Det gamle romerske missalet – mistet og igjenfunnet – del 2

Fra Martin Mosebachs foredrag om messen i starten av september (se hele foredraget her – og mitt forrige utdrag her) tar jeg også med følgende utdrag:

Viktige gester og tydelig fokus i den gamle messen – mye er blitt borte

… Prior to the changes a whole garland of reverent gestures had accumulated around the sacrament of the altar, and these gestures gave a most eloquent sermon, constantly reminding priest and people of the Lord’s mysterious presence in the [consecrated] Bread and Wine. We can be sure of this: no theological indoctrination on the part of so-called «enlightened» theologians did as much damage to the belief of western Catholics as did communion in the hand. It immediately abolished all the former precautions [care] with regard to particles from the Host. Is it impossible, then, to receive communion in the hand reverently? Of course it is possible. But once the etiquette of reverence exists and has had its beneficial, elevating influence on the consciousness of the faithful, it stands to reason that withdrawing the etiquette gave a clear signal (and by no means only to simple believers). What was this signal? That the earlier degree of reverence was not required. This in turn, logically, produced the conviction — a conviction not initially made explicit — that there was nothing present that might command respect.

Om pave Benedikts innsikt i liturgien – og hans motu proprio

Even before his election, our Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI was one of the very few bishops who knew that the radical break with tradition represented a great danger for the Church. Now, in his famous Motu proprio he has asserted that the Church’s Traditional Rite was never forbidden because, by its very nature, it could not be forbidden. The Pope is-not the master of the liturgy but its protector. The Church never forsakes its inherited rites, which it regards as a spiritual heritage. On the contrary, it urges the faithful to study them and make their hidden treasures available here and now.

The Pope had no intention of ignoring the past – a futile enterprise in any case – and pretending that the last forty years did not happen. He took a decision that was aimed, above all, at reconciling the reform party with the defenders of Catholic tradition. According to the papal statement there is now one single Roman Rite in two forms, the «ordinary» and the «extraordinary». The two forms stand side by side in a relationship of equality. Either of these two forms can be celebrated by any priest at any time without episcopal permission. They are related to each other in such a way that the celebrant of the New Rite (the «ordinary» form) is meant to learn from the Traditional Form (the «extraordinary» form) how the Church’s tradition understands Holy Mass. The Pope has urged the Church to re-examine the old books of rites and learn, from the fathers and saints of past centuries, how to perform the solemn work of making God present. We are all summoned, then, to give thanks for the rescuing of the traditional Missal, which was almost lost, to open it – perhaps even at the eleventh hour – and read how the Church, and all those faithful people to whom we all owe our faith, used to pray. …

Hva er blitt borte fra liturgien?

… we need again the profession of faith that Jesus is «God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God.» In Germany, at least, this Creed has disappeared almost entirely from worship, as has the genuflexion at the central article of our faith, «et incarnatus est de Spiritu Sancto ex Maria virgine et homo factus est.» With wonder and astonishment let us read the Orations, especially those of the Sundays after Pentecost, many of which were composed by St. Jerome himself. They are masterpieces of rhetoric [oratory], formulating theological truths that nourish meditation even outside the Mass, and uniquely giving voice to the Christian relationship between God and man. One of the greatest losses in the reform of the Mass is the loss of the Offertory prayers, during which the veiled sacrificial gifts are brought to the altar and the sacred event of the Lord’s sacrificial death begins. These prayers come from earliest times; they speak, for the first time in human history, of the dignity of man, a dignity God gave to his creatures from the very beginning, a dignity that was wondrously renewed by Jesus’ sacrificial death. The Epiclesis, too, is of the greatest importance: in it the Holy Ghost is called down upon the gifts. The Eastern Church regards this prayer as having an essential effect on the act of transforming the gifts; but the Western Church, too, knows that it is the Holy Ghost who will bring about the miracle of transubstantiation. Then comes the Roman canon, which is still contained in the new missal, though it is prayed in only a few places nowadays. …

Messens språk er viktig

… And what of the language of the Missal? The English-speaking faithful, at least, will soon be able to use correct translations that will replace the many very damaging simplifications and falsifications to be found [in the current English language missals.] Other nations, where modernist arrogance is more established, will have to wait longer for this. It is therefore all the more important for priests, as well as the faithful, to get to know the Church’s mother tongue, in which the Church’s teachings have been preserved in such clarity and conciseness. A sacred language has the advantage of being the language of no individual nation. We enter this language like entering a sacred building; it breathes a prayer that is more powerful than the prayer of the individual. It speaks a prayer that is pre-existent, that is there before us; we only have to associate ourselves with it, join ourselves to it. The Church we belong to is above time and above nations; and she is present in this sacred language.

Dagens krise er også en mulighet

It may be that the present crisis is presenting us with an opportunity: we should not allow ourselves to drown in pious routine but seek to rediscover the Church’s visible form, learn to love and defend it like a precious treasure that we thought had been lost: to our great surprise and joy we find it again, and realize – perhaps for the first time – that nothing can replace it.

Martin Mosebach