October 2023 Newsletter
Dear Una Voce Maine friends,
Greetings,
As often happens, at least here in the Mid-Coast region, September was the summer we spent the previous months waiting for, and the early days of October seem prepared to continue the welcome string of plentiful sunshine and pleasant temperatures.
While we continue to tinker with the Una Voce website behind the scenes before rolling out the changes publicly, with this month’s newsletter, in addition to another set of liturgical highlights for October from Dom Gueranger’s Liturgical Year, we’d like to introduce another feature that we hope will enhance your understanding of and appreciation for the Traditional Latin Mass.
Fortunately, there is no shortage of histories and explanations of the Mass, so each month we will highlight an excerpt from a recent (or maybe not so recent) release. As an adult convert to the Faith, I feel like I play a lot of catch-up to make up for the formation I didn’t get when I was younger, and nowhere is that feeling more pronounced than when I’m delving into the structure, symbolism, and theology of Sacred Liturgy. In addition to running in the newsletter, both the new features will be posted on a somewhat re-vamped Resources page for convenient reference.
A particularly valuable resource I read this past spring is by a German priest, Fr. Michael Fiedrowicz, of the archdiocese of Berlin, who has written a splendid book titled, The Traditional Mass: History, Form, and Theology of the Classical Roman Rite. Fr. Fiedrowicz is nothing if not thorough, and I’m hoping I can highlight sections in a way that conveys clearly both the chronology of developments as well as their theological significance.
By all means, please feel free to offer us suggestions if there are books or resources you have found particularly helpful. This effort is very much a work in progress. There are certainly a number of resources available on the Resources page, many of which will remain moving forward. But we’re hoping you will find it helpful if we offer a regular, if limited, guided tour.
As always, please feel free to offer any comments or feedback.
In Domino,
Jeff Rowe
Excerpt: The Traditional Mass: History, Form, and Theology of the Classical Roman Rite
Fr. Michael Fiedrowicz
Angelico Press, pp.52-53.
In which, in response to commentators who suggest the TLM is not really as grounded in history as proponents claim, Fr. Fiedrowicz briefly surveys the development of the TLM over the centuries, as well as the traditional rationale for changes.
“(W)as there truly a noticeable continuity between a fourth-century celebration of the Eucharist and the 1570 codified rite of the Mass, which is at the basis of the 1962 Missal, and therefore at the basis of that form of the rite of Mass for which Pope Benedict XVI once again, with the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum on 7/7/07, provided a right of residence in the Church? Has not liturgical historical research demonstrated by now how many elements that are considered to be characteristic of the “old Mass” came to be included relatively recently, and in no way therefore belonged to the Roman rite in its earliest stage?
Let us name only a few: the prayers at the foot of the altar belong to the younger texts of the classical rite of the Mass. The Confiteor was first observed in the tenth century, the psalm Judica me appeared in the ninth or tenth century. The Offertory prayers, recited silently by the priest at the Offertory (Offerimus / In spiritu humilitatis / Suscipe, sancta Trinitas), as well as the Orate fratres, are first discovered in the sacramentaries of the ninth/ tenth century and reached the Missal of the Papal Curia only in the thirteenth century. The silent Canon began to prevail from the middle of the eighth century. The priest’s preparatory prayers before Holy Communion are discovered in the Missals of the eleventh century. The Last Gospel— the prologue of the Gospel of John— was first added to the Dominican Missal in the thirteenth century, and was made obligatory for the entire church by the Dominican Pope Pius V in 1570.
All of these, however, were additions or enhancements that did not alter the liturgy of the Mass. Instead, these prayers and gestures were intended only to express more clearly and deeply the mystery of the Mass…
…This process of continual development was accompanied from time to time by an effort to purify the existing form, in which many elements incorporated over the course of history but ultimately foreign to the Roman spirit were rejected and removed (e.g., the number of the private prayers of the priest, the so-called apologiae, or the abundance of Sequences). Such purifying acts were always carried out in a cautious and restrained manner, in reverence for tradition.”
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