I would like to draw your attention to “Proprium Missae: Unity, Variety, and Rupture in the Roman Rite” by László Dobszay, which includes three pages of detailed charts from Missals from all ages demonstrating that the propers of the Mass have been remarkably stable since the 8th century. His piece was published in Sacred Music 134.1, starting on page 16. The reader is left with a sense of astonishment that we could have ever found ourselves in the position of leaving out an essential part of the Mass, year after year, replacing the liturgical propers, rooted in scripture, with hymns with texts by poets and chosen by music directors and publishers. Dobszay shows that this situation is essentially unprecedented.
Sacred Music, 134.1, Spring 2007; The Journal of the Church Music Association of America
Hi,
I'm sorry I cant' help telling that reading Dobszay is more and more boring.
His writing are interesting and no doubt he has a great knowledge in the liturgical field.
But he is definitely obsessed by the so-called destruction of the roman liturgy.
It is not up to us, lay people, to decide what the Church's prayer shall look like despite what it used to be. And it might change in the future, for the good!
Maybe we could stop criticisms for once and try to do the best we can with what the Church gives us?
I know many people sanctifying themselves with the novus ordo (especially the reformed breviary). And they don't give a damn whether it is a clear break in the roman office. They just pray. They learnt to love it.
The release of the latest Antiphonale Romanum is invitation to that, and it is quite delightful.
Jérôme.
Jérôme,
There are two separate points here. The first – which I believe the author was addressing – is the widespread practice of substituting other texts for the Propers in masses that involve singing. That's an astonishing departure from tradition and liturgy, including the structure of the Novus Ordo, which seems to happen at the whim of individuals whose liturgical understanding leaves something to be desired (this is usually not their fault).
Then there's the issue of continuity between the historic forms of the Roman Rite and the new. That isn't addressed here, though I must say your distress at the idea that members of the laity should explore such matters reflects an ultramontanism that's more of the 19th and early 20th centuries than now. You might like to consider instead the current Holy Father's suggestion that the liturgy is an organic, growing thing, which Rome tends but does not create. That leaves open the possibility that decisions can be made that are open to subsequent modification or correction – a suggestion that seems to be born out by liturgical history.
Maybe we could stop criticisms for once and try to do the best we can with what the Church gives us?
Jerome;
I think that is the point… the Church has given us the Propers as part of the liturgy, but we AREN'T doing the best we can with them. You are right in that way… we should do the best we can with what the CHURCH has given us, not with what OCP, GIA, WLP et al have decided to give us. If we did so, we would be in a far different and probably far better place.
Ian,
Don't get me wrong.
We can acknowlegde that there was a clear break in the tradition. Every reasonable person knows about it. Fine.
However, what does Dobszay (or Reid) plan to do about it? Does he have any power to make things change at the Roman Curia?
If not, what's the point repeating again and again the same grumblings?
The Holy Father indeed knows too well about liturgical issues, but what does he currently implement?
Nowdays, we have two choices:
– the 1961 books which are tight to the EF, the 1911 AR is very outdated.
The idea of getting back to the one-week psalter is seducing but unless
you follow the EF, it is unusable.
– the novus ordo books are tight to the OF, with a renewed antiphonay corpus
There is no latitude out of those options.
Jérôme,
It may not be possible to pull a lever or push a button and have things move just like that, but that isn't how things change – at least in a lasting way. In the longer perspective, change and development are the product of a lengthy process of contemplation, prayer, experience, study and conversation. The criticisms and proposals you condemn are part of that process.
The challenge now is to help the mutual enrichment of the two forms. This has already begun: I understand the scriptures in the EF tend to be read in the vernacular, and there is an increasing recovery of symbol and tradition in the celebration of the OF. Dobszay's ideas and experience offer valuable insights into this.