Thursday, August 29, 2013

Mass of the Pre-Sanctified Revisited


Readers will remember several months ago the Rad Trad collated images from the Institute of Christ the King's Good Friday Mass of the Pre-Sanctified in 2003. It is the Rad Trad's most viewed post ever. Unfortunately the Institute did not video record the event. However a church in Ohio, run by some squad of sedevacantists, did manage to record a celebration this year. The Rad Trad came across this quite accidently on YouTube and, after some hesistation, has decided to post it below for purely academic purposes. Note the "haunting" Gospel tone after the Passion and the elements from a regular Mass that compose the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified in part 2, which you can access by clicking the player and getting to YouTube proper. Another unique feature is that this combines rubrics for Pontifical Mass at the Faldstool with the Holy Week rubrics, which is the reason for the odd positioning of the sacred ministers. Also, although I believe Pius XII abolished it in the 1950s, the celebrating bishop has a train on his cassock. I believe one of the deacons of the Passion is Fr. Anthony Cekada, the author.
 
Hopefully readers will see why, given its structural similarities to the ancient Roman Mass outlined here, and its common prayers with Mass every other day of the year, a friend of the Rad Trad's once argued that the Mass of the Pre-Sanctified is an actual Mass. It has the synaxis. It has the prayers for the Church. And it has the observance of the Eucharist. All distinct from the praying of the Office. There is even that question as to whether or not the wine is consecrated by the mingling of the Blessed Sacrament, which the Easterners still believe happens. The reformers judged this question to be a medieval superstition. So the entire rite was replaced by some readings and a general communion service.
 
I hope readers will not be put off by the canonically illicit surroundings of this celebration, as we are interested in the rite itself and not the celebrants nor their congregation. I post this in the same spirit and with the same intent that I have published images and recordings of Eastern Orthodox services. The rite itself is part of our Roman patrimony and we ought to learn more about it.
 
 
Correction: part 2 is not uploaded, but the end of the Blessed Sacrament procession and the offertory-like ceremonies can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwQnfH2d2bg (the uploader has forbidden embedding for some reason, apologies).


7 comments:

  1. Thanks for the video! I'm a "collector" of Liturgy videos.

    I've yet to find, though, a video of a traditional Chrismal Mass.

    I've given up hope looking for videos of the traditional Maronite liturgy. From what an acquaintance tells me, no one celebrates it any more :-(

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  2. While SGG is almost single-handedly preserving the fullness of the Roman Rite via the full celebration of various liturgical rites such as these, and likewise by their frequent, DAILY sung Masses, they fall short when it comes to the sung Propers. For most of their recorded Masses, I have yet to hear any Proper besides the Introit sung in its full Gregorian melody. Rather, those blasted 1940's-ish Rossini melodies are given the light of day for the Gradual and such. Even the tracts on the Pentecost Vigil (nice to watch that ceremony) were not sung but hurried through recto tono. For a place such as this, and with the musical background of our favorite sedevacantist author, it shocks me that there is no men's schola (I only hear mostly women's voices singing) which is properly trained and available to sing these.



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    1. A female friend of mine actively hates the female voice at the Latin Mass. Her minds is that if you cannot find a small squad of 8 year old boys, better to skip polyphony altogether and have a male schola chant the Mass. I am more turned off by the excessive use of the organ. I can see the point of it during the ordinary of Mass or to give the schola the tone, but not for entire propers.

      Still, during Holy Week I can see the reason for using simpler tones. The choir, especially in a setting such as this, has 4 straight days of Masses, Mattins, Lauds, and (maybe, depending on what they do) Vespers and Compline. It's an intimidating program.

      I would think that it would be easier to use the actual gradual at daily Masses, as most of them come from the Commons. One could become familiar with the chants very quickly.

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  3. so with the bishop - there are no prostrations?
    and could you please remove the code for commenting - it's tiring LOL

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    1. I think I have successfully removed the code, which I agree is tiring.

      In the older rite a bishop does not prostrate for the beginning on Good Friday, nor for the Litanies of the Saints on the Paschal Vigil and Pentecost Vigil. Rather, he kneels at a faldstool along with the other sacred ministers. In the new rite everyone prostrates on Good Friday, although Benedict XVI and John Paul II knelt later in their papacies for health reasons, and, oddly, standing is the given posture for any use of the Litanies of Saints.

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    2. And thanks for hearing my plea about the code :)

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