The Lesser of Two Goods

[I posted, then removed this because the version as it stood then in hindsight seemed more sentimental and hasty than the subject deserves. The issue demanded more reflection and a more level treatment. The current version is heavily edited but deals with the same things.]

During my recent Italian vacation I had the opportunity to reaquaint myself with my old Roman parish, this time, thanks to the hospitality of the fathers, at its altars rather than in the pews.

 This being Ss. Trinitá de Pellegrini, a parish belonging to the Fraternity of St Peter (FSSP), Masses offered there are of course exclusively according to the traditional form. For the twenty days of holidays and retreats, I saw parts of two Masses in the new and more common form. Apart from those two, all Masses and liturgies were according to the old rite. And it was wonderful.

There is a certain something to the offering of the older form that captivates you, draws you in, on a more profound level than anything I have seen or experienced in the new form so far. Fr Faber of the Brompton Oratory used to call it the most beautiful thing this side of Heaven. He is right. Be it 'just' a low Mass offered on a side altar, or a solemn High, the usus antiquor, with its minute rules, its latin cadences that resonate of antiquity, its Roman and masculine austerity, its obvious and unapologetic orientation towards God, has a compelling force to it. It's a no-nonsense, non-sentimental liturgy.

The old form does not allow for much inventiveness or improvisation on the part of the priest who lends himself to the sacred act and is carried along with it as its servant, borrowing limbs and voice to Jesus who is Himself both the priest offering and the victim offered.

You become almost conscious of being part of  something ancient, eternal even, that unites time and space when offering Mass in this form. Considering that this is the way Mass was said for centuries, if not millenia, this sense of connection with the tradition is not surprising.  This form of Mass, having developed and picked up customs on the way for centuries, may contain some seemingly odd bits and pieces but these apparent eccentricities and oddities of the rite quickly become familiar and begin to make evident sense.

Like all good things holidays have an end. To stand to the side of the altar concelebrating in a Mass of the new form again is, to use the words of the Gospel, like tasting a new wine after having tasted an old. While the theology and the metaphysical realities of sacrifice and real presence are the same, the flavours of the two are worlds apart. This is, admittedly, aggravated by the concelebrant having a more passive role which makes him more free to be distracted and observe the deficiencies and clumsiness of the new. The prayers at the 'preparation of the gifts', taken and adapted from a Jewish benediction of bread and wine before meal, seem almost banal and nonchalant when when they are compared to the sublime and precise Suscipe, sancte Pater and Offerimus tibi Domine of the offertory. The overused, vernacular "Second Eucharistic Prayer" comes across as rushed and shallow when compared to the venerable latin Roman Canon.
(Now, I know that the second Eucharistic prayer is supposed to be based on the even older anaphora of Hippolytos, however, when comparing the texts it is quickly seen how loosely based it is. There are other problems as well but this issue deserves a post of  its own.)

For all its richness of options and "pastoral alternatives" the new form is the poorer of the two, the lesser of two goods.   

Yet duty must be done, the desert must be crossed. One must leave the oasis of the old to set out to find souls straying in the desert of the new.