Posted on 05/30/2024 1:46:02 PM PDT by ebb tide
Of all the Catholic truth bombs Harrison Butker dropped on the graduating class of Benedictine College in a commencement address that has generated almost two weeks of vilification and vitriol, one of the most powerful was his endorsement of the Traditional Latin Mass. As Butker explained, “I do not attend the TLM because I think I’m better than others, or for the smells and bells, or even for the love of Latin. I attend the TLM because I believe just as the God of the Old Testament was pretty particular about how he wanted to be worshiped, the same holds true for us today.”
Often those like me who make the switch from the New Mass to the Tridentine Liturgy, discuss the effect the ancient Roman rite has on their experience of the Mass: more opportunity for prayer, greater solemnity, increased reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. Yet Butker’s words remind us that the true beauty of the TLM derives not from the subjective impact it has on the congregant and communicant, but from its objective worth in God’s eyes. This is nothing less than the standard given by Dr. Alice von Hildebrand in her commentary on Liturgy and Personality:
[A]ll liturgies share one central feature: they must aim at glorifying God. The value of a particular liturgy can even be gauged according to the degree of glorification of God it achieves.[1]
That the Living God distinguishes a right way to worship from a wrong way is a Biblical truth that dates back to our oldest ancestors. After all, it was Abel’s sacrifice that was pleasing to God, not Cain’s (Genesis 4:4-5). Sacrifice was central to the Old Testament ceremonies of divine worship, not because God needs our sacrificial offerings, as St. Augustine explained, but because they are essential for us. They are the visible symbols by which we “cleave to God and seek the good of our neighbor for the same end” (City of God, bk. X, ch. 5). And God was indeed very particular as to how these acts were carried out.
For example, every feature of the Tent of the Lord’s presence – the Tabernacle – is prescribed in Exodus 25-30, including the dimensions of the curtained enclosure with its bronze posts and bases, the color and fabrics of the curtained exterior of the Tent, the interior veil separating the Holy from the Holy of Holies, the altars, the materials for the Temple furnishings, the sacerdotal vestments and jewel-studded breast plate for the High Priest, and the exquisite design for the Ark of the Covenant bearing the stone tablets of God’s Law.
The rituals performed under the direction of Aaron, the High Priest, and the Levite priests, are outlined in painstaking detail. Nothing was left to Moses or Aaron’s artistic style, the subjective preferences of the Israelites, or the trends of contemporary culture. There was no ad libbing or freestyling.
When Christ offered Himself up on the Cross, the Old Testament solemnities ceased being necessary, but they didn’t become irrelevant. As St. Paul writes in Hebrews, these rites were “patterns of the heavenly originals.” Archbishop Fulton Sheen characterized Old Testament worship as a dress rehearsal for the main show – the great drama of the Paschal Lamb, which God conceived from the beginning of time.
Sacrificial worship in the Jewish sanctuary looks forward to Christ’s passion, the Christian Church relives it, and both are a shadow of the final Act, in which angels and saints worship without ceasing at the throne of God and His Lamb in the Heavenly City. And if God was hyper-specific about how the sacrificial offerings of bullocks and goats and grains were to take place, how much more exacting must He be with regards to the sacrifice of the body and blood of the Only Begotten, made on the altar under the appearance of bread and wine, in commemoration of the Crucifixion, as Christ commanded us to do, and offered to God alone.
In Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI observed from the outset that “Supreme Pontiffs have to this day shown constant concern that the Church of Christ should offer worthy worship to the Divine Majesty.” As for the New and Old rites of the Mass, Benedict emphasized that “these two expressions of the Church’s lex orandi will in no way lead to a division in the Church’s lex credendi (rule of faith); for they are two usages of the one Roman rite.” The problem here is that even if these two divergent liturgies do not ipso facto lead to different rules of faith, they are objectively so different from each other that if God does indeed desire a particular form of worship, it’s hard to fathom that He would – that he could, logically – desire both equally at the same time.
Perhaps nowhere was the juxtaposition between the two forms of the Mass more arresting during the month of May, than in France last week. In Chartres on Pentecost Monday the Traditional Laton Mass was celebrated by Cardinal Gerhard Müller for the 18,000 pilgrims (the average age of which was 23) who participated in the annual pilgrimage from Paris to Chartres.
Meanwhile on Pentecost Sunday, 75 miles north, the Bishops of Ile de France and 11,000 adolescents gathered for the annual Youth Mass in Jambville presided over by Archbishop Laurent Ulrich of Paris.
The former was, well, traditional. Solemn High Mass, ad orientem worship, sacred music, Gregorian chant, splendid vestments, Communion on the tongue, everything focused front, center and upwards, to God, through Christ, with us. As always in the Tridentine liturgy, Mass began with the moving Introibo ad altare, wherein the Priest at the foot of the altar announces his intention, taken from Psalm 42, to offer the sacrifice of the Mass to God.
The latter, frankly, was like a spoof. It’s hard to believe that rockstar processions, neon signs, flashing lights, dazzling stagecraft, stylized crosses, cartoon graphics, and the casual doling out of the Blessed Sacrament, is what the council fathers behind Sacrosanctum Concilium had in mind when they spoke of “keeping to the norms and precepts of ecclesiastical tradition and discipline.”
But more importantly, it’s virtually impossible to find the thread linking the spectacle at Jambville, with the Mosaic tabernacle on the one hand, and the wedding feast of the Lamb on the other. The Holy Sacrifice of the one unchanging Victim, instead of being the climax of the Mass (just as the Lamb slain is the climax of God’s Pascal Drama), was reduced to a sideshow act. The whole affair was more reminiscent of a Protestant mega church worship service or a rock concert at Madison Square Garden than it was of Sinai or Calvary, or a foretaste of the New Jerusalem.
All of this might have remained a largely academic question but for Traditionis custodes, wherein Pope Francis broke with the spirit and letter of Summorum Pontificum and, instead of striving to accommodate the TLM, actively sought to persecute it, and thereby polarize the Catholic faithful. Most hurtful of all, he has allowed himself to be weaponized against the Tridentine liturgy by folks at The New York Times and people like “The View” co-host Sara Haines, who denigrate the TLM and its attendants and, scandalously, invoke the support of Pope Francis himself in so doing.
Traditionalists are not “extremists”, “DIY Traditionalists [sic],” or “backward-looking.” They are Catholics. And their ancient rituals aren’t “dead traditions.” They are the patrimony bequeathed to the descendants of Jacob, of whom Christ the Redeemer is King. The Trads’ greatest offense, and the reason the press is still raking Harrison Butker over the coals, is being, per the New York Times, “one of the most successful movements of the entire post-Vatican II era” in places like France, and, according to The New Republic, “one of the fastest-growing religious movements in [the US].” That’s not good news for the Modernists.
In any case, this so-called “religious battle” is secondary to the main concern. What matters is conforming ourselves to God’s will and worshiping Him as He wants to be worshiped, whether CNN, Rolling Stone, the Jesuits, or even the disgruntled Benedictine nuns (who apparently weren’t buying the flavor of Catholicism Butker was peddling), like it or not. As the Apostle cautions, “who has known the mind of the Lord?” But if it so happened that “the eternal dramatist,” as Fulton Sheen described Him, objected to His chef d’oeuvre – the great drama of the Paschal Lamb – being distorted into some cringey burlesque, then attending the TLM might just make perfect sense.
So says the creeps.
Looking back in the OT with the Levites with breastplates and there was some show back when they had the Ark. I'm sure it was awesome because God was really present. You could feel it. Now, we have the Holy Spirit and it speaks softer. I've been to Catholic services. It felt creepy to me. If you were raised in the Catholic Church, you would be drawn to it.
FYI, God, in the form of the Second Person of the Holy Trinity, is really present at every Catholic Mass.
Thank you for that. I was talking about visibly as a cloud covering the tent and filling it and a pillar of fire by night experience. Got any of that going on at your Church service?
Don’t need it.
We have the True Faith.
It’s “scripted” because the basic order of Mass comes to us from Christ’s words at the Last Supper through the Apostles and the greatest ancient saints (Gregory, Ambrose, Chrysostom). I guess you think some random preacher dude going “off script” is a plus. I don’t.
And is it theatrical and ostentatious...or just making use of everything in creation to glorify God? ...whether it is architecture or music or...yes...the senses.
Proof by blatant assertion? We don't know how the Apostles kept the Sabbath. We do know that Ignatius of Antioch, who knew Peter, Paul, and certainly John, wrote in his epistles (on his way to martyrdom) congratulating his readers on "no longer sabbathing". Paul opposed imposing Jewish ceremonial practice on Gentile Christians, and that's exactly what Sabbath-keeping is.
You are correct that both liturgy and Scripture were known in the West in Greek before they were translated into Latin, although we don't know anymore just how much of the Roman Rite is a translation of a Greek original, and how much was composed de novo in Latin.
Which is why I don’t get the big issue on whether the mass is in Latin or a language people could understand.
You have conflated Gods Holy law with the temporal ceremonial laws which were to point to and remind them of the coming Messiah. The Ten Commandments were permanent. They were wrote in stone by Gods Finger. They were instituted at Creation. Re-instituted at Mt. Sinai. Lived out in the life of Jesus Christ on earth. Jesus kept the Sabbath in life and death. He is Lord of the Sabbath. He came not to destroy the Law but to fulfill it. Not one jot or tittle will be changed until earth and Heaven passes away and that has not happened. So it is still in force.
Edersheim's "The Temple, Its Ministry and Services" would be a good place for you to start, I think. It's a free PDF. (The author is not at all a Catholic, FWIW.)
Study up on the blood, gore, and hundreds of exacting rules involved in actual Biblical worship instituted directly by God through Moses, and get back to us.
The Saturday Sabbath is as much a part of the New Law as circumcision, keeping kosher, and not mixing fibers in garments. I have no issue with Christians who are of Jewish heritage keeping those things as a remembrance, but they were never required of Gentile Christians. If you think otherwise, you need to re-read Galatians.
Just compare Gregorian chant with any of the "worship music" produced by Oregon Catholic Press and your ears will show you the difference.
Without the Law, there is no sin. God cannot allow sin to flourish in Heaven. The Law will be there as it was written on Mt. Sinai. Same Law. From Creation until eternity the Law will exist.
The ceremonial laws were wrote by Moses. They expired on the cross.
I don’t like the so called “praise music”. It’s very shallow from a theological perspective. It tends to border on a “me” performance.
Re Hebrew. Didn’t Pilate write in Hebrew at the Crucifixion?
And just to add to what Campion said, there would be much less issue with Latin vs. English in the Mass, if:
a) the English was the same ecclesiastical dialect as what people were already used to in their hand missals (Lasance, St. Andrew, etc.)
b) the ritual remained the same
They muddled the issue by using very casual, badly-translated English liturgy that was also radically different than the original.
Lots of die-hard Latin Mass folks I know, including me, are enthusiastic supporters of the Anglican Ordinariate and its English liturgy.
How is the Mass unBiblical?
I can see how the Latin Mass might seem “creepy” to someone who has no clue what is happening or understanding of what the various aspects mean, especially if it is a Low Mass and done at a brisk pace.
But knowing what is happening and why it is happening is very helpful, because then you are not startled when after a period of silence, the priest suddenly speaks aloud, or that repeating something three times, as Jesus did in the Garden, means that you really, really mean it and that is why especially penitential parts are repeated.
We often use the word creepy to mean something ghostly or other-worldly— these things we call creepy are often related to horror films and the like, but there is a flip side to the bad supernatural we see on TV, and that is the angelic and very God-oriented other-worldliness. I think you felt the supernatural and didn’t understand it.
| John O' Brien, Roman Catholic Priest in the Faith of Millions. | Hebrews 9:24-28 | Hebrews 10:11-13 |
| When the priest pronounces the tremendous words of consecration, he reaches up into the heavens, brings Christ down from His throne, and places Him upon our altar to be offered up again as the Victim for the sins of man. It is a power greater than that of monarchs and emperors: it is greater than that of saints and angels, greater than that of Seraphim and Cherubim. Indeed it is greater even than the power of the Virgin Mary. While the Blessed Virgin was the human agency by which Christ became incarnate a single time, the priest brings Christ down from heaven, and renders Him present on our altar as the eternal Victim for the sins of man—not once but a thousand times! The priest speaks and lo! Christ, the eternal and omnipotent God, bows His head in humble obedience to the priest’s command. | 24For Christ did not enter a holy place made with hands, a mere copy of the true one, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25nor was it that He would offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the holy place year by year with blood that is not his own. 26Otherwise, He would have needed to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now once at the consummation of the ages He has been manifested to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself. 27And inasmuch as it is appointed for men to die once and after this comes judgment, 28so Christ also, having been offered once to bear the sins of many, will appear a second time for salvation without reference to sin, to those who eagerly await Him. | Every priest stands daily ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins; 12but He, having offered one sacrifice for sins for all time, SAT DOWN AT THE RIGHT HAND OF GOD, 13waiting from that time onward UNTIL HIS ENEMIES BE MADE A FOOTSTOOL FOR HIS FEET. 14For by one offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified. |
Thanks for the synopsis. The Bible keeps unmasking some of the unBiblical practices.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.