Modest Improvements to the Celebration of the Old Mass

The number of pre-Conciliar Masses, at least in these United States, has increased many fold since Summorum Pontificum. Most of these new Masses have comes from diocesan clergy and as such are only available once a week to the faithful. The Ecclesia Dei priestly communities like the FSSP and ICRSS have broadened their presence in America, extending, perhaps not for the better, into areas like New England, where regular clergy formerly supplied the old rites.

Given the greater issues of importance, namely reviving Catholic culture and proliferating the old(er) Mass, this blog post touches on a subject of comparative luxury, how to celebrate the old Mass better.

Here in Dallas we have three parishes of the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter spaced about fifty miles from each other East to West. The FSSP follows the Rite of Econe, an extraordinary form of the 1962 Missal. Diocesan priests celebrating the old Mass usually begin with said Mass and graduate to Missa cantata, picking up habits along the way.

What follows are some modest proposals, not involving the resurrection of glorious medieval customs or additional churchwares, to improve the celebration of the old Mass.

Variety is the Spice of Life

The traditional liturgy, at least at the time of the Tridentine Missal, possessed an elegant balance of the temporal and sanctoral cycles, each with a fair balance in itself between minor and major celebrations. The degree was manifested in the obvious elements, like psalmnody and vestment colors, but also in subtler elements, like the tones used at Mass and the admission of additional prayers at the Major Hours and the Holy Mass.

Post-Tridentine canonizations and the bloating of the kalendar, in conjunction with Pius XII and John XXIII's flattening of the kalendar, have left us with something in the 1962 rites more akin to the Byzantine liturgy: nearly a saint every day, almost all of the same rank, with Sundays and a few feasts able to break the cycle. 

Some semblance of seasonality or festivity could still be accomplished through music. "Back in the day" there was a monotonous fidelity to the Missa de angelis, a fad which has generally subsided. Most traditional Masses will loosely follow the post-Solesmes editions of the Liber Usualis in singing Mass XVIII during Lent and Advent, Mass XI on "green" Sundays, Mass I during Paschaltide, and maybe Mass IX on Marian days. While the assignment of these Masses to certain seasons was more or less arbitrary on the part of the Solesmes congregation, people have become accustomed to hearing them at certain times of year.

What of the clergy's parts? Before "the Council" one heard almost nothing save for the ferial tone. It may have derived from the ubiquity of the said Mass. Today, at least among FSSP clergy in the Anglosphere, one rarely hears anything except the solemn tone for the priest's parts, the orations, and the Gospel. Without fail on All Souls' Day we hear the priest start on C for Dom and climb to D and descend for inus vobiscum. 

The ancient, solemn tone is always an option during Masses, but could not some alternation be useful here? The solemn tone would be better allocated to Sundays, feasts, and anything which in better days had "double" in the name. Among practical parish celebrations, would the ferial tone every show up? At the Oxford Oratory the old Mass normally only became sung on days special to the locals, but less significant to the universal Church. We had a votive Mass of the Angels for the Newman Society, the odd Missa cantata on a Marian Saturday, and the feast of the English martyrs. Most traditionally minded churches will also celebrate a sung Mass on Ash Wednesday and All Souls. Either due to the penitential nature of the day or the lesser quality of the feast, the ferial tone marks a different stature to the day which is useful for the faithful.

One underused option, which requires practice, but not special singing talent, is the collection of ad libitum prefaces in a more solemn tone at the back of the Missal. These accentuate the words of Thanksgiving and on greater feasts add solemnity to the occasion.

Perhaps Not Too Much Variety

Variety is the spice of life, but seasoning cannot be willy nilly, it requires some thought and direction.

One such opportunity for regularity is in the celebration of Masses on what are in the 1962 Missal call "IV Class feasts" aka a day of nothing where there was once something. On these days and on true feriae outside of Lent priests of the Fraternity will typically celebrate one of the newer votive Masses permitted on the day (St Joseph on Wednesday, Christ the High Priest Thursday, Sacred Heart on Friday). I knew one priest who, without fail, would say no Mass other than that of the Immaculate Heart of Mary on anything below a III Class day, even on Saturdays of Our Lady; in the Middle Ages he would have been a "Massing priest".

What is a shame is that the Mass of the Sunday is almost never repeated. Before John XXIII, whenever the Sunday Mass was impeded—if Ss. Peter & Paul fell on a Sunday after Pentecost—the Sunday Mass would be repeated without the Gloria and Credo, without the Alleluia, and with additional commemorations on the first available day of the succeeding week.

The loss of this practice means that the Abomination of Desolation narrative from the XXIV Sunday after Pentecost is typically only read once a year while the parable the talents is reading dozens of times a year, perhaps even several times a week outside of Lent, because of the volume of post-Tridentine feasts taken from the Commons.

Instead of turning to a devotional votive Mass on IV Class and ferial days, repeat the Sunday Mass and re-immerse the faithful in its thoughtful collation of lessons.

As an aside, in the pre-Pius XII system a votive Mass could be said on nearly any day with a semi-Double feast or less if the season was not Lent or Advent. An adventurous priest, courageous enough to crack open his older Missale Romanum, might turn to the feast of Saint Alexius this year, notice it is merely a semi-Double, and say the [greatly underused] Mass of the Passion instead.

Additionally, the older old rite also had many proper Masses for saint popes, meaning not only no Si diligis, but perhaps even fewer Commons.

Liturgical Inspiration for Sermons

I remember it well. It was the second Sunday of Lent. The Gospel was the Transfiguration. The saint of the day was Pope Gregory the Great. The sermon? Why women need to dress more modestly.

One often hears that whereas in the new rite one must give a "homily", in the old rite the priest delivers a sermon. Semantics aside, diocesan clergy celebrating the old Mass almost always follow their seminary training and give a lesson either on the feast or the Gospel of the day. Traditionalist clergy tend to give either a sermon on the Gospel of the day or whatever has been on their mind that week, such as ladies' skirts not quite hitting the floor in the Mormon Trad manner.

Something is lost here. Thus far I have never heard a sermon or homily, whatever the real difference may be between them, on the Epistle of the day. Unlike in the Pauline and Byzantine rites, which generally go through blocks of Scripture during a season or month, the old Roman lectionary is very deliberate in pairing New Testament Epistles and Old Testament lessons with the Gospel percipes, either because they explicate on the virtues displayed by Christ or because they display typology of fulfillment of Christ's life. Understandably, talk during Advent normally focuses on preparation for Christmas, anticipating the coming of Christ, or the Gospel text about the End. Are these words, read at that Mass and by Saint Augustine in a Milanese garden, not worthy of their own sermon?

"And that knowing the season; that it is now the hour for us to rise from sleep. For now our salvation is nearer than when we believed. The night is passed, and the day is at hand. Let us therefore cast off the works of darkness, and put on the armour of light. Let us walk honestly, as in the day: not in rioting and drunkenness, not in chambering and impurities, not in contention and envy: But put ye on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make not provision for the flesh in its concupiscences."

There is also the question of saints, especially among those celebrating the 1962 rite rather than the older forms. Saints, even Apostles, hardly ever supersede a Sunday. Ss Peter & Paul, John the Baptist, the Immaculate Conception, All Souls, and the Assumption are generally it. The odds are only one of those will pass in a given year. Large swatches of saints vital to the Roman patrimony go unnoticed. The virgin martyrs of the Roman Canon, the saintly Latin and Greek Doctors of the Church, the medieval reformers, and the Counter-Reformers all go unnoticed on their own feast days if they fall on a Sunday. While doing this weekly would be inappropriate, it would be fitting, if when a saint of Biblical or patrimonial significance falls on a Sunday and the saint's feast does not replace the Sunday, to give a sermon on the life, inspiration, and deeds of the saint of the day.

Gregory the Great was the most significant Bishop of Rome after Peter himself. Does he not deserve more attention than Mrs. Johnson's ankles?