The Mass Upended
Anthony Esolen & David Mills on Restoring Primitive Jocularity to the Liturgy
September 25, 2008 (Christian Liturgical Associates Press)—Last year’s discovery of an ancient formula governing the worship of the earliest Christians has spurred the Catholic bishops of the English-speaking world to revise the Mass, both in language and in ritual gesture. A scrap of paper reading Lex orandi, lex ridendi, found among kitchen refuse excavated on Crete, suggests to scholars that solemnity and reverence were hardly the sole aims of ancient Christian worship.
The discovery highlights the need “to chuck the old chicken bones” of Christian liturgy, the remnants of the gloom and pessimism of the Middle Ages, says Bishop Wilberthorpe Minnow of Lake Minnehaha. “We need to show that we are a Laughter People, a Happiness People, a Welcoming of All People People.”
To that end, Bishop Minnow and his colleagues at the International Commission on English Transfiguration (ICE-T) have suggested modifying the new Mass in order to meet the jocular needs of the average person, while remaining sensitive to the traditions of various minorities within the church, including women, children, the differently abled, people allergic to wax, incense, wine, and wheat gluten, and the liturgically challenged (those who just don’t see the relevance of the liturgy as it stands).
“The Novus Ordo model has been out for forty years,” says the bishop, standing over a green baize mat in his office and eyeing his crozier for the putt. “ Forty years! We don’t want to become the Studebakers of the Christian world.”
Liturgical experts agree that the updated Mass, which the conference calls the Novus Improvatus Ordo, will take many of the faithful by surprise, but caution that this has always been true of liturgical advances.
Jocular Needs
The commission has given the CLAP advance notice of just a few of the changes in the offing.
Instead of the old greeting and response at the beginning of Mass, for example, which many find formulaic and impersonal, the priest and congregation will trade a pleasant salutation such as one might hear in a grocery store or in the waiting room of an unemployment office.
Celebrant: Hey there!
People: Hey yourself!
C: Be happy!
P: That’s cool!
C: Be thankful!
P: Can’t complain!
The purpose of the new opening, Bishop Minnow explains, is to draw the people into the “life happiness” of the gathered community. The liturgy needs to begin with “the universal call to happiness proclaimed in the spirit of Vatican II,” he adds.
Anthony Esolen is Distinguished Professor of Humanities at Thales College and the author of over 30 books, including Real Music: A Guide to the Timeless Hymns of the Church (Tan, with a CD), Out of the Ashes: Rebuilding American Culture (Regnery), and The Hundredfold: Songs for the Lord (Ignatius). He has also translated Dante’s Divine Comedy (Random House) and, with his wife Debra, publishes the web magazine Word and Song (anthonyesolen.substack.com). He is a senior editor of Touchstone.
David Mills has been editor of Touchstone and executive editor of First Things. He edits the opinion page of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
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