"Aggiornamento" is what Saint John the XXIII proclaimed upon the opening of Vatican II. It was about updating tradition not dispensing with it. The people of God, who had been spectators at the Mass, now were invited to be close participants. The gates of the sanctuary, the altar rail, were opened, and we were invited into the sanctuary, into that small representation of Heaven, where God Himself truly and substantially resides. But as we humans are wont to do, when those windows were opened, what was unleashed were bowlderdized interpretations of that which transpired in Rome. And so we went from great discipline to virtually none at all. It wasn't enough to be able to participate in the liturgy, but for it to be changed unto a folk and rock show (in the 1960's and 1970's) or a New Age extravaganza.
I was eleven when Vatican II concluded and I was overwhelmed by the apparent dispensation of everything which had been drilled into me as unchangeable truth. We went from Jesus on the Cross to Jesus Christ Superstar who probably had sex with Mary Magdalene. There were no more touchstones. And, being an overly sensitive child that took all authority as being without question, and not one that dealt with contradiction and ambiguity well, I was overwhelmed with cognitive dissonance. As all kids moving into puberty I was internally in perpetual doubts about myself and the world and then the one thing that had been certain was dubbed "We don't do that anymore!" "They" said it was a good thing. I was at sea. I imagine the evidence that I wasn't the only one who struggled is that a large number of my generation left the faith. Some, like me, came back, and investigated foundational dogmas and documents to the best of our ability. Others never did, either hurt by the outrageous acts of priests and nuns who did not understand their roles under either the traditional or the new liturgies, or just so so concussed by the variable opinions on what once had been clear dogma that they concluded there was no objective truth related to how we conducted our lives.
And so, we went from one extreme, to another.
Human beings react to extremes, and in a society where sex and drugs are now the height of moral activity, your opinion is as good as mine unless you have the power and then yours is better, and dismantling the Natural Law essence of the founding of this country is a sport, people are reacting. One things some Catholics are doing is seeking out the Latin Rite Mass which was the norm prior to Vatican II and which Pope Benedict re-energized.
Because I am more conservative--that is, I believe there are First Principles, that there are wrongs and rights that are not a matter of opinion or legislative or judicial fiat and because for years I have attended a parish that adroitly combined the Novus Ordo (the New Mass, the one that allows lay people to read, and lay acolytes) with the reverence and elements of the old, I thought I would have been enamored of the Mass that I had attended from the time I was six to the time I was eleven.
I was. And I wasn't.
I remembered so little of the ritual, except the phrase, "Et Cum Spiritu Tuo" which means, "And with your Spirit". And it was for two reasons, the one I enumerated above, that we parishioners were prayerful spectators under the Extraordinary Form (The Latin Mass). The sanctuary was reserved, as it was in the Temple during Our Lord's life, to the priest, the "Alter Christus", not because he was more worthy than we, but because he was consecrated specially to that role. And the other, I was too young to comprehend any of it.
There is something to be said for this separation of the people from the sanctuary, and I am not pretending to speak theologically, for I know there are many more theological reasons than I know in my limited reading. The separation reflects the gravity of the spot, and the Essence of Heaven. Over the years, guitar rehearsals in and around the spot, and people traipsing in shorts and flip flops around the space, often no longer separated by an altar rail at all, caused us to forget WHO is in the tabernacle.
But in order to recapture the seriousness of the Liturgy and its theological significance, I wonder if we have to go back more than fifty years and undo that which was good-- bringing the people into the service? Some parishes have maintained the best changes, the ones I have to believe were guided by the Holy Spirit, with Latin translations of the Novus Ordus, and the participation of the lectors and servers as has been the case for the last decades. They have been reverent and have taught reverence to those who volunteer. I came to my parish, and a return to my faith because the then pastor had so well merged the "old" with the best of the "new".
I fear that there will be a kind of schism, those who want to stay with the, shall I say it, liberal interpretations of the Novus Ordus, and those who want to close the windows that Pope John threw open.
I have to admit a potential bias because I am a woman. Do I hold the opinion that going back to the "good old days" of the Latin Mass is ill advised because I would have, in secular sensibility at least, less of a role? I have been a lector since about 1987, and in the last few years I have had the privilege of assisting priests at Mass. I have failed to recognize how blessed I have been in that gift from Him. If the Latin Mass were to "come back" and the sun were to set on the Novus Ordo, I would be relegated to the pews or to the choir. These are not bad places, to be sure. But I would indeed have some difficulty with it.
It seems to me that engaging us lay people in the mechanics of the liturgy really has been the work of the Holy Spirit. The return of the Latin Mass seems to be a reminder of what was lost, and an effort to rekindle what was discarded with the misinterpretation of the Novus Ordo. The people dress. They are exceedingly reverent. The Latin language somehow does inculcate a sense of awe in the proceedings. God is the Center in this Mass, not ourselves. We are reminded that we are His instruments. He is not ours. And there is such a thing as sin.
But I am not sure that we should recreate it as if the last fifty years did not happen. Or that the profound inhibitions imposed on many of us who grew up in that earlier time were always good. Those were days when children were given such a fear of the darkness of their souls that a moment of happiness seemed profligate. And not every person in authority had goodness in his or her heart. Or God. We were not taught how to discern who was who in such a scenario. I can say that I have lived with that failure of the "good old days."
Can we ever, we human beings, do something in moderation? The pagan Greeks had that right, and after all Plato was a progenitor of Aquinas, no?
I am happy that the Latin Mass has shown up at my parish and many others. But, I would feel sad if we simply kicked the clock back and tried to recreate something that was of its time, that the Holy Spirit, in His Wisdom, has moderated. Of course, IF we were to go back completely, then I would assume the Holy Spirit has spoken and I would acquiesce in His Action, I hope. Why? One reason only. I believe that God is Present in the Eucharist, and to leave to go to another faith would seem to deny Him. But I am hoping they can co-exist or, continue to evolve in a merging.
Time will tell. I have been attending Mass at St. Victor for thirty one years. I am not, I pray, going anywhere.
"Lord, I believe, help my unbelief."
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