The Place of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite

Fully aware that this particular subject has been written about ad nauseam, I still venture in to add my own two cents on the subject of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, and its place and purpose in the life of the Church in the 21st century.

I was recently rereading the pertinent documents connected with the expansion of the usage of the Usus antiquior, and a couple of items do tend to jump out.  In the Instruction Universae Ecclesiae, issued by the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei, three reasons are given for the widening of the usage of the Extraordinary Form, and like any document of this type, it would not be too far fetched a notion to understand them as being in order of importance.  The first item on the list notes that by the Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum, the Holy Father is "offering to all the faithful the Roman Liturgy in the Usus Antiquior, considered as a precious treasure to be preserved", only secondary is the consideration of those who specifically ask for this form of the Mass, and way down in third place is the notion of reconciliation with those groups who have separated from the Church over issues which include the liturgical reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

This form of the Mass is offered to "all the faithful", but for what purpose, if the people are not asking for this form?  The answer can be found in the letter from the Holy Father to the Bishops explaining the Motu Proprio, in which he says, "The celebration of the Mass according to the Missal of Paul VI will be able to demonstrate, more powerfully than has been the case hitherto, the sacrality which attracts many people to the former usage. The most sure guarantee that the Missal of Paul VI can unite parish communities and be loved by them consists in its being celebrated with great reverence in harmony with the liturgical directives. This will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this Missal."  This comes in the paragraph discussing the potential for the mutual enrichment of the two forms of the Roman Rite.  Notice the tense, the Holy Father writes in the future tense, "will be able...will bring out."  He notes that there is definitely spiritual richness and theological depth in the Missal of Paul VI, but with the way the Ordinary Form is currently celebrated, we have not seen it yet!

The Extraordinary Form is given as a gift to the Church, because we have forgotten what the Roman Rite is supposed to look like, our liturgy is celebrated in a way that does not show spiritual richness and theological depth, at least in the mind of the Holy Father, and many others.  This aspect however, continues to be overlooked as many argue that its primary purpose is to satisfy a few individuals on the fringe who like antiquated liturgy, or to foster reunification with the SSPX.  I fear too, that the way we are beginning to implement these directives is only furthering those notions.  The Motu Proprio allows for the celebration of the Extraordinary Form in any parish and every parish, but in many places it is still confined to one parish per region, and thus will only attract a limited number of people, and inspire only a few priests to bother with learning the older form of the Mass.  Often too, it is celebrated as an "event", a special occasion, a one time deal, for particular feast days.  This "event" mentality can even be found in the treatment of the Usus antiquior on EWTN.  Don't get me wrong, every praise to EWTN for broadcasting the Extraordinary Form, but if it is to have the effect which the Holy Father seems to have in mind, it must become a regular part of the life of the Church.

So here is my bold proposal in two parts.  The first part is perhaps a little more ambitious, that there should be a Mass in the Extraordinary Form in every urban centre on a regular basis, offered by diocesan priests, even if there is no great mass of people clamoring for it, priests need to learn it, in order to learn how to offer the Ordinary Form as the Missal intends.  The second part (perhaps also ambitious), that the Extraordinary Form needs to become a regular feature on television broadcasts, networks such as EWTN or Salt and Light in Canada should broadcast a Mass in the Extraordinary Form every Sunday, even if it is only a Low Mass, again to drive home the point that it is not just for special occasions, nor is it just for a select few, but for "all the faithful".

Perhaps some may think I've gone off the traditionalist deep end, but as I see more and more young people looking to recapture the sacred in our worship, as I see more and more Catholics drift away from the faith because the Mass "doesn't do anything for them", I wonder if perhaps the Reform of the Reform is indeed past due.  Our Mass is not about us, it is about God, but the way we currently celebrate the Ordinary Form does not say that (another post to come on that subject), we need to recapture the Sacred in our worship, and the Holy Father's plan is there to do just that, all we have to do is get on board.

Sunday Homily - The Spirit of Unity

The following is the text for my homily given this past Sunday at a Mass in the Extraordinary Form in St. Anne's, Kitchener:

Today we celebrate the glorious Feast of Pentecost, a day when we give our focus to the Holy Spirit, or the Holy Ghost, whichever you prefer to call Him.  So often it seems that the Holy Spirit is the forgotten member of the Holy Trinity.  It's on occasions such as this one that I'm always a little envious of our brethren in the East.  The Eastern Rites of the Catholic Church, and those in the Orthodox traditions generally have a much better developed theology of, and appreciation for the Holy Spirit, than those of us in the West.  We seem to put all of our focus onto Christ, and certainly it is fitting, since we are his followers, but the Holy Spirit accomplishes so much, but we only seem to remember him on Pentecost and at Confirmation time.

We can certainly take much time, say a great deal about the Holy Spirit, so I will have to confine my reflections today to just one area, and today I would like to reflect on the Holy Spirit as the Spirit of Unity.  The cause of division after all is sin, and it is through the work of the Holy Spirit that we can achieve unity again, and I would like to look at three different areas, moving from the general, to the more specific.

In the reading from the book of Acts, we hear of the Apostles, who had been gathered in the upper room for nine days, in prayer, fearful of the Jewish authorities, suddenly going out to preach the message of Christ after receiving the Holy Spirit, and doing so in many different tongues, many different languages.  This hearkens back to the passage in the book of Genesis about the tower of Babel.  The many languages of humanity all brought about through human sin; sin causes division.  When travelling through the world, in order to communicate with our fellows, we need to find some way to overcome the language barrier, someway to translate.  Communication is difficult enough let alone trying to spread the faith of Christ and the Gospel message.  Through the power of the Spirit though, unity is restored, and indeed as the passage continues we hear that 3000 people were baptized that very day and became members of the Church.

It is often said that the greatest scandal in the Christian Church is the divisions within it.  So many thousands of different Christian denominations, how can we possibly proclaim the one truth of Christ when we are divided amongst ourselves.  For the past several decades, the Ecumenical movement has sought to bring about unity among Christians, but we often hear the old refrain, Ecumenism is not about making everyone Catholic again.  Well, I think our Holy Father, Pope Benedict would respectfully disagree.  After all we see the recent creation of the Anglican ordinariates to allow members of the Anglican Church to return to the Catholic Church while retaining some of the distinctiveness of their own liturgical traditions.  Quite recently too we saw a symbolic, but certainly a significant gesture, as our Holy Father was presented with a new Papal Tiara, by a group of Catholics and Orthodox Christians.  It is being called the Tiara of Christian Unity.  Catholics and Orthodox coming together to present the Holy Father with what is ultimately a sign of his authority as Successor of St. Peter.  We pray that the Holy Spirit continue to guide the work of Christian Unity and the efforts of the Holy Father to achieve it.

Turning a little more specific now, we can look at divisions even in our own personal relationships.  Once again, it must be said that divisions which come between us as persons have their origin in sin.  We can look at one specific example that is very prevalent in our own culture, that of divorce.  The statistics tell us that roughly 50% of marriages end in divorce, but that's the general number.  When we look at couples who share a faith, and practice that faith actively in their lives the number drops significantly.  Now, it's not possible to generalize in a homily about all of the specifics of human relationships, but the numbers point to something important, and that could very well be the work of the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Unity, helping to overcome certain things that would otherwise lead to divorce.

Getting even more specific now, we can look within ourselves.  One of the consequences of Original Sin was a division within each one of us, as St. Paul reminds us, our Spirits thirst for the things of God, while our bodies and minds so often incline us to sin.  However, through the power of the Holy Spirit, through the grace we receive from him, through prayer, through the Sacraments of Baptism and Confirmation we are given the strength to fight against this division in ourselves.  Through the grace of the Holy Spirit we can turn our bodies and minds to the things of God.  Make no mistake, the division will continue to be there, at least until our souls are reunited with our glorified bodies in the resurrection, but the grace of the Holy Spirit can help us overcome our divisions, our inclinations to sin, and draw us to God.

So we pray that the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of Unity may come among us, to help us to overcome sin and the divisions it creates; that He may give us true unity, in our world, in our Church, in our homes, and in ourselves.