Since Universae Ecclesiae has been issued the subject of the “mutual enrichment” of the older and newer, the Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms of the Roman Rite has reemerged.
For going on two decades now, I have been saying that – in the mind of Papa Ratzinger – were a more organic, long-term, process of liturgical growth and renewal and revision to be rekindled, there would eventually emerge a tertium quid, a form of the Roman Rite which would reflect the reforms mandated by the Second Vatican Council and the Roman Rite as received from the Church’s experiences of prayer over the centuries. That didn’t happen with the Novus Ordo, because it was an artificial product assembled on a desk. But the two forms, older and newer, used side-by-side, would create a gravitational pull upon each other.
I think that many years ago, Papa Ratzinger assumed that the newer, Ordinary Form, would have logical priority and that some influence of the older form would enter into producing the tertium quid. Now, however, I am not so sure. I sense a shift in the Force, as it were. I suspect the Holy Father thinks that it may be the other way around now. But, only time will tell.
There will certainly be an influence of the one upon the other, a mutual enrichment, a gravitational pull. And that influence will grow enormously as the “Biological Solution” shifts the demographics of the clergy. Younger men, without the baggage of the “spirit of the Council”, younger men, far more interested in the hermeneutic of continuity desired by Pope Benedict to be applied to all things Conciliar and post-Conciliar, are interested also in the Extraordinary Form. And if they are not eager to use it themselves, they are at least open to it. As more young priests – future bishops – begin to exercise ministry in the Church in every sphere of her life, many things will change.
But, back to the issue of mutual enrichment.
The Ordinary Form and Extraordinary Form are clearly – according to the mind of the Supreme Pontiff – meant to be “one alongside the other” (UE 6). They will influence one another. It stands to reason.
I think that the Extraordinary Form will dramatically reshape the Ordinary Form, especially in respect to ars celebrandi, but perhaps also in the reintroduction of elements lost in the reform. It certainly will affect how priests see themselves and carry our their role.
However, I also believe that the Ordinary Form will influence, indeed has influenced how priests say the Extraordinary Form.
First, there was the near total loss of the Extraordinary Form which has made those who desired it be all the more careful and attentive and reverent. In human affairs familiarity can breed contempt… or at least neglect. In the words of Joni Mitchell, “Don’t it always seem to go, that you don’t know what you got till it’s gone. They paved paradise and put up a parkin’ lot.” The observance of the Extraordinary Form benefited from the oppression.
The shift in focus in the Ordinary Form from the priest at the altar, to the priest and the congregation, has more than likely been a great help as well. I think that priests today are far more aware in their ars celebrandi that there are actually people out there, which drives them to be more careful and reverent and, in their words and actions, project themselves beyond the altar rail, not in a solipsistic way, but in a genuine desire as mediator to communicate what God desires to give through the sacred actions and words of the sacred mysteries.
Another point surfaced in the combox under another entry here, which I will get to.
As far as the ars celebrandi is concerned, for years, in the dark times when merely to want the older form as a seminarian meant certain expulsion from mainstream seminaries, I heard relentless criticisms of the old Mass because of the way priests used to say it. That was pretty awkward, of course. If priests do stupid things on their own, that is their fault. In some ways elements of the rite can invite those choices, of course. But it is the priest who says Mass, not the book which says Mass.
A common way to denigrate the older form of Mass was the sneering comment that priests would be scrupulous in how they, for example, said the words of consecration or made some gestures. Some priests were terribly scrupulous. Because of training and their own desire not to commit sins, they took seriously the old teaching that defects of celebration were mortal sins. When that was coupled with a scrupulous character and also the Jansenism that came from some seminaries, especially those with an Irish background under the influence of the French who had a terribly rigid approach to many dimensions of human life and the material world, the result for liturgy was not always optimal.
To make my point at last, perhaps the intervening years – which were unquestionably stained by the horrors of illicit and often deeply stupid experimentation and liturgical abuses and really bad taste – served to break the grip of some schools of approach, some of the perhaps Jansentic rigidity of scrupulous rubricism against which, I fear, much of the discontinuity crowd reacted so strongly as they threw off their shackles after the Council and went nuts, taking us along with them into the liturgical hole we have to climb out of now on the ladder of Summorum Pontificum.
I return to my point about the combox comment now. Fr. Augustine Thompson, OP, left an interesting comment. He picked up on my my point that the Ordinary Form will also exert a gravitational pull on the way the Extraordinary Form. Heresy to some traditionalists… but the truth. Priests are men of their own times, not just of ages past.
Fr. Thompson observes:
Having been ordained over 25 years, and having celebrated Mass on every unimpeded day (e.g. Good Friday) but one, I have celebrated the old rite (Dominican) at least a 1000 times and the new rite (Roman) many more times. And there are things that celebrants, especially new celebrants of the old rite can learn from the new.
In particular, I have noticed that new celebrants of the Dominican Rite often try to rigidly correlate the gestures (e.g. at the Per Ipsum) with the words because the rubrics insert “make cross,” “pick up host,” etc. into the middle of sentences. The sense of freedom that comes from the new rite (where the gestures made are generally those that come naturally to the priest), gives a sense of personal ownership of the motions. When I urge new celebrants to just know what gestures to make and make them naturally as they read the words, they discover that the whole action is more graceful (and the gestures end up in the right place). Now I learned fluidity of motion from constant practice — and only finally accomplished it when I stopped scrupulous attempts to rigidly follow the rubrics — and then I realized that, had I allowed myself the sense of freedom of the new rite from the beginning, this might have come faster.
Admittedly, the goal is to celebrate fluidly and elegantly, and to do so as the rubrics indicate. But a “novus ordo” sense of freedom had help a new old rite celebrant to do this more naturally.
I am sure that there are other examples of times when my celebration of the new rite helped me with the old. (And vice versa.)
Discuss in a thoughtful way, having first reread what you may wish to share, and then asking yourself: “Does this contribute anything useful”?