According to a Vatican source, the commission will approve “a proposal and a plan for liturgical reform,” which will be made public in the Apostolic Exhortation that the Holy Father will tentatively issue in October.
The Vatican source said that the exhortation would include an invitation to greater use of Latin in the daily prayer of the Church and in the Mass—with the exception of the Liturgy of the Word—as well as in large public and international Masses.
The document would also encourage a greater use of Gregorian chant and classical polyphonic music; the gradual elimination of the use of songs whose music or lyrics are secular in origin, as well as the elimination of instruments that are “inadequate for liturgical use,” such as the electric guitar or drums, although it is not likely that specific instruments will be mentioned.
Lastly, the Pope is expected to call for “more decorum and liturgical sobriety in the celebration of the Eucharist, excluding dance and, as much as possible, applause.”
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Beautiful! Thank you for posting.
But, according to some of the liberal Catholics, that's all the good stuff they're throwing out!
The American liturgists have a lot of money at stake in the current translations, then constantly revolving misalettes, the crummy hymnals, and all the rest of it, and it seems as if the American bishops must have some stake in this too.
This is why they use the New American Bible translation rather than a decent text like the RSV--because the right people hold the copyright and get the royalties.
The same with the hymns. You can't copyright an ancient hymn or Gregorian Chant, but you can copyright and rake in money on all that 1960s schlock.
Pope Gregory will have is work cut out for him changing any of this. It's well known too that he would prefer to have the mass said by the priest facing ad orientem, but it would take a lot of head-knocking and grief to bring that back. Plus most parishes have junked the old altars, so they'd have to build them all over again.
"Urge" or "encourage" is not going to cut it. Needs to be "command" and "mandate".
Or as St. Francis said of how his Rule was to be followed: "to the letter, to the letter, and without a gloss."
It's all good but I am happy about the above because I complained about drums at a mass we attended months ago.
I hope my Bishop gets the memo! He recently commanded my priest to cease and desist using "extraneous " Latin in the Mass. :(
There have been rumors about this since before the death of +JPII. I hope that those rumors will come true shortly.
Any Catholic who attends Mass every Sunday from childhood should be able to learn and sing these quite easily.
I have a friend who will love the "applause" thing. She hates it when people applaud at the end of a Mass.
Maybe next they could think about reinstating:
Kneelers,
Tabernacles within the area of the alter,
The Eternal Flame,
unleavened bread,
If your church has been built in the last 10 years and still has these things, consider yourself lucky!
Looks like the liturgy will "rise again from ashes" (to steal a line from one of the merrie melodies we are bombarded with this time of year).
Thank you, Papa Ratzi!
All I can say is: Please don't wait till October!!!!!
Since we're not allowed to use the "A" word during Lent, how about Laus tibi, Domine, Rex aeternae gloriae?
By the way, memo to one poster whose name I forget: the Pope is Benedict, not Gregory.
And isn't it amazing how converts, God love them and we all welcome them = but why do they waste time tracking down gossip about various people in and out of the Vatican and then violate charity by posting it?
However, there's one other thing which I'm looking for which will really show that the counter-revolution has begun in earnest and that is to turn the priest around and make him face away from the people and toward Jesus in the tabernacle. That one thing alone would do more to cripple the "I'm an entertainer" mentality so common among today's priests, than anything else of which I can think.
Huzzah!!!!
as well as the elimination of instruments that are “inadequate for liturgical use,” such as the electric guitar or drums, although it is not likely that specific instruments will be mentioned.
Better be specific, Your Holiness. Give the "liturgists" a nanometer, and they'll take a lightyear.
I saw a film last weekend called "Joyeux Noel" about the WWI Christmas ceasefire on the Western front. One scene included the French, German and Scottish soldiers attending an outdoor Mass, it was particularly enlightening and edifying to see them respond in unison "Et Cum Espiritu Tuo"....because the they all understood the language of the Mass.
The vernacular is all well and good, but for unity's sake more Latin trumps that.
BABALU, MI JESUS!
My parish is Harrisburg had some Latin for the first time in years. I spoke with our priest and praised him for it. His words were, "More to come".