can probably get closer to the 1964 missal through the OF than you can through the EF.
I think you are correct. Many - not all - of the local EF folks obsess over trivial liturgical details and don't see the forest for the trees. The 1964/1965 missal seems to me closer to what the Council actually had in mind for liturgical reforms.
Part of the problem for those who prefer the usus antiquior is that 1962 itself was already losing contact with the form of rites as received, and so really we have to go backwards and then adopt some of the reforms of 1962. Ember Days and Rogation Days ought to have been restored along with all the rites and vesture, e.g. folded chasubles and the pre-1955 Rogation liturgy, according to the passage in SC that says things lost to accidents of history need to be restored. But they were eliminated by the decade’s end! The calendar of 1962 is such that its worst mistakes tended to be reversed as much as possible in 1969; the form ought to be pre-1955 with the 1962 nomenclature. And so on. Inter œcumenici is quite a frustrating document in this regard. Too much Joseph Jungmann.
Fr. Kocik's talk was not about reforming the TLM, but on Re-reforming the Post Concilliar rites (Mass & Office), and I apologize if my earlier comment made it seem as thought he was talking about a reform on the Traditional Mass.
What he was saying (to my mind, at least) is that the OF (Mass, Office, Sacraments, even the Calendar) is such a departure from tradition that to reform it would be like putting the toothpaste back in the tube, the liturgical horse has bolted and it's too late to shut the barn-door. We (i.e. The CDW, et al.) would really have to go back to the traditional books (perhaps 1961/2), with Sac. Conc., and look and see what worked and what didn't.
He suggested, among other things the possibilities of: restoring the seasons after Epiphany & after Pentecost, Septuagesima, and Passiontide; restoring the Octave of Pentecost; Solemnities on the actual day, not the nearest Sunday; Restoration of the Asperges before Mass; Restoration of Mass ad Orientem, Restoring the Offertory Rite; Restoring the differentiation between the Major and Minor Hours in their format, e.g. hymn at beginning of the Minor Hours, but after the Psalmody in the Major Hours; Restoration of a one-week Psalter; Restoration of the traditional one-year cycle of Mass readings; preference to Latin in bi/multi-lingual parishes/international liturgies, etc.; and so on.
Also, recommended was that a vernacular Altar Missal should include the entire Latin text as well as the translated one: the draw-back, to this, of course, is the fact that the Missal will have to be a multi-volume work.
Restoration of the "Seasons" of "From Epiphany to Lent" and "After Pentecost" won't achieve much. "Ordinary Time", whilst a bit of a poor name for it, isn't a great departure from what these previous "seasons" had.
Any church musician knows and implements music as appropriate to these two parts of the liturgical year, and understands that the Sundays after Epiphany have the readings which are to show Christ's divinity in order to prepare us for Lent, the great season of repentance, and Easter, the great season of rejoicing in the Resurrection of Christ. The rest of the "Ordinary Sundays" of the year then serve to instruct us in the teachings of Christ, with the last few Sundays being a preparation for the end of our lives, before rejoicing in heaven where Christ is the King.
What I think we would all like to see restored at the very least:
- The Octave of Pentecost. - Rogation/Ember days. - Feasts of certain Saints restored or raised in their rank.
On this last point, I would like the Feast of Saint Valentine to be returned to the general calendar. Far from being a secular lover's festival, it should be an opportunity for the church to expound the sanctity of the sacrament of marriage.
Certain saints I would like to see have their feasts raised in rank. St Nicholas on December 6th is one example.
A major revision of liturgy I would like to see in the Requiem Mass. I think it was a mistake to suppress the Sequence. It should have been made optional, with an option to use a shortened form, such as is found with Corpus Christi. The loss of the Kyrie at the start of the Requiem Mass is also a loss of great lament.
Turning back the clock to 1962 and attempting to start again is not an option that the church has, despite what some people like to say.
Other gripes which people have such as the loss of Latin, Gregorian Chant, etc, were not part of Vatican II, Sacrosanctum Concilium or any of the documents issued following the council. These are all still intended as the norm.
On Solemnities being celebrated on the nearest Sunday, I can see a great practical reason for doing it. The solemnities of the Ascension, Pentecost, Trinity and Corpus Christi make sense to be celebrated on four consecutive Sundays in diocese where these solemnities are not Holy Days of Obligation. These Four feasts at the end of Easter mark important theological and catechetical points which should be reinforced amongst the laity every year.
The fact is that the modern world doesn't allow us the freedom to attend Holy Days of Obligation as was once possible, and many of the lukewarm Catholics in the world would not attend Mass during the week for various reasons. These feasts commemorate past events, and it is not essential that they be celebrated on particular days. If you wanted to retain the symbolism of Easter and Christmas, you should move them by 6 months to suit the seasons of the Southern Hemisphere, as the symbolism of Winter and Spring are lost to Catholics in Australia, Africa and South America.
As an oblate who recites the Liturgy of the Hours every day (using Les Heures Grégoriennes to chant them in Latin) I would object to the return to a one-week psalter. I occasionally use the one-week psalter of the monastery I'm attached to and it simply isn't all that practical for someone in secular life. I'd rather do the entire psalter in 4 weeks (well I would support the restoration of the cursing psalms and verses, and the restoration of the historical psalms 77, 104 and 105 to Ordinary Time, not just Advent, Christmas, Lent and Easter), than miss the same psalms week after week.
I suspect for most diocesan clergy this would be true as well, for instance in my area many priests have to cover more than one parish; it's a rural area and there's much driving by the priests to race from parish to parish on Sundays (and Saturday evenings).
Perhaps a 1-week schema for cathedral canons (do they still exist?) and religious communities might make sense, but I suspect there will be howls of protest from others.
Another reform I would welcome would be a TWO-week psalter, replacing the NT canticle at Vespers with a psalm, and having a second nocturne at Vigils (with three extra psalms/psalm sections). The canticle is generally too syncopated to chant well and I would much prefer another psalm thus shortening the cycle without adding to the workload.
For the placement of the hymn at the major hours, it is still an option in the new antiphonary, ad libitum, to do so for the Monastic Office and that's indeed what is done at our abbey, that uses the Füglister schema (Schema B, 150 psalms in a week). Perhaps that same rubric could be extended to the Liturgy of the Hours.
Frankly I think the Liturgy of the Hours was a great gift to the Church; by encouraging (and indeed facilitating) its use by the laity, it finally becomes the prayer of the *entire* Church, not just for clerics and religious. A little fine tuning, and completion of the *official* Roman Antiphonary, are all that's needed to make it better.
Not sure where to begin responding to hartleymartin, but I'll give it a try.
Yes, I can see great practical reasons for changing a lot of things in the liturgy as well (I suppose reducing the obligation to once a month would be much more "practical" - i.e. easier). Asserting that "The modern world doesn't allow us the freedom to attend Holy Days of Obligation as was once possible" is not only highly questionable in the era of anticipated and evening masses, but really a self-fulfilling prophecy.
I'm puzzled by the sadness of the loss of things like the Kyrie in the Requiem mass (which I find regrettable as well), as compared to the dismissal of much more important items like the loss of entire liturgical seasons. The arbitrary introduction of "Ordinary Time" between Epiphany and Lent not only truncates the Christmas season but eliminates any preparation for Lent. It also contradicts the notion of "ordinary" (i.e. "ordered") time as these weeks are simply a filler between two other seasons. Finally, it breaks in two the great sweep of the liturgical time commemorating the events of our redemption that is supposed to extend from Advent to Trinity Sunday. I'm not sure what is meant by saying that the restoration of these seasons "won't achieve much" (achieve what exactly? how would we know?) The more pertinent question is what has been achieved by changing them?
"These feasts commemorate past events, and it is not essential that they be celebrated on particular days." OK, I agree it's not essential. But the liturgy has a higher standard than this. It's not a matter of commemorating the actual days in question as if we were keeping the "anniversaries" of the Christs's resurrection and Pentecost, but a matter of liturgical time, which is based on the historical events. So the days in question are important (40 days of Lent, 40 after Easter). I hope we can at least keep Ascension before Pentecost!
I know no one who would like to "turn back the clock" to 1962 or any other date. I'm even sure what this means, since everyone agrees it's not possible (nor really desirable even if it was). However, it can be instructive to try to understand some of what people knew back then but have forgotten or ignored since then. It's even possible (though of course highly unlikely) that people in the past understood the liturgy better than we do now, in which case it behooves us to learn from them.
Vatican II famously said that "there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them; and care must be taken that any new forms adopted should in some way grow organically from forms already existing." It's only fair to ask if this principle has been followed, and if not, what can be done to address the situation.
One of the BIG problems I have with the New Calendar is the removal of the Octaves on many Solemnities, and their re-designation to the nearest Sunday.
Pentecost is a big one: if Pentecost is the "Birthday of the Church" as I often hear, then why is it relegated to one day, albeit with a Vigil, but then the rest of the Week is filled in with whatever week of "Ordinary Time" it is. The Feast of the Holy Trinity (Trinity Sunday) is not an arbitrary thing: it is the Octave Day of Pentecost.
The feast of Corpus Christi (and it should only be Corpus Christi -- the Feast of the Precious Blood was a wonderful feast (July 1) that emphasized a different aspect of Redemption, and should not have been mashed together with Corpus Christi -- is a revisiting of the gift of the Holy Eucharist in light of the Paschal Celebration. It is to be similar and yet dissimilar to Holy Thursday, and should be celebrated on a Thursday to show this better: Whereas on Holy Thursday (Thursday of Holy Week, first day off the Triduum, after Lent is technically over) focuses on the Holy Eucharist in light of the Cross; Corpus Christi, properly on the Thursday after the Octave of Pentecost (after Easter is technically over) Focuses on the Holy Eucharist in light of the Resurrection, Descent of the Holy Ghost, and beginning of the Church.
And how many people today know that the Feast of the Baptism of Jesus, January 13, is actually the Octave Day of Epiphany, January 6? (Well, at least it should be the Octave Day, if Epiphany still had an Octave and was actually celebrated on its proper day.)
In the US, the external solemnity of Corpus Christi was moved to Sunday in 1885. It's not a public holiday in the US as it was in Catholic lands, so Thursday was not opportune for public observance of processions....
The Baptism of the Lord is a very recent addition to the calendar. It's arguably still in the development stage, and may eventually take on the more expressly Trinitarian dimensions the Theophany has in the Eastern traditions.
Lent itself is a season of preparation for Easter, and Pentecost is the culmination of the Great Octave of Eastertide Sundays.
@Salieri: "One of the BIG problems I have with the New Calendar is the removal of the Octaves on many Solemnities, and their re-designation to the nearest Sunday."
Actually this change predates the new calendar. Pius XII in 1955 reduced the number of Octaves from 18 to three: Christmas, Easter and Pentecost. Paul VI removed the Octave of Pentecost (a vestige of which remains in Trinity Sunday).
Personally I like the simplification of the calendar. It's much easier to follow and the rubrics much more approachable for those of us in secular life.
OraetLabora, Fr. Kocik did mention the reforms of the calendar in the 1950s...at any rate, no one says that it has to be exactly as it was, terminology-wise, in 1954, but rather, the calendars prior to the Pacellian reforms are more consistent with the received tradition. Further, the ease of following it is something to consider, but it comes at the expense of the richness of the liturgical year. Octaves which were taken up by other feasts entirely needed reform but on the other hand, where does that leave Christmas? Perhaps the difference lies in Christmas being a principal feast and St. Lawrence, for example, not really that important.
As far as the Office goes, I fear we are completely out of luck. Everything since 1910 has been a progressively worse innovation. Interesting that with the 1570 and 1960 offices, one prays more of the Psalter due to the precedence rules in those editions.
I think Trinity comes after the Octave in its institution, actually. But its differences work to imitate the differences between Easter and its Octave Day.
I would like to see the Credo prayed on the feast of doctors (in both forms; John XXIII eliminated it) and the Gloria on memorials. I would also like to see the return of the 1962 terms: 1st class, 2nd class, etc. We usually refer to memorials as feasts anyways. And indeed, the recapitulation of feasts was discussed today at the conference (their Facebook page is great if you cannot be there). The reformers failed to see that when feasts appear to repeat, something different is going on. Such is the case for the Precious Blood.
1962 still presents challenges, but it is in much closer contact with the tradition. I will hang my hat on the older liturgical form even as I hope the Pauline form is improved.
Dr. Foley's paper on the recapitulation of feasts was wonderful today, and highly informative. (As, of course, was Dr. Kwasniewski's on the cumbersome Novus Ordo Lectionary, but that's another topic...)
I don't think that the Calendarial (if that's a word) revisions of Pius XII and John XXIII are wonderful, either, but they are less hideous than the Paul VI revisions: much was lost in all of these reforms, and so there is much to be recovered. I do, however, think that simplifying the system of precedence was a good idea: if Feast Days and Octaves could be restored to their place before the Pian Reforms, while keeping the simplified system/nomenclature of the Johannine Reforms, it would be good. Just simple Fist, Second, Third, and Fourth Class days; none of this double/semi-double gobledy-gook. (It sounds like baseball.)
As far as the "external solemnities" of Corpus Christi on the nearest Sunday: that wasn't originally much of a problem, as they would have been held on "The Sunday within the Octave of Corpus Christi" -- Frankly, another Octave I think should be restored; after all, isn't the Holy Eucharist supposed to be the centre of the life of every Catholic?
I can see your point from the view of a musician and liturgist, or from the point of religious living in community or a chapter of canons.
But for those like myself outside the cloister walls who have an obligation to pray the Divine Office (as part of my oblate promise), or busy priests in a one-man parish (or covering 4 or 5 rural parishes), for whom the Liturgy of the Hours is central to our prayer lives, the 4-week Liturgy of the Hours in the vernacular has been a great gift from the Church. While I chant it in Latin (using Les Heures Grégoriennes for the day offices and an antiphonary based on the Ordo Cantus Officii for Vigils/Office of Readings, reading the psalm silently in French after chanting it), when I travel I lug along my 1-volume French LOTH. Fits nicely into my compact backpack which holds my camera, iPad and breviary. Easy to pray in a hurry on planes, trains... and automobiles (if someone else is driving!). And easy to manage. Before retiring, I was commuting 3 hours a day total, and still had time to chant Lauds, Vespers and Compline in the morning and evening using Les Heures, and reading the other hours. I tried two monastic schemas on 1 and two week schedules and it was near impossible. I was always missing the same psalms week after week; psalms that I really liked too.
In a sense there should be two LOTHs. One for diocesan clergy/laity, one for religious. Well in fact that already exists; the Benedictines have 4 main schemas (see Thesaurus Liturgiae Monasticae), the first one of which is the schema set out by St. Benedict himself, which trumps anything post-1910 for tradition. The Cistercians also have their variants. Some of these schemas are two-week psalters but Benedictine schemas A and B are 1-week psalters. The Carthusian psalter is almost identical to the Benedictine.
I'm reasonably happy with the LOTH and just thrilled that I now have the material to do the whole thing in Gregorian chant! A nice mix of modern and traditional!
It is a sign of the innovation, and a source of great frustration, that Solesmes has not finished the appropriate antiphonale for the reformed office.
And although I know of diocesan priests who go back and forth between the two forms of the office (feeling both enriched and overwhelmed), I wonder if we still suffer from the backwards mentality (a rather Jesuitical one) that the Office is an add-on not just to the liturgy but to our prayer lives as a whole. If seen that way, even subconsciously, then of course a one week psalter is going to be overwhelming.
That doesn’t help you much as an oblate, but it says something about post-Tridentine diocesan priesthood... We have left them out to dry!
Any subtraction, with the possible exception of recent additions, will encounter opposition. In an alternate universe, traditional Catholics are lamenting the loss of the 36-fold Kyrie. One can even imagine the reason. "Each repetition brought us progressively deeper into penitence and culminated in the joyous Gloria but now we're violently thrust into the Gloria completely unprepared. Reform of the reform!"
The kyries, properly understood, are not a poenitential act. (Although, um, 36 of them might indeed be.) They are what is left of what was once an extended litany, 'Lord, have mercy upon us' having been the answer to each petition. As well as a plea for mercy and an answer to prayer, the kyries are an acclamation of God's omnipotence. The Christes are a later addition by a pope, I think Gregory the Great (but I'm too lazy to check it out right now), by whose time the litany itself had disappeared. This litany was, in fact, not dissimilar to our Universal Prayers.
Corrections. Not all invocations of mercy are penitential. Some are quite similar in substance to exclamations of "Have Mercy!" when something notable is happening.
I felt like hearing the reading of Cdl. Sarah's letter was like being present at a great event. I mean, really, can anyone imagine that happening 10 years ago? Not me.
I would encourage you to send some letters/emails of support to the conference organizers, etc., too, as I'm sure they'd appreciate feedback as well as suggestions. There was a tremendous amount of work involved, and I think the generally high quality of the liturgical celebrations, the prayerful (yet scholarly) atmosphere fostered, and the unbelievably low cost of registration made this the most useful and informative convention I've been to in years.
The kyries, properly understood, are not a poenitential act
Looking at how eleos is understood by bible translators. we find "great mercy" and suchlike in older translations, whereas now we find "unending love". The concept of God's love for (his) people is indeed difficult to express in one or two words. Perhaps that is why we still have the words in Greek, as with alleluia the sentiment is so profound we do not want to simplify.
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