We are pleased to publish today a guest article by Esther Berry of the delightful Substack The Literate Woman. She is responding to a rather peculiar article titled “You Think You Love the Traditional Mass.” I thank Prof.
Hang on a minute! Didn't you read that part about that one guy who went to the TLM and he didn't like it? I'll paste it below since you obviously missed the MOST IMPORTANT argument. You see, there was this guy, and he confessed it. And that proves NEARLY ALL people PACKING the PEWS at the TLM feel EXACTLY the same way! Q.E.D.
"A young person walking into a TLM today brings the formation he has, and the formation he has is not the formation that the rite assumes. One CQ contributor, around 30 years of age, related his experience going from New Mass to Old Mass in recent years:
'I’m frustrated because, having attended Latin Mass, I know intellectually that it’s better, higher, and some part of me understands that it is objectively more beautiful.. but because I was raised on Marty Haugen and shit, the emotional resonance just isn’t there. It doesn’t feel like *home* yet, somehow.'
That is not a confession of failure. It is a description of nearly all the people packing pews at TLM’s."
The TLM feels impenetrable to many starting out. Some come from it at an intellectual standpoint, like that gentleman. Others come from aesthetics and "get it" pretty much immediately.
Where it goes off is assuming the same seriousness and solidarity can be achieved with another liturgy, which I would argue is likely not the case. They are intertwined.
If one comes into the TLM with a desire for instant comprehension or emotional satisfaction, then one is approaching it with Novus Ordo expectations, and is bound to be confused or disappointed. But if one lets the TLM shape him according to its own priorities, its own "genius" - and this is the humble way, to be a disciple rather than trying to be a master - then its priorities become the soul's, and one is immensely enriched and blessed thereby.
Well sure, but Mrs. Berry's essay was so much longer and searching and delving than the simple but adequate rebuttal, "That's an evidently asinine claim with no supporting argument."
But the logic is (apparently?!): The guy wanted (to like) TLM for serious reasons; but those aren't the real reasons b/c what he really wanted (was really looking for) was 'seriousness'...
Given how surprisingly popular it is to assert that the Latin Mass is no longer suited for modern people, it seems worthwhile to explore where that claim arises from and what are its numerous fallacies, as Prof. Berry did so well in her essay.
Sure. But to quote Mrs. Berry: (while brevity is the soul of wit (is it indeed?); and loquacity the soul of... the English professor?) "I have no argument whatsoever as to exactly how this works, or what its limitations are..."
I'll go even farther and assert that, to my ears at least, that was a self-evidently AI written blurb. Have you ever noticed how AI loves to produce this stylistic idiom?
"Ruminate on this factwit. That is not a something of somewhat. It is a muchwhich of muchwhat."
Dear Prof. Berry, you are so on the money. It would be alarming if we felt emotionally rewarded, rather than challenged, with our first experience at the TLM. As a former teacher, I know that to be a better writer, we must, not write more, but read more. We are no longer reading. We are skimming. Summaries are too long for us. If we do not watch Laurel and Hardy at 8, we will not laugh with them at 16.
Yet, as a retiree, I have developed the habit of watching First Reactions To: Classical Music and Classic Movies from young adults, ((21-39). The genuine connection, they feel, involving, wide smiles and weeping, followed by gasps of wonder and cries of, " why didn't somebody tell me?" are almost too painful to bear.
This has everything to do with Paul VI's belief that modern man needed a new kind of liturgy, streamlined, accessible, comprehensible, full of action and movement. But he was wrong. I go into this a lot in my books "The Once and Future Roman Rite" and "Close the Workshop."
It's just amazing, looking back, to think that Paul VI and the overwhelming majority of bishops of his generation all took that hubristic view. Where was the humility, the sense that their primary duty was to guard what they had inherited? There's an old saying, "as lost as a Jesuit during Triduum.", a caricature held by diocesan priests (and maybe a Franciscan or two) that the Jesuits were scholarly and academic at the expense of doing liturgical services, especially the longer ones during Passiontide. I have to think that this appreciation for liturgy extended to the bishops, as so many of them canon lawyers (that's how one advanced up the ranks for the most part) and marinated in scholastic theology in their formative years. Combine that with the total dominance of ultra-montanism and with the rank, widespread clericalism (which denigrated any input from the laity regarding their liturgical patrimony - just "pay, pray and obey") both of which had eviscerated the laity's ownership muscle of the liturgy, and you had a perfect storm for the old rite to be so completely rejected by the very men who had been raised in it.
I’m just one old guy. Raised Catholic. Altar boy at 6. College 1965 so then I left the faith until 1998. Tried a NO a few times and ran away screaming. It was worse than any Protestant service I ever attended.
I’ll just add this……..I will never attend a NO communal meal AKA the Mass of Luther. Never. Nada. Whatever it is it’s not Catholic. The sign on the front of the church? False advertising.
Hang on a minute! Didn't you read that part about that one guy who went to the TLM and he didn't like it? I'll paste it below since you obviously missed the MOST IMPORTANT argument. You see, there was this guy, and he confessed it. And that proves NEARLY ALL people PACKING the PEWS at the TLM feel EXACTLY the same way! Q.E.D.
"A young person walking into a TLM today brings the formation he has, and the formation he has is not the formation that the rite assumes. One CQ contributor, around 30 years of age, related his experience going from New Mass to Old Mass in recent years:
'I’m frustrated because, having attended Latin Mass, I know intellectually that it’s better, higher, and some part of me understands that it is objectively more beautiful.. but because I was raised on Marty Haugen and shit, the emotional resonance just isn’t there. It doesn’t feel like *home* yet, somehow.'
That is not a confession of failure. It is a description of nearly all the people packing pews at TLM’s."
I know, it's ridiculous. It would actually be comical, like a Three Stooges routine, if the matter were not of such importance for souls.
The TLM feels impenetrable to many starting out. Some come from it at an intellectual standpoint, like that gentleman. Others come from aesthetics and "get it" pretty much immediately.
Where it goes off is assuming the same seriousness and solidarity can be achieved with another liturgy, which I would argue is likely not the case. They are intertwined.
If one comes into the TLM with a desire for instant comprehension or emotional satisfaction, then one is approaching it with Novus Ordo expectations, and is bound to be confused or disappointed. But if one lets the TLM shape him according to its own priorities, its own "genius" - and this is the humble way, to be a disciple rather than trying to be a master - then its priorities become the soul's, and one is immensely enriched and blessed thereby.
Well sure, but Mrs. Berry's essay was so much longer and searching and delving than the simple but adequate rebuttal, "That's an evidently asinine claim with no supporting argument."
But the logic is (apparently?!): The guy wanted (to like) TLM for serious reasons; but those aren't the real reasons b/c what he really wanted (was really looking for) was 'seriousness'...
Given how surprisingly popular it is to assert that the Latin Mass is no longer suited for modern people, it seems worthwhile to explore where that claim arises from and what are its numerous fallacies, as Prof. Berry did so well in her essay.
Sure. But to quote Mrs. Berry: (while brevity is the soul of wit (is it indeed?); and loquacity the soul of... the English professor?) "I have no argument whatsoever as to exactly how this works, or what its limitations are..."
I'll go even farther and assert that, to my ears at least, that was a self-evidently AI written blurb. Have you ever noticed how AI loves to produce this stylistic idiom?
"Ruminate on this factwit. That is not a something of somewhat. It is a muchwhich of muchwhat."
Dear Prof. Berry, you are so on the money. It would be alarming if we felt emotionally rewarded, rather than challenged, with our first experience at the TLM. As a former teacher, I know that to be a better writer, we must, not write more, but read more. We are no longer reading. We are skimming. Summaries are too long for us. If we do not watch Laurel and Hardy at 8, we will not laugh with them at 16.
Yet, as a retiree, I have developed the habit of watching First Reactions To: Classical Music and Classic Movies from young adults, ((21-39). The genuine connection, they feel, involving, wide smiles and weeping, followed by gasps of wonder and cries of, " why didn't somebody tell me?" are almost too painful to bear.
Latin connects us to 2000 years of history. English just connects us to dreary protestantism and the daily grind.
Too mild. We LOVE thr latin Mass.
Yes, of course! Prof. Berry is using a mordant understatement.
Can you speak as to why Paul VI thought the Rite of Pius V was not "in good taste"?
This has everything to do with Paul VI's belief that modern man needed a new kind of liturgy, streamlined, accessible, comprehensible, full of action and movement. But he was wrong. I go into this a lot in my books "The Once and Future Roman Rite" and "Close the Workshop."
https://osjustipress.com/products/the-once-and-future-roman-rite
https://osjustipress.com/products/close-the-workshop
It's just amazing, looking back, to think that Paul VI and the overwhelming majority of bishops of his generation all took that hubristic view. Where was the humility, the sense that their primary duty was to guard what they had inherited? There's an old saying, "as lost as a Jesuit during Triduum.", a caricature held by diocesan priests (and maybe a Franciscan or two) that the Jesuits were scholarly and academic at the expense of doing liturgical services, especially the longer ones during Passiontide. I have to think that this appreciation for liturgy extended to the bishops, as so many of them canon lawyers (that's how one advanced up the ranks for the most part) and marinated in scholastic theology in their formative years. Combine that with the total dominance of ultra-montanism and with the rank, widespread clericalism (which denigrated any input from the laity regarding their liturgical patrimony - just "pay, pray and obey") both of which had eviscerated the laity's ownership muscle of the liturgy, and you had a perfect storm for the old rite to be so completely rejected by the very men who had been raised in it.
I’m just one old guy. Raised Catholic. Altar boy at 6. College 1965 so then I left the faith until 1998. Tried a NO a few times and ran away screaming. It was worse than any Protestant service I ever attended.
I’ll just add this……..I will never attend a NO communal meal AKA the Mass of Luther. Never. Nada. Whatever it is it’s not Catholic. The sign on the front of the church? False advertising.