Monday, June 12, 2023

On the Modernist Novus Ordo Mass.


A Modernist council and Modernist Popes have given us a Modernist Mass.

 

No less an authority than Pope Paul VI himself admitted that the smoke of Satan had entered the church through some crack. As the late Fr. Dominic Bourmaud stated in his classic work One Hundred Years of Modernism – A Genealogy of the Principles of the Second Vatican Council, the smoke is Modernism, and the crack was Vatican II. 

 

According to Fr. Bourmaud, the Modernist levels a three-pronged attack against the bulwarks of Christian culture – the philosophy of being, revelation as a fact, and the harmony between faith and reason. In its place modernism proposes a philosophy of no being (existence precedes essence), revelation without a historical basis, and ultimately, “a theology without God.”

 

In the current synodal process, as noted recently by Fr. Davide Pagliarani, Superior General of the SSPX, “The underlying idea is that God does not reveal Himself through the traditional channels of Holy Scripture and Tradition, which are safeguarded by the hierarchy, but through the ‘experience of the people of God’ [i.e. revelation without a historical basis]. Such a faith-experience, necessarily destined to evolve according to the awareness and the needs of the different moments in history, is constantly ‘enriched’ with new contents, and at the same time leaves aside that which is no longer current.”

 

This is reflected in the Modernist Mass of Paul VI with its constant state of flux – changes in rubrics and praxis, in rules, regulations and ceremonies. It focuses on the personal experience and feelings of the people, their active participation in the Mass, on self, and secondarily on the Lord, thus approaching a “theology without God.” 

 

The following three facts alone indicate the Modernism of the Mass and its theology without God – the tendency to minimize the absolute primacy of the worship of God in the Mass:

  1.  The Priest faces the assembly while praying to God.

  2. The Sacred Species are handled by Eucharistic ministers.

  3. Communion is received in the hand and standing – disrespectful on two counts. 

It is ironic that the proponents of this Mass are attempting to increase devotion to the Eucharist. Historically, only in contact with the consecrated hands of a Catholic Priest, the Sacred Species are touched by unconsecrated male and female lay “ministers,” and put into the hands of the laity without exception for reception, while everyone is standing. “And he said: I believe Lord. And falling down he adored Him” [John 9:38].

 

I am old enough to remember attending the Tridentine Mass, when as a child I thought that the few who received Communion must be very holy. They received only from the Priest, in the mouth and kneeling. Confession before reception was the implied standard. This process is of course completely alien to the Modernist Mass, as it is the antithesis of the “welcoming, ecumenical” mindset of its attendees, most of whom according to statistics, do not even believe in the Real Presence. The best example of the Modernist mass-going mentality that I have read came from a diocesan newspaper, where one person was quoted as saying that to kneel before receiving Communion would be “beneath her dignity.”

 

To quote Fr. Bourmaud: “The religion in which man divinizes and adores himself is thus a rejection of original sin and the refusal of the Savior. Such is the essence of Modernism” [p. 181].

 

In the Modernist Mass, the Priest is not obliged offer the Holy Sacrifice ad orientem, the sermon is frequently an attempt to entertain, and talking in Church is common. In fact, in one of the most recent Modernist Novus Ordo Masses that I attended, the deacon had to get up on the altar before Mass started in order to ask everyone to be quiet, because some people wanted to pray!

 

To approach the altar with a “humble and contrite heart,” after proving oneself; to deny oneself, forget oneself, and concentrate on worshiping and adoring God. This is piety, this is reverence. Lord, help me not to judge those who accuse worshipers such as these of being triumphalist rigid Christians, rosary counters, restorationists. and self-absorbed neo-pelagians.

 

To improve Eucharistic devotion, the Modernist Mass would have to change direction and proceed in the way of the Traditional Latin Mass. But change direction it will not and cannot, since it would be admitting defeat. How many decades went by before they finally caved in and restored the Eucharistic prayer to say “for many” instead of “for all?” Instead they will tweak it in some minor, non-essentials. For example, having communicants say more than just “Amen” upon receiving the Host. 

 

Let them tweak all they want – there is little hope for the Modernist Novus Ordo Mass!



References: 

 

Fr. Dominic Bourmaud, One Hundred Years of Modernism: A Genealogy of the Principles of the Second Vatican Council, Kansas City, Mo., Angelus Press, 2006. 

 

Interview with the Superior General of the Priestly Society of Saint Pius X”, with Fr. Davide Pagliarani; https://fsspx.org/en/publications/letters/interview-superior-general-priestly-society-saint-pius-x-82423



View my web page at www.frankrega.com.






 

1 comment:

  1. I very much liked your childhood memory of attending the Tridentine Latin Mass, and of you thinking that the ones who received Holy Communion were very holy.

    I would love to hear more such memories of the Church before the Second Vatican Council.

    God speed you Franco

    ReplyDelete