The solemn chords of Gregorio Allegri’s Miserere Mei sounded on the organ just as I sat in the pew. Accompanying the grandeur of that great penitential psalm were the dying rays of sunlight shining through brilliant glass. All around is beauty and the charged silence preceding the Mass.
Those moments of fleeting but haunting gravity were followed by a simple and vernacular Mass; perhaps one might have expected the solemnity of a Traditional Latin Mass instead of the comparatively plain Novus Ordo form. No matter. Beauty is present, wrapped and moving around the Sacrifice and Sacrament like the shrouding incense that obscures sight.
Experiences such as these are the source of my confusion when faced with the increasingly heated debate over the authentic way to celebrate Mass in the Roman Catholic Church. Is one or the other, the old 16th-century Traditional Latin Mass or the 1969 Novus Ordo, universally and overwhelmingly superior and gorgeous? Does one channel such beauty as I saw in a more full manner than the other?
I was not raised with much awareness of this Latin Mass vs. Novus Ordo debate. I came to it from the outside after being raised Catholic, attending reverently performed Novus Ordo Masses such as the one I recounted, and spending years learning Latin.
When I first encountered this controversy upon coming to Boston College, my initial and lasting reaction was bewilderment. I got the disturbing impression that I wasn’t supposed to love both forms equally as I do. The contrarian in me now demands that I speak for the Novus Ordo since I often encounter excessively harsh critique of it, though I love the Latin Mass (and, in fact, can serve it).
The Novus Ordo form is a newcomer and has generated a great deal of heated discussion over the intervening decades for, among other things, its widespread introduction of vernacular language, increased creative license in liturgy (whether actually permitted or not), and an emphasis on involving the congregation in the Mass.
Although these features were intended as advantages, they have seen their share of misuse and have generated a great deal of backlash from more traditionally minded Catholics who consider the Novus Ordo to be diluting a liturgical heritage dating back millenia. Criticism can range from stern to damning, from a desire to improve it to a desire to remove it.
I will first concede: Some of the Novus Ordo’s features have also given me pause, such as liturgical innovations (or abuses), or the vague (or nonexistent) role of Latin, the beloved official language of the Church which I have spent years studying and admiring.
That being said, I have found some reasons to prefer the Novus Ordo in this day and age when performed as it was always intended to be, just as reverently as the Latin Mass. I will highlight three closely related advantages: adaptability, accessibility, and simplicity.
The Novus Ordo has a measure of adaptability that suits it well for a truly global Catholic Church. The Church has always excelled at adopting local appearances without losing the same spirit imparted to the Apostles at Pentecost. The Novus Ordo is an extension of this strength in the area of language.
The Novus Ordo is set down in Latin but able to be translated into the local language for the sake of the congregation. There is something sacrificed in the loss of a single tongue as in the Latin Mass, but this isn’t catastrophic in of itself.
Latin has long since ceased to be a widely spoken language. As a consequence, in the Latin Mass nearly everyone uses a missal if they intend to follow along with the prayers and readings. There is a translation somewhere in either form. The Novus Ordo, if performed in the vernacular, has it in the Mass itself rather than the congregation’s books. I find this more natural than relying on a missal.
Language barriers and the need for missals also pertains to the problem of accessibility between the Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo. A Mass performed purely in Latin, and at times inaudibly and secretly, can easily be intimidating to a newcomer. It is critical to meet people where they are and speak in a comprehensible language. The Church is in a phase of evangelization where it cannot set the terms of dialogue or always practice in its ancient, but now foreign, tongue. The Novus Ordo is a prudent compromise for tradition in a hostile world.
Latin, however, is not as dead a language as some claim. There are many people with varying degrees of competency–rarely fluency, but at least comprehension. I fall somewhere in between. If that language barrier is removed, as gung-ho Latin lovers such as myself dream of, is the Latin Mass then obviously superior when it is more naturally accessible?
No. Although I have a particular appreciation and love for the Latin Mass by way of intimate familiarity with the unparalleled elegance of the language, I still prefer the vernacular in day-to-day life. Translating as I go can be distracting from the source and summit of the Mass, the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary. God did not disdain to speak in vernacular Aramaic even on the Cross; I will not disdain to listen in my native English.
The Novus Ordo is also more accessible and adaptable because its form is simpler and transparent. More attention is given to what the priest is praying, what he is doing, and where he is going. This presents to a newcomer what the Mass is without being overwhelming or nebulous in a negative way. No book is necessary just to understand what’s being said.
It is not at all that I find the Latin Mass dissatisfying–quite the opposite, the rigorous reverence and tradition are welcome at a time when some churches employ bands for their music and preach odd mixtures of Christianity and postmodernism in what passes for sermons. No reasonable person would deny that the Novus Ordo has provided some occasion for these abuses.
However, I do not think the proper response to liturgical abuses in Novus Ordo Masses, often symptomatic of the age we live in, is simply to reject the form in which they happen. The Latin Mass is wonderful and should remain for those desiring the fullness of tradition, but the Novus Ordo is still properly reverent in form and offers greater potential for evangelization in an openly hostile West. Surely more can be done to improve it rather than reject it altogether.
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I have an agreement and strife with your claim here Peter. While I agree, in many places and for many people in the unconverted secular world, throwing them into the great rich sea of the traditional roman rite would drown them. They would be utterly lost, and on top of that, all of the incredibly rich symbolism of the TLM would go right over their heads. This being said, what you fail to comment on is how the novus ordo rubrics have been extraordinarily diminished.
This is most profoundly seen in the prayers at the foot of the altar and the prayers of the offertory. Neither of these sets of prayers had to be removed, and in fact if still present in the vernacular, would have provided immeasurable benefit to newcomers at mass. References to the sinfulness of the priest, the priest being the one to offer sacrifice on our behalf, his petitions for us to pray for him, and the weight of exactly what we are entering in has been extraordinarily reduced.
This can’t be argued as beneficial on the basis of being more accessible, rather it is quite deliberate action to change the theology of the mass. If the reforms of the liturgy in the 1960s merely consisted of a translation from Latin to the vernacular, I would be quite inclined to agree with you Peter, but it sadly was not. It was a divorce on many fronts from the immemorial tradition of the church.