Reform of the Reform...
Blogged by James Preece on 24th February 2009
Archbishop Malcolm Ranjith works in the Vatican as the secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship. That means he probably knows a thing or two about the liturgy. He writes...
Some practices which Sacrosanctum Concilium had never even contemplated were allowed into the Liturgy, like Mass versus populum, Holy Communion in the hand, altogether giving up on the Latin and Gregorian Chant in favor of the vernacular and songs and hymns without much space for God, and extension beyond any reasonable limits of the faculty to concelebrate at Holy Mass. There was also the gross misinterpretation of the principle of "active participation."
Today [...] the Church can look back and recognize the influences that distorted the original intent of the Council. That recognition, he says, should "help us to be courageous in improving or changing that which was erroneously introduced and which appears to be incompatible with the true dignity of the Liturgy." A much-needed "reform of the reform," he argues, should be inspired by "not merely a desire to correct past mistakes but much more the need to be true to what the Liturgy in fact is and means to us and what the Council itself defined it to be."
[link]
In years to come the period shortly after the 1960's will be but a footnote in the history of the Church. The short period of turbulence that follows any council of the Church.
The question Catholics have to ask themselves now is simple. Will they use their free will to read the council documents and choose the good of what the Liturgy in fact is and what the Council defined it to be? Or will they submit to the degrading slavary of being children of their age?
