After lapsing from the Faith at age 15, I was coached back to the Church at 31, by my friendship with some Tridentine Mass traditionalists, thoroughly opposed to everything Vatican II. So, this is not a casual discussion for me. 

Many criticisms of the 1969 Novus Ordo or New Mass, by devotees of the ancient Extraordinary Form, are justified. The problem is the lack of any real context for their claims, especially among converts. This provokes a lack of moderation,sometimes self-righteous. The lack of context is both historical and “ontological,” concerning the reality of the Mass itself. 

When I was growing up in the 1950s, what ordinary Catholics experienced was nothing like the curated, elite Latin liturgies that traditionalists enjoy today. The fact is, most Catholics always get their ongoing catechesis (if any) from the Mass. Back then, there was none. Folks in the pews got a brief, vague sermon on Catholic morality, a speed-read Latin canon, and an equally vague impression that something mystical was happening beyond the altar rail. That was it. Had it been otherwise, the 1970s wouldn’t have been so bad.

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Certainly, in the ’50s, a small percentage responded attentively to the Mass, “peering through the veil” at the invisible presence of the Heavenly Liturgy. But in the context of reverent worship, most Catholics today may be only slightly worse off than their grandparents. This does not, of course, excuse the “popular” (read: banal) changes, but puts them into historical context.

More important is the reality of the Mass itself. The Mass is not something we do, but something Jesus Christ does. Fortunately, He makes it easy for us. The validity of a Mass is a very low bar to clear. Saigon’s Cardinal Van Thuan, imprisoned for 13 years by the Communists, could only rarely celebrate Mass, holding a small fragment of bread in his fingers, and a drop of wine in the palm of his hand. It violated every rubric of the old or new Roman Rite, but it was valid, so Christ showed up. If I could miraculously attend any Mass in the past century, it would be his. 

My wife uses this gentle prod when people complain about banal, but valid, liturgies: “If Christ is showing up, I think I should keep Him company.” She’s not recommending pedestrian Masses as a mortification. We all need and should want beauty in our worship. But Christ showed up at Calvary, the most inelegant liturgy of all time, so our refusal to attend a hackneyed but valid Mass seems precious.   

If liturgical validity is a low bar, liturgical reverence is an infinitely high one, haltingly described in the Apocalypse of St. John. The aged apostle was saying Mass on Patmos, when suddenly “the veil parted,” and through his own liturgy, he saw the unending glory of heavenly worship. In this context, if every valid Mass gets a pass, the difference between a typical Novus Ordo and the most precise Extraordinary Form is minimal. We all face the same call to peer through the veil ourselves. If that’s hard, it’s on us. Jesus shows up. 

Is the liturgical issue nit-picking?  Of course not. There was organic development of the Mass in the ’50s, with a “Dialogue Mass” and readings in the vernacular. Giving pride of place to Gregorian Chant and the Latin Canon, the Second Vatican Council’s liturgy document, Sacrosanctum Concilium, sought to enrich the Mass with Scriptural catechesis, what it unfortunately called “active participation.” The poor choice of words permitted our sanctuaries to be overrun by cosplaying, pseudo-clerical laity. But the intent was catechesis. 

The Novus Ordo has faults such as its banal Offertory and ubiquitous Second Eucharistic Prayer. Following Vatican II, a subversive liturgical commission clearly intended to establish a “horizontal” communal banquet at the expense of “vertical” worship. So inevitably, we’d be subjected to the self-congratulatory, happy-clappy hymns of the St. Louis Jesuits. 

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But the catechetical intent was justified. Having an Old Testament reading, keyed to the Psalm, Epistle, and Gospel, is wonderful. Making the Psalm “responsorial” is a good thing, as is multiplying the Prefaces throughout the year. Through the late 1980s, we could attend a Novus Ordo Mass with a Palestrina choir and Latin from the Sanctus to the Angus Dei. Certain dioceses justly earned a reputation for cultivating liturgical reverence. 

The Novus Ordo’s real problem was its implementation in parishes by authoritarian priests and bishops, imposing liberal reforms with tyrannical determination while ignoring the tears of devout old ladies. So the joke of the day: “You can negotiate with a terrorist, but can’t negotiate with a liturgist.” The real problem was a disastrous failure in the 1940s and ’50s to vet and form clergy, some of whom became Woodstock wannabes in collars.

We should not underestimate the pain for the faithful most devoted to the miracle of the Mass: the few already “peering through the veil.” Those betrayed would understandably “draw their wagons into a circle” that risked stifling their “zeal for souls,” i.e., their own call to evangelize the world. For some, it meant withdrawing into tribalism, a perennial temptation of the devout, breeding a sort of “reverence of distance.” 

Reverence of distance? We attended a Latin Mass from 1998 to 2012 and loved our first 10 years. Four successive priests followed the 1962 Roman Missal with its then-new Dialogue Mass. In that Missal, the laity in the pews—previously silent—audibly voices the Latin responses of the altar servers. This Mass even attracted some tattooed punkers. Later, however, subsequent priests discouraged participation. Over time, the parish culture became superior. The last straw was our pastor announcing, “I don’t want pagans at my Easter Vigil.” We went sideways to a new Anglican Ordinariate parish. 

Last summer, we had a chance to attend our old Latin Mass parish, and it was still beautiful. But the punks were gone. The physical involvement of the completely silent laity was “stand-kneel-sit-stand-kneel…” The church was full so obviously deliberate distance from that “mystery of the altar” engages an elite already catechized. Silence works for them. 

Us ADHD types, however, are incarnational people, the Body of Christ, trying to live our faith communally and physically. We share our worship in a sacred space, marked out from the profane, work-a-day world outside. Does the sacred space begin only at the altar rail and sanctuary? Are we laity in the nave still profane…knaves? If Jesus wanted us to keep our distance, having us eat His Body and Blood is a strange way to show it. 

That first, post-Vatican II generation, in its painful betrayal, handed on its tribalism to some of the next generation, lacking context and a grasping of the beauty of the Latin Mass. Some may be less appreciative of the overwhelming miracle of any valid Mass. But we also see TLM-raised youth now migrating to a reverent Novus Ordo when they marry and have kids, seeking more catechesis in the liturgy.

The prognosis? Organic development. Trying to move from an entirely clerical Tridentine Mass, lock-stock-and-barrel to a more “popular” worship was catastrophic. Pope Benedict said as much. But the trend now is toward a more reverentNovus Ordo. Yes, our local Latin Mass parish is full but 30 years later it’s still only one parish. Meanwhile, our diocese has almost a dozen parishes with orthodox young priests slowly adopting the beautiful old rubrics. 

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The vast majority of new young priests are solidly devout. In ordinary diocesan parishes, they’re implementing processions with well-trained altar boys, incense, cantors with chanted propers, beautiful hymns, exposition of the Blessed Sacrament, and sometimes even Mass ad orientem. In 20 years, they’ll be solidly orthodox bishops. Some traditionalists may find this galling, a concession to change. But as the apostle said, “Where sin abounds, there all the more has grace abounded,” And any valid Mass, anywhere, still abounds in grace.

Joe Woodard is a Calgary-based writer.