Tuesday 1 December 2015

A Glad Trad

Good day! It is Traddy Tuesday, the day in which I usually poke a bit of fun at the liturgies, priest and parishes that disappoint would-be converts unaware that Catholic culture has changed a lot since Flannery O'Connor died. However, I see that it is time to put that to a rest, as I have had ample opportunity to reflect that, though funny (to me at least), it was not helpful.

There is a lot of anger in the opinions section of the Catholic blogosphere, and many people enjoy it. I enjoy it, too, when it's clever, funny and well-written, but last week I discovered that Someone had drawn a line into how much lyrical anger I could take.  It made me wonder how much I myself have been adding to a hermeneutic of the "mad trad."

I think the path best taken is to eliminate all my little jibes against the novelties adopted since the beginning of the Second Vatican Council and just talk about why I love traditional devotions, particularly the Extraordinary Form of the Mass. I might even add a list of the novelties I actually like. (Or that my mother likes. My mother very much likes the protracted congregational singing, and the jollier and more the hymns make her feel like dancing, the better she likes them.) I could even point out where the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, so long in developing, may further develop: e.g. the sermon returned to the end, before the announcements. Those who want to hear the announcements will have to hear the sermon.

One of the lovely things about traditional theology, the Extraordinary Mass and traditional devotions is that there is so much to learn. Once you get hooked on the traditions of the Church, and how they foster devotion to the Blessed Trinity, to the Blessed Virgin Mary and to the Saints, you never run out of wonderful books to read or helpful ideas on the internet.

Another lovely thing is how they all match up. The more I read the theology of St. Thomas Aquinas, the less satisfied I felt at ordinary English-language Mass. I wasn't really satisfied until I began to attend the Extraordinary Form of the Mass regularly. It astonishes me that I have been going to the same parish--only once feeling dissatisfied (tremendous confusion of self re: Triduum as had wrong missal that year)--for almost seven years.

Because everything matches up, everything is treated with great importance. I am not sure how ministers of music usually pick the hymns for the Ordinary Form, but the singing in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is inextricable from the (Traditional) Calendar. For example, every Sunday has its proper-to-it Introit and the Master of our Schola carefully considers what day it is before he chooses any extra music or decides the congregation should sing an English-language recessional hymn instead of our usual, seasonal Marian anthem.

Even if he were blind, a Catholic time traveller would have known it was Advent had he stepped into our little borrowed wooden church, for after the Communion antiphon, the schola sang Conditor Alme Siderum.  (Video link not to schola!)

A thought came to me of a tapestry. You can add to the end of a tapestry and you can freshen up its colours if it becomes faded, but you can't start messing around with, and picking out, its threads without making a massive confusion.

Traditional Catholicism is like that tapestry. You can add things--for example, the Master of the Schola composes new music suitable for Mass--but if you start taking things away, other parts become confusing. They cease to make as much sense, especially when you are reading what all saints who died before 1962 have to say about the Mass.

When I was a child, I began to notice that many aspects of Catholicism writers of old (or reprinted) books took for granted did not feature at Mass, at school, or even in my Catholic youth group. When I asked a teacher at my Catholic school to tell me what the Mass was like before Vatican II, he couldn't tell me. (In exchange for full governmental funding, the school board had agreed to hire non-Catholic teachers.) Therefore, I never really understood what the old writers all took for granted until I was in my late 30s and stumbled upon the Extraordinary Form. And now I'm very glad I did.

18 comments:

  1. When I was a young girl, my family attended a Methodist church. The pastor there was a kind, faithful man who looked uncannily like Mr. Dressup. His sermons were quiet and thoughtful. He spoke often of God's goodness. God, as taught in his sermons, was so beautiful. The sermons made me want to love God because He is beautiful, and good, and true. Or, rather, truth, beauty, and goodness are His.

    The best way to help someone else see why you love something or someone isn't to point out the flaws of its competitors, but to point out its own goodness. This is true of both people and things. (I realize the Ordinary Form and Extraordinary Form aren't in competition, but couldn't think of a better way of phrasing it).

    I like the idea of the Glad Trad. I also think your comparison to tapestry is a very good one.

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  2. Hurray for Glad-traddery!

    Re: development, I'm sure our good friend Father Benedict never meant for the "tridentine" Mass to just stay static at the '62. Mutual enrichment, and all that. I hope I will live to see the day of the Tapestry Repaired.

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    1. Well, the Good Friday prayer for the Jews has been updated! I think though that the biggest difference between the way the '62 Mass was said in '62 and the way it is said in '15 is that neither clergy nor people take it for granted now. The priest ALWAYS treats it like the precious jewel that he happily sacrificed any notions of "advancement" for and the people, who often travel for miles to get to it, gaze upon it in love and awe.

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  3. I can tell you as a many times minister of music that it can be an absolute pain in the seat cushion to figure out what music to program at mass.
    With the psalms, you can grit your teeth and default to the suggestions in the hymnal, which are of varying quality, and with the ordinary, you can grit your teeth and pick a modern setting you stick with, or tear your hair out trying to teach a Gregorian version in the vernacular to your reluctant choristers and congregation (hard to find and never really as satisfactory as the Latin). But that Way fo the Cross is only the preamble to the Calvary of choosing the three-hymn sandwich. Funnelling down: what does the congregation and your choir actually know? Generally they take forever to adapt to a new hymn. What is appropriate to the season or feast? Remember, nothing with alleluias during Lent, and a surprising number of hymns contain them! What "sets the mood" for wherever it comes in the mass? I occasionally ended mass with a hymn in minor and people didn't like that - they prefer something upbeat on the way out. And finally, what have we not done to death in the previous weeks? Offertory and communion are possibly the most painful part of this. There are only about a dozen hymns that can be slotted in there and you end up endlessly cycling through them. I got creative now and again, but people didn't like it. Personally, I thought a hushed "At the Lamb's High Feast We Sing" very appropriate for communion on Easter Day but not everyone agreed.
    With the Liber Usualis there are no arguments, so at least that's out of the way before you get to the add-ons: a processional hymn, some polyphony during communion, a Marian antiphon post-communion, the recessional hymn.
    Currently, my Latin parish has no organist and they do all the chant beautifully a cappella. I think the priest may have been discouraging polyphony and other things though, which I think is too bad.

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    1. Yes, some people really are Gregorian Chant purists and don't like polyphony. I don't get this "adapting to a new hymn" thing, I confess. Just sing it, and they can sing or not sing. They can sing the refrain until they get it. (I'm being very tough-minded with your congregation here. Beat them with sticks!) As for Easter Day, if at an English-language N.O., I would want to sing "That Eastertide with Joy was Bright", "Hail Thee Festival Day", "Now Thank We All our God" and other shouters. As a child I really loved Easter Sunday N.O. Mass.

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  4. A very helpful analysis, thank you. A few of us have noticed what you noticed - that the New Mass is entirely "new" and not in continuity with how the Church worshipped before the 1960s. For entire decades, during the pontificate of JPII, we were constantly told to ignore the evidence of our eyes and ears, and just believe that the New Mass was "the same" as what previous generations did. There were even books published arguing that anyone who wanted a "traditional" Catholic Mass, had to look no further then the Novus Ordo! That was an outright lie.

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    1. Oh poor KR. Let it be yet another lesson to us not to write silly letters or to burn charitably the silly letters sent to us.

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  5. I appreciate how seriously you take your responsibility as a writer and influencer of public opinion! I read a little bit of the traditional Catholic blogs, and while I am sympathetic to some of their concerns, it is troubling how much anger there is, and it often distracts me from where my focus should really be, which is on my own prayer life and salvation. But it is good to be aware of what is happening, too, as long as it doesn't get out of proportion...sometimes it feels like watching a train wreck!

    I feel really grateful to live in a very conservative/traditional U.S. diocese, and my church offers the traditional High Latin Mass each Sunday, although I don't go very often because it conflicts with my children's nap times, which leads to very poor behavior at Mass. =(

    Happily, the music and prayers at the Novus Ordo masses are very reverent, and certain prayers are still said in Latin. One question though: we sing the traditional Marian hymns for the season, but we are now singing Alma Redemptoris Mater. Is that not the appropriate Marian hymn for Advent?

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    1. Yes, "Alma Redemptoris Mater" is the traditional Marian antiphon for Advent! That's what we'll sing at the end of Mass unless we are given another hymn.

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  6. I think one of the things about being a trad is having unfortunate responsibilities that are difficult to negotiate. One of the issues with bad-mouthing the Council too much is that a) the Council wasn't all malicious in its intent, just insanely optimistic and naive save some insidious bishops and b) trads are all about obedience and so on and such irreverence contradicts our general m.o.
    So avoiding the Council and sundry is possibly a prudent idea in the day to day, and I understand and even commend your decision.

    However... there is also the issue of people not knowing what's up, due to a false narrative of *absolute* consistency and continuity. We are fed a story about total integrity and wisdom among the bishops and not told about Bea and Bugnini, or Ottaviani's report, and so on. We just feel the unease when we look at the old books and wonder whether it really is all the same, because no one will admit to us that there was something of a break. In our current practice there are real missteps, real concessions to "the Age" at the expense of the Eternal, real obfuscations of tradition. And when we talk about such obfuscation of old beautiful traditions and clear doctrinal affirmations within the Mass itself, we sometimes need to be willing to say, "This or that was implemented, but maybe it really wasn't a wise judgement, and maybe defending this or that part of our current practice isn't the hill we want to die upon." And that's where I feel a little lighthearted poke or two at the Council comes in handy. The Council was one council, not THE COUNCIL, and it was an ecumenical one at that, so it's not the most sacred of all things in the depositum fidei. Light satire does well to subvert a narrative that serves to put Vatican II above the sacred liturgy and even sometimes Jesus Christ himself!

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    1. Oh, I agree. I am happy to take a poke at the Council--which really is discussed as if it were the Third Person of the Trinity, totally identified with the Holy Spirit--but I have actually been beginning Traddy Tuesday with a giggle at ordinary parish liturgies, which is hardly fair to readers who are parish musicians, et alia, doing their best.

      I must say it was a switch from thinking lay service at mass was the best way for me to serve the priesthood on Sundays to understanding it's best to stay put in my pew and let young men (and, above all, priests) do the heavy lifting. It's that kind of thinking that can INFURIATE non-trad women, of course. (Although not in the Eastern Catholic Rites, for Eastern Catholic women don't go near the Tabernacle either.)

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  7. Dear sister in Jesus Christ,

    I read on Vox Cantoris' blog your reaction to the comment that I had posted yesterday. I clicked on your name at the Vox blog, then discovered your blog.

    I have spent time today reading your blog and have been edified by your holiness, intelligence, and talent. God has gifted his Church and world with you.

    Deo volente, I hope to devote much time during this Advent Season to your edifying writings and blog.

    Pax.

    Mark Thomas

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  8. I like the Extraordinary Form. I'm just tired of some of the nuttiness displayed by its biggest fans, both laymen and clergy. I can't tolerate those traddy blogs because of the slightly crazed tone and the histrionics. I haven't been to Latin Mass in months for several reasons. It seems that a fair few Latin Mass devotees (mostly men) think that going to Latin Mass makes them saints automatically and that they can do and say whatever they like with impunity. These are the sorts who wear, like, 75 scapulars. These days, a scapular almost works as a warning sign for me.

    I go to Novus Ordo Masses at an Opus Dei parish. I enthusiastically promote Opus Dei Novus Ordo Masses as an alternative to nutty trad parishes and nutty liberal parishes.

    Julia

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    1. Well, I am unlikely to go to Australia to check your situation, but so far there's not a LOT of nuttiness among British and European Latin Mass devotees. There's a BIT, but because we all march to a different liturgical drum, I think the non-nuts are tolerant of the nuts in our midst and vice versa.

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  9. I am not sure of the policy here...are we allowed to comment upon other comments? If not, I understand should you remove my post.

    Julia at 23:08 said..."I like the Extraordinary Form. I'm just tired of some of the nuttiness displayed by its biggest fans, both laymen and clergy. I can't tolerate those traddy blogs because of the slightly crazed tone and the histrionics. I haven't been to Latin Mass in months for several reasons. I enthusiastically promote Opus Dei Novus Ordo Masses as an alternative to nutty trad parishes and nutty liberal parishes."

    Dear Julia, I agree that one finds "nuttiness" within the Catholic Blogosphere, Traditional and otherwise. But please don't allow that to keep you from worshiping via the TLM.

    Online is one thing...but I haven't found (at least in the United States) "nuttiness" at TLM-only parishes (such as FSSP or ICK) or parishes that offer TLMs along with the Novus Ordo.

    I am sure that amongst any appreciable amount of people, you would find somebody whom you found "nutty" (whatever that may mean to you). But it's been my experience that the vast amount of Catholics who worship via the TLM and in union with their bishops are solid Catholics.

    One thing that I know is that I lag well behind them in regard to spirituality. They are fine people. I wish that I were as holy as they.

    Julia, again, if you find the TLM conducive to your spirituality, please don't let anybody keep you from the TLM.

    Perhaps your presence there would enable you to change a person's heart and mind in positive fashion. Perhaps God would use to that end.

    Pax.

    Mark Thomas

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