Mass in Extraordinary Form from New Jersey
  • daniel
    Posts: 75
    Watched part of the Mass from St. Hedwig on EWTN last night. While I find the EF prayerful and beautiful, for some reason all the bowing and, if I'm not mistaken, genuflecting to the Bishop irritated me. Why? I'm not sure - it just seems so affected. Also - didn't understand the explanation as to why the Tabernacle was empty during the Mass. Can someone clarify? Thanks.

  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    Just a disclaimer, I didn't watch the Mass, so this is general knowledge about the EF. not specific comments about this Mass.

    About the tabernacle question: The tabernacle was empty because it was a pontifical Mass. The rubics of the EF specify that the tabernacle (if there is one) on the high altar be empty. When I asked my bishop a while ago about this, he said that the reason for this is (among other things) that it allows the bishop-celebrant to bow when crossing the center axis of the sanctuary, without needing to genuflect. I'm sure there's other reasons, but that's one reason he mentioned.

    Also, the Eucharist was probably reserved somewhere else in the church, possibly at a side altar.
  • TCJ
    Posts: 986
    Could it be because we've been bombarded with the modern attitude many have that the clergy (bishops included) are nothing special?
  • henry
    Posts: 244
    Even though the tabernacle was empty, servers were genuflecting before it anyway!
  • JahazaJahaza
    Posts: 470
    The servers are genuflecting to the altar, not to the tabernacle. This is required by the rubrics for certain people (e.g. Servers) during liturgical functions. The rubrics do not require certain others to genuflect including bishops, prothonotaries apostolic and secular canons, instead they bow to the altar when the Blessed Sacrament is not present.
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    Henry,

    If I recall things correctly, they were genuflecting to the altar or the crucifix, not the empty tabernacle.
  • JahazaJahaza
    Posts: 470
    The symbolic meaning of all this is that the bishop and the altar are both symbols of Christ, so they are genuflected to.
  • BenBen
    Posts: 3,114
    One of the beautiful things about the EF. Not everything is immediately apparent. You must spend time with it and learn more about it to understand it.
    Thanked by 1ryand
  • Bruce E. Ford
    Posts: 431
    J.B. O'Connell, in The Ceremonies of the Mass, noted that the (pre-Conciliar) Caeremoniale episcoporum directed that the tabernacle should, if possible, be emptied for all solemn masses and not just for pontifical masses. He said that the rubrics of the Caeremoniale applied, so far as the were relevant, to all liturgical functions and not only those involving the bishop. He pointed out, however, that the instruction concerning the emptying of the tabernacle for all solemn masses was honored more in the breach than in the observance.

    Even before the post-Conciliar reform the Sacrament was seldom reserved on the high altar in cathedral churches. The 1969 GIRM merely extended to all churches the practice the had always prevailed in cathedrals.

    Christ manifests himself dynamically at mass (in the people of God assembled, in his Word, and finally, in the Sacrament of his Body and Blood. The presence of the reserved Sacrament on the altar throughout the mass obscures this dynamic progression. So emptying the tabernacle on an altar where mass is to be celebrated seems eminently reasonable to me.
    Thanked by 4Adam Wood Ben CHGiffen kevinf
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