\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>For those of you interested in the Mass, here is a useful reflection on the antiquity of the “old Mass,” in use throughout the Catholic Church up until it was replaced by the “Novus Ordo<\/em> Mass” of St. Paul VI,<\/strong> promulgated in 1969, with the revised Roman Missal appearing in 1970.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>This author, Michael Charlier<\/strong>, a German theologian who was born in 1944 (link<\/strong><\/a>), outlines the history of the “old Mass,” and concludes that it dates back, not only to the Council of Trent in the 1500s (hence called the “Tridentine Mass,” because the name of the city of Trent in Latin was Tridentum<\/em>), but in fact to… Pope St. Gregory the Great<\/strong> (Pope from 590 to 604 A.D.).<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>[Note<\/em>: The northern Italian city named Trento<\/strong> was conquered by the\u00a0Romans\u00a0in the 1st century BC, after several clashes with the Rhaetian tribes. Before the Romans, Trento<\/strong> was a Celtic village.\u00a0Julius Caesar<\/strong>\u00a0re-founded it as a Roman municipality when\u00a0Rome extended citizenship\u00a0to the part of Cisalpine Gaul north of the River Po.\u00a0The Latin name given to the settlement was\u00a0Tridentum<\/strong>,<\/em>\u00a0meaning “Three-teeth place” or “Trident-town” (tri-<\/em>\u00a0“three” +\u00a0d\u0113ns, dent-<\/em>\u00a0“tooth”). The reason for the name is uncertain: the new town may have been consecrated to the god\u00a0Neptune, or possibly named after the three hills that surround the city (known in Italian as\u00a0Doss Trento<\/em>,\u00a0Doss di Sant’Agata<\/em>\u00a0and\u00a0Doss di San Rocco<\/em>). The Latin name is the source of the adjective “Tridentine.”\u00a0(link<\/strong><\/a>) Because the Council of Tren (1545-1563, link<\/strong><\/a>) issued a call for a “codification” of the Mass in use at that time, the codified Mass that appeared in 1570 was called “the Tridentine Mass” meaning, “the Mass from Trent.” It remained in use for 400 years, until 1970. (link<\/strong><\/a>)]<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>The author concludes that we should not call the old Mass “the Tridentine Mass,” but “the Mass of St. Gregory the Great” \u2014 meaning, it is a 1,400-year-old Mass, not a 400-year-old Mass.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>But, this author argues, much of that Mass of St. Gregory the Great was even centuries older<\/em>… \u2014RM<\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>P.S. <\/em>Special Note!<\/em><\/strong> Since things in Rome seem to be heating up, I need support for this letter to prepare for <\/em>the upcoming winter<\/em><\/strong>. Any donation would be appreciated: <\/em>here<\/em><\/strong><\/a>. <\/em>\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div> \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>This article appeared yesterday on the Rorate Caeli<\/em> website, here<\/strong><\/a>; here<\/strong><\/a> is the German original:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>By Michael Charlier<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>November 27, 2023<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>At the time of Pope Gregory<\/strong> (590-604), many parts of the Roman liturgy were already so old that no one could remember their introduction or even speak of them having been “introduced.”<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Of Gregory’s predecessors, Damasus I<\/strong> (366-384) and Gelasius I<\/strong> (492-496) are named as popes who intervened in the liturgy in one way or another.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Damasus, for example, regulated the more or less spontaneous transition from the Greek to the Latin liturgical language by\u00a0suggesting an authoritative translation of the Septuagint — thus\u00a0creating what later became known as the Vulgate.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>To avoid an\u00a0obvious misunderstanding: this transition was by no means an\u00a0attempt to introduce the “colloquial language” into the liturgy,\u00a0driven by the pursuit of “comprehensibility for all.”<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>The Latin\u00a0of the earliest known liturgical prayers was not the spoken\u00a0language, but a classical, in places almost archaic Latin, which\u00a0was characterized by borrowings from the (always religiously\u00a0influenced) official language of the imperial court and the art of\u00a0the rhetors.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Even in these earliest times, it was generally believed that the\u00a0Roman liturgy had its origins in the time of the apostles.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Differences between the liturgies of different patriarchates were\u00a0not perceived as problematic, as these patriarchates traced\u00a0themselves back to different apostles as the founders of their\u00a0own traditions.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Much stronger was the awareness of the basic\u00a0structure common to all these liturgies — a strong indication that\u00a0the Eucharist had already received its essential form in the\u00a0circle of the apostles before they separated for their missionary\u00a0work in all three continents known at that time.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>The basis of this unity was always the unity of faith, and the\u00a0early councils did not concern themselves with liturgical\u00a0questions, but ensured the unity of faith.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>As long as this was\u00a0given, or as long as it could be achieved through often painful\u00a0disputes, ritual differences were considered irrelevant.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>This is\u00a0precisely the decisive difference compared to the era of the\u00a0schism of faith that reached its first climax with Luther<\/strong>, which\u00a0has now broken out again at the heart of the Church with the\u00a0papal claim that the “old faith” expressed in the “old liturgy” is\u00a0incompatible with the “modern faith” allegedly laid down at\u00a0Vatican II.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>But back to the origins.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Even in apostolic times, the connection\u00a0between a common meal and the celebration of the Eucharist (1\u00a0Corinthians 11), which was originally a remembrance — but not\u00a0an essential continuation — of the “Last Supper,” had become\u00a0problematic and was no longer practised, at least in some\u00a0places, as early as the end of the first and beginning of the\u00a0second century.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>From the middle of the 2nd century, in the\u00a0writings of the church scholar Justin Martyr<\/strong>, the order of a\u00a0Sunday liturgy is handed down, which already shows the basic\u00a0elements and order of the Roman liturgy: a liturgy with readings\u00a0from the Old and New Testaments, exposition of Scripture,\u00a0intercessory prayers, and finally the Eucharistic prayer of\u00a0blessing over bread and wine followed by Communion.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>It will now be readily conceded that this basic structure can also\u00a0be recognized in the “new Mass” of Paul VI<\/strong>.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>This concession\u00a0must, of course, be combined with the embarrassing question of\u00a0why\u00a0the entire subsequent development and unfolding of\u00a0doctrine and liturgy over more than a millennium and a half\u00a0should be literally discarded — if not with the aim of rejecting\u00a0this entire development and initiating a new interpretation that\u00a0is better suited to our modern taste, ostensibly based on an\u00a0alleged “pure original form” (known to us, moreover, only in its\u00a0broadest outlines).<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>And this is unmistakably linked to a\u00a0relativization and reduction of the very faith declared by those\u00a0Fathers of the Church in the early centuries and established by\u00a0the ecumenical councils.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>The Eucharistic “prayer of blessing” from the time of Justin has\u00a0not survived.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>The attempt of the liturgical reformers to\u00a0appropriate the alleged “Canon of Hyppolitus” from the early\u00a0third century for their “new Mass” must be considered a failure\u00a0for several reasons: firstly, because this prayer of consecration\u00a0probably does not originate from the context of a Eucharistic\u00a0celebration, but from a bishop’s consecration; secondly, because\u00a0it did not originally come from Rome, but from an oriental tradition; and, finally, because the reformers made extensive\u00a0cuts, changes, and even falsifications to the traditional text in\u00a0order to adapt it to their “contemporary” ideas.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Therefore, the\u00a0Second Eucharistic Prayer<\/strong> of the new Mass cannot be justified\u00a0by reference to this alleged “predecessor.”<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>In fact, the earliest formal Eucharistic Prayer in the West\u00a0becomes accessible to us in Roman records towards the end of\u00a0the 4th century — which is understandably some time after the\u00a0last persecutions of Christians ended, and state recognition had\u00a0come.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>And this Eucharistic Prayer already corresponds in many\u00a0details to the Roman Canon<\/strong>, which was then disseminated\u00a0throughout the West in the following centuries.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>It is therefore clumsy, if not misleading, to speak of the\u00a0“Tridentine” liturgy today.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>The Roman Canon and many other,\u00a0less central elements of the Latin liturgy and also of the Roman\u00a0calendar can be found almost word for word in the missal of the\u00a0Roman Curia of the 13th century or the Franciscan “traveling\u00a0missals” of the 14th century.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>These in turn go back to the time\u00a0of Innocent III<\/strong> (d. 1216) and earlier still. In fact, these\u00a0“traveling missals” arose from the need of the wandering\u00a0mendicant friars to be able to carry all the prayers and readings\u00a0required for the celebration of Mass with them in an easily\u00a0transportable form.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Until then, a whole collection of\u00a0“sacramentaries” had been used for the liturgy in monasteries\u00a0and episcopal churches, together with “lectionaries,”\u00a0“antiphonaries,” and other ritual books.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Thus, the “Missale Romanum<\/em>” itself, a single book comprising\u00a0the texts of the Mass, is not older than 800 years — but the\u00a0Roman Rite\u00a0with its prayers, feast days, and ceremonies handed\u00a0down in this Missal can actually be documented back to the\u00a0time of Gregory the Great.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>This is evidenced not only by the\u00a0medieval sacramentaries and the “Ordines,” some of which are\u00a0from late antiquity, but also by the missal expositions by\u00a0Amalar of Metz<\/strong> (\u2020850), Rupert of Deutz<\/strong> (\u20201130), or Durandus\u00a0of Mende<\/strong> (\u20201296).<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Although some of these explanations were\u00a0already controversial at the time they were written because of\u00a0their allegorical-pastoral approach, they largely agree in their\u00a0description of the rite and its tracing back to the time of\u00a0Gregory.<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>Even more than the “Gregorian chant” — whose melody\u00a0developed considerably from its late antique origins as it drifted\u00a0through the Middle Ages — the Roman liturgy can therefore\u00a0rightly be described as the “Gregorian rite” or also as “the\u00a0divine liturgy of St. Gregory<\/strong>.”<\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>[End, article by Michael Charlier<\/em>]<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":345,"featured_media":52619,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[67],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\n\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/span>How Old is the”Old Mass”?<\/strong><\/h3>\n