Is the New Mass Better Than the Old Mass?

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Music written and generously provided by Paul Jernberg. Find out more about his work as a composer here: http://pauljernberg.com

My hope for this video is to give us some stable ground to begin having calm discussions about liturgy and I’ll start by addressing something I hear a lot whenever it comes up in conversation. People will say, "You can’t say one form of the Latin liturgy is better than the other. They’re both equally good because they both have the presence of Jesus and that’s all that matters."

And this sounds like the measured and moderate view that a person committed to dialogue and unity should have, but it’s the very thing you can’t say as a starting point to this discussion and to help you understand why, we need to be cognizant of the cost that was paid to create the new mass.

Imagine for a second that you’re you, and it’s today, and you’re going to mass – I know we’re really stretching the limits of analogy here, but just go with it for a second. Let’s say you’re a faithful Catholic who relies on the mass as the source and summit of your faith to anchor your life. As much as the world introduces chaos to your life, your faith and the mass are something reliable and dependable. But all of a sudden, you show up to mass, and discover that it’s been revised. It was done without your consent or consultation and it’s completely different – almost unrecognizable and you can’t go to the old one any more. It’s been confiscated like a piece of contraband that you never should have been allowed to play with in the first place. Think about how destabilizing and traumatic that would be for most people.

And as a result of that massive disruption, countless people left the Church. And not just laity, 10s of thousands of priests and religious abandoned their posts. So that’s the cost - that’s the price we paid for the liturgical changes.

But sometimes we need to be willing to make sacrifices if there is some greater good. But if the best thing that we can say about the new mass, which many people seem to insist is all that needs to be said, is that it’s equally valid – well, then I’m afraid it failed to realize its goals.

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