Adapted from a speech in September 1998 at the Catholic Restoration Conference.
I'm the new kid on the block in terms of discovering the Old Mass. I probably discovered it more recently than the other gentlemen here. I began to attend the Old Mass in 1992 so that was only six years ago -- a relatively short time, compared to some of you.
Though I have thought about this, I've never really given a talk on why we love going to the Old Mass. So I'm going to speak extemporaneously. I have a couple of thoughts that came to me, and I hope to speak from the heart for a few minutes.
I've heard several interesting theological arguments in favor of the Old Mass. I have made theological arguments in favor of it and I will mention a couple of those this evening. But I want to cut right to the heart of the matter and tell you the most important reason why I go to the Old Mass: Because it's more "boring" than the New Mass. I mean that seriously, because I'm a sinner and I know I don't deserve to be "entertained" when I go to worship God in that Holy Hour of the Mass. The New Mass is a lot more "entertaining," a lot more "fun." It's a lot of face to face, up and down, and more like a combination of a talk show, an exercise program, and a home-shopping program all rolled into one. If there were no theological or spiritual considerations, just looking at things from a human point of view, I would prefer to be entertained. I would prefer to recieve something in a manner that is easier to understand, less transcendent, less majestic, that isn't so humbling, so humiliating. It's humiliating to go to the Old Mass. For many of you, it is a sacrifice of great time, depending on how far you have to travel. It is a sacrifice, perhaps, of intellect if you don't understand everything in the way that you understand a Mass that is said completely in your own language, where everything is explained for you by a commentator who leaves nothing to chance or to your intelligence. In every way it is easier to go to the New Mass.
I go to the Old Mass because it's harder and I need the work. I need to build up my spiritual muscles, I need the hard work of worship for me to grow. I can see the light-years that I have to go before even beginning to come within view of the sainthood that our Lord Jesus Christ wants every one of us to aspire to and to attain. That's my most important reason for going to the Old Mass.
Now, let me give a couple of theological reasons if you want something a little more sublime than that. The main reason I began to go to the Old Mass once I had discovered it was that, as I reflected on what the Mass was and how the whole shape of our Faith seems to have been changed from being very God-centered, to very man-centered in the last thirty of forty years -- as I thought about how the Faith has undergone this radical transformation from Dr. Jekyll (the good guy) to Mr. Hyde, and as I reflected on what worship was in Scripture, I saw that in the Scriptures, God always asked people to give Him their very best.
In the Old Testament, the Isrealites were called to give God "a lamb without blemish." That was a great economic sacrifice for the Isrealites. Theirs was an agricultural society, so every lamb represented a real source of income. They could shear the sheep for the fleece and sell it. They could eventually kill the lamb, cook it, and eat it. But the more unblemished the lamb, the more valuable the lamb was, the higher price you could sell it for. If its fleece was not completely white or completely black or completely brown, but a mottle -- a mixture of different colors (dyes had not been heavily developed yet) this wasn't considered attractive. It was far better to have a fleece of one color than something that was patched with brown, black, and white.
So a lamb without blemish would have been the most expensive lamb you had, the one of greatest use to you, the one of greatest value to you economically. God commanded that they give Him a lamb without blemish. You could not give Him a lamb that was blind, or lame, or old, or undersized, you had to give God your most robust, most muscular, the best lamb you had. You couldn't say, "That little lamb is not going to fetch a very good price at the market," or "It's so crippled and blind it's going to over a cliff any day now anyway so I might as well give it to God and stop worrying about it." No, you had to give God your best, not your worst. That was a sacrifice.
It is evident to me that two thousand years of Catholic history has produced the Traditional Mass. It is two thousand years old, but it has been fine-tuned to perfection over the course of that time through a process of organic development which represents the very best, the very highest that the Holy Ghost inspired the Church to offer to God. The Old Mass, in essence, is identical to the very First Mass that our Lord offered at the Last Supper. So we know it's the highest and the holiest, because it came from the hands of our Lord Himself.
The New Mass, as anyone can learn if they take the time to study the story of how it came about -- you could read right from the horse's mouth a massive thousand page book called the Reform of the Liturgy by Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, in which he tells the story, or you can read a somewhat more critical version of the same facts in Michael Davies' book Pope Paul's New Mass -- whichever book you read, you will discover that the New Mass was an artificial construction by people, produced in the 20th Century, an era we would all agree is not exactly the high tide mak of Christian civilization. As a result, if we offer God the New Mass, common sense tells us we're offering Him something less noble, less mature, less sublime, less elevated, less exalted, less God-glorifying, less majestic, less transcendent than if we offer Him the Old.
And I came to see that the more I wrestled with what the Bible teaches us about worship and the principles of worship, (I did a nine tape set called Into the Holy of Holies: A Biblical Theology of Worship from Genesis to Revelation). I saw that the New Mass, when weighed in the balance and the scales of these Biblical principles, just comes up too light. It's "Catholicism light": half the calories, half the guilt, probably half the work, half the honor -- and "half" is probably being generous. So I felt that if we are going to do at least what our Old Testament forefathers did, offer God that lamb without blemish, we'd offer him the highest and holiest Mass of which we are capable, and that is the Old Mass.
The last thing I'm going to say might strike you as controversial. This might be something you've never thought about before, something you've never heard of before. I realize we come from different backgrounds, and different perspectives, different notches on the spectrum this evening. That is nothing to be uptight about. We can listen carefully to each other and help each other to understand and come to clarity, to unity and to the Faith.
The first time I heard what I'm about to say to you I was taken aback. I was shocked. I thought it was too extreme. I thought it was too severe a statement. But I have studied this issue and wrestled with it for the last six years. And I can stand before you without the slighest qualm of conscience, or hesitation, or doubt in my mind, of what I'm about to tell you is absolutely true.
Speaking only for myself, personally, the reason why I can no longer go to the New Mass, and throw myself into it as an act of unrestrained, unconditional, giving of myself to God in that most solemn activity that we are all called to as human beings -- to make an oblation, a complete offering of ourselves to God -- the reason something holds me back from embracing it with wholehearted enthusiasm is because at the very heart of the New Mass is a lie.
Our Lord, on the night in which He was betrayed, took bread --I'm not going to rehearse the entire story of the institution of the Holy Eucharist, you know it by heart. But when He took that bread, He, being God (the same God with the power to take darkness and say "Let this be light" and darkness was changed into light) took bread and said "This is My Body," and by His Divine creative word, changed bread into His Sacred Body. When He took the chalice filled with wine, and elevated it, consecrated it to the Father, He said "This is the cup of My Blood, the Blood of the new and everlasting covenant which will be shed for you and for many unto the remission of sins."
He said "for you and for many". And every single translation of the Bible, the most liberal Catholic, the most periphrastic, sloppy, unliteral Protestant translations, all accurately record our Lord's words as being, "My Blood shall be shed for you and for many." Not a single one says "for you and for all." Not even the comic-strip Bible, says "for you and for all." They all say "for you and for many." For 2,000 years, the Latin text of this has read, pro vobis et pro multis, -- "multis" meaning "many."
When I began reading critiques of the New Mass, I found it shocking that even the English translation of the Old Mass that the ICEL (International Commission on English in the Liturgy) produced in 1967 had changed "for many" into "for all." Catholic author Patrick Henry Omlor rang the alarm bell over this and said that this is not a proper translation of the Old Mass -- and this was two years before the New Mass came out.
Now somebody might say that maybe "all" means the same as "many." Someone may argue that Our Lord said "My Blood will be shed for you and for many," but "many" simply means the multitude of the human race. It's really being shed, it's being poured out for all, so "many" and "all" mean the same thing. Therefore, "all" is an adequate and accurate translation.
There is only one problem with this argument, and that is the testimony of Sacred History. The Church has spoken magisterially on this issue on several occasions.
In the Catechism of the Council of Trent -- which is what you should read before you read any other catechism, and judge all others by this Catechism -- in that Catechism we are told by the Church, speaking magisterially, that when Christ uttered the words of Consecration, He deliberately said "for many" and not "for all." Our Lord was not talking about those for whom His Blood would be shed on the Cross, he was talking about whom His Blood would be poured out for in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and who would be ultimately brought to Heaven by that. He was not talking about the entire world. The Blood He shed on the Cross was sufficient to save the whole world, but our Faith has always taught us that it is efficient only for the elect, for those who actually make it to Heaven. Even Monsignor Klaus Gamber in Appendix I of his book The Reform of the Roman Liturgy, makes this point very clearly. The Cathechism says Our Lord intended to say "for many" and deliberately avoided the use of the words "for all." Saint Thomas Aquinas teaches the exact same thing in his Summa, and so does Saint Alphonsus Liguori, Doctor of the Church, in his treatsie on the Holy Eucharist.
So every time a priest celebrating the New Mass says on the night on which Our Lord was betrayed, He said 'My Blood shall be shed for you and for all", the priest is immediately saying something that every informed Catholic knows that Our Lord did not say. He is misrepresenting Our Lord. And I cannot believe, with my relatively simple Faith, that Our Lord is honored when His own words are tampered with -- when we are being given a bait and switch. We are being given a different statement than the one Our Lord actually uttered. And when all these documents I've just quoted say He did not say "for all" but "for many," then it is our duty to be submissive, obedient and to accept the true words of Our Lord.
For that reason we go exclusively to the Old Mass in which Our Lord's words are faithfully represented. That to me seems our most minimal duty of obedience and fidelity to Our Lord.
Reproduced with permission from Gerry Matatics. www.gerrymatatics.org
Get your own Free Home Page