ORTH! No!

jst hd t d tht

Nobody knows what the official terms mean. When someone I know asked a bishop about the Extraordinary Form, he hadn't a clue what she was talking about! Yet... he knew exactly what she meant when she said Traditional Latin Mass.

What I think is really funny is when people talk about doing the EF before the Council. It wasn't the EF back then. It was just Mass.

Because of a few extremists, I used to call the EF the "Flat-Earther" mass. They were generally, and to put it charitably, nuts. However, the majority are pretty good folks, so I have had to revise that considerably. Now I refer to the EF crowd, and the "Flat Earthers." A more accurate description, would be the majority of good folks who attend the EF, and the minority of conspiracy theorists.

So JAM how are things over on the north side of the pond?

So Charles, what do you have against us conspiracy theorists anyway?

As to what to call the two forms of Roman Catholic Mass - how about the Mass of Paul VI and the Mass of Pius V. Of course it would be the same problem, I doubt most people would even know what the Mass of Paul VI means. I suppose we could call the Tridentine Mass the Mass of St. Whirligig the Great but it isn't... exactly.

I vote for EF and OF here on the forum because it is faster to type which gives me more time to research my conspiracy theories -- I'm smiling.

The problem with sloppy language is that the Mass is the Mass. The OF IS the Mass of Pius V, or Peter I. OF/EF are, thus far, free from polemic.

Isn't the EF technically the Mass of John XXIII? Calling it "Tridentine" or "of Pius V" seems a bit disingenuous to me.

Words should communicate. Elsewhere there may be a need to split hairs like this, but here on the list whatever works works.

DougS, you are correct. The 1962 missal is not Tridentine. In its earlier incarnation, it had already been substantially revised by Pius XII. John XXIII created his own revisions. Calling it Tridentine is, at best, disingenuous. At worst, it is fraudulent. There are those modern day spin doctors who want to present that missal as pure, unaltered and stretching back into antiquity. It ain't so.

Revisions are minor or major depending on one's viewpoint. It is dependent on what agenda one is pushing. I wouldn't call the Holy Week revisions of Pius XII minor, by any means. Granted, I don't know exactly how many times the Pius V missal was revised over the centuries. However, the process of missal revision seems to be an ongoing activity stretching from the early days until the present time. I take issue with those EF Catholics who try to present the EF as untouched and constant throughout time. It is, as currently practiced, the mass as it existed in 1962, despite how some of its adherents try to label it.

I would agree the 3 year cycle is a bit strange. I don't know where that came from! The addition of Eucharistic prayers is different, but no longer new. All that is 40+ years old now, and as time passes, will be even less new in the future. As I have said elsewhere on this forum, my favorite was the 1965 missal. I would have liked to keep that one. However, the Church didn't ask me, or you, or hardly anyone else for that matter.

I can see why changes were needed, and I agree with many of them. Being old enough to remember the mass prior to 1965, it had become too clericalized and what I would call, schola-ized. The congregation was essentially frozen out of singing the parts belonging to them (Ordinary). Some of those mass settings were way too ornate for congregations to sing.

However, change is relative. Some of what you mention I, too, would call major. Other items seem relatively minor to me. Remember the sequences! Circle the home schoolers and take up arms! Starch those mantillas until they have a razor edge. Kick revisionist behind! LOL.

The idea of a multi-year cursus through Scriptures was approved in #51 of SC:

"The treasures of the bible are to be opened up more lavishly, so that richer fare may be provided for the faithful at the table of God's word. In this way a more representative portion of the holy scriptures will be read to the people in the course of a prescribed number of years."

I suspect that the three-year period was suggested by: (i) the fact that the Gospels have typically ruddered the Scripture at Mass, and (ii) the fact that there are three Synoptic Gospels (one of them much shorter than the other, allowing supplementation from the Gospel of John, which is also used heavily on major feasts throughout the year and in the OF also through all Easter Sundays in each year). In Sundays of Ordinary Time, where there tends to be course reading (with some gaps) through the respective Synoptic Gospel, the first readings are normally paired with the Gospels (ditto the Responsorial Psalms), while the second readings are on their own separate course reading (with some gaps).

I definitely treasure the OF Lectionary. Doesn't mean there wouldn't be things I might suggested tweaking or improving if someone asked me, but it's no less a treasure.

Since 1998, the go-to reference place on the Internet for analysis of the structure and content of readings has been Felix Just's site: http://catholic-resources.org/Lectionary/

As Michael Davies used to say about the new readings, something like, Yag begat Yog who begat Yig. I have no problem with scripture, but it is hard to find relevancy in some passages added to the mass.

Gavin

It's not a binary choice. One can do both. And the Lectionary of the OF is one reason I don't have an interest in the EF. I remember the EF Lectionary from the 1960s. The OF was like moving from B&W to Technicolor (mind you, I love B&W films and photos, but you can shoot glorious B&W in color - for an example, see the German film The White Ribbon). It's one of the things I am most grateful for the conciliar reform.

Actually there is lots of scripture in the EF, even Old Testement scripture but you need to go to daily Mass. On some ember days we have 3,4 and even 5 Old testament scripture lessons.

Yes, there is the rub. I wonder how many Catholics attended daily Mass at least twice a week in the 1950s. Where would I even find that sort of statistic? And then of course, how many attend now?

I have a 1952 St. Andrew Missal. I have absolutely no problem using it at the current EF Mass. The revisions done between those two dates were really very minor except for the Triduum, and even there I can get along just fine. On the other hand, this Missal would be absolutely useless in trying to follow the Novus Ordo.

If I had an OF missal from exactly 12 months ago, I would have a difficult time using it in the OF Mass today. Perhaps I am wrong, but I am not aware of the Mass of St. Pius V ever going through as much revision at one time as the Mass of Paul VI just did. (To be clear, I am in favor of the current revision - I think it is a great improvement.)

So I really have no problem calling the EF the Tridentine Mass. It is in all essentials the same Missal St. Pius V promulgated. "The Mass of All Time," well, that's another issue.

On another note, as a new member of this community, I wonder if we could lose the acronyms (my own use of EF and OF in this post notwithstanding). I have read many posts where I simply couldn't figure out what the author was talking about. I'm sure they are obvious to those who have been around a while, but I'm afraid a new person to this site, or someone new to Catholic liturgical music, might get lost. Or, perhaps there could be a list of acronyms put in one place on this website people could refer to?

Really, numbers were the same? I wonder why they bothered printing the Liber Usualis then.

Fair point.

We need a sticky that has all the commonly used abbreviations. Don't most forums have one of some sort?

My understanding Doug is that the Liber Usualis was designed for parishes who had daily Mass and Vespers.

The term I don't like is "Traditional Latin Mass". That is an immediately slight which makes the OF look "untraditional". The EF Mass is not that old, in terms of the age of the Church. It is certainly not exactly the Mass of St. Peter. Conversely, the OF Mass contains elements which go right back to the Apostles. The OF Mass is much closer to the Antiochene rites, which are the oldest rites of the Church. And the OF Mass can certainly be chanted in Latin just as well as the EF Mass can.

Well, since you brought it up:

traditional != old
traditional = old and continuous (and probably other things, for that matter)

"Really, numbers were the same? I wonder why they bothered printing the Liber Usualis then."

All of the chant books were created and printed for the use of monasteries and seminaries.

There is a little red book, chants of the church, on this site that was "The Parish Book of Chant" of the 1950's. That was, if you were lucky enough to have one, the chant book.

Your pastor and associate would have a Liber. You'd never see it in use. The associate at my parish gave me his.

The choir sang propers out of Carlo Rossini's book as did the little old ladies and young organists like myself, did alone at daily Mass. In the 60's the nuns who came to early Mass began singing the ordinary when parishes were encouraged to do so.

If you really, really want to know what it was like, lock yourself in a room with the St. Gregory Hymnal and Choirbook for about 6 weeks. That was it, the largest and most common choirbook in use.

One of the editions, perhaps the one with the English translations, was designed for use in parishes. I know they were used in Catholic schools up here in Michigan and in New Orleans.