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The Problems with the New Mass
Rama P. Coomaraswamy, M.D., F.A.C.S.
The Catholic Mass The Problems with the New Mass Start “He who goes
about to take the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass from the Church plans no less a
calamity than if he tried to snatch the sun from the universe.” – St. John
Fisher 1 (1469-1535) Any
discussion of the Catholic Mass requires a recognition of its crucial
position in the Church, as well as some understanding of its nature.
According to St. John Chrysostom (347-407), a Father and Doctor of the
Church, when the Mass is said: A fountain is
opened which sends forth spiritual rivers – a fountain round which the angels
take their stand, looking into the beauty of its streams, since they more
clearly see into the power and sanctity of the things that lie to open view,
and their inaccessible splendors. 2 St.
Alhponsus Liguori (1696-1787) described the Mass as “the most beautiful thing
in the Church.” And why? Because “at the Mass, Jesus Christ giveth Himself to
us by means of the Most Holy Sacrament of the Altar, which is the end and the
purpose of all the other Sacraments.” 3 St. Leonard of Port Maurice called
the Mass “the sole Sacrifice which we have in our holy religion... a
Sacrifice, holy, perfect, in every point complete, by which each one of the
faithful nobly honors God.” 4 Father Michael Mueller, C.SS.R. says, “The Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass is one of those works greater than which the
omnipotence of God cannot produce... it is an utter impossibility for any
human or angelic understanding to conceive an adequate idea of the Mass. All
we can say is that its dignity and sanctity are infinite.” 5 The Cure of Ars
tells us, “All the good works together are not of equal value with the
Sacrifice of the Mass because they are the works of man, and the Holy Mass is
the work of God.’ 6 Father
Nicholas Gihr, in his learned and monumental study of the Mass, says: The celebration
of the Mass is the most worthy and most perfect divine service, for it
procures to the Most High a worship and a veneration which millions of words
would be incapable of rendering Him... it is a unique Sacrifice [and]
infinitely excels in value and dignity, in power and efficacy, all the many
prayers of the Church and the faithful... As often as this memorial sacrifice
is celebrated, the work of redemption is performed... It is the soul and the
heart of the liturgy of the Church; it is the mystical chalice which presents
to our lips the sweet fruit of the passion of the God-man – that is, grace. 7 Pope
Urban VIII said of the Mass: If there is
anything divine among the possessions of man, which the citizens of Heaven
might covet (were covetousness possible for them), it would certainly be the
most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, whose blessing is such that in it man
possesses a certain anticipation of Heaven while still on earth, even having
before their eyes and taking into their hands the very Maker of both Heaven
and earth. How greatly must mortals strive that the most awesome privilege be
guarded with due cult and reverence, and take care lest their negligence
offend the eyes of the angels, who watch with envious adoration. Such
statements as the above are legion among the writings of the Saints, Doctors
and holy writers of the Church; they reflect the belief of the Church as to
the nature and importance of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. The Catholic Mass Is a
True Sacrifice The
Catholic Church always speaks of the Mass as both a Sacrament and a Sacrifice.
The Council of Ephesus (431 A.D.) Teaches that “Christ hath delivered Himself
for us, an oblation and a Sacrifice to God for the odor of sweetness.” St.
Cyprian (200-258) tells us that “the right to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice
constitutes the most beautiful adornment and garland of honor of the Catholic
priesthood, and for this reason the deprivation of this privilege was
regarded as the most severe and most painful of punishments.” St. Ambrose
(340-397) tells us that “angles are present when we are celebrating the
Sacrifice, for you may not doubt that angels are present, when Christ is
there, when Christ is being sacrificed...” The Liturgy of St. James states:
“Let all mortal flesh be silent, standing there [at the time of the
Consecration] in fear and trembling; for the King of kings, the Lord of
lords, Christ our God is about to be sacrificed and to be given as food to
the faithful.” 8 Now
a sacrifice cannot occur without the immolation, or “offering up,” of a
victim. St. Thomas Aquinas says, “It is proper to this Sacrament that Christ
should be immolated in its celebration.” (Summa, III, 83, 1). In the
Sacrifice of the Cross and the Sacrifice of the Mass, the primary sacrificing
Priest, namely Christ, and the sacrificial gift are identical. Only the
nature and mode of the offering of the two are different. Each and every
valid Mass recapitulates – makes present once again – the same Sacrifice
which occurred at Calvary. The only difference is that Christ’s Sacrifice on
the Cross was bloody, that of the Mass is unbloody. The sacrifice of the
Cross and that of the Mass are nevertheless one and the same Sacrifice. As
the Catechism of the Council of Trent states: The bloody and
unbloody Victim are not two, but one Victim only, whose Sacrifice is daily
renewed in the Eucharist... The priest is also one and the same, Christ the
Lord; for the ministers who offer Sacrifice, consecrate the holy mysteries,
not in their own person, but in that of Christ, was the words of Consecration
themselves make clear; for the priest does not say, “This is the body of
Christ,” but, “This is My Body,” and thus acting in the person of Chris the
Lord, he changes the substance of bread and wine into the substance of His Body
and Blood. This
doctrine about the immolative and truly sacrificial nature of the Mass is
biding on the Catholic conscience, for as the Canons of the Council of Trent
state: “If anyone saith that in the mass [i.e., each and every mass] a true
and proper sacrifice is not offered to God... let him be anathema!” A Further Explanation of The
immolative sacrifice of Christ is said to be “perpetual.” As Father M. Olier,
the saintly founder of St. Suplice in Paris explains: “In order to present
the mystery of the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, one must know that this
Sacrifice is the Sacrifice of Heaven... A Sacrifice offered up in Paradise
which, at the same time, is offered up here on earth, and they differ only in
that here on earth the Sacrifice occurs unseen.” 9 What Father Olier is
referring to is explained in the Apocalyptic vision of St. John the Apostle
in which he describes the sacrifice of the Lamb, “slain” but alive and seated
on the throne, with the twenty-four ancients adoring Him, with melodies on
the harp and with the burning of incense, while multitudes of angels and all
creatures sing praise to the Lamb and the eternal “Amen.” (Apoc. 5:6-14). As
Scripture teaches: “The Lamb.. Was slain from the beginning of the world”
(Apoc. 13:8), this “Lamb,” unspotted and undefiled, foreknown indeed before
the foundation of the world, but manifested in the last times for you.” (I
Pet. 1:19-20). Thus in the Mass we see the perpetual Celestial Sacrifice
of the Lamb brought down from Heaven and present on the altar before our
eyes. As Canon Smith tells us, such saintly individuals as P. Condren,
Cardinal de Berulle, M. Olier and P. Lapin are at one in holding that Christ
in Heaven continues forever to make an external and visible offering of His
sacred Body, but whereas on Calvary that Body was destroyed in death, in
Heaven it is annihilated, so to speak, in the radiant devouring glory of the
divine life. 10 The
Consecration and Sacrifice effected by the priest (standing in the place of
Christ) is, then, the visible manifestation of an eternal and timeless act.
After the Consecration, as Gueranger says in The Liturgical Year, “the
divine Lamb is lying on our altar!” Thus we see that the Mass is the visible
reality, here and now, of the timeless eternal Mass of Heaven, described in
the Apocalypse. Through it we participate in the Celestial Liturgy;
through it the gates of Heaven are opened to us and the possibility of
eternal life is made available to us. The
concept of the Mass being the renewal of Christ’s sacrifice on the Cross is
important if we are to understand why the Mass is called a “memorial.” It is
not a memorial in the sense that we commemorate the death of the unknown
soldier, or even the death of a loved one. This is the Protestant view,
namely, that the Mass is a “memorial” of the historical Crucifixion. Rather,
the mass is a memorial in the sense that it “recalls to mind,” in the
philosophical sense referred to by the pagan philosopher Plato (427-347
B.C.), of a recollection of something that has a self-existing, everlasting
and eternal reality of its own in heaven. It is in this manner that the Mass
makes present once again what happened at Calvary and what is occurring
eternally and perpetually in Heaven. This of course can only occur through
the mediation of a priest who has been given the power, as it were, “to bring
Heaven down to earth.” Protestants
and Anglicans (Episcopalians in American) 11 reject this dogma. They deny
that there is any immolative (sacrificing) action and hence any REAL
PRESENCE. Whereas Catholics give veneration to the Sacred Species after the
Consecration of the Mass, Protestants admit of only bread and wine and hence
accuse us of idolatry. 12 Despite the fact that they will admit that the
Sacrifice of the Cross was a true Sacrifice, still they insist that it
occurred once and for all, and that the only thing that happens or can happen
in the daily Mass is a retelling in story-like fashion of what occurred some
two thousand years ago. In their eyes the rite is a mere “memorial” of this
historical event, and as such requires neither priest nor special sacerdotal
powers to perform. As Luther said, “The Mass is not a sacrifice... call it
benediction, Eucharist, the Lord’s table, the Lord’s supper, Memory of the
Lord, or whatever you like, just so long as you do not dirty it with the name
of a sacrifice or action.” As for the Anglicans or Episcopalians, Article
Thirty-One of their “creed” states that the Mass, as understood by the
Council of Trent, is a “blasphemous fable and a dangerous deceit.” 13 Because
of the infinite magnitude of this immolative Sacrifice of the Mass, Catholic
doctrine holds that the Mass is also and at the same time a sacrifice of
praise, of thanksgiving, of propitiation (atonement, expiation,
conciliation), and of impetration (petition). The
Mass is a sacrifice of praise and adoration because The celebration
of the eucharistic Sacrifice contains an infinitely perfect adoration of God,
for it is the Sacrifice which Christ Himself offers to His heavenly Father.
Nor is it possible for man to create a rite that is a great Sacrifice of
praise and adoration, for it is Christ Himself and the Holy Ghost, acting
through the Apostles, who is the Author of the Mass. 14 At
the same time and in the same way, the Mass is a sacrifice of thanksgiving.
“Inasmuch as in the Holy Mass we adore, praise and magnify God through and
with Christ, we fulfill in a perfect manner the first duty, which as
creatures we owe to the Creator – the duty of gratitude.” 14 Protestants
are perfectly willing to grant that a worship service be described as a “sacrifice
of Praise and Thanksgiving.” But this is where they stop. To claim that the
Mass is more than this is to them a blasphemy. The Church however insists
that the true Mass is much more. 15 Because of its fundamentally immolative
nature, the Mass is, among other things, a “propitiatory sacrifice”; it
“propitiates” (appeases) God’s anger and justice. As Father Nicholas Gihr
says, “On the Cross Christ merited for us all forgiveness of sins, the grace
of sanctification and eternal beatitude... Whosoever separates himself from
this Sacrifice; whosoever through disobedience and unbelief despises and
rejects it, for him ‘there is now left no [other] sacrifice for sins, but a
certain dreadful expectation of judgment and the rage of fire.’” (Heb.
10:26-27). Further, as an act of propitiation, the Mass “calms and appeases
the righteous anger of God, disarms His justice and induces the Lord to
regard sinful man with favor and mercy... As a propitiatory sacrifice the
Mass has, therefore, the power and, in consequence of the ordinance of
Christ, has for object directly and infallibly – that is, in the strictest
sense ex opere operato, to cancel temporal punishment.” 16 Moreover,
this cancelling of temporal punishment can be applied to both “the living and
the dead.” As St. Augustine says, “It must not be doubted that the departed receive
help by the prayers of the Church and the life-giving Sacrifice.” 17 For the
living, this fruit is only “medially” granted, for by virtue of the
Sacrifice, the Eucharist obtains this grace for sinners only “if it finds
them disposed” (St. Thomas, Sent., IV. 12, q. 2, a. 2.); for the dead
it infallibly remits, yet not necessarily entirely, but only in accord with
the good pleasure of Providence. 18 The Council of Trent holds it to be de
fide (i.e., part of the Catholic faith that must be believed) that “the
Holy Mass is a true propitiatory sacrifice, whereby we are reconciled to God
and regain His favor.” Protestant theology specifically denies both the
“propitiatory” nature of the Mass, as well as the doctrine of Purgatory. Finally,
the Mass is described as a sacrifice of impetration or petition, for as the
same Council states, the Mass is offered not only for sins, punishments and
satisfaction, but also for “other remedies.” Man, by joining the priest in
offering Mass, can anticipate that his requests (provided they are in
conformity with God’s will) will receive an appropriate response. And in view
of all that has been said above regarding the power and efficacy of the Mass,
how could it be otherwise? There
is in the Traditional Mass 19 no word or phrase, no single act of the
celebrant, and no adornment of the altar that is without significance. It
naturally follows that ever word and action of the priest is also
significant. The Mass recapitulates the entire history of the Redemption. When,
for example, it makes 33 Signs of the Cross, this is to commemorate the
number of years Our Lord spent on earth. When the priest extends his hands
over the chalice while reciting the Hanc Igitur, he is recapitulating
the action of the High Priest of the Jews, who placed his hands on the
sacrificial goat to transfer to it the sins of the people. (The “scape-goat,”
prefiguring Christ, was adorned with a red ribbon – as Christ was mockingly
covered with a red cape at His trial – and then led out into the desert,
where he was hurled down from a high precipice as a sacrifice.) When the
priest faces the altar during the Sacrifice (except when he turns to bring us
the blessings that derive therefrom), it is because it is on the altar that
the action is occurring, and the priest is, like Christ whom he represents,
an intermediary between us and God the Father. When the altar traditionally
faces the East, it is because this is the direction of the Rising Sun, which,
as the “light of the world,” is a symbol of Our Lord, who is the true “Light
of the World.” As to the altar (it is not a “table”), we know from the
traditional rite of consecrating Catholic altars that our altar relates to
the altar of Moses and also to that of Jacob (Jacob’s pillow) – and that the
eternal altar is itself the body of Christ which is placed “at the center of
the world” – the axis mundi – so that all creation is, as it were,
peripheral to the “eternal” Mass and is thus capable of being integrated
through the divine action. (As St. Thomas says in his Homily for the Second
Sunday in Advent, “All those things which are to us insensible, are sensible
to Him.”) When six candles are used at High Mass, it is because this
represents the integration of the Jewish Menorah, or Seven-Branch Candlestick,
into the Sacrifice of Christ, Our Lord being and replacing the central or
Seventh Candle. When the priest is dressed in royal fashion during the rite,
it is because he represents Christ the King. He is no longer an individual
(e.g., “Fr. Bob,” etc.), but an alter Chrisus, “another Christ.” It is
not for nothing that the priest purifies his hands before performing the
Sacrifice, nor for vain reasons that he cleanses the chalice with exquisite
care after consuming the Sacred Species. None of these acts is the invention
of men. As the Abbe Gueranger says: “It is to the Apostles that these
ceremonies go back.” Similarly, we find the great authority on the Mass,
Father Nicholas Gihr, stating: Christ’s example
was the norm for the Apostles at the celebration of the Sacrifice. They did,
first, only that which Christ had done before. According to His directions
and under the inspiration of the Holy Ghost, they observed other things
besides, namely, according to circumstances, they added various prayers and
observances, in order to celebrate the Holy Mysteries as worthily and
edifyingly as possible. Those constituent portions of the sacrificial rite,
which are found in all the ancient liturgies, have incontestably their origin
from Apostolic times and tradition: the essential and fundamental features of
the sacrificial rite, introduced and enlarged upon by the Apostles, were
preserved with fidelity and reverence to the mystical blessings, the use of
lights, incense, vestments and many things of that nature that she [the
Church] employs by Apostolic prescription and tradition... 20 Whereas
certain prayers were at times added to the Traditional Mass, it is well
recognized that its central core or “canon” remained fixed and unchanged from
the earliest days. According to Sir William Palmer, a non-Catholic historian: There seems
nothing unreasonable in thinking that the Roman Liturgy, as used in the time
of [Pope Saint] Gregory the Greta [590-604], may have existed from a period
of the most remote antiquity, and perhaps there are nearly as good reasons
for referring its original composition to the Apostolic Age... 21 In
point of fact, historical research, both Catholic and Protestant, has shown
that the Traditional Mass dates back to at least the fourth century. (Prior
to that time, the Church was subject to severe persecution, and therefore
historical records are sparse.22) Since then, until 1962, when Pope John
XXIII added the name of St. Joseph to the Canon of the Mass, a total of 26
words have been added to the Traditional Canon, by Popes St. Leo (440-461)
and St. Gregory the Great (590-604). Thus, as the Council of Trent accurately
states, the Canon “is composed out of the very words of the Lord, the
tradition of the Apostles, and the pious institutions of the holy pontiffs.” In
the course of history some further additions were made – though never any
subtractions. As a result, the Council of Trent ordered that “all such
accretions should be removed, and that the Church should firmly establish the
use of the Mass as it was in the time of St. Gregory.” (590-604). This
then is the Traditional mass. This is “the Mass of All Times.” This is the
Mass that was “promulgated” (or “codified”) by Pope Saint Pius V in 1570
after the Council of Trent. This is the Mass that is protected by his
Apostolic Bull Quo Primum of that same date. This is the Mass that
Paul VI changed because, among other things, it contained “undesirable
features” and “failed adequately to express the holy things it signified.” 23 A Traditional Catholic
Prayer Said Before Mass O my God, Eternal
and Omnipotent Father, I offer Thee in union with Thin Only-begotten Son, Our
Lord Jesus Christ, His very own Passion and death on the Cross in this Holy
Sacrifice of the Mass: in profound ADORATION of Thy Divine Majesty, in joyful
THANKSGIVING for all Thy graces and blessings; in humble REPARATION for my
innumerable sins and those of the whole world; and in ardent SUPPLICATION for
Thy mercy and grace, as well as for the temporal needs of myself, my loved
ones and my neighbors. O God, be merciful to me a sinner! Had
Satan been aware that Christ was the Divine Logos [Second Person of the
Blessed Trinity], he would never have agitated for the Crucifixion. Needless
to say, every true Mass reminds him once again of his terrible mistake and at
the same time is a vehicle for bestowing infinite graces on mankind. No
wonder that the devil has an intense hatred for the Mass. It
has always been predicted that the true Mass would be taken from us. Listen
to the words of St. Alphonsus Liguori: The devil has
always attempted, by means of heretics, to deprive the world of the Mass,
making them precursors of the anti-Christ, who, before anything else, will
try to abolish and will actually abolish the Holy Sacrifice of the Altar, as
a punishment for the sins of men, according to the prediction of Daniel, “And
strength was given him against the continual sacrifice.” (Dan. 8:12). 24 Much
the same is said by Father Denis Fahey: All the frightful
energy of Satan’s hatred is especially directed against the Holy Sacrifice of
the Mass. Arrayed with him and animated with the same hatred, there is an
army of invisible satellites of the same nature. All their efforts are
directed towards preventing its celebration by exterminating the priesthood,
and towards curtailing its efforts. If Satan cannot succeed in completely
doing away with the one and only acceptable act of worship, he will strive to
restrict it to the minds and hearts of as few individuals as possible. 25 The
hatred of the “Reformers” of the 16th century for the Traditional
Mass is well known. Above all, they abhorred any suggestion that the Mass is
an “immolative Sacrifice.” Luther called it an “abomination,” a “false
blasphemous cult,” and instructed the rulers under his influence “to attack
the idolaters” and to suppress their worship as much as possible. He
repeatedly denied its true sacrificial nature and above all hatred the
“abominable Canon in which the Mass is made a sacrifice.” Indeed, he went so
far as to say, “I affirm that all brothels, murders, robberies, crimes,
adulteries are less wicked than this abomination of the Popish Mass.” As to
the Canon or core of the Mass, he stated: That abominable
Canon is a confluence of puddles of slimy water, which have made the Mass a
sacrifice. The Mass is not a sacrifice. It is not the act of a sacrificing
priest. Together with the canon, we discard all that implies an oblation. In
words that are almost prophetic, Luther noted that “when the Mass has been
overthrown, I think we shall have overthrown the Papacy. I think it is in the
Mass, as on a rock, that the Papacy wholly rests... Everything will of
necessity collapse when their sacrilegious and abominable Mass collapses.” All
this brings us to the problems with the New Mass. It
is well known that the hallmark of traditional Catholics is their refusal to
participate in the New order of the Mass – the Novus Ordo Missae – as
set up April 3, 1969, after Vatican Council II. For reasons that will soon
become apparent, it is of the utmost importance for us to review the reasons
for their objections to this New Rite. The remainder of this study will
attempt to explain and clarify their attitude. The Problems with the
New Mass The
New Order of the Mass has been the subject of many critical books, articles
and pamphlets since 1968. With the renewed interest in the Traditional Latin mass,
it may be useful one again to sum up some of the arguments against the New
Rite in order to underline the fact that the objections of the “Traditional”
Catholics to the New Mass are not based on matters of aesthetics or
nostalgia, but rather, and eminently more importantly, on questions of
doctrine, religious pedagogy (instruction) and validity. The
“New Mass,” or Novus Ordo Missae (“New Order of the Mass” – both names
will be used alternately in this book) was first publicly offered in the
Sistine Chapel before a synod of bishops in October of 1967. At that time it
was called the Missa Normativa, or “normative Mass.” The bishops
present were polled as to their opinion whether it should be implemented: 71
voted yes; 62 voted yes with reservations; and 43 rejected it outright. To
accommodate the wishes of this last group, a number of minor changes were
made, including the restoration of two of the traditional Offertory prayers. Paul
VI promulgated the final form of this Mass as the Novus Ordo Missae in
his Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, April 3, 1969. Tied to his
Apostolic Constitution was an explanatory text entitled the Institutio
Generalis (“General Instruction”). Whereas the liberal bishops were
delighted, others were far from pleased. Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci wrote
to Paul VI in September, 1967, stating that the “New Mass” represented, “both
as a whole, and in its details, a striking departure from the Catholic
theology of the Mass as it was formulated in Session XXII of the Council of Trent.”
Along with the letter, they presented to him the now famous Critical Study
of the Novus Ordo Missae, prepared by a group of Roman theologians. In an
attempt to deflect the criticisms this document made, a revised General
Instruction was issued on March 26, 1970 – but absolutely no change was made
in the actual text of the Novus Ordo Missae itself. Since then, some
minor changes have been made in the New Mass; the current edition appeared in
1975. Let us examine this New Rite in greater detail. If
the Novus Ordo Missae (or the “New Mass”) was to reflect the beliefs
of the post-Conciliar Church, as well as our “separated” Protestant brethren,
and at the same time remain acceptable to Catholics brought up in the Ancient
Faith, it had to achieve several objectives: 1) It had to avoid professing
the new doctrines too openly, while at the same time eliminating anything
which contradicted them. Also, it could not deny any Catholic doctrine
directly – it could only dilute or expurgate it. 2) It had to introduce
changes slowly and retain enough of the outer trappings of a true sacrifice
in order to give the impression that nothing significant was changed. 3) It
had to create a rite that for ecumenical reasons was acceptable to
Protestants of every shade and persuasion, even though all of them
consistently deny that the Mass is truly the unbloody sacrifice of Calvary
and that a “sacrificing” priest is necessary to offer it. And 4) It had to
soften up Catholic resistance and introduce into the lives of the faithful
the Modernist ideas promulgated in the aftermath of Vatican II. The only way
the New Mass could achieve all this was by the use of ambiguity deletion and
mistranslation. There
is nothing ambiguous about the traditional rites of the Church; and indeed,
the Mass is, as the theologians say, a primary locus (source) of her
teachings. Despite the laxity of modern language, we should not forget that
the ambiguous statement is fundamentally dishonest. Every father and mother
knows that when his or her child resorts to equivocation, he is attempting to
hide something. And every priest knows how penitents sometimes use this
technique in the confessional. It is even more dishonest, once the
Magisterium of the Church has clearly spoken on an issue, to have those responsible
for preserving the “Deposit of the Faith” to use equivocation or ambiguity to
disguise a change in belief. As the Book of Proverbs says, “God hates
a mouth with a double tongue.” (Prov. 8:13). In
the 16th century, the Protestant Reformer, Bishop Cranmer, used
ambiguity in order to establish the Anglican-Protestant (Episcopalian) sect
in England. At the time, the English Pastor Dryander wrote toe Zurich,
stating that the first Book of Common Prayer harbored “every kind of
deception by ambiguity or trickery of language.”1 According to T. M. Parker,
an Anglican theologian, the net result was that The First Prayer
Book of Edward VI could not be convicted of overt heresy, for it was adroitly
framed and contained no express denial of pre-Reformation doctrine. It was,
as an Anglican scholar put it, “an ingenious essay in ambiguity,” purposely
worded in such a manner that the more conservative could place their own
construction upon it and reconcile their consciences to using it, while the
Reformers would interpret it in their own sense and would recognize it as an
instrument for furthering the next stage of the religious revolution. 2 Apart
from ambiguity in the Novus Ordo Missae, one must consider the
numerous deletions which the post-Conciliar innovators made – some 60 to 80
percent of the Traditional Rite of the Mass was eliminated, depending upon
which Eucharistic Prayer is used. And these deletions are precisely those
which Luther and Cranmer had made – those which relate to the sacrificial
nature of the mass. Ambiguity, deletions and, lastly, mistranslations were
all used to achieve the innovators’ goals. The
second requirement was the need that the New Mass retain the outer trappings
of a Catholic rite. Once again, there were plenty of precedents. 3 Consider
the following description of the early Lutheran service, as given us by the
great Jesuit scholar Hartmann Grisar: One who entered
the parish church at Wittenberg after Luther’s victory discovered that the
same vestments were used for divine service as of yore, and heard the same
old Latin hymns. The Host was elevated and exhibited at the Consecration. In
the eyes of the people it was the same Mass as before, despite the fact that
Luther omitted all prayers which represented the sacred function of the
Sacrifice. The people were intentionally kept in the dark on this point. “We cannot
draw the common people away from the Sacrament, and it will probably be thus
until the Gospel is well understood,” said Luther. The rite of celebration of
the Mass, he explained, is a “purely external thing,” and said further that
“the damnable words referring to the Sacrifice could be omitted all the more
readily, since the ordinary Christian would not notice the omission and hence
there was no danger of scandal.” The
post-Conciliar liturgical innovators followed the same pattern. As the
authors of the Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae noted, “having
removed the keystone, the reformers had to put up a scaffolding.” One is
reminded of Lenin’s dictum: “Keep the shell, but empty it of substance.” After
Vatican Council II, and following the patter established by Luther and
Cranmer, changes in the Catholic liturgy were introduced, at first slowly,
and then at an increasingly faster pace. Those victimized by the early days
of “Aggiornamento” will remember the almost weekly changes mandated. Cardinal
Heenan of England bears witness to this, stating that we would have been
“shocked” 4 if all the changes had been introduced at once. Changes came,
however, one on top of another, and if we are to believe the Hierarchy of the
Church, still more in the offing. There is much talk today of “institutional
violence.” I can think of no better example of this than the manner in which
the “New Mass” was forced down the throats of the laity. The
innovators used two techniques to purge the Mass of Catholic doctrines –
omission and emasculation. As noted above, between 60 and 80 percent of the
traditional Mass was deleted. I ask the reader to compare the New Order of
the Mass with the Traditional Rite, as found in any old Missal published
during the pat 500 years – that is, prior to 1954. (Old Missals usually give
the Latin on one side and the English on the other.) The number of prayers
missing is astounding. Gone
are all the prayers said at the foot of the altar (note, it was not a “table”
the Traditional Mass was said on), including Psalm 42 and the Aufer a
nobis. The personal confession aspect reflected in the Confiteor
prayer is replaced by a truncated “Penitential Rite” that stresses sins
against “our brothers and sisters.” The prayer for absolution (Indulgentiam)
is omitted. In the Offertory, the Suscipe Sancte Pater, the Deus
qui Humanae, the Offerimus tibi, the Veni Sanctificator,
the Lavabo (Psalm 25), and the Suscipe Sancta are all
gone. Note how many doctrinal concepts were clearly proclaimed in these
prayers, which the liturgical innovators seem to find objectionable. Only the
In Spiritu Humilitatis and the Orate Fratres have been
retained, and this, as we shall see, for specific reasons. In the Canon, if
the “president” 5 chooses not to use “Eucharistic Prayer No. I” (which is
falsely labeled the old Roman Canon, and which, being the longest Eucharistic
Prayer, is in fact rarely used), the following six prayers before the highly
questionable Consecration have been deleted: The Ite Igitur, Memento
Domine, Cumminicantes, Hanc Igitur, Quam Oblationem, and the Qui
Pridie. After the Consecration, the following seven prayers are dropped:
the Unde te Memores, Supra quae Propitio, Supplices Te Rogamus, Memento
Etiam, Nobis quoque Peccatoribus, and the Per quem haec Omnia. As
if these deletions were not enough, numerous prayers that used to follow the
“Our Father” are also dropped: namely, the Panem Coelestem, Quid
Retribuam, the second Confiteor, the Misereatur and the Indulgentiam.
Also eliminated are the threefold Domine non sum Dignus, the Corpus
Tuum, Placeat Tibi and the Last Gospel. Again, one should consider
the innumerable doctrinal concepts that have been cast into oblivion by these
removals – and above all, any reference to the Mass being an immolative
sacrifice and the need for a true, sacrificing priest to offer it. And this
is not to mention the numerous genuflections, Signs of the Cross, blessings,
bows to the Tabernacle, kisses of the altar and other actions of the priest
which have also been expunged. So much for the first technique of deletion,
namely, positive omission. An
excellent example of the second technique of deletion – i.e., the use of
emasculation – is provided by the changes made in the prayer Libera nos
(“Deliever us...”) which follows the “Our Father.” In the Traditional Rite it
reads Deliver us, we
beseech Thee, O Lord, from all evils, past, present and to come, and by the
intercession of the Blessed and Glorious Ever-Virgin Mary, Mother of God,
together with Thy blessed Apostles Peter and Paul, and Andrew, and all the
saints, mercifully to grant peace in our days, that through the bounteous
help of Thy mercy, we may be always free from sin and secure from all
disturbance... It
now reads: Deliver us, Lord,
from every evil, and grant us peace in our day. In your mercy keep us free
from sin and protect us from all anxiety as we wait in joyful hope for the
coming of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Note
that the references to the Blessed Virgin, the Apostles and all the saints
have been eliminated. Their intercession, it would seem from this, is no
longer required – presumably because it would offend Protesant sensibilities
and thus frustrate the “pastoral” intent of the rite. Note
that in both the technique of ambiguity and of elimination the innovators
cannot be accused of directly “changing” Catholic teaching – just of ignoring
it. This pattern is consistent throughout the new mass: all clear-cut
references to the propitiatory (atoning) and impetratory (entreating) nature
of the Mass are removed. Every explicit reference to the immolative sacrifice
of a victim and the real Presence is deleted. The residue is but a “sacrifice
of praise and thanksgiving,” such as the Protestants find acceptable. Whereas
it is true that adults, well-formed in the Catholic Faith, may have some
degree of protection from the ambiguities and deletions in the New Mass, but
recalling also the very direct and important connection between prayer and
belief – beautifully expressed in the famous, terse Latin expression, Lex
orandi, lex credendi (“the law of prayer is [leads to] the law of elief”)
– HOW, we must ask, can our children avoid having their religious beliefs
neutralized by a rite in which mention of the elements of atonement and
sacrifice have been eliminated? * * * Whereas
most Catholics, accustomed to trusting what Rome has prescribed, went along
with the liturgical changes, others protested strongly. Petition after
petition was sent to Rome, and all were consistently ignored. 6 (Some
conservative Catholics are still attempting to effect changes in the New Mass
by this obviously futile method.) Paul VI, seemingly desiring to further the
Liturgical Revolution without losing any of the faithful, gave his usual
conflicting responses. He told us on the one hand that the New order of the
Mass was changed in “an amazing and extraordinary way,” that “it was
singularly new” and that “the greatest innovation [he used the word
“mutation”] was in the Eucharistic Prayer.” 7 On the other hand, he found it
necessary to assure us repeatedly that “nothing had changed in the essence of
the traditional Mass.” 8 Other witnesses were more honest and
straightforward. Father Joseph Gelineau, S.J., one of the Conciliar periti
(“expert” theological advisors), bluntly declared that the end result of all
the changes in the liturgy was “a different liturgy of the Mass.” He
continued: “This needs to be said without ambiguity. The Roman rite as we
knew it no longer exists. It has been destroyed.” 9 Cardinal Benelli, one of
the principal architects of the new liturgy, stated that the new liturgy
reflects a “new ecclesiology.” 10 The liturgist Father Louis Bouyer opined
that “the Catholic liturgy has been overthrown under the pretext of rendering
it more compatible with the contemporary outlook.” 11 Finally, Archbishop
Bugnini, Paul Vi’s executive officer in the creation of the Novus Ordo
Missae, described the result as “a new song” and as “the conquest of the
Church.” 12 Despite all this, Paul VI persisted: “Be very sure of one point:
nothing of substance of the traditional Mass has been altered.” (DOL., No.
1759). There was no retrenchment or apology, or change in the New Mass, to
accommodate the legitimate complaints of perceptive, concerned Catholics – or
to answer the many published complaints about the problems with the New Mass.
These changes – which have been aptly called “The Liturgical Revolution” –
became a fait accompli. We
know that ultimately the Holy Ghost is the author of the Traditional Mass,
“the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven,” as Fr. Frederick Faber called
it. According to the Council of Trent, the central part of the Mass, called
the Canon, was “composed out of the very words of the Lord, the traditions of
the Apostles and the pious institutions of the holy pontiffs.” The core of
the Canon dates back to at least the middle of the fourth century. Before
that time, historical records are sparse, for the Church was under
persecution. (The last of the 10 great Roman persecutions ended in 304).
However, as the Anglican historian Sir William Palmer states, “There are good
reasons for referring its original composition to the Apostolic Age.” The
Canon was considered so sacred that early sacramentaries wrote it in gold
ink, and mediaeval theologians referred to it as the “Holy of Holies.” No
wonder that Father Louis Bouyer once said, “To jettison it would be a
rejection of any claim on the part of the Roman Church to represent the true
Catholic Church.” As for the prayers and ceremonies surrounding the Canon,
these are all drawn from Scripture and/or Tradition. When
we come to the Novus Ordo Missae, we also know its authors. Whereas
Paul VI was formally and juridically responsible, it was actually composed by
a committee called the Concilium, which consisted of some 200 individuals,
many of whom had functioned as Conciliar periti (“experts”) during
Vatican Council II. At its head was Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, whose Freemasonic
connections are virtually beyond dispute. The Concilium was helped by six
Protestant “observers,” whom Paul VI publicly thanked for their assistance in
“re-editing in a new manner liturgical texts... so that the lex orandi
[the law of prayer], conformed better with the lex credendi [the law
of belief].” As previously noted, we are forced to assume that either the lex
orandi (“law of prayer”) prior to this time did not conform very well to
the lex credendi (“law of belief”) – or else that the lex credendi
was changed. And since when did the Church need the assistance of
Protestants, heretics – men who by definition reject her teaching – to assist
her in formulating her rites? Considering the background of those responsible
for the creation of the New Mass and considering its marked divergence in
theme and representation from the Traditional Mass (as we shall see more
fully below), despite the New Mass’s bland use of Scriptural phrases, one can
seriously question whether the Holy Ghost had anything whatever to do with
its creation. The
clam that the laity had demanded the “renovation” of the Mass – which is what
we all had preached to us when the liturgical changes were taking place
during the 1960’s – has never been substantiated. But then, revolutionaries
always attempt to promulgate their dictatorial schemes “in the name of the
people.” Why then all the changes? And these, not only in the rite of the
Mass itself, but also in everything that went to support that rite – the
altars turned into tables, the tabernacles displaced, the priest facing the
congregation, the altar rail removed, the table placed on a lower level, the
removal of the six High-Mass candlesticks, the placing of the table closer to
the people and even in their midst, the virtual elimination of servers, etc.
– the list goes on and on. According
to the statements of Paul VI, the changes were made: 1) to bring the Church’s
liturgy into line with the modern mentality; 2) in obedience to the mandate
of Vatican II; 3) to take cognizance of progress in liturgical studies; 4) to
return to primitive practice; and 5) for “pastoral” reasons. Let us consider
each of these in turn. The
first reason is but a way of expressing the principle of Aggiornamento
– of bringing the modern world, its anthropocentricism (man-centeredness) and
utopian thought, its false ideas of progress and evolution as applied to
truth itself, into the bosom of the Church. As Paul VI said, “If the world
changes, should not religion also change? .... it is for this very reason
that the Church has, especially after the Council [Vatican Council II],
undertaken so many reforms...” (General Audience, July 2, 1969). Forgotten is
the principle that the world must pattern itself on the Church, and not the
other way around. Should the father of the Prodigal Son join his son in
dissipating the treasures of the family, or must not the son return to the
bosom of his father and the rational use of his patrimony? The
second reason: Vatican Council II’s Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy
recommended that the rite of the Mass be revised “in accord with sound
tradition.” It also said that the liturgy was made up of “unchangeable
elements divinely instituted, and of elements subject to change.” Surely the
“unchangeable elements” referred to the time-honored Canon, and above all to
the form (words of Consecration) and substance of the Sacrament itself.
Indeed, such an opinion is strengthened if one reads the Council Daybook,
which states that the Fathers “insisted that the Canon of the Mass especially
should remain intact.” (Nov. 5, 1962). If
one compares the Novus Ordo Missae with the Traditional Rite, however,
one soon finds that few, if any, items were considered truly unchangeable. Furthermore,
the Latin original of Paul VI’s New Missal is loaded with “options,” 13 and
whatever reflections of Catholic doctrine were found within it were soon
obliterated by translations into the vernacular – translations sanctioned by
Rome’s official guidelines. True, such words as “Alleluia” were not put into
the vernacular, and certain prayers such as the “Our Father” were left
intact. But these were, in any event, always acceptable to the Protestants.
One thing is clear, however: despite the many “time bombs” (as Michael Davies
calls them) in the Constitution on the Liturgy, none of the Fathers at
Vatican II – except those “in the know” – envisioned the radical changes in
the Mass that would follow as a “mandate” from this Council. 14 With
regard to the third reason for the liturgical changes, i.e., “progress in
liturgical studies,” one presumes that Paul VI was referring to the voluminous
Modernist productions that fill the liturgical journals of the immediate pre-
and post-Conciliar period. However, to give the name “progress” to these
pseudo-scholarly productions – all aimed at fostering the Liturgical
Revolution – is simply an abuse of language. It is also to forget the
tremendous legitimate scholarship that preceded the codification of the Mass
by Pope St. Pius V in 1570. With
regard to the fourth reason, i.e., “a return to primitive practice,” it is
hard to understand just why those who would adapt our faith to the modern
world would at the same time have us return to primitive practice. Such an
attempt, like burning a candle at both ends, soon leaves very little of the
original in the middle. Beyond this, the only ancient document with any real
significance that has come to light since the time of Pope Saint Pius V is
the Apostolic Tradition of Hippolytus, and of this we have only a
partial and reconstructed version of the original document. 15 Moreover,
Hippolytus was both a schismatic and an anti-pope at the time he wrote it –
and despite this, as we shall see below, it was drastically rephrased
by the post-Conciliar liturgists in order to bring it into line with Protestant
and Modernist theology. So much is this the case that Father John Barry Ryan
calls the result an entirely “new creation.” 16 The only other ancient prayer
incorporated into the Novus Ordo Missae is what Father Jungmann calls
a “reconstruction... probably the very words used at the blessing of bread
and wine in a Jewish meal at the time of Christ.” 17 It is indeed such.
Anyone who has attended a Jewish banquet is familiar with the phrase “Blessed
art Thou, O Lord, God of all creation....” It is the Jewish grace before
meals said by the Rabbi as he cuts the loaf of bread. Paul
VI’s last reason for the liturgical changes was “pastoral.” As far as I can
determine, neither he nor the Council ever defined this term. In the
“double-speak” of the post-Conciliar Church, we well may ask, just what does
“pastoral” mean? The answer can be found in the “Letter to the Presidents of
National Councils of Bishops concerning Eucharistic Prayers,” sent out by the
Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship: The reason why
such a variety of texts has been offered [referring to the number of
Eucharistic Prayers in the New Mass], and the end result such new formularies
were meant to achieve, are pastoral in nature: namely, to reflect the unity
and diversity of liturgical prayer. By using the various texts contained in
the new Roman Missal, various Christian communities, as they gather together
to celebrate the Eucharistic, are able to sense that they themselves form the
one Church, praying with the same faith, using the same prayer. In
other words, we can conclude that the “pastoral intent” was and is to create
a service that any Christian body can use – to foster that ecumenism and
“unity” which the post-Conciliar Church believes and teaches is its “internal
mission. Now,
the real issue for the innovators was not whether the New Order of the Mass
retained enough of its Catholic character to be acceptable to the Catholic
faithful, but whether it was sufficiently “ecumenical” to satisfy Protestants
of both liberal and conservative persuasions. Here the answer was a
resounding, “Yes!” Let us listen to the Superior Consistory of the Church of
the Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine, a major Lutheran authority.
On December 8, 1973, they publicly acknowledged their willingness to take
part in the “Catholic eucharistic celebration” because it allowed them to
“use these new eucharistic prayers with which they felt at home.” And why did
they feel at home with them? Because they had “the advantage of giving a
different interpretation to the theology of the sacrifice” than they were
accustomed to attribute to Catholicism. Lutherans, Anglicans and a wide
variety of other sects not only find the New Mass acceptable, many of them
have actually changed their own rites in order to bring them into line with
it. In order to understand why, let us turn to a French Protestant
theologian: If one takes
account of the decisive evolution in the eucharistic liturgy of the Catholic
Church, of the option of substituting other Eucharistic prayers for the Canon
of the Mass, of the expunging of the idea that the mass is a sacrifice and of
the possibility of receiving communion under both kinds, then there is no
further justification for the Reformed Churches forbidding their members to
assist at the Eucharist in a Catholic Church. 18 Now
there is something a little surprising in all this. Let us recall that the
Anglicans (called Episcopalians in America) officially consider the Catholic
teaching on the Mass to be a “blasphemous fable,” 19 and that the Lutherans
believe that the Mass is neither a sacrifice nor the act of a sacrificing
priest. Luther, in fact, called the Canon “a confluence of puddles of slimy
water....,” worse than “all brothels, murders, robberies, crimes, and
adulteries.” Even more to the point, Luther said of his own “new mass”: “Call
it a benediction, Eucharist, the Lord’s table, the Lord’s supper, memory of
the Lord, or whatever you like, just so long as you do not dirty it with the
name of a sacrifice or an action.” 20 The
Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae by the Roman theologians,
mentioned earlier, also explains just why the Novus Ordo Missae is so acceptable
to those who reject all belief in an immolative Sacrifice: The position of
both priest and people is falsified, and the celebrant appears as nothing
more than a Protestant ministers... By a series of equivocations the emphasis
is obsessively placed upon the “supper” and the “memorial,” instead of on the
unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of Calvary... The Real Presence of Christ
is never alluded to and belief in it is implicitly repudiated... It has every
possibility of satisfying the most modernist of Protestants. We
shall see whether this statement is justified as we conduct our investigation
of the rite itself. The
Traditional Mass is divided into two parts: “the Mass of the Catechumens” and
“the Mass of the Faithful.” As the St. Andrew Missal states, “The
catechumens, Christians by desire and belief, could take part in the prayers
and chants of the faithful, listen with them to the readings and
instructions, but as they were not yet baptized, they could not communicate
or be present at Mass. They were dismissed before the Offertory.” The
New Mass is also divided into two sections, “the Liturgy of the Word,” and
“the Liturgy of the Eucharist.” The former roughly corresponds to the Mass of
the Catechumens, but has been altered in order to bring it completely into
line with Protestant theology. Gone are the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar.
After the “priest-president” greets the parishioners, one starts out with a
truncated confession. Post-Conciliar Catholics are denied the absolution
formula that follows the Traditional Confiteor – the Indulgentiam...,
which is capable of giving absolution for those venial sins that even the
best of us fall prey to. 21 (Considering the August nature of the true Mass,
it is only appropriate that the laity should not only be in the state of
grace, i.e., have no mortal sins on their souls, they should also be absolved
of their venial sins as well.) The Gloria is still allowed on Sundays
and a few feast days, but it is falsely and incompletely rendered – with the
false concept that peace is available to “all men,” and not just to those of
good will, as the traditional Gloria states. (It will be argued that
the Latin version found in Paul VI’s New Missal is unchanged, but in the
practical order, Latin is really no longer used as a liturgical language to
any great extent. Therefore, the people are almost never exposed to it.) The
principle feature of “the Liturgy of the Word” (which in the New Mass is
supposed to correspond to the “Mass of the Catechumens”) is the reading of
Scripture – but in such a way as to lead one to believe that it is Scripture,
rather than the Sacred Species or Eucharist, that is the Word of God made
flesh. The readings are taken from the new, ecumenical and frequently false
translations of the Bible. Further, they are part of a three-year cycle,
rather than a one-year cycle, as in the Tridentine Mass, and therefore can
hardly be called “fixed,” for the New Lectionary allows for a whole host of
options which can be followed at the celebrant’s discretion. The
one-year cycle used in the Traditional Mass is of great antiquity, having
been established by Pope St. Damasus (266-284), (well-known from the phrase
“let us keep the faith of St. Damasus”). Readings heard each year in the
Traditional Catholic Mass become part of the Catholic’s consciousness of
Sacred Scripture. Those based on a three-year cycle, even apart from the
problem of the “options” allowed to the celebrant, most likely never will
since they occur too seldom to be easily remembered. Scripture
in the New Mass is followed by a “homily,” which, in accord with Protestant
practice, almost always becomes the center of the New Rite. In the
Traditional Rite, the priest is liturgically speaking a “nobody” – his own
personality is really counted for nothing. Before all the changes in the
liturgy, one never thought to ask who was saying Mass. But in the Novus
Ordo Missae, the personality of the priest becomes all-important; his
elocution is significant, and people often select which service they will
attend on the basis of who is celebrating. This practice by Catholics
who attend the New Mass has the further result of providing everyone with a
choice of “liberal” or “conservative” formularies, and thus, in effect, the
New Mass largely divides the Church-worshiping into various camps of belief. The
“Liturgy of the Word” concludes with the Credo – which the Anglicans
and Lutherans also retained – but rendered in the vernacular with the
communitarian “We believe,” rather than “I believe” (which is exactly what credo
means in Latin), so that it is now not so much a “Credo” (“I believe”) as a “Credimus”
(“We believe”). Absent from this statement of belief is the hallowed term
“consubstantial.” 22 All
these changes in what used to be called the Mass of the Catechumens, however
offensive, in no way affect the Sacrifice itself. It is to the second part
of the Rite that we must give our special attention. For the sake of
convenience, I shall first discuss the Offertory, and then the changes in the
Canon – that part of the Rite in which the Consecration occurs. It will be
shown that, in almost every situation, accommodation to Protestant belief is
made, if not enforced. As a result, the Novus Ordo Missae lacks the
clear character of an immolative act, and the celebrant no longer appears as
a “sacrificing priest.” Indeed, it will become clear, as we proceed with this
analysis, that it is not the priest, but the “people of God” who celebrate
the new liturgy – under the “priest-president’s” direction. In
the Traditional Rite of the Mass, the first part of the “Mass of the
Faithful” is the Offertory. Its importance is manifested by two facts: 1) in
ancient times the catechumens were dismissed before the Offertory began, and
2) the faithful must be present by the time the Offertory prayers begin in
order to fulfill their Sunday Mass obligation. In the Offertory, the
Sacrifice of the Mass is both prepared and directed to a determinate end. In
essence, the Offertory prayers anticipate the Consecration and make the
sacrificial nature of the remainder of the Mass unmistakably clear. In the Traditional
Catholic Mass, the Offertory prayers refer to the bread by the term hostia
or “victim.” Thus, in the first Offertory prayer of the Traditional Mass, the
priest unveils the chalice, takes the gold-plated paten with the host of
unleavened bread, raises it to the level of his heart and says: Receive, O Holy
Father, almighty and everlasting God, this spotless host which I, Thy
unworthy servant, offer unto Thee, my living and true God, for mine own
countless sins, offenses and negligences, and for all here present, as also
for all faithful Christians, living and dead, that it may avail for my own
and their salvation unto life everlasting. What
a marvel of doctrinal exactitude! Along with the actions of the priest, this
prayer makes it clear that what is offered at the mass is the “spotless host”
or victim. Second, the propitiatory (atoning) nature of the Mass is explicit
– it is offered for our sins. Third, it reminds us that the Mass is offered
“for the living and the dead”; and fourth, that it is the priest who offers
the Sacrifice as a mediator between man and God. The beauty of its precise
expression is the splendor veritatis – the “splendor of the truth.” In
the New Mass this prayer, needless to say, has been entirely deleted. And one
of the reasons Paul VI offers for doing so is to make the doctrinal content
of the Mass more clear (cf. p. 24). In fact, of the twelve Offertory prayers
in the Traditional Rite, only two are retained in the New Mass. 23 And of
interest is the fact that the deleted prayers are the same ones that Luther
and Cranmer eliminated. 24 And why did they eliminate them? Because, as
Luther said, they “smacked of Sacrifice... the abomination called the
offertory, and from this point on almost everything stinks of oblation.” The
Novus Ordo Missae not only omits these significant prayers, but it
effectively abolishes the entire Offertory. The General Instruction speaks
instead of the “Preparation of the Gifts.” And within this part of the New
Rite there is not so much as a word which even hints that it is the Divine
Victim which is offered. The bread and wine – “the work of human hands” – is
all that is offered. Michael Davies points out that this concept is fully
compatible with the Teilhardian theory that human effort, the work of human
hands, becomes in a certain way, the matter of the Sacrament. 25 And further,
except for the prayer of the washing of the hands, all the petitions are in
the first person plural – “we” – which is consistent with the false concept
enveloped in various parts of the New Mass that it is not the
priest-president who offers up the Mass by his own special sacerdotal power,
but rather it is the “assembly” or “the people of God” who do so. In
line with this principle, all the prayers from the Traditional Mass that
differentiate the priest from the laity have been systematically eliminated.
The Latin original of the New Missal still makes such a distinction within
the prayer Orate Fratres. This was a prayer which the Concilium wished
deleted and which was restored to accommodate the Synod of Bishops. However,
the innovators achieved their desire in the vernacular translation where – in
English, French, Portuguese and German – the distinction of priest from laity
was eliminated. Conservatives
will point to the retention in the Novus Ordo Missae of the
traditional Offertory prayer In Spiritu Humilitatis (“in a Spirit of
Humility”) as proof that the new Offertory rite alludes to the traditional
teaching that the Mass is first and foremost a Sacrifice offered to God. Now,
this prayer is taken from Daniel )3:39-40) and refers to the personal sacrifice
– at most, a “sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving” – made by Azarias and his
companions in the fiery furnace. As such, this prayer is totally acceptable
to Protestants and was retained by them in the “reformed” Lutheran and
Anglican services. Should anyone doubt its acceptability to the Modernist
mind, he has but to consider the interpretation placed on this prayer by
Father Joseph Jungmann, S.J. – a liberal and one of the most scholarly
members of the Concilium responsible for the New Rite: The prayer “In a
spirit of humility” which had always served as an emphatic summary of the
process of offering, and as such was recited with a deep inclination [bowing
of the body by the priest], has been retained unchanged for the very reason
that it gives apt expression to the “invisible sacrifice” of the heart as the
interior meaning of all exterior offering. 26 In
the “Offertory” of the Novus Ordo Missae, when interpreted literally,
that is, according to the prayers actually said, and not according to the
traditional acceptation of what the Offertory of the Mass really is
(or is supposed to be in the New Mass), then all that the New Mass
“Offertory” actually indicates is to be offered at the New Mass is the bread
and wine. Against this observation, some will say that, in the offering of
the bread-host, the priest-president of the New Mass says, “It will become
for us the bread of life.” But as the late Father Burns, one of America’s
most conservative Novus Ordo priests, pointed out, this can as well be
understood as referring to the bread we eat each day at our regular meals,
often called “the staff of life.” The
prayer, “In a Spirit of Humility,” in the New Mass, also includes the phrase
“for us” which the 16th century English Protestant Reformer
Cranmer insisted denied the sacrament principle ex opere operato – the
principle that, so long as the proper form and matter are used by the priest
offering the Mass, and providing the celebrant is a true priest, Consecration
occurs. Regardless of the disposition of the priest or other participants.
The same comment that was made with regard to the bread being the “staff of
life” can be made with regard to the wine and the phrase, “it will become our
spiritual drink.” And so, once again, the conclusion of Cardinals Ottaviani
and Bacci’s Critical Study of the Novus Ordo Missae appears
appropriate: The three ends of
the Mass are altered; no distinction is allowed to remain between Divine and
human sacrifice; bread and wine are only “spiritually” (not substantially)
changed... Not a word do we find as to the priest’s power to sacrifice, or
about his act of consecration, the bringing about through him of the Eucharistic
Presence. He now appears as nothing more than a Protestant minister. The
heart of the Traditional Mass is the Canon. It remains the same every time
Mass is offered, except during the most solemn feasts of the Church, when a phrase
or two are added which refer to the mystery being celebrated. In the New
Mass, the Canon is abolished. In its place is substituted one of four (at
least for now) “Anaphoras” or “Eucharistic Prayers.” The
first Eucharistic Prayer (even in Latin) is not, as is often claimed, the
ancient Roman Canon we were all familiar with in the Tridentine Mass. It is
merely modeled on the traditional Canon, but contains several significant
differences. The claim that the ancient Canon of the Mass was retained allowed
the New Rite to be accepted with a minimum of protest from priests and laity
alike. Those priests using the First Eucharistic Prayer were assured that
they were in effect saying the old Mass. However, with the destruction of the
traditional Offertory, with its prayers that state precisely what occurs
during the Canon, and with the modern mistranslations, Eucharistic Prayer
Number One is totally capable of being given an entirely Modernist and
Protestant interpretation. The
phrase which allows for this wrong interpretation is found in the prayer Quam
Oblationem: “Be pleased to make this same offering wholly blessed, to
consecrate it and approve it, making it reasonable and acceptable, so that it
MAY BECOME FOR US the Body and Blood of...” (emphasis mine). In the absence
of the traditional Offertory prayers, “for us” can be understood in the
Cranmerian sense and general Protestant acceptation, visibly, that the bread
and wine are not themselves transubstantiated so that they become the Body
and Blood of Jesus Christ substantially and in themselves, but
rather that as we receive them “with lively faith,” they might become FOR US
(!) the presence of Jesus Christ. In Cranmer’s first edition of the Book
of Common Prayer, he prefaced the Words of Institution (i.e., the words
used for the Protestant so-called “consecration”) with this phrase: Hear us, O
merciful Father, we beseech Thee; and with Thy Holy Spirit and Word vouchsafe
to bless and sanctify these Thy gifts and creation of bread and wine that
they may be made UNTO US the body and blood of Thy most dearly beloved Son,
Jesus Christ. [Emphasis added] Some
of his fellow reformers attacked this wording on the grounds that it was
capable of being understood as effecting Transubstantiation! To this Cranmer
indignantly replied: “We do not pray absolutely that the bread and wine may
be made into the body and blood of Christ, but that UNTO US in that holy
mystery they may be made so; that is to say, that we may so worthily receive
the same that we may be partakers in Christ’s body and blood and that
therefore in spirit and in truth we may be spiritually nourished.” Cranmer
was insisting that the expression “for us” meant that Transubstantiation (the
change of the substance of the bread and wine into the substance of the Body
and Blood of Christ) did not objectively occur, but rather that the
personal disposition of those present allowed them to be spiritually
nourished. In other words, the phrase in effect denied the Catholic doctrine
as it would alter be solemnly defined in Session XXII of the Council of
Trent. 27 The
Second Eucharistic Prayer is said to have been taken from Hippolytus’ Apostolic
Tradition (written, it should be remembered, at a time when he was a
schismatic and an anti-pope). However, to this already questionable document,
the innovators made significant changes. Thus, for example, they suppressed
the phrases ut mortem solveret et vincula diaboli dirumperet, et infernum
calceret et iustos illuminet (“so that He [Christ] could conquer death,
break the chains of Satan, trod Hell under foot, and illuminate the just”),
and qua nos dignos habuisti adstare coram te et tibi sacerdotes ministrare
(“for holding us worthy to stand before Thee and serve Thee as priests”) –
Catholic concepts which the liturgical innovators removed and all concepts
the innovators and liberal Protestants abhor. Most significant of all, they
gratuitously inserted into the original text the very phrase “FOR US,” an
action which makes their heretical intent more than clear. As
in Cranmer’s second Book of Common Prayer, so also in the Novus
Ordo’s Eucharistic Prayer Number 2, all pretense of a Catholic
interpretation is eliminated. When Eucharistic Prayer Number 2 is used, the Te
Igitur, Memento domine, and Quam Oblationem – three prayers that
unambiguously allow for a Catholic interpretation of nobis (for us) –
are no longer said. Thus, there is absolutely NO preparation (build-up or
development) in Eucharistic Prayer Number 2 for the “Consecration” of the
species (bread and wine). Sneeze and you will miss it. In
the Traditional Mass it is impossible to understand the word nobis
(“for us”) in the Cranmerian sense (i.e., where Transubstantiation is
denied). In Eucharistic Prayer Number 1 of the Novus Ordo Missae, the
situation regarding the priest’s intention to consecration (effect
Transubstantiation) is ambiguous. But in Eucharistic Prayer Number 2,
Catholic teaching in this regard disappears entirely, and the Protestant
acceptation triumphs. As Hugh Ross Williamson said, “It is impossible to
understand it in any other way than in the Cranmerian sense.” 28 Further,
the deliberate nature of the changes in Eucharistic Prayer Number 2 – the
addition of nobis (“for us”) to the “canon of Hippolytus – reflect
back on the manner in which we are to understand nobis (“for us”) in
Eucharistic Prayer Number 1. To make matters worse, the creators of the Novus
Ordo Missae clearly show their preference for Eucharistic Prayer Number
2. The official documents from Rome instruct us that Eucharistic Prayer 2 can
be used on any occasion. It is recommended for Sundays “unless for pastoral
reasons another Eucharistic Prayer is chosen.” It is also particularly
suitable “for weekday masses, or for mass in particular circumstances.”
Further, it is recommended for “masses with children, young people and small
groups,” and above all for Catechism classes. 29 Beyond the power of these
suggestions, human nature being what it is, priests will be inclined to use
Eucharistic Prayer 2 because of its brevity. The more commonly it is said,
the more quickly Catholic understanding of the true nature of the Mass will
be lost. It
is worth noting at this point that Paul VI added the phrase quod pro vobis
tradetur (“which is given up for you”) to the supposed words of
Consecration in the New Mass. So also did Luther and Cranmer to their
Protestant liturgical services. Luther explained the reasons for this in his Shorter
Catechism. “The word ‘for you’ calls simply for believing hearts.” And
such, of course, only further highlights the importance of the word nobis
(“for us”) in this entire sordid affair. Space
in this short presentation allows for only a brief comment on Eucharistic
Prayers 3 and 4. In
Eucharistic Prayer 3 the following words are addressed to the Lord: “From age
to age You gather a people to Yourself, in order that from east and west a
perfect offering may be made to the glory of Your name.” This phrase once
again makes it clear that it is the people, rather than the priest,
who are the indispensable element in the celebration. 30 Even Michael Davies
notes that “in not one [his emphasis] of the new Eucharistic Prayers is it
made clear that the Consecration is effected by the priest alone, and that he
is not acting as a spokesman or president for a concelebrating congregation.”
31 Eucharistic
Prayer 4, composed by innovator Fr. Cipriano Vagaggini, presents yet another
interesting aspect of the “Liturgical Revolution.” The Latin itself is
innocuous, but the official (and Rome-approved) translation used in the
United States was clearly open to an heretical interpretation. Compare the
following passages, one from the Preface to Eucharistic 4, and the other from
the Preface of the Traditional Mass of the Holy Trinity:
Faced
with the fact that the entire teaching of the Church is contained in the
liturgy, this is a most instructive piece of skulduggery. In the Latin
version of the New Mass the words unus Deus (“one God”) are to be
found, and no explicit heresy is taught. However, even in the Latin, apart
from the Creed, there is no clear expression of the doctrine of the Trinity.
When we come to the vernacular version of Eucharistic Prayer 4, the
mistranslation of unus Deus by “You alone are God” clearly departs
from the traditional norm. In the absence of any other reference in this
prayer to the Son or the Holy Ghost, the use of the word “alone” appears to
be an explicit denial of the doctrine of the Blessed Trinity – but definitely
an implicit denial, at the very least. It is for this reason that some
have referred to this Eucharistic Prayer as the “Arian Canon.” (The heretic
Arius denied the Catholic doctrine of the Trinity.) Here we have yet another
example of “a return to primitive practice!” Because of repeated complaints,
this mistranslation has been recently corrected. That an explicit heretical
formula could have been used for 18 years in the post-Conciliar Church speaks
volumes about the liturgical innovators’ contempt for the fundamental
doctrines of the Catholic Church. 32 In
the Novus Ordo Missae, as in the Lutheran service, the words of
Consecration – the very heart of the Traditional Rite – are now part of what
is called the “Institution Narrative,” 33 an expression not found in the
traditional Missals of the Church. Merely
placing the words of Consecration under such a heading is bound to induce the
“priest-president” at the New Mass to say these words as if he were merely retelling
the story of the Last Supper, some 2,000 years ago, instead of actually
consecration the bread and wine in the here and now. Retelling the story
of the Last Supper alone does not change the bread and wine into the Body and
Blood of Christ – the priest must act in persona Christi, that is, he
must say these critical words “in the person of Christ,” for it is Christ
who, by His infinite power, through the words of the priest, effects the
Consecration. The “revised” version of the General Instruction, seeking to
mollify critics of the New Mass, does speak of the priest acting in
persona Christi, but not with regard to the manner in which he says the
words of Consecration. Even if the use of the phrase “Institution Narrative”
were the only defect in the New Rite, it would be sufficient to raise grave
doubts as to whether or not the elements of bread and wine are changed into
the Body and Blood of Christ at the New Mass. The
Church has always taught that, for the Sacred Species to be confected at
Mass, that is, for Consecration to occur the priest must 1) be properly
ordained, 2) intend to do what the Church intends to do at Mass, 3) use the
proper matter, and 4) use the proper form (or words). He must also say the
Words of Consecration as an act which he personally, by his own
priestly power, performs in persona Christi (“in the person of
Christ,” who is the Principal Priest at every Mass), and not as part of a
mere historical narrative, he turns what is supposed to occur at Mass (namely
Consecration) into just a simple memorial of an historical event that
happened two thousand years ago, and nothing sacred takes place, i.e., there
is no Consecration. As St. Thomas Aquinas says: The Consecration
is accomplished by the words and expressions of the Lord Jesus. Because, by
all the other words spoken, praise is rendered to God, prayer is put up for
the people, for kings, and others; but when the time comes for perfecting the
Sacrament, the priest uses no longer his own words, but the words of Christ.
Therefore, it is CHRIST’S words that perfect the Sacrament.... The form of
this Sacrament is pronounced as if Christ were speaking in person, so that it
is given to be understood that the minister does nothing in perfecting this Sacrament,
except to pronounce the words of Christ. (Summa, III, Q. 78, Art. 1). To
say the words of Consecration merely as part of a narrative would render the
Mass invalid; that is, the bread and wine would remain just bread and wine
afterwards and would not become the Body and Blood of Christ. According to
the eminent liturgist, Father O’Connell: The Words of
Consecration have to be said, not merely as a[n] historical narrative of
words used once by Our Lord – as the celebrant recites them, e.g., in the accounts
of the Last Supper, which are read in the Mass in Holy Week, or on the Feast
of Corpus Christi – but as a present affirmation by the priest
speaking in the person of Christ, and intending to effect something, here
and now, by the pronouncing of these words. 34 [Emphasis added] Older
priests may say the words of Consecration in persona Christi from
habit. Younger priests, basing their practice on the General Instruction and
on the Modernist theories of Sacramental theology, which they imbibe in the
post-Conciliar seminaries, almost certainly will not. Thus, it is hardly
surprising to find Cardinals Ottaviani and Bacci’s Critical Study of the
New Order of the Mass noting that The Words of
Consecration, as they appear in the context of the Novus Ordo [in
Latin] may be valid according to the intention of the ministering priest. But
they may not be, for the yare so no longer ex vi verborum (“by the
force of the words used”), or more precisely, in virtue of the modus
significandi (“the way of signifying”) which they have had till now in
the Mass. Will priests who, in the future, have not had the traditional
training and who rely on the Novus Ordo to do what the Church does,
make a valid consecration? One may be permitted to doubt it.... These
words of the Critical Study, having been published already in
September, 1967, are incredibly perspicacious, if not indeed prophetic. And
so we now come to consider the words of Consecration themselves. These words
in the Traditional Mass are most sacred, for they are attributed by Tradition
to Christ Himself, and it is by means of them that the Sacred Species is
“confected” (the bread and wine are changed into the Body and Blood of
Christ). These precious words, the very words of Christ, once written in gold
and always highlighted and emphasized in their printed form, have been
altered and embedded in the Institution Narrative of the New Mass. Now,
a Sacrament, by doctrinal definition, is “a sensible sign, instituted by Our
Lord Jesus Christ, to signify and produce grace.” This sensible sign consists
of a “matter” and a “form” (i.e., a proper “material thing” and proper
“words”). As St. Augustine taught, “the word [‘form’] is joined to the
element [‘matter’] and the Sacrament exists.” Examples of “matter” are water
in Baptism and wheat bread and grape wine in the Mass. 35 The “form” consists
of the words which the “minister of the Sacrament” pronounces which he
applies to the matter. These words “determine” the matter, to produce the
effect of the Sacrament, and also closely signify what the Sacrament does.
The forms (“words”) of the Sacraments were given to us by Christ either in
specie (exactly) or in genere (in a general way). According to
standard teaching, Christ determined
what special graces were to be conferred by means of external rites: for some
Sacraments (e.g. Baptism, the Eucharist) He determined minutely (in specie)
the matter and form: for others He determined only in a general way (in
genere) that there should be external ceremony, by which special graces
were to be conferred, leaving to the Apostles or to the Apostles or to the
Church the power to determine whatever He had not determined – e.g., to
prescribe the matter and form of the Sacraments of Confirmation and of Holy
Orders. 36 The
form of the Consecration in the Traditional Mass has been fixed since
Apostolic times. 37 It has been “canonically” fixed since the so-called
Armenian Decree of the Council of Florence (1438-1445). According to the Catechism
of the Council of Trent, the form (capitalized below) is found within these
words in the Canon: Who the day
before He suffered took bread into His holy and venerable hands, and with His
eyes lifted up to Heaven, to Thee, God, His almighty Father, giving thanks to
Thee, He blessed, broke, and gave it to His disciples, saying: Take and eat
you all of this. FOR
THIS IS MY BODY. In like manner,
after He had supped, taking also this glorious chalice into His holy and
venerable hands, again giving thanks to Thee, He blessed and gave it to His
disciples saying: Take and drink you all of this. FOR THIS IS THE
CHALICE OF MY BLOOD OF THE NEW AND ETERNAL TESTAMENT: THE MYSTERY OF FAITH:
WHICH SHALL BE SHED FOR YOU AND FOR MANY UNTO THE REMISSION OF SINS. As often as you
shall do these things, you shall do them in memory of Me. The
Catechism of the Council of Trent continues: “Of this form, no one can
doubt.” Taken
from the People’s Mass Book, and in accord with Documents on the Liturgy,
par. 1360, the following is the “form” for the Novus Ordo Missae (In
the People’s Mass Book – as in the “Missalette” in common use in American
Churches – no words are capitalized or italicized; they are run together so
that the form of the Sacrament can in no way be distinguished from the rest
of the text which forms part of the Institution Narrative: however in Paul
VI’s Latin original, the words are in slightly larger type, signified below
by italicization.): Before he was given
up to death, a death he freely accepted, he took bread and gave you thanks.
He broke the bread, gave it to his disciples, and said: Take and eat, all
of you, this is my body which will be given up for you. When supper was
ended, he took the cup. Again he gave you thanks and praise, gave the cup to
his disciples, and said: Take this, all of you, and drink from it: this is
the cup of my blood, the blood of the new and everlasting covenant. It will
be shed for you and for all men so that sins may be forgiven. Do this in
memory of me. 38 In
introducing these new forms Paul VI called them “the words of the Lord” (verba
dominica) rather than “the Words of Consecration” – thus once again
stressing the narrative nature of the Rite. Having changed the very words of
Our Lord, he further said that he “wished them” to be “as follows” (Documents
on the Liturgy, par. 1360; also cf. Paul VI’s Missale Romanum, his
Apostolic Constitution of April 3, 1969, establishing the New Mass). How
anyone, even a Pope, could “wish” the words of Christ to be other than what
they are is beyond conception! It would seem however that for the
innovators, even the very words of Christ are neither sacrosanct nor
inviolable. And so it is with exactitude that Paul VI described the changes
introduced into the Eucharistic Prayers as “singularly new,” as “amazing and
extraordinary” and as the “greatest innovation” of all the innovations
introduced. Indeed, with regard to the words of Consecration instituted by
Christ at the Last Supper, Paul VI used the Latin term “mutation.” 39 When
such a “mutation” is substantial – that is, when it changes the meaning of
the form of a Sacrament, it renders it invalid. As we shall see, even if
there is only doubt about whether or not a change in the words of a Sacrament
is substantial, i.e., whether or not there is a change in meaning, the use of
such a form is considered sacrilegious. 40 In
changing the form of the Sacrament of Holy Eucharist, the innovators argued
that they were bringing it “into line with Scripture.” 41 Now there is
absolutely no reason why this should have been done. Scripture is not a
greater source of Revelation than Tradition – indeed, strictly speaking,
Scripture is part of Tradition. Imagine the hue and cry that would be
raised in someone were to say that he wanted to change Scripture to bring it
into line with Tradition! It is not from Scripture, but from Tradition
that we receive the form (the words) used in confecting the Eucharist!
Such indeed must be the case, because the earliest Gospel was written some
either years after Our Lord’s death. Let us listen to the words of Cardinal
Manning: We neither derive
our religion from the Scriptures, nor does it depend upon them. Our faith was
in the world before the New Testament was written. 42 And,
as Father Joseph Jungmann states: In all the known
liturgies the core of the eucharistica, and therefore of the Mass, is
formed by the narrative of the institution and the words of Consecration. Our
very first observation in this regard is the remarkable fact that the texts
of the account of institution, among them in particular, the most ancient,
are never simply a Scripture text restated. They go back to pre-Biblical
tradition. Here we face an outgrowth of the fact that the Eucharist was
celebrated long before the evangelists and St. Paul set out to record the
Gospel story. 43 Beyond
this, Pope Innocent III (1198-1216) notes “that there are three elements in
the narrative not commemorated by the Evangelists: ‘with his eyes lifted up
to heaven,’ ‘and eternal testament’ (whereas the Gospels give only ‘of the
New Testament’), and ‘the mystery of the faith’ (mysterium fidei).”
And these he holds to be derived from Christ and the Apostles, “for who would
be so presumptuous and daring as to insert [much less remove] these things
out of his own devotion? In truth, the Apostles received the form of the
words from Christ Himself, and the Church received it from the Apostles
themselves.” 44 Indeed,
it is quite possible, and even probable, that the Scripture accounts intentionally
avoided giving the correct form of this Sacrament, lest it be profaned.
Listen to St. Thomas Aquinas: The Evangelists
did not intend to hand down the form of the Sacraments, which in the
primitive Church had to be kept concealed, as Dionysius observes at the close
of his book on the Ecclesiastical Hierarchy; their object was to write the
story of Christ. (Summa, III, Q. 78, Art. 3). No
one can doubt but that the post-Conciliar Church has gone against Tradition,
against the decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, and against the Catechism of the
Council of Trent in changing the form of the Sacrament of the Holy Eucharist.
It is not a matter of debate as to whether it has the right to do so. As Leo
XIII (1878-1903) said in the Bull Apostolicae Curae: The Church is
forbidden to change, or even touch, the matter or form of any Sacrament. She
may indeed change or abolish or introduce something in the non-essential
rites or “ceremonial” parts to be used in the administration of the
Sacraments, such as the processions, prayers or hymns before or after the
actual words of the form are recited.... 45 One
of the documents printed in front of every edition of the traditional Roman
altar Missal is the bull of Pope St. Pius V entitled De defectibus
(1572), which states in part: If anyone removes
or changes anything in the Form of the Consecration of the Body and Blood,
and by this change of words, does not signify the same thing as these words
do, he does not confect the Sacrament. 46 With
regard to those Sacramental forms given us in genere, the words can be
changed, providing there is no change in meaning. When an alteration in
meaning occurs, the change is called “substantial.” Now, apart from the fact
that one cannot apply this principle to those forms given us specifically by
Christ (in specie), it is nevertheless argued by some that, despite
the change in the words, there is no there is no change in meaning, and hence
no substantial change. It behooves us then to consider the substance of the
form of the Sacrament, for if there is a “substantial” change – that is to
say, a change in meaning – then the form is unquestionably rendered invalid.
This is not a matter of debate, but of fact. 47 First,
consider the change in the first and last sentences of the supposed “form of
consecration” in the New Mass. Instead of “do these things,” we find the
celebrant instructed to “do this,” that is, “take and eat (drink),” thus
strongly suggesting that what is involved is a “supper” and a “memorial,”
rather than the entire action. And all this activity involves a “cup” rather
than a “chalice,” thus further reinforcing a merely culinary implication.
Next, note the addition of the phrase “which will be given up for you.” We
have already alluded to Luther’s reason for adding this phrase (cf. page 40),
and the Novus Ordo Missae, as we have seen, was brought into line with
the Lutheran rite. The removal of the phrase “Mystery of Faith” (which
Tradition tells us was added by the Apostles) and its displacement to the
so-called “Memorial Acclamation,” which follows the words of
Consecration, leads the faithful to believe that the Mystery of Faith lies,
not in the Consecration, but rather in Christ’s Death, Resurrection and Final
Coming. In the New Mass, while Christ is supposedly right there on the altar
immediately after the words of Consecration, the faithful are made to say,
“Until You come again,” which sets up a total contradiction to the reality of
His Sacramental Presence. It
is also argued that as long as the priest says the essential Words of
Consecration – “This is My Body.” “This is My Blood....” – nothing else is
required. Those who hold to this position ignore the defects in the “form” of
the New Mass (essential words needed to confect the Sacrament) and the fact
that the preceding words – i.e., the setting in which these words of the
“form” occur (as we shall see more fully later on) – alter the meaning
of the words of the form. They also ignore the fact that the words of the
form of the New Mass, while themselves essential to the form of the
Sacrament, do not constitute the COMPLETE form of the Sacrament. (One
should compare the form of the New mass with that of the Traditional Roman
Catholic Mass, or even with the forms used by the other Rites of the Roman
Catholic Church.) Finally, those who object to these criticisms of the
“Consecration” of the New Mass ignore the fact that it is forbidden for a
priest to use the Words of Consecration with the intent to confect the Sacred
Species outside of a true Mass. As Canon 817 of the 1918 Code of Canon Law
states, “it is unlawful even in the case of extreme necessity, to consecrate
one species without the other, or to consecrate both outside the Mass.”
Benedictine canonist Father Charles Augustine comments on this to the effect
that “to consecrate outside of the Mass would not only be a sacrilege, but
probably an attempt at invalid consecration.” 48 The
issue of the context in which the essential Words of Consecration are used is
most important because this setting is capable of changing their
meaning in a substantial manner. This is another reason why the Catholic
Church traditionally has always been so insistent upon the integrity of the
form (i.e., all the words of the form) used to confect the Sacraments.
Consider the teaching of St. Thomas Aquinas on this point: Some have
maintained that the words “This is the Chalice of My Blood” alone belong to
the substance of the form, but not those words which follow. Now this seems
incorrect, because the words that follow them are determinations of the
predicate, that is, of Christ’s Blood; consequently they belong to the
integrity of the expression. And on this account others say more accurately
that all the words which follow are of the substance of the form, down to the
words, “As often as ye shall do these things.” [But not including
these words, for the priest puts down the Chalice when he comes to them.]
Hence it is that the priest pronounces all the words, under the same rite and
manner, holding the chalice in his hands. (Summa, III, Q. 78, Art. 3). The
culmination of sacrilege occurs in the use of the new form of the Words of
Consecration over the wine with the mistranslation of the Latin word multis
(“many”) in the Latin version of the Novus Ordo Missae by “all” in
almost all vernacular versions, a change which (to use St. Thomas Aquinas’
words), clearly “determines the predicate,” with a meaning that is different
from the meaning traditionally intended by the Catholic Church. The excuse
given for this mistranslation was that there is no Aramaic word or “all,” a
philological falsity propagated by the Protestant scholar Joachim Jeremias
and one which has been repeatedly exposed. 49 Moreover, of the various Mass
rites which the Church has traditionally always recognized as valid – some 76
different rites in many different languages, many of which date back to
Apostolic times – NOT ONE has ever used “all” in the form for the
Consecration of the wine. What makes this particular mistranslation most offensive is that the Church has always taught th |