Fortescues berømte bok

Jeg har når fått tak i 2009-utgaven av The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described – Adrian Fortescue (Author), J.B. O’Connell (Author), Alcuin Reid (Author) Introduction. Jeg hadde allerede kjøpt et meget godt brukt eksemplar av utgaven fra 1918, men det viste seg å ikke være så lett å bruke den i praksis. Denne siste utgaven er redigert av Alcuin Reid, og han starter sin innledning slik:

DIVINE PROVIDENCE is not without her sense of irony. For whilst it was both a joy and a consolation to come to know and love the usus antiquior, the more ancient liturgy of the Roman Rite, as celebrated under the indults; granted during the reign of the much-loved Pope John Paul II, one could never quite escape the feeling that one was ever-so-guilty of a clandestine activity about which one could not really speak in polite, mainstream ecclesiastical company, let alone in the presence of the hierarchy.

Today, by the authority of the Supreme Pontiff, it is established in the Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum, of 7th July 2007, that the ancient rites were never abrogated (no indults; were necessary), and that the usus antiquior enjoys legal freedom in the life of the Church.

Who could have predicted this? Certainly not those who rigorously imposed the new liturgical books in the decades following the Second Vatican Council. And probably not even those most devoted to the older liturgy could have hoped for what has now become a legal reality.

Summorum Pontificum heralds a new epoch in the history of the Roman Rite. After decades of unsatisfactory liturgical practice in the Western Church, the Supreme Pontiff, convinced that the great treasure of the Church’s ancient liturgical tradition has something, if not a great deal, to offer the Church of today and of tomorrow, has freed it from the proscriptions unjustly visited upon it. The faithful – clergy, religious and laity, who wish to draw from the riches and beauty of the usus antiquior may now do so unfettered and without prejudice.

The increasing presence of the Mass, sacraments and other rites celebrated according to the liturgical books in force in 1962 will, without doubt, inform the Church’s wider liturgical life. The effects of this remain to be seen, but already it seems clear that bishops, priests, deacons and other liturgical ministers who imbibe the tangible, ritual sacrality of the usus antiquior almost unconsciously bring this treasure forth in their celebration of the usus recentior – a felicitous development which, again, is not without its irony. …

Så fortsetter Alcuin Reid med å beskrive hvor upassende det er at noen forsøker å begrense bruken av den tradisjonelle messen, som paven selv har gitt tillatelse til. Deretter begynner selve boken, med nesten 500 siders beskrivelse av hvordan messen og andre liturgier skal feires – mye å lære.

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