The Recovering Choir Director

Benedictine Father Leo Chamberlain writes this piece for Britain’s Catholic Herald, reproduced in full below (links, footnotes, comments, and emphases added):

Clarifications were promised quite a long time ago on Pope Benedict’s Motu Proprio^[1] and letter to bishops.  In fact, all that is needed is to follow the whole guidance given.

A few minimise the possibilities offered by the Motu Proprio.  On the other hand, some few priests are, in celebrating the ordinary form, refusing to give Communion in the hand; and some few of the laity refuse to receive communion except at a Mass in the old form.  There have been extravagant suggestions that it’s all been done wrong for 40 years. The outrageous remarks of Bishop Williamson may distract attention from the need for a fundamental and positive response from the Society of St Pius X.  The Pope has said quite plainly that the new missal will remain the ordinary form of the Roman rite: “arbitrary deformations” have been the problem.^[2]

Those of us brought up with the old form know there were some arbitrary deformations in the Fifties. The bishops of the time were worried constantly about priests gabbling the Mass.  The best [unfortunate choice of wording; "quickest" would have been more apt] time of which I know was an unbelievable 12 minutes. The urgencies of ordinary parish life required some adaptation in the celebration of the Mass.  The long formula for the giving of communion was spoken as the priest gave communion to four or five people.  The multiple signs of the Cross during the Canon were a blur of rapid action.  The congregation used often to go their own way with the rosary or devotional prayers.  [Today, many simply zone out.] The past was not a golden age.  Of one thing I am sure: if the use of the old form became ordinary, the same problems would recur.  [A valid point.]

Some years ago, I was fascinated by the televising of one of the first priest members of the Society of St Pius X celebrating Mass.  There was something inauthentic and prissy about it, though I do not doubt the Mass was valid.  [Certainly, however, any message is received according to the disposition of the recipient.  Mass is no exception.]

It was very far from Hilaire Belloc’s description of a priest saying Mass, of the craftsman stumping up to the altar with his apprentice, and getting on with it in a gruff and objective fashion.  [An interesting choice of words, this.] It was not at all like the devout and ordinary celebrations in the early morning by priests at the Ampleforth of my youth, or by Fr. Michael Hollings at the midday Mass in Oxford that he was able to celebrate by then because of the relaxation of the fasting rules.  Most good pastorally minded priests were not too interested in the niceties of the rubrics.  [Many still are not.]

Yet the old form carried with it a sense of the sacred, and that is what, at its best, all of us old enough remember. I was rather pleased with myself at the age of 19 when I had parts of the Roman Canon off by heart and was able to say it to myself while the priest spoke it inaudibly.  In his private writings the Pope as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger mentions the problem of too many words spoken aloud in the new missal.  He suggested that only the first words of each prayer might be spoken audibly, to allow for each of those present to voice in their minds the rest of the prayer.

There is a problem here.  We live in a culture that puts a natural priority on reading over hearing.  Our eyes can shut out our ears.  [I experience this constantly during my schola's rehearsals.  When I tell them to shut their books, listen to the melody and words of a chant, and then have them repeat it, invariably the sound is much more unified.] It may just be that the fewer words aloud of the old form present the most hopeful way forward for the new form.  In any case, in both the old and the new form, we must speak so that the words be not just audible but carry meaning.  [As an advocate of the Sung Mass, regardless of the form, I contend that we must sing the Mass to that its meaning can penetrate our very being.  To merely speak the words of the liturgy is to stylistically render them no different than our everyday words; this is especially apparent when the vernacular is employed.  Liturgical singing, especially when closely adhering to the forms handed to us by the liturgy, is an audible form of iconography.]

Pope Benedict wrote of the deformations of the rite.  Creativity, so-called, has led to arbitrary changes in the way the new form is celebrated, so that the form of the Mass may be regarded as just a question of the taste of an individual priest.  If we were all more obedient to the General Instruction as revised in 2002 ^[3], the people might be able to concentrate more upon the rite and less upon the personality of the priest.  [The priest facing ad Deum, which the Roman Missal presupposes, would help matters considerably in reducing the perceived need for the injection of clerical personality into the rite.]

On the other hand, I have often celebrated Mass in informal ways in particular circumstances outside church, and when I read of Pope John Paul’s custom of lashing canoe paddles together to make a cross when he celebrated Mass with his students on an expedition into the high Tatra mountains of southern Poland, I knew exactly what he was about.  Yet reverence in an informal celebration, wherever it is, whatever need it meets, is protected because of the way in which we normally celebrate Mass.  [Given, of course, that the normal celebration respects the spirit and letter of the Mass.]

I was among the first generation of priests who did not learn the old form.  If I saw pastoral need, I could learn it.  But there are things about the old form which there was reason to change. Sacramental actions should be expressive of the Mystery; not just inexplicable or complicated, accessible only to the understanding of the expert.  [I think this admonition applies equally to the new form; especially since some arbitrary deformations to which it is subject are either inexplicable, complicated or both.]

Most important is the Pope’s suggestion which has had little attention, especially among the liturgically conservative, that the two forms can be “mutually enriching”. The missal of 1962 is open to development.  New saints, and the new prefaces, could well be inserted.  We should work towards a single calendar with some allowed variations.  Religious communities and particular groups with a full liturgical life should be able to celebrate feasts like Corpus Christi on the Thursday for which they were set in the old calendar.  The riches of the new lectionary could well be made available in the old form.

I can recall dignified and reverent serving by the young.  More can be done to promote that in the new form.  [Indeed, more must be done.] A change of the timing of the kiss of peace would provide for greater quiet before Communion.  [A change in the way the kiss of peace is done may have the same effect.] But most important is the speedy introduction of a more adequate translation.  What we have at present is a paraphrase which has lost much of the fullness of meaning of the Latin.

Prayer and liturgy must not be the province of ideology. I suggest some general guidelines.  The first is that both forms be treated with full respect by all. The second is that the stable groups who might want the old form be treated as generously as possible: the means of small parishes are limited, nevertheless.  [For example, a group may desire a weekly celebration, but may only get a monthly celebration.  In my parish's situation, we waited about six months from the celebration of the first Extraordinary Form Low Mass to the celebration of the desired Sung Mass, initially on a biweekly basis.  To arrive at the goal of a weekly Sung Mass took another six months.] The third is that we renew our efforts to use fitting music for the Mass.  Too much of what is sung now is musically and textually unworthy.  Gregorian chant is not so difficult.  [Using Gregorian chant eliminates the worthiness issue of both music and text, in that it is an integral part of the liturgy and, on account of its historical pedigree within the Roman Rite, remains the example by which all other music intended for liturgy, Latin or vernacular, is to be measured.  And certainly, the collection of chants that Pope Paul presented as a "minimum repertoire" for every Roman-rite Catholic are not difficult.^[4]]

Further, we should all use the terms used by the Pope.  [For example, "Extraordinary Form" and "Ordinary Form", at least as I have encountered them online, don't seem to carry the ideological baggage that terms like "Traditional Latin Mass" or "Novus Ordo Missae" have picked up over time.] I have tried to do so in this article.  It is offensive to speak of “traditional Mass” as do the advertisements of the Latin Mass Society.  We are all of the tradition, we all celebrate within the tradition, and our unity depends on our recognising it.

All in all, a good piece; certainly, despite my quibbles, it is one whose spirit reflects my own.