The Tridentine Mass

I had occasion to attend a tridentine funeral recently. For the uninitiated that is the Roman Catholic Mass as it was celebrated prior to 1963 and for more than four hundred years prior to that. It is of course all in Latin and is said facing the wall. The mass was for the Mother of a good friend of my wife's. It meant a great deal to the family and I was glad the possibility of having this service was available to them. I do think it highlights the need to have choices available to meet the needs of all segments of the Church.

I might also reflect that this was the mass form that drew me to the seminary back in 1961. I loved the Latin, the music, and the ritual. I recall that when the altar was turned around and the vernacular installed while I was still in the seminary, I somehow felt cheated that I would be ordained and be unable to say the mass and intone the chants that I had expected to be part of my priesthood. Let me hasten to add, however, that the tridentine mass was not the only factor that had drawn me to the seminary and its demise certainly wasn't involved in my decision to leave the seminary in the late 60's.

Putting aside nostalgia for familiar rituals, a number of thoughts came to me as I watched the requiem mass unfold. First of all, the key word is watched. Whatever was going on at the altar had nothing to do with me. The priest and two altar boys came out of the sacristy, went to the altar and started mumbling something. Other than a little bell to let whomever was on the other side of the altar know that the priest had begun his thing, there was no acknowledgement of the people. When the priest went up to the altar you could see nothing but his back. You had no idea what was on the altar, or what he was doing. Whatever he was doing did not involve the peoiple. Throughout the Mass, the people were involved when the priest would turn around to say the Lord be With You (in Latin), and when he held the host over his head after the consecration. Of course there was a book in which you could read the English translation of what he was saying, but I ask you, if you are going to read the English translation what is the point of saying it in Latin in the first place? The people of course are completely cut off from the altar as the altar boys come and loudly shut the communion rail to let the people know just how separated they are from the altar.

The bottom line is that the Mass was an activity for the priest. I believe this is why as altar boys we would serve the private masses of the priest each morning. It really didn't matter whether anybody was there or not, since it was all about God and his priest. Maybe this was why I wanted to be a priest, since only as a priest could I get in on the good stuff. Talk about pray, pay, and obey; the laity were frankly nobody in the pre-vatican II church. Is this really the Church we want to go back to?

Do our Catholic people in this country really want to return to attending Mass each week in the Tridentine form? Even in our regular Sunday Masses, why is it that there is a movement to renew the separation of priest and people? Eucharistic ministers are kept a little further from the priestly activity in many parishes. The lectors generally do not read the Prayer of the Faithful anymore. That one seems strange since it is in fact the Prayer of the Faithful (our prayer). Other examples could be given.

There is and will always be an appropriate tension in our religion between the transcendance and immanence of God. Yet I believe most of Christianity in this country is predicated on being as close to our God as possible. Jesus is our brother, he comes to us in the Eucharist, before God we are all equal (including the heirarchy). Watching some consecrated priest perform a quasi magical ritual that allows us to gaze on God from afar does not seem the appropriate forum for general Catholic worship in our country today.