I spent several years as a diocesan liturgist, organizing the major celebrations (Chrism Mass, ordinations, etc.). The Master of Ceremonies I worked with and I came up with three simple standards when preparing a liturgy:
1) Trust the liturgy as it has been given to us by the Church.
2) Attend to the text, noting what it asks and what options it gives.
3) Make choices that will help the people (bishop, ministers, assembly) worship well together.
I can't say we did everything perfectly, but these points helped us immensely in our roles serving the Church.
The problem is that you assume the Catholic tradition is simply "doing the red, saying the black," a sort of legal positivism that is antithetical to the faith. We need to admit that there are numerous Novus Ordo masses that are ugly, irreverent, and disastrous to the faithful yet still technically following all of the rubrics. That's because not only does the Novus Ordo allows over 3 million variations, but the very narrative of rupture that forbids the TLM means every priest (even the well-intentioned ones) have to figure out what reverent means for their parish. You cut yourself off from the tradition, you have to start figuring things out on your own.
I get what you’re saying about the Mass being a consistent experience. I think people often underestimate how much even small changes can shift the focus away from what the liturgy is actually teaching. It’s easy to see those little innovations as harmless or even helpful, but when you’re trying to form someone in the faith, those “harmless” things can create a kind of fog around the real meaning. It’s interesting too, thinking about how the Mass is meant to be accessible even to someone seeing it for the first time. When everything lines up with the rubrics, it’s like an invitation to step into a universal language of worship. And I keep going back to your point about the focus being on Christ, not us. Even small deviations can subtly shift attention, and it makes me realize that there’s a lot of grace in letting the Mass itself guide the hearts and minds of the people, rather than trying to add extra layers of “meaning” that we think might help. It’s humbling, in a way, to recognize that the structure the Church provides is already full of everything we need.
I’ve been going to mass for over 70 years. My first communion, confirmation and my mom’s funeral were all TLM. I’ve gone to literally dozens of parishes all over the US and a few Eastern rite masses. I’ve been singing and been playing in the choir for About 55 years of the NO. I’ve seen tremendous abuses of the liturgy and some small ones. I even participated in a few aberrations and sung a few songs that I would no do again. I remember the tlm High Mass as a wonderful celebration but the Low mass was often not always celebrated the same everytime (I was also an alter server) and I was challenged as a child to remain engaged. Everyone talks about the great Catholic music but that really didn’t exist in small parishes. The NO certainly provided a lot of opportunities for variation and I often found the Priest would use the shortest prayers and even modified many. The worst masses were in liberal churches and I even left a couple at the homily because I thought I was in a Protestant church. But, in the last 20 years and in conservative areas I’ve participated in many reverent celebrations with decent music, chanting the service music and often in Latin. As a rule of thumb, if the full Confiteor is used the rest of the mass usually progresses according to the rubrics.
I’ve also been to eastern rites and frankly, except for more use of other languages and the position of some prayers, I really had no problem seeing them as valid but slightly different.
I have a really hard time believing that the last 60 years of masses are invalid and that my relationship to Jesus has been destroyed.
If Rome reinstituted the entire 1962 missal and rubrics tomorrow I would happily continue with those.
From my perspective as a parent the loss of faith has very little to do with the churches liturgy but the total loss of morality in western society and no churches including The Catholic church and its clergy not standing up against Satan’s onslaught in media, politics and education. Perhaps the biggest was a massive revolt in the clergy to support artificial contraception with a wink-wink. Once sex became a recreational activity all the rest fell.
I spent several years as a diocesan liturgist, organizing the major celebrations (Chrism Mass, ordinations, etc.). The Master of Ceremonies I worked with and I came up with three simple standards when preparing a liturgy:
1) Trust the liturgy as it has been given to us by the Church.
2) Attend to the text, noting what it asks and what options it gives.
3) Make choices that will help the people (bishop, ministers, assembly) worship well together.
I can't say we did everything perfectly, but these points helped us immensely in our roles serving the Church.
The problem is that you assume the Catholic tradition is simply "doing the red, saying the black," a sort of legal positivism that is antithetical to the faith. We need to admit that there are numerous Novus Ordo masses that are ugly, irreverent, and disastrous to the faithful yet still technically following all of the rubrics. That's because not only does the Novus Ordo allows over 3 million variations, but the very narrative of rupture that forbids the TLM means every priest (even the well-intentioned ones) have to figure out what reverent means for their parish. You cut yourself off from the tradition, you have to start figuring things out on your own.
I get what you’re saying about the Mass being a consistent experience. I think people often underestimate how much even small changes can shift the focus away from what the liturgy is actually teaching. It’s easy to see those little innovations as harmless or even helpful, but when you’re trying to form someone in the faith, those “harmless” things can create a kind of fog around the real meaning. It’s interesting too, thinking about how the Mass is meant to be accessible even to someone seeing it for the first time. When everything lines up with the rubrics, it’s like an invitation to step into a universal language of worship. And I keep going back to your point about the focus being on Christ, not us. Even small deviations can subtly shift attention, and it makes me realize that there’s a lot of grace in letting the Mass itself guide the hearts and minds of the people, rather than trying to add extra layers of “meaning” that we think might help. It’s humbling, in a way, to recognize that the structure the Church provides is already full of everything we need.
I’ve been going to mass for over 70 years. My first communion, confirmation and my mom’s funeral were all TLM. I’ve gone to literally dozens of parishes all over the US and a few Eastern rite masses. I’ve been singing and been playing in the choir for About 55 years of the NO. I’ve seen tremendous abuses of the liturgy and some small ones. I even participated in a few aberrations and sung a few songs that I would no do again. I remember the tlm High Mass as a wonderful celebration but the Low mass was often not always celebrated the same everytime (I was also an alter server) and I was challenged as a child to remain engaged. Everyone talks about the great Catholic music but that really didn’t exist in small parishes. The NO certainly provided a lot of opportunities for variation and I often found the Priest would use the shortest prayers and even modified many. The worst masses were in liberal churches and I even left a couple at the homily because I thought I was in a Protestant church. But, in the last 20 years and in conservative areas I’ve participated in many reverent celebrations with decent music, chanting the service music and often in Latin. As a rule of thumb, if the full Confiteor is used the rest of the mass usually progresses according to the rubrics.
I’ve also been to eastern rites and frankly, except for more use of other languages and the position of some prayers, I really had no problem seeing them as valid but slightly different.
I have a really hard time believing that the last 60 years of masses are invalid and that my relationship to Jesus has been destroyed.
If Rome reinstituted the entire 1962 missal and rubrics tomorrow I would happily continue with those.
From my perspective as a parent the loss of faith has very little to do with the churches liturgy but the total loss of morality in western society and no churches including The Catholic church and its clergy not standing up against Satan’s onslaught in media, politics and education. Perhaps the biggest was a massive revolt in the clergy to support artificial contraception with a wink-wink. Once sex became a recreational activity all the rest fell.