Når jeg nå på nytt leser Msgr Klaus Gambers bok om liturgireformen, oppdager jeg at mye av det pave Benedikt har innført av forandringer i messen de siste par åra står i denne boka – som ble skrevet for ca 25 år siden.
I sitatet fra boka (s 60-61) under er det tydelig at han gjerne ønsker at bibeltekstene leses direkte på morsmålet, antallet lesninger må gjenre økes (litt), de bør leses vendt mot folket (men i resten av messen må presten vende seg mot Gud (SE HER), folkets forbønner må gjerne være med og også salmer må gjerne synges.
What exactly did the new liturgy do to bring about the «active participation» of the faithful that had been intended by the Council? The obvious answer is: Nothing – at least nothing that could not have been achieved without making major changes to the traditional rite. Scriptural readings presented in the vernacular, even the practice of offering more than one reading from Scripture on Sundays; the reading of scriptural texts as serials that continue through the week; bringing back the General Intercessions before the Offertory, along with choral chants; the singing of Church hymns and songs – all these would have been good ways to have the faithful more actively participate in liturgical worship.
But to use the vernacular exclusively in liturgical worship was not a change stipulated in Article 36 of the Liturgy Commission’s instructions … Finally, the relevant document of the Liturgical Commission makes no mention that Latin choral chant should be abolished.
Unfortunately, and in summary, the Council’s urging in Article 23 that «there must be no innovations unless the good of the Church genuinely and certainly requires them» has been widely ignored, and the reforms that have been implemented were not confined to what is sensible and necessary. More and more change was demanded; people in the Church wanted to be more open to some very controversial ideas of the New Theology; and finally, the Church was to show itself opening up to the modern world.
Although the argument is used over and over again by the people responsible for creating the new Mass, they cannot claim that what they have done is what the Council actually wanted. The instructions given by the Liturgy Commission were general in nature, and they opened up many possible ways for implementing what the Commission had stipulated, but one statement we can make with certainty is that the new Ordo of the Mass that has now emerged would not have been endorsed by the majority of the Council Fathers.