Did you know the Novus Ordo uses a phrase that Scripture associates with idolatry?

That does not mean that we should flee.

 

I’m not going to argue. But there is no doubt that the SSPX has its own hierarchy. That’s all I have to say on this subject. There is also a lot of misinformation floating around which is not current. What you have just said can be substantiated by a link. Where is the link? And saying that our Sunday obligation can be fulfilled by an SSPX Mass doesn’t mean much.

 

I shared that the night of our accident we were coming from Mass. I did not share that it was a Latin Mass. Our niece belongs to this rite and her 2 boys were serving as altar servers after learning all the responses. My sister in law was not a congregant there but would often go to participate in worship with her daughters family. We too went that night knowing we would not understand but to be there to worship together. I laugh now because my niece exasperatedly asked her mom not to respond in English. Maryellen said sure but every response she made that night was in English
But she was devout as were we. Tbh, i knew struggled because i felt i was an observer rather than a participant. Im sure thats in me. But it makes me reflect on this issue…

The sacredness of the Mass does not rest on the language in which it is celebrated, but on the sacred mysteries it contains—most importantly, the Eucharist, where Christ is truly present. I can understand that Latin is timeless with beauty and serves to enhance reverence. However, I don’t believe sacredness is confined to one language alone. The early Church used Greek and Jesus himself likely spoke Aramaic at first Mass of Last Supper. I think making the Word of God accessible to people in their own language is a good thing and not a second best option. I suppose any worship can go down wrong path. But, i would hope this would be pointed out. Each individual needs to have a personal encounter with Christ especially in the Mass. While its not my chosen form, I’m glad the Latin Mass exists to remind me of that sacredness that can get clouded in the N.O. And I smile when i think of my dear sister in law whose last Mass on earth was a Latin one with her responses in English. She was worshiping Her Lord as best she could.

 

Perfect response...God bless you Mike.
We must not disturb our hearts with arguments. Jesus is present and that Is all that matters.[/QUOTE]

 

Yes, let us not argue. You are right, the SSPX has her own hierarchy. There is a historic background to this which would take time and space to explain.
The stance of the SSPX is "recognise and resist", that is, recognise the Holy Father and resist the modernist infiltration of the Vatican by sticking to traditional Catholicism. The recognise-part serves to avoid schism. The resist-part serves to avoid heresy. This is the teaching of the SSPX, which I am just quoting.
As for me, I have come a long way, gradually adopting my approach. I used to be an atheist, then I explored Fatima, Akita, the Eucharistic miracles and became a Catholic. I joined the Holy Catholic Church as a Novus Ordo-Catholic.
I was interested in prophecy, since prophecy (Fatima, Akita, Quito, etc.) helped my conversion. So I took interest in the locution of Pope Leo XIII, who went into ecstasy after Holy Mass and overheard Our Good Lord and Satan conversing, Satan being granted 100 years to mislead the faithful. After this locution, Leo XIII went straight to his chambers and composed the St. Michael the Archangel-prayer. The Holy Father explicitly ordered this prayer to be said after each low Mass, something I found in the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) but not in most Novus Ordo-masses. Hence, I started attending TLM.
Initially, I found the TLM odd and unconformable. As Padraig once said, the TLM is an acquired taste. But the Latin language, the lingua franca of the Holy Catholic Church, is in fact sacred, much like Aramaic (the Masses of the Coptic Catholics are in Aramaic, the language of Our Lord).
Latin and Aramaic are sacred languages deeply connected to the history of the Church. They have both died out, so each living person has to make a certain step into the unknown whilst attending traditional Masses. This sets the TLM and the Coptic Mass apart from the Novus Ordo, which is said in the vernacular languages, a certain level of profanation of the Holy Liturgy. But more importantly, the prayers of the TLM are traditional and can be traced to the first Masses of early Christians, and this was changed in the Novus Ordo. The words of the prayers were changed, a point mentioned in the beginning of this thread.
Anyway, I was initially sceptic of the SSPX and avoided them, precisely because of your reasoning - that I wanted to stay safely in the barque of St. Peter.
I stuck with FSSP, Sons of the Most Holy Redeemer, and diocesan Latin Masses. I avoided the SSPX.
Then, during the lockdowns, churches were closed and in my area, only SSPX continued offering the sacraments. I also wanted to find a traditional Catholic school for my kids and only SSPX has one in my country.
So I joined an SSPX parish and I have never had regrets. I was initially still very sceptical and worried of schism but I have slowly come to see that their response to the crisis in the Holy Catholic Church is, in my opinion, very good. Recognise and resist. I can see the fruits in my parish. Many young families, the church is packed, faithful and joyful youth, etc. But of course, this is just my opinion.
God bless you very much, and all here!

 

My parish as well as my local Marian Shrine stayed open during Covid. Was it “official@ - no. But through the inspiration of 2 very good priests.

 

Our pastor said it was just really bad luck that church door lock was broken and no one was allowed out to fix it He said his priestly vows required him to say Mass everday and since he could not lock door he was not going to kick people out.

 

We had drive up Confessions which I utilized.

 

Miker. I am sorry about the accident. And may you and your wife return to full health soon, and may your sister-in-law rest in peace.

But please allow me to address something in what you said above. I may be mistaken, but you seem to think that the primary difference between the Traditional Latin Mass and the Novus Ordo is that Latin is used in the former and the vernacular is used in the latter. Many Catholics seem to think that. But that is incorrect.

No, the primary difference is that the meaning of the words in the prayers are not the same in those two liturgies. See the following side-by-side comparison:

https://lms.org.uk/missals#offertory

You will see that at the beginning of the TLM offertory, the priest prays first that he offers to God the "spotless host" [immaculatam hostiam], which means the innocent victim, referring specifically to Our Lord Jesus Christ. This is not a description of a small round piece of bread. Bread is not in any way "immaculate" from a theological perspective. And bread is not a victim. These words are signifying that the Consecration that will follow later in the Mass will be a mystical re-presentation of the Sacrifice on Calvary.

But in the Novus Ordo, the priest prays "the bread we offer you: fruit of the earth and work of human hands." Jesus Christ was neither "the fruit of the earth" nor was He the "work of human hands." Jesus is the eternal God. So, the Novus Ordo is signifying that, instead of Jesus Christ being offered, a piece of bread is being offered. Again, we know it is regular "bread" that is being offered because regular "bread" is "fruit of the earth" and a "work of human hands." The description int the Novus Ordo prayer is a perfect match for wheat bread, but it is not a match for the eternal God in the person of Jesus Christ.

So, this Novus Ordo prayer is saying something completely different from the TLM prayer. This is not a matter of language translation. It is a substantial change to the meaning of the prayer itself. And this substantial change relates to what the priest intends to offer to God in the following ceremony.

There are many other examples that you will be able to see for yourself, if you take the time to read carefully the side-by-side comparison.

Bottom line: the TLM and the Novus Ordo are not performing the same action. They are explicitly offering different things to God. They have different purposes. They are not interchangeable liturgies.

 

PNF,

I agree that such a change in wording concerning the bread diminishes the import of the wording found in the TLM, but this wording still points to the soon-to-be transformation of the species of bread in the Consecration: It will become for us the bread of life.

In addition, the retainage of the mingling of water and wine in the Novus Ordo and the accompanying words echoes closely the TLM:

[ In the TLM, the priest goes to the Epistle side and pours wine and water into the chalice.]

P: O God, Who in creating man didst exalt his nature very wonderfully and yet more wonderfully didst establish it anew: by the mystery signified in the mingling of this water and wine, grant us to have part in the Godhead of Him Who hath vouchsafed to share our manhood, Jesus Christ, Thy Son, Our Lord, Who liveth and reigneth with Thee in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God; world without end. Amen.

[In the Novus Ordo, The Deacon, or the Priest, pours wine and a little water into the chalice, saying quietly:]

P: By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.

__________________________________________________________________

The essentials remain in the Novus Ordo! And I kneel just to the right of my Pastor, throughout the Prayers of Consecration and the Memorial Acclamation!

 

Saint Paul tells us that the bread we break and the chalice we share are communion in the Body and Blood of Christ. In biblical language, the Eucharist is sometimes referred to as the “breaking of the bread.” If we attempt to dissociate the description of the Eucharistic Bread and the Flesh of Christ from a state of matter at a simultaneous moment, we risk reducing the meaning of the Eucharist to Protestant symbolism.

The bread becomes the Flesh of Christ, yet retains the appearance of bread—fruit of the earth, derived from wheat harvested by field workers. Nevertheless, it becomes, in essence, the Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ—just as the physical body of Christ became the vessel of His Divinity, while at the same time being essentially the Word of God, without beginning or end, who was born of the Virgin Mary but was essentially the same One who spoke to Moses on Mount Sinai.

In the same way, the priest’s hands become the vessel of the Sacrifice that transcends the Divine Liturgy in Heaven and on Earth, for the saints in heaven can also contemplate the redemptive Sacrifice that is renewed on the altars of the earth—a human-made altar that takes on the form of the Cross, now carrying out the renewal of Christ’s redemptive sacrifice in an unbloody manner.

 

1 Corinthians 10:16-21
16 The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a sharing in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a sharing in the body of Christ? 17 Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread.

18 Consider the people of Israel. Are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar? 19 What then am I implying? That meat sacrificed to idols is anything, or that an idol is anything?

20 No, I simply mean that pagan sacrifices are offered to demons, not to God, and I do not want you to become partners with demons. 21 You cannot drink the cup of the Lord and the cup of demons. You cannot partake of the table of the Lord and the table of demons.
Acts 2:42
42 They devoted themselves to the teaching of the apostles and to the communal fellowship, to the breaking of bread and to prayers.

 

Thanks for the insight, Luan.

 

Hi Mario. I will address the two points separately.

1. The problem is that what is being offered to God is regular bread, according to the Offertory. Yes, the text says this regular bread will become the bread of life, but this is very different from what the TLM offers:

TLM: priest offers immaculate victim by slaying Him -> for our countless sins, trespasses and omissions -> which results in our salvation unto life everlasting

NO: priest offers bread -> that we worked so hard to grow in the earth -> which in return for our efforts will be changed by God into the bread of life.

The TLM formula very clearly reveals the purpose of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass as the instrument of eternal salvation for unworthy sinners. It is Jesus Christ who does ALL of the work. The human contribution or "work" is sin. Our work is totally negative. And the wages for sin is death [Romans 6:23]. Jesus's contribution or "work" is His Sacrifice that redeems us. Jesus's work is totally positive. All of this theology is in that first prayer of the TLM Offertory.

The NO formula credits those hard-working "human hands" that harvest "the fruit of the earth." Humans make a positive contribution that we proudly offer to God in exchange for "the bread of life." In this scenario, we are equals with God. If we didn't work with our "hands" and produce "the fruit," God would have nothing to work with, right?. So, God is just as dependent on man as man is on God in this transaction.


2. The mingling of the water and wine in the TLM is again primarily about God doing the work to "create" and "renew." The creation of the spiritual man occurs at baptism, which is signified by the "water." The renewal occurs with the Sacrament of Penance, which is signified by the "blood" of the Cross. Our sins are washed away by "water" and by "blood." The prayer begs God to allow us to participate in the divinity of Jesus Christ, by humbly receiving this cleansing of our sins by water and blood, in a way similar to how Jesus humbly participated in our humanity.

The NO version removes the theological and sacramental context of the mingling. In some mysterious way there is some kind of mutual sharing going on. We expect to have a share in God's divinity just as God shared on our humanity. There is no mention of how this process of divinization might happen. The two substances, water (man?) and wine (God?), are just mixed. But it is all just a mystery.

Please admit these prayers are very different. At the very least, near meaningless ambiguity is the result of the Novus Ordo prayers. While the TLM prayers are referencing the Sacraments as the payment for the debt of the sins of mankind.

 

Well, from where we stand, in love with Christ and His Bride, we apparently remain on opposite sides of the Tiber. Whether we believe Our Lord can straddle the river to our mutual benefit is up to each of us.

Viva Cristo Rey!

 

I don't believe the SSPX are out of communion with Rome. One of the first things Pope Benedict did when he became Pope was to fix this. They are fine and regular now. Pope Benedict had a big , big interest in the Liturgy and was very sympathetic to the Latin liturgy.

https://onepeterfive.com/on-the-sspx-follow-pope-benedict/

On the SSPX, Follow Pope Benedict
Steve Skojec
May 9, 2015


From time to time on the Catholic Internet, some new controversy arises pertaining to the Society of Saint Pius X. I’ve written before about the beauty of their liturgies and the strangeness of their canonical status. For most Catholics, the SSPX are not even on the radar. For those who find themselves newly drawn to the Church’s ancient liturgy, it’s often difficult to know what to make of them. The lack of clarity from the Vatican on how the faithful should view the Society — and whether or not they may participate in their sacramental life — has not helped the situation. Neither does it help that some have become so histrionic in their opposition to the SSPX that one would think they were fighting the Devil himself.

A reasonable approach is obviously more appropriate. There have been many long and legal arguments made about this topic, and I have no desire to reproduce those efforts. Rome has been clear, at least, in one thing: the Society lacks “canonical status” and thus its ministers do not “legitimately exercise any ministry in the Church.” While this seems definitive, it’s hard to say exactly what it means, practically speaking. Priests of the SSPX were allowed to say Mass in St. Peter’s Basilica just last year, so it’s difficult to take this as a total proscription on their activities. Still, prudence has led me (and many others) to refrain from participating in SSPX activities or attending their chapels. On the other hand, I find their doctrinal arguments compelling, and have met individuals affiliated with them whom I think very highly of. I believe that honesty and fidelity to Christ demand that we consider the particulars of this unfortunate situation with fairness.

The Church is not well. Neither is the Society. Their mutual separation, to whatever degree it exists, seems to have hurt both.

With this in mind, I would say to those who would treat the bishops and priests of the SSPX and the faithful associated with them as enemies of the Church: read the words of Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI — a pope who was attacked with “bitterness” because he lifted the excommunications of the Society bishops and tried to bring the group into full reconciliation.

In his 2009 letter to the Catholic bishops explaining his actions, he wrote:

So if the arduous task of working for faith, hope and love in the world is presently (and, in various ways, always) the Church’s real priority, then part of this is also made up of acts of reconciliation, small and not so small. That the quiet gesture of extending a hand gave rise to a huge uproar, and thus became exactly the opposite of a gesture of reconciliation, is a fact which we must accept. But I ask now: Was it, and is it, truly wrong in this case to meet half-way the brother who “has something against you” (cf. Mt 5:23ff.) and to seek reconciliation? Should not civil society also try to forestall forms of extremism and to incorporate their eventual adherents – to the extent possible – in the great currents shaping social life, and thus avoid their being segregated, with all its consequences? Can it be completely mistaken to work to break down obstinacy and narrowness, and to make space for what is positive and retrievable for the whole? I myself saw, in the years after 1988, how the return of communities which had been separated from Rome changed their interior attitudes; I saw how returning to the bigger and broader Church enabled them to move beyond one-sided positions and broke down rigidity so that positive energies could emerge for the whole. Can we be totally indifferent about a community which has 491 priests, 215 seminarians, 6 seminaries, 88 schools, 2 university-level institutes, 117 religious brothers, 164 religious sisters and thousands of lay faithful? Should we casually let them drift farther from the Church? I think for example of the 491 priests. We cannot know how mixed their motives may be. All the same, I do not think that they would have chosen the priesthood if, alongside various distorted and unhealthy elements, they did not have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim him and, with him, the living God. Can we simply exclude them, as representatives of a radical fringe, from our pursuit of reconciliation and unity? What would then become of them?

Certainly, for some time now, and once again on this specific occasion, we have heard from some representatives of that community many unpleasant things – arrogance and presumptuousness, an obsession with one-sided positions, etc. Yet to tell the truth, I must add that I have also received a number of touching testimonials of gratitude which clearly showed an openness of heart. But should not the great Church also allow herself to be generous in the knowledge of her great breadth, in the knowledge of the promise made to her? Should not we, as good educators, also be capable of overlooking various faults and making every effort to open up broader vistas? And should we not admit that some unpleasant things have also emerged in Church circles? At times one gets the impression that our society needs to have at least one group to which no tolerance may be shown; which one can easily attack and hate. And should someone dare to approach them – in this case the Pope – he too loses any right to tolerance; he too can be treated hatefully, without misgiving or restraint.

Dear Brothers, during the days when I first had the idea of writing this letter, by chance, during a visit to the Roman Seminary, I had to interpret and comment on Galatians 5:13-15. I was surprised at the directness with which that passage speaks to us about the present moment: “Do not use your freedom as an opportunity for the flesh, but through love be servants of one another. For the whole law is fulfilled in one word: ‘You shall love your neighbour as yourself’. But if you bite and devour one another, take heed that you are not consumed by one another.” I am always tempted to see these words as another of the rhetorical excesses which we occasionally find in Saint Paul. To some extent that may also be the case. But sad to say, this “biting and devouring” also exists in the Church today, as expression of a poorly understood freedom. Should we be surprised that we too are no better than the Galatians? That at the very least we are threatened by the same temptations? That we must always learn anew the proper use of freedom? And that we must always learn anew the supreme priority, which is love? The day I spoke about this at the Major Seminary, the feast of Our Lady of Trust was being celebrated in Rome. And so it is: Mary teaches us trust. She leads us to her Son, in whom all of us can put our trust. He will be our guide – even in turbulent times.

Pope Benedict asked for charity towards the SSPX, whose priests, he surmises, must “have a love for Christ and a desire to proclaim him and, with him, the living God.” He spoke against “biting and devouring” one another. He clearly saw this as a complex situation, not a black and white one. He did not condemn them. He did not compare their Masses to blasphemy. He did not tell the world of their sinfulness.

He showed sympathy to them. He showed a desire to unite them fully within the bosom of the Church. He expressed towards them a paternal sentiment that can only be described as love.

 

Viva Cristo Rey!!!!