Tea at Trianon: How the Novus Ordo Mass Was Made

John Wilson Croker on Marie-Antoinette

"We have followed the history of Marie Antoinette with the greatest diligence and scrupulosity. We have lived in those times. We have talked with some of her friends and some of her enemies; we have read, certainly not all, but hundreds of the libels written against her; and we have, in short, examined her life with– if we may be allowed to say so of ourselves– something of the accuracy of contemporaries, the diligence of inquirers, and the impartiality of historians, all combined; and we feel it our duty to declare, in as a solemn a manner as literature admits of, our well-matured opinion that every reproach against the morals of the queen was a gross calumny– that she was, as we have said, one of the purest of human beings."

~from History of the Guillotine by John Wilson Croker, 1844

Edmund Burke on Marie-Antoinette

"It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely there never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating and cheering the elevated sphere she had just begun to move in, glittering like a morning star full of life and splendor and joy. Oh, what a revolution....Little did I dream that I should have lived to see such disasters fall upon her, in a nation of gallant men, in a nation of men of honor and of cavaliers! I thought ten thousand swords must have leaped from their scabbards, to avenge even a look which threatened her with insult. But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists, and calculators has succeeded...."

~Edmund Burke, October 1790

Friday, August 20, 2021

How the Novus Ordo Mass Was Made

From Church Life Journal:

The first complete draft of a new Ordo Missae was ready for the sixth plenary session (October 18–26, 1965). Msgr. Wagner, the relator for the tenth group, presented it. It was the occasion for two “experimentations” that took place in the chapel of the “Maria Bambina” Institute: the first in Italian on October 20, the second in French on October 22. The two celebrations of this “normative” Mass, as it was called, took place behind closed doors in the presence of Consilium members, who were then able to share their impressions in one of the Institute’s meeting rooms. Paul VI had some concerns regarding this reform of the Ordo Missae. On three different occasions (October 25, 1965, December 10, 1965, and March 7, 1966), he had his Secretary of State, Cardinal Cicognani, address official letters to Cardinal Lercaro to recommend prudence and reserving to the Holy See any decision involving “any possible changes proposed for the rite of celebration of the divine sacrifice.”

On June 20, 1966, the revised first draft of the new Mass was presented to Paul VI by Cardinal Lercaro. The pope wanted two important changes:

the present anaphora [the Roman Canon] is to be left untouched; two or three other anaphoras should be composed, or sought in existing texts, that could be used during certain defined seasons.
the Kyrie should be retained when the Gloria is not said; when the liturgy prescribes the Gloria, however, the Kyrie should be replaced with another penitential prayer.

Consequently, a Consilium subcommission prepared three new anaphoras (or Eucharistic Prayers). Two were new compositions while the third (which became the second Eucharistic Prayer in the new Ordo Missae) was inspired by the anaphora of Saint Hippolytus. (Read more.)