Jeg kom tidligere i dag over en engelsk blogg som skriver ganske interessant om liturgiske spørsmål. I et innlegg skriver (den ukjente) forfatteren:
This blog, if it is not already clear, is in favour of the 1970 Missale Romanum. Or at the least, it is not against it, and finds rather the rhetoric of the Traditionalist movement often untruthful and somewhat wearing (that these accusations are as true of ultra-liberal ‘reformers’ goes without saying.)
To describe the pre-1970 Mass as requiring no reform would be, for the author of this blog, dishonest. That there were Missals published in 1920 and 1962, and indeed Missals published after 1570 shows that this was clearly not so.
Han fortsetter så med å sitere fra en bok Ratzinger skrev i 1966 – ganske kritisk til deler av liturgien før konsilet. Ratzinger snakker her om hva som skjedde etter Trent:
The main measure was to centralize all liturgical authority in the Sacred Congregation of Rites, the post-concilliar organ for implementation of the liturgical ideas of Trent. This measure, however, proved to be two-edged. New overgrowths were in fact prevented, but the fate of liturgy in the West was now in the hands of a strictly centralized and purely bureaucratic authority. This authority completely lacked historical perspective; it viewed the liturgy solely in terms of ceremonial rubrics, treating it as a kind of problem of proper court etiquette for sacred matters.
This resulted in the complete archaizing of the liturgy, which now passed from the stage of living history, became embalmbed in the status quo and was ultimately doomed to internal decay. The liturgy had become a rigid, fixed and firmly encrusted system; the more out of touch with genuine piety, the more attention was paid to its prescribed forms. We can see this if we remember that none of the saints of the Catholic Reformation drew their spirituality from the liturgy. Ignatius of Loyola, Theresa of Avila and John of the Cross developed their religious life solely from personal encounter with God and from individual experience of the Church, quite apart from the liturgy and any deep involvement with it.
The baroque era adjusted to this situation by super-imposing a kind of para-litrgy on the archaized actual liturgy. Accompanied by the splendor of orchestral performance, the baroque high Mass became a kind of sacred opera in which the chants of the priest functioned as a kind of periodic recitative. The entire performance seemed to aim at a kind of festive lifting of the heart, enhanced by the beauty of a celebration appealing to the eye and ear. On ordinary days, when such display was not possible, the Mass was frequently covered over with devotions more attractive to the popular mentality.
Even Leo XIII recommended that the rosary be recited during Mass in the month of October. In practice this meant that while the priest was busy with his archaic liturgy, the people were busy with their devotions to Mary. They were united to the priest only by being in the same church with him and by consigning themselves to the sacred power of the Eucharistic sacrifice.
Ratzinger, J.A., Theological Highlights of Vatican II (1966), tr. Traub, H., Thormann, G.C., and Barzel, W. New York: Paulist, pp.130-132. …
Men etter dette leser vi likevel på bloggen: «It can be easily seen that nothing here contradicts the same Dr Ratzinger’s opinion that the 1970 Missal offered a «banal, on the spot product». That the one is defective does not make the other flawless (and vice versa).» …