Dear Rev. Know-It-All,

Perhaps you remember me.  I wrote you a few weeks back. 

I take pen in hand once again because I am a bit vexed at your last pontificating.  You used the phrase “Novus Ordo” to refer to the Mass of the Latin Rite.  I have heard people use the phrase with a bit of a sneer when it is in fact the Roman Mass.

Could it be that person in question who attended a Latin Mass was in fact attending the Mass of a schismatic sect? 

Yours truly,

Isaiah Uterweiss

I regret to say you may have a point.

The missal published by Pope Paul VI in 1969, is in fact, the normative Mass for the Roman or Latin rite of the church. The old Tridentine style of Mass refers not so much to the language of the Mass, but to its ritual.   One can say, please forgive me for using the phrase, the “newer style” of Mass in Latin if one so chooses. 

The difference between the newer style and the older or Tridentine style is a matter of the more elaborate ritual and the many repetitions in the older. You might also say that the newer style also has the celebrant  facing the people instead of the wall but, oddly enough, there has never been a word from Rome saying that the celebrant should face the people. It just sort of happened and now it has become the custom.

More importantly you mention that Mr. Feuerstein may have attended a schismatic group who believes that the new Mass is invalid.  That, unfortunately, may be the case.

There are many places that offer Mass in Latin in the Tridentine rite, that do so with the local bishop’s permission. 

There are also places that offer the old Mass that are in rebellion, even some who claim that there hasn't been a validly elected pope since Pius XII and that most of us billion Catholics aren't real Catholics at all.

Remember that Catholic means universal.  It seems absurd to me that God would abandon the vast majority of believers and limit his universal church to a very tiny group of angry people.

I guess my problem with the current situation is not whether the Mass is the Novus Ordo, so called, or the Tridentine.  It is about the liturgical familiarity that has bred so much contempt. In the movie Dogma, which I cannot recommend, the local Catholic Bishop, played by George Carlin, introduces a new devotion a sort of marketing ploy called the “Buddy Christ” sort of a thumbs up version of the Sacred Heart.  It really is blasphemous, but at the same time it makes a point.

I think we have forgotten the amazing mystery of the Eucharist.  Remember that Jesus said the good steward is able to take both the old and the new from the storehouse. I think we don’t need to return to former things, but we need a renewal of the reverence of former times.

To take the mystery of the Tridentine and the simplicity of the Novus Ordo wouldn't be a bad idea. 

Yours, as always,

Rev. Know-It-All
 

Editorial Note:
this question regards Q&A
Did Vatican Council prohibited the Latin Mass & priests facing wall?
published on February 4, 2007