Opening Wide Our Hearts
by Fr. Roger J. Landry - July 13, 2007
Throughout the first two years of his pontificate, Benedict XVI has dedicated himself to implementing the authentic spirit of the Second Vatican Council in the life of the Church. He was a peritus or expert advisor to one of the Council's most influential cardinals, and for that reason participated intimately in the work of the Council and the composition of its documents. In his pre-papal writings as well as in a major discourse given to the Roman Curia before his first Christmas as pope, he has distinguished the genuine spirit of the Second Vatican Council — which he says is found in Council's documents — from the so-called "spirit of Vatican II," which he states is not only not in the documents but is opposed in many of its manifestations to what the Council fathers actually taught.
Benedict maintained in his December 2005 Curial address that one of the main errors of the "spirit of Vatican II" is that it has promoted a "hermeneutic of rupture" — the false interpretation that the Council was a clean break from the past. To be understood truly and implemented effectively, the Council, he said, must be seen through a "hermeneutic of reform," a prism that stresses continuity with the living history of the Church while seeking, with the help of God, to make the Church be more faithful to its mission.
This distinction between rupture and reform, between discontinuity and continuity, is fundamental to understanding Pope Benedict's motu proprio granting much easier access to the celebration of the Mass according to the missal approved by Blessed John XXIII in 1962 and devoutly used throughout the Council. The liturgical reform, intended by the Council, was meant to promote the "full, active and conscious participation of the faithful" in the celebration of the Mass. The novus ordo or "new order" of the Mass, promulgated by Pope Paul VI in 1970, was meant to facilitate this type of interior participation, by allowing, among the most notable changes, the Mass to be celebrated in vernacular languages, the priest's facing the people, and far greater use of Sacred Scripture in the readings of Mass. But these liturgical changes were meant to be understood as an organic development of the Latin rite, not a new rite altogether. For this reason, the Missal of Blessed John XXIII was never abrogated, because its use was still foreseen besides the new "ordinary" Missal of his successor.
Continuity with the past, however, was not the way the liturgical reform was experienced in many places of the Catholic world. The "changes" were communicated and experienced far more than the continuity. Not only did a general sense of "out with the old, in with the new" become widespread, but the old — which had always been considered good and holy — soon came to be viewed by many as bad and harmful. Those who remained attached to the sacrality of the old rite were often made to feel like they were not being good Catholics. The generously-given and piously-appreciated treasures of many parish sanctuaries — such as ornate high altars built for Christ in the Eucharist and delicately carved altar rails where the faithful for generations devoutly received Him — were treated in some places almost as worthless trash, jack- and sledge-hammered to pieces and then discarded. Benedict, who lived through this confusing time, said that "in many places celebrations were not faithful to the prescriptions of the new Missal, but the latter actually was understood as authorizing or even requiring creativity, which frequently led to deformations of the liturgy that were hard to bear … and caused deep pain to individuals totally rooted in the faith of the Church."
The motu proprio, printed on page 12 of this edition alongside Benedict's introductory letter, is meant to try to heal that pain by restoring in the Church this a sense of continuity with the liturgical treasures of the Church. "There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal," Benedict explains. "In the history of the liturgy there is growth and progress, but no rupture. What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church's faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place." The motu proprio is an attempt to preserve those riches.
At a practical level, the impact of the motu proprio on the prayer life of most Catholics will likely be far more qualitative than quantitative. The vast majority of the faithful will still attend the Latin rite in the "ordinary form" of the Missal of Paul VI reissued by John Paul II in 2000. The major change will be for those proportionately-few Latin-rite Catholics who wish to worship God according to the "extraordinary" form of the Missal 1962, many of whom have had to struggle to have easy access to that form of Mass.
Qualitatively, Pope Benedict hopes that there will be a cross-pollination or "mutual enrichment" between both forms of the one of one Latin rite. He says the old Missal can be enriched by the insertion of prefaces and propers of saints from the new Missal, as well through the use of the latter's much richer lectionary. The celebration of the novus ordo likewise can be enhanced he says by celebrating it with the sense of "sacrality that attracts many people to the former usage, [which] will bring out the spiritual richness and the theological depth of this [new] Missal."
Benedict finishes by declaring the motivation behind the motu proprio: to bring about an "interior reconciliation in the heart of the Church" by making "every effort to enable those who truly desire unity to remain in that unity or to attain it anew." Benedict seeks to remove an obstacle to the reunion of those in the Society of Pius X as well as to make it easier for Catholics who have maintained their unity to have access to the Mass celebrated in a way they find more spiritually beneficial. He calls upon his fellow bishops, and through them all the faithful, to "widen your hearts!" (2 Cor 6:11-13), by generously opening them to "make room for everything the faith allows." May the Lord help all the Catholics of our Diocese liberally and lovingly to open up our hearts in this way, so that through the Mass in either form we may as one body lift them up to the Lord.
Father Roger J. Landry is pastor of St. Anthony of Padua in New Bedford, MA and Executive Editor of The Anchor, the weekly newspaper of the Diocese of Fall River.
