July 1985 Print

Dr. Malcolm Brennan

Dr. Brennan confessed to having bungled the answer when a young lady innocently asked him, "What's the matter with the New Mass?" So we asked him to write what he would like to have said. He intends these remarks for those who, like the young lady, were brought up on the new liturgy, or for those who had accepted the changes of the last two decades as all for the best but who are now willing to entertain second thoughts. For those who wish a thorough and complete assessment of the New Mass, Dr. Brennan recommends the books of Michael Davies.

ONE OF THE THINGS that everybody notices about the old and new forms of Mass is the difference in the languages, Latin and English. But the difference is really greater than that; there has been a change from sacred language to familiar language. Sacred language is deliberately stately, formal, archaic; familiar language is conversational, frank, casual, up-to-date. Sacred language is marked by frequent repetitions, by set formulas that seldom change, by dignified rhythms that create a solemn tone, by balanced and counter-balanced phrases. It is not that our stuffy ancestors could not express themselves in any other way; rather these are the qualities of language which all men have used everywhere for worship, until now.

There are theological reasons for employing sacred language in the Mass. First of all, put quite simply, the Mass is a mystery. The Mass is an event which far surpasses complete human comprehension, and the use of sacred language acknowledges this fact. When for example we pronounce Domine, non sum dignus (Lord, I am not worthy) three times, we are not simply reporting a piece of information about our condition and then repeating it because we have run out of things to say. Rather, the repetition affirms that between God's worthiness and our own there is a gulf which exceeds human understanding. If we were able to measure that gap, we would tell just how great it is, but the fact of the matter is that our minds are unable to take the measurement of the difference between infinite Lord and sinful creature.

Familiar language, on the other hand, promises to "tell it like it is"; it invites the listener to understand that "I say what I mean and I mean what I say." It is frank and open; to employ it ingratiates the speaker with the listener, telling him that "We both speak the same language." It reveals the whole truth about a thing without reservation or stipulation—or at least it claims to.

By using familiar language, the New Mass promises that there are no secrets from the laity, no mysteries which are forbidden them. This was the great promise of those who introduced the vernacular, that everybody could understand exactly what was said during Mass. Well, the fact is that nobody really understands fully the depths of this mystery of God. While familiar, conversational language is fine for explaining how to make a souffle or when to change the oil in your car, it is only prudent to approach the mysteries of God with the fear and the trembling and the wonder that are expressed in sacred language.

(In fact, concerning the laity's understanding of what is going on at Mass, our fathers and mothers who attended the old Latin Mass no doubt had a better appreciation of the mystery of the unbloody Sacrifice of Calvary than do our contemporaries, who have learned to expect the Sunday liturgy to provide them with a community religious experience and with timely commentary on the good or bad causes of the day.)

The more casual language of the New Mass is matched by the more casual conduct of those in the sanctuary, and indeed in the whole church building. The sanctuary is often occupied by people not in sacred clothing—a leader of the singing, readers, extraordinary eucharistic ministers, and, apparently, strays. Their carriage and deportment is noticeably relaxed and matter-of-fact. The servers of the New Mass act more like bus boys setting up or clearing off a restaurant table than they do like ministrants at an altar of sacrifice. The members of the congregation, too, make themselves at home, casually clothed, relaxed, chatty.

The sequence of majestic events of the Mass—the Glory Be, the Holy-Holy-Holy, the Consecration, the Our Father—builds up, simply by its divine character, a solemn atmosphere in any normal congregation; but in the New Mass the atmosphere is deliberately shattered at this point by "recess," when everybody shakes hands. The people are no longer a congregation of worshippers but become like a theater audience at intermission. If smoking were not now a secular sin, you might expect them to light up.

Another reform in the New Mass which deliberately makes it more familiar and "easier to understand" (and therefore less sacred and more easily misunderstood) is the positioning of the priest facing the congregation. The advantage of this innovation, we were told (as our ancestors had been told by the reformation heretics), is that the congregation can better see what goes on at Mass, just as familiar language lets them hear what goes on. Along with this change came the elimination of the formal, ritualized movements and gestures of the old Mass. The consequence is that the congregation "sees" the priest matter-of-factly handling a cup and saucer. But what is to be truly seen at Mass, the Messiah's act of atonement, is to be seen with the eyes of faith, and this kind of vision is best fostered by the thousand reminders which sacred ritual and sacred language provide.

Other matters pertaining to the altar also contribute to making the Mass seem to be a purely human activity—of humans, by humans, and for humans—instead of what it really is, the Son permitting us to join His worship of the Father. The absence of an altar rail, for example, obscures the notion of the sacred because the sanctuary is no longer "set apart" as a special place, which is exactly what the word "sacred" signifies. The prominent use of a microphone—often the only article permanently on the table of the New Mass—confirms that the "president" addresses an "assembly" (sounds like a political gathering, doesn't it?) instead of a priest leading worshippers to God. In churches for the old Mass there might be a microphone in the pulpit, from where the congregation was addressed, but not at the altar, where God could hear prayers addressed to Him without a public address system. The use of a table instead of an altar speaks volumes; the terms are not just indifferent synonyms for the same object: tables are for meals, altars are for sacrifice. All of which is to say that the New Mass is people talking to each other; in the old Mass the Savior offered Himself in sacrifice to the Father for His Bride.

Some changes may seem to be only matters of taste, but they fit a little too neatly into the ideology of the New Mass to be above suspicion. Candles, for example. With the old Mass it was customary to use tall slender candles in handsome brass or gold candlesticks. The fashion nowadays is for squat, fat candles stuck on nondescript holders. Our vision is thus held to the horizontal; formerly it was directed on high. Why, it is almost like pulling the steeple off the church.

Another group of changes assault the timelessness of the Mass. These are the changes which allow for, or require, the unpredictable in the liturgy. First of all, the scriptural readings are hardly recognizable as the familiar word of God that one has heard since childhood, because now it normally takes three years for one of them to repeat. The number of readings has increased enormously. In round numbers, the fifty-two Sunday of the year produced a total of 104 passages (Gospel and Epistle) in the old Mass. In the New Mass, each of the fifty-two Sundays normally has four readings (208 passages a year), and the cycle runs for three years (624 passages). While there is no doubt some truth in the principle of "the more Scripture the better," yet it is not simply a matter of quantity.

The price paid for this greater volume is enormous. The repetition of the familiar Gospels and Epistles gave the ordinary Catholic a good understanding of the heart of holy Scripture, instead of a superficial acquaintance with its diversity: he got a complete picture of Our Lord's life, and an interpretive selection of the law and the prophets which preceded Him and of the apostolic work which followed. He understood that the word of God was rare and precious and that by returning again and again to the inspired passages he could reap ever greater harvests as his own life progressed, because he learned to see the Bible's variety or perspectives and multiple levels of meaning. Furthermore, the familiar readings provided him a ready supply of Biblical sayings to guide him in life, a benefit not to be scorned. The great barrage of bewildering Scripture readings that come through today's loud speakers, I would guess, has by comparison a confusing impact on its hearers.

But this loosening of the discipline of the liturgical year is only part of the unfamiliarity encountered in the New Mass. The huge variety of options available to the priest insures that he can make every Mass unlike every other. There are nominally the four canons he can choose from, but apparently it is nothing to make up an original canon for any group or cause that engages his attention: children, the elderly, farmers, the sick, miners, strikers, guerillas, students, homosexuals, etc., etc.

The Mass deals with timeless, unchanging things. The introduction of novelties into forms of worship, or the elimination of "out of date" words and ceremonies, conveys the feeling that either God is altering the contents of revelation or that things which were once true are true no more, at least for our generation. It is as if we are no longer concerned with what Our Lord revealed and what the Church has handed down, in spite of the gates of hell, but that we are concerned with the insights of our own generation, as if ours were wise and pious beyond all others.

We today hardly need to be reminded that things change. Do we not hear every day that what was formerly illegal is now legal, that formerly recommended foods are now bad for us, that the human condition is permanently altered by some new scientific theory or technological innovation? "We live in a changing world" is often not just a statement of fact (about just a part of God's creation) but is what they tell us when they want us to abandon the tried and true. The best way of expressing the truth that truth abides, even in the midst of chaotic change, is through the use of sacred language, furnishings, deportment and ceremonial.

Ceremony in general has this purpose of expressing something which escapes ordinary, every day expression. The ceremony of a wedding or of a civil courtroom with a robed judge tell that the bond between husband and wife is "sacred" and that the judge's power exceeds his personal, individual talents. The New Mass is deliberately unceremonial.

It should be clear that the changes in the liturgy are of more than liturgical interest. They impinge directly on faith, on what we believe about God and about ourselves as His creatures and about how to live our lives. Other beliefs which the New Mass damages are belief in angels, the veneration of saints, the fear of hell, and scores of other items of Catholic belief. Particular mention should be made of the decline of the penitential spirit, that was so distinctive a mark of Catholicism from the very beginning.

While the New Mass alone is not the full explanation for the decline of the faith which all have witnessed since the new liturgy's introduction in 1967, it is nevertheless clear that the New Mass is unable to resist the inroads of error, that it aids and abets many forces alien to the Church, and is indeed sometimes a principle vehicle for propagating attitudes and values at variance with the Faith of our Fathers or (which is the same thing) the Catholic Faith of the 1980's.