SOME THOUGHTS ON MY RECENT VISIT TO
“Redempti ab ipso adorabunt Deum verum ex ipsius ritu, doctrina, et institutione, usque ad mundi consummationem - Those redeemed by Jesus Christ will adore the true God according to Christ's own rite, teaching, and institution.”
Cardinal Bellarmine[1]
While in
How can we best understand and describe the differences between the Novus Ordo Missae and the traditional Mass of the Catholic Church without getting bogged down in theological details. I think one of the best ways to describe the difference is to say that in the Tridentine Mass one enters into Eternity while in the New Mass one is tied to time.
Consider what happens in the traditional
The priest in saying Mass is a “nobody”
because he is truly another Christ. Or more precisely, this being the case, it
is Christ who says the Mass using the (properly ordained) priest who He has
dedicated to Himself. The priest in turn unites himself to Christ and offers
himself up along with Christ to God the Father. The congregation joins the
priest in this offering. It goes without saying that the priest in consecrating
the bread and wine, if he has united himself to Christ, will use the very words
of Christ in effecting the Consecration. What occurs is the unbloody
sacrifice of
In the Novus Ordo Missae, when the supposed words of consecration are said, they are said as part of the “Institution Narrative.” Or as the General Instruction puts it, “the Narrative of the Institution.” The official French Missal explains this by informing us that what is involved “is simply a question of making a memorial of the unique sacrifice already accomplished.” This is of course the Protestant view of things. Now if what occurs in the Novus Ordo is simply the retelling of what happened at the Last Supper (one assumes that the faithful priest-president follows the rubrics as outlined and taught in the General Instruction), then what happens is no different than what happens when one reads the Gospel story of the Last Supper. This is clearly a situation in which no Consecration occurs. And this is further reinforced by the fact that the priest president doesn’t use Christ’s words, but others drawn from the Gospel story and put together by Luther.
This ties the Novus Ordo Missae to an historical event and hence to historical time. Nothing happens “here and now” and consequently there is no entrance into or participation in Eternity. It matters not how devoutly this rite is said, it is not said in persona Christi. It can be argued that the priest-president is saying the supposed words of Consecration in another than the historical sense. But if so, he is clearly disobeying the intent of the post-Conciliar “popes.”
Gone is the sense of the priest going to
A further point: In the Novus Ordo, when the First Eucharist Prayer is used, (it is falsely claimed that it is the same as in the traditional Mass) what strikes one who is familiar with the traditional Canon, is the addition of the words FOR US – words introduced by Cranmer precisely to deny the Real Presence. It is a prayer that the bread and wine may become FOR US the body of Christ – but not such in and of itself apart from us.
One should know that it is a constant teaching of the true Church that
one must not partake of a dubious sacrament – to do so is considered
sacrilegious. (Those who communicate at the new “mass” do not necessarily
commit a sacrilege for there is a difference between a subjective and an
objective sacrilege. They get the graces of their disposition of soul, but
cannot receive sacramental or sanctifying grace.) Now the consecrations in the Novus Ordo Missae
are at least dubious on three grounds – 1) because of what has been explained
in this short note, and 2) because the ordination of priests by t by “Bishops”
consecrated by the new rites which virtually exclude the passing on of the
Apostolic Succession. 3) the rite for the ordination
of the priests has been radically changed. They are not “Massing Priests” (to
use a phrase from the Reformation) and at best no different than Protestant
ministers.
To summarize, what distinguishes the New “mass” from the “Mass of All
Times” (which is incidentally forbidden) is that the priest and congregation
participate in the memorial of an historical event rather than entering into
the “Here and Now” of Eternity. The priest retains his personality and no
longer functions as an alter Christus. It is
he who repeats the historical memorial of the Last Supper and not Christ who
says the Mass hinc et
nunc – here and now - in the person of the priest.
All this is reinforced by the various actions of the priest-president such as
using words for a supposed Consecration which are not those used by Christ, of
going down to the transept rather than going up to the alter of God. By the
constant use of such words as “supper” and “cup”; By the priest-president
frequently shaking hands with people in the middle of the service (i.e. no
ablution after supposedly handling Our Lord’s Body); By accepting changes
introduced by the Protestant Cranmer which were inserted
into the Canon to deny the Real Presence, by encouraging the faithful to take
the “Eucharist” in the hand and more recently by such new rubrics as forbidding
kneeling. While older Catholics who go to the New Mass may see and understand
it as no different from the traditional Mass, anyone who persists in attending
the new “mass” will eventually be turned into a Protestant; and certainly our
children who have no knowledge of the Traditional rite will inevitably accept
the new as “normative.”
WHY I CANNOT ACCEPT THE AUTHORITY OF THE POST-CONCILIAR POPES.
“O God, the heathen have come into thy inheritance,
they have defiled thy holy temple; they have made
Psalm 78.
“The great city which is called
spiritually
Apoc. 11, 8
It is a
teaching of the
If one recognizes John Paul II as a genuine pope, one is obliged to
obey him in the three realms of his authority – his teachings, his governing or
what is called “jurisdiction,” and in his sanctifying role which includes the
administration of the Sacraments. Now John Paul II uses his pseudo-authority to
teach falsely – for example that all men are saved and that the Crucifixion is
a witness to the dignity of man. One could list dozens of other heresies, but
suffice it to say that he holds the documents of Vatican II to be the highest
form of the ordinary Magisterium, and as such we are bound to give them our
intellectual assent and hold them to be true. Many will argue that one can pick
and choose just what one accepts in these documents, but such is not a Catholic
way of thinking or acting. Many will claim they do not believe in all the
tommyrot in Vatican II while at the same time giving honour and recognition to
John Paul II. To do so is both schizophrenic and irrational
and as such a sin against Truth and the Holy Ghost. A Catholic who
departs from unity of faith with the pope and the bishops in union with him can
no longer consider himself as a Catholic – unless of course the pope and the
bishops in union with him have themselves abandoned the faith. Then to quote
St. Catherine of Sienna in a similar situation, the pope and those who follow
him in obedience can go to Hell. Similarly, one has to accept the validity of all
the new sacraments. (This is one of the conditions for attending the “indult”
Mass of John XXIII, and members of the Society of St. Peter sigh
a paper stating their acceptance of the documents of Vatican II and the
validity of the new sacraments.) One
must for example not only accept Vatican II and the new “mass,” but also the
destruction of the Sacrament of Extreme Unction which has been reduced to a
“blessing of the sick.” (The fact that some priests in the new Church, in
disobedience still may give the old Sacrament is beside the point – indeed they
sin by disobedience when they do so.)
Now if I accept all that is in Vatican
II; if I accept that Socialism is a good thing and that evolution is true; if I
accept that all religions are equally good and that there is no need for the
Jews to convert, then in a simple word, I apostatize from the Catholic faith as
it has existed throughout the centuries, and join what is in essence a new
religion with its new code, creed and cult. This I refuse to do and hence I
refuse to give any allegiance to John Paul II or his representatives. There may
be some good people in the new or post-Conciliar Church (as they themselves
call it), and even individuals devoted to prayer, but it is clear that they are
in the
Truly, “they have the Churches but we have the faith”
St. Athanasius
© 2003 Rama P. Coomaraswamy, M.D.