TLM

John Allen skriver i dag om to dokumenter som kan utgis i Vatikanet i april – ett om den tradisjonelle messen og ett om forholdet til SSPX) – som Vatikanet mener bør glede tradisjonalister (av alle avskygninger, både de moderate og SSPX), men som sannsynligvis ikke vil være godt nok for alle.

… the instruction will confirm that the moto proprio is now the universal law of the church, and insist that bishops apply it. Among other things, it will call for seminarians to be trained not just in Latin, but in the older rite itself, at least so they will know how to execute it faithfully and understand what’s being said.

The instruction will also confirm that the older Mass must be available wherever “groups of faithful” request it, without specifying how many people it takes to constitute a “group.”

The instruction will likewise confirm that the older liturgy is to be celebrated during Holy Week wherever there’s a “stable group” of faithful attached to it, as well as in religious orders which use the extraordinary rite.

On the other hand, the instruction will probably not satisfy all traditionalist hopes. For example, it will probably not give a seminarian in a regular diocesan seminary the right to be ordained according to the pre-Vatican II ritual, in part because that ritual presumes ordination to “minor orders” and the sub-diaconate, which were suppressed under Pope Paul VI.

As far as the talks with the Society of St. Pius X go, signs suggest they may end with a whimper rather than a bang. …

Les hele artikkelen her.

Vi var i Roma sist lørsdag (19/3) fram til kl 14, men visste ikke om denne messen i Pantheon (Santa Maria ad Martyres). Les om den her.

Michael Davies diskuterer i sin bok om messen (s411-12), hvor viktig det er at det som skjer kan sees og høres. Han skiller da tydelig mellom det som sies til de troende, og det soom sies til Gud – og nevner også noe som handler om tradisjonalisters holdning mer generelt:

… An important distinction must be made here between those parts which are addressed to God and those parts which are addressed to the people, and this is one respect in which there was a place for reform. Certain parts of the Mass are intended for the instruction of the people, the Epistle and Gospel are obvious examples. Prior to the Council these were first read in Latin at the altar and then in the vernacular by the priest, facing the people. It would have been a reasonable extension of the reform undertaken by Pope Pius XII had the rubrics-been modified so that the parts of the Mass intended for the instruction of the people could have been read to them directly in the vernacular.

Those who would oppose such a development are not traditionalists but immobilists. An immobilist is opposed to any change simply because it is a change. It is understandable that many traditionalists, rightly horrified by the destruction of the Roman Rite, have developed an immobilist attitude and oppose any change whatsoever. They would thus make no distinction between a change with serious doctrinal implications, such as the abolition of the Offertory Prayers, and one with no such significance, such as the congregation singing the Pater Noster in a Missa Cantata. The Dialogue Mass is an accepted practice among French traditionalists while some English traditionalists look upon it as tantamount to Modernism. Such an attitude plays into the hands of the Modernists as it enables them to fabricate a caricature of the true traditionalist position.

The most reasonable position to adopt as regards the question of audibility, is that those parts of the Mass intended for the instruction of the people should be read directly to them in the vernacular. Those parts of the Mass addressed to God should be said facing the altar and need not be audible or in the vernacular. In this case, a distinction should be made between such prayers as the Gloria, in which the congregation can join, which can be said aloud, and the Canon, which is said by the priest alone in the person of Christ (in persona Christi), and need not be audible. If this principle is accepted the value of a celebration versus populum as an aid to audibility need not arise. …

Virkelig en ekstraordinær åpning på en messe (under), feiret av biskop Vitus Huonder i Chur bispedømme i Sveits – i en kirke i Einsiedeln. Biskopen velsigner folket på vei inn (som han skal, men burde ikke folk ha knelt?), mens en (enkel) prest går inn for å feire en tradisjonell latinsk messe med hendene samlet foran seg og øynene kastet (ydmykt) ned.

I Morgenbladet i dag skriver Liv Hegna i et interessant leserinnlegg om den katolske messefeiringen. Under overskriften «Klar tale fra Roma» påpeker hun at den moderne messen (med presten vendt mot folket) faktisk er «blitt kritisk kommentert på offisielt kirkelig hold». Og hun fortsetter:

For eksempel har pave Benedict XVI, ved sin motu proprio av 7. juli 2007, klart tilkjennegitt sitt positive syn på feiringen av den tradisjonelle latinske messen (TLM). Denne motu proprio kan ikke forstås som annet enn en – om enn mild og i en forstand indirekte – kritikk av den messepraksis som uhjemlet fikk etablere seg etter Den annet Vatikankonsil. … Hadde det vært noe poeng i pavens motu proprio hvis det ikke var for å veilede de troende i retning av en nennsom gjeninnføring av den vakre tradisjonelle messen – til en smule fortrengsel muligens for den moderne messen med alle sine rariteter som at presten står vendt mot folket under forvandlingen, og dermed vender ryggen mot tabernaklet som i St. Olav katolske domkirke i Oslo?

Det var pave Johannes XXIII som i 1962 godkjente den form den tradisjonelle messen (TLM) nå har – etter at det hadde vært arbeidet med saken siden århundreskiftet. «Det bør ikke overraske noen at den salige Johannes XXIIIs messe vil bli feiret mer frekvent i fremtiden,» skriver biskop Arborelius videre i Missale Parvum. … Roma har talt klart.

Jeg skal til Roma en uke i mars, og regner da med å få besøkt FSSPs kirke Santissima Trinità dei Pellegrini for første gang – kanskje prøver jeg også å få snakke med sognepresten Fr.Joseph Kramer. I går jeg leste jeg nokså tilfeldig et innlegg om ham på The Hermeneutic of Continuity-bloggen – som sier mye interessant om messefeiring generelt:

Fr Kramer especially emphasised that the restoration of the traditional form of the Roman Rite is not a matter of «going back» to the time before Vatican II. He spoke particularly of the greater warmth and communication between bishops and priests, and between priests and people. I agree with him. There was certainly warm and open communication in some cases but I think he is right that this has been greatly improved in recent decades.

Another important consideration is the reverence with which Mass is celebrated. One side of the «mutual enrichment» is surely that with the celebration in the vernacular of the newer form of the Roman Rite, it is much less acceptable for the priest to gabble through the rite, paying little attention to the words, in order to finish the Mass as quickly as possible. I think that this has fed into the present-day celebration of the usus antiquior. You are probably not going to come across the celebration of Low Mass in fifteen minutes. In that sense too, there is no going back.

The usus antiquior does not encourage the priest to impose his own personality on the Mass – you say the prayers devoutly and carefully but without arbitrarily imposed delays. Nevertheless, I think that priests who say the EF Mass nowadays do not do so in irreverent haste.

For the celebration of the newer form in the vernacular, we can also learn from this mutual enrichment. The Mass is not the place for the priest to show off his communication skills, to entertain the congregation, or even to show how devout he is by his pauses, his pious emphasis of certain words, or his theatrical expression. Our task is to say Mass devoutly, and to allow the Holy Spirit to speak through the Liturgy itself.

Videoene under syns jeg er veldig gode (fra en stille messe, av en italiensk prest), og jeg viste dem her på bloggen i juli i fjor, men gjentar dem her. Messen er en votivmesse for Det hellige kors, og presten leser også de stille bønnene så pass høyt (og med en god mikrofon) at man kan høre dem, men det kan man vanligvis ikke.

Søndag om en uke – 13. februar kl 19.00 – er det tradisjonell latinsk messe i St Joseph kirke; disse videoene kan hjelpe i forberedelsen hvis man ønsker å komme, og ikke kjenner den gamle messen på forhånd.

DEL 1: 01 – Praeparatio ad Missam, 02 – Orationes sub infimum gradum altaris, 03 – Pars Didattica.

DEL 2: 04 – Offertorium, 05 – Canon Missae I.

DEL 3: 06 – Canon Missae II.

DEL 4: 07 – Pater Noster, 08 – Communio, 09 – Ablutionis.

DEL 5: 10 – Dimissio, 11 – Ultimum Evangelium.

Jeg leser nå Michael Davies’ bok ‘Pope Paul’s New Mass’. der han helt i starten av boka siterer hva en prest skriver i 1974. Det er veldig interessant å lese om hvordan presetne før 1970 lærte å feire messen, hvor forskjellig det er fra måten de fleste prester tenker på i dag (men kanskje det er bare oss prester som er interesserte i slike spørsmål):

I remember how, when, as a young priest, I was preparing to say my first Mass, I was drilled most strictly and told to drill myself in such a way that every word and gesture of mine at the altar of sacrifice would be exactly correct.

Everything – tone of voice, blessings, bows, genuflections, turn-rounds to the people, height and breadth at which one held extended arms–had to be as laid down in the rubrics, exactly correct. Why? Because, at the altar, one was performing the noblest action open to a human being; the sacrifice of God’s Son to God. It followed, both logically and theologically, that one had to bring to it every ounce of reverence of which a human being was capable.

And because human beings are made up of body and soul, it followed further that every word spoken, every bodily gesture undertaken, had to be tuned in with the utmost reverence to this supreme act of worship, the highest to which any man could ever aspire. Human nature being what it is, individual idiosyncrasies would come out to take from reverence, if priests were left to themselves in the matter of words and gestures at Mass.

It followed that idiosyncrasies had to be cut to a minimum. Hence, the rubrics, which bound all priests at Mass; depersonalizing them, so to say, in the interests of the reverence which men had to put forth when they offered sacrifice to God. How else could they acknowledge adequately in their hearts their total dependence on Him Who had made them from nothing, except that they manifested it in every bodily gesture that was theirs at Mass? If the mouth speaks out of the fullness of the heart, the converse is also true; the heart is filled with reverence if the mouth of the celebrating priest is trained to speak with a reverential tone and the body to express itself in a whole series of dignified gestures. I do not think I need press the point.

Man is not a desiccated calculating machine. He is a human being made up of body and soul. He worships with the whole of himself. Precisely for that reason the celebrating priest was never left to himself in the Old Mass. He was made to conform to a celebrating code; depersonalized in the interests of the dignity that had to surround the supreme sacrifice. It has always been that way wherever men have offered sacrifice, paid honor where honor is due. After all, one does not go to see the Queen in an old pair of jeans and tatty tennis shoes. I think the point is made. (Fr. Paul Crane, SJ. Christian Order. April 1974; 240-241)

ICEL (International Commission on English in the Liturgy) koordinerer bruken av engelsk i liturgien for alle engelskspråklige land i verden, og er derfor selvsagt et svært viktig organ i Kirken. Inntil 2002 var de mest kjent for å være ansvarlige for ulike moderne/ liberale ting i Kirkens liv – som den svært frie engelske oversettelsen av messen. Men siden den tid har de virket mer i konservativ retning, som med den nyeste engelske oversettelsen av messen, men jeg hadde ikke regnet med at personer derfra skulle være og arbeide for utbredelsen av den tradisjonelle latinske messen.

Men det leser jeg om her; at de skal være involvert i et seminar som skal se på bruken av den nye og (mest) den gamle formen av messen, og også se på hvordan disse to kan berike hverandre – på et presteseminar i Louisiana i USA. Seminaret skal bl.a. opp:

● Mutual Enrichment
● Hermeneutic of Continuity – Reform of the Reform – Noble Simplicity
● Ars Celebrandi
● Discussion regarding resources and on-line resources
● Low Mass Practicum
● A comprehensive introduction to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass and its liturgical principles
● An introduction to Sung Mass and Gregorian Chant
● Hands-on instruction and training in the ceremonies of Sung (and Solemn) Mass
● Overview and practice in the chants of the Sung Mass
● Training in all the altar server positions for Sung Mass
● An overview of the 1962 Roman Missal and liturgical calendar
● A complete explanation and demonstration, with practical hands-on instruction, in the ceremony of Low Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal
● Tips and strategies for gaining proficiency in Latin

Jeg gjør de siste forberedelser til den tradisjonelle latinske messen i kveld (i St Joseph kirke i Akersveien kl 19.00), og har bl.a. trykket opp et ark med informasjon om når man kneler, står eller sitter under messen – og jeg skal nevne et par ting i forb. prekenen.

Mye er likt det vi kjenner fra novus ordo, men følgende ting bør folk bite seg merke i: man kneler ved starten av selve messen fram til gloria, man kneler fra starten av Sanctus, gjennom den eukaristiske bønnm under fadervår og kommunionen, og til sist kneler man også under velsignelsen i slutten av messen. Hele oversikten kan sees under.

Stå – Under inngangsprosesjonen
Stå – Under Asperges
Knele – Fra starten av messen til Gloria
Stå – Når Gloria intoneres (Hvis forsamlingen synger, står de under hele gloria. Hvis bare koret synger, setter folk seg når presten setter seg.)
Stå – Dóminus vobíscum and kollekten(e)
Sitte – Når epistelen og graduale synges
Stå – Når evangeliet synges
Sitte – Under preken og kunngjøringer
Stå – Credo (Stå eller sitt som ved gloria.)
Stå – Dominus vobíscum, Orémus
Sitte – Under offertoriet (Man reiser seg når forsamlingen insenseres.)
Stå – Prefasjonsdialogen og prefasjonen
Knele – Sanctus, kanon, Fadervår, kommunion
Stå – Dóminus Vobíscum og Postcommunion
Knele – Velsignelsen
Stå – Det siste evangeliet og utgangsprosesjonen

Jeg fikk nettopp et tips om et par ting til som er annerledes i den gamle messen, og som bør nevnes:

Menigheten synger IKKE med på Fadervår – bare på den siste setningen: Libera nos a malo.
Man sier IKKE Amen når man mottar kommunion – for presten sier Amen.

Det er ikke så mange som kan svare på det spørsmålet, for det er ikke mange katolikker som er prester – og det er heller ikke mange prester som har opplevd det. Jeg tenkte på dette da jeg nylig hva en prest i USA skrev om sin opplevelse:

…first time: Deacon at a Solemn High Mass! A bit of training from a very good MC, and off we went. To say it is different than the NO Mass is, umm, selling it a bit short. I am still trying to get my head around the experience.

First thought: strangely, it is much harder to ‘pray’ this Mass than the NO as a priest. At least these initial run throughs (with rusty Latin), I am so concerned with the Rubrics, the hand positions, the genuflections, the kissing the altar, hand, etc., I’m trying to get through it rather than ‘pray’ it. In TLM, it is not about the priest, it is about the ritual, the ceremony, the prayers; entering into a timelessness, almost. The prayers are beautiful in their wording, if sometimes wordy, even in the Latin (which can really get me toungue tied!)

Another thought, from a friend who was attending her first TLM: Afterwards, as we were digesting the experience over sandwiches at Cinci’s oldest bar, her comment was: ‘It seemed, ummm…, more masculine.’ …

Selv har jeg aldri feiret en høymesse (levittmesse) med prest, diakon og subdiakon, stille messer har jeg feiret over 100 av – så de oppleves ikke så annerledes og kompliserte lenger – men en missa cantata opplevde jeg de 3-4 gangene som overraskende komplisert – det er noe med samspillet med koret og ministrantene som må øves inn, og musikken som man ikke behersker før man har lært den. Men når jeg i kveld feirer en missa cantata i St Joseph kirke, håper jeg at den skal oppleves enklere.

Jeg har de siste årene bearbeidet og forenklet en engelsk ORDO (dvs. liturgisk oversikt) for den tradisjonelle latinske messen og gjort den tilgjengelig blant mine ressurser for den gamle messen. Nå er også kalenderen for 2011 på plass.