10th September 2012

Post with 5 notes

The Revised Liturgy of 1965

As a late 20’s something Catholic, it is very hard for me to wrap my mind around the liturgical changes that took place in the late 1960’s. In fact the whole time period in general I have difficulty wrapping my mind around. The massive world-wide change and flux that was occurring completely baffles me and through movies, music, and reading I try to come to terms with what we have ended up with today - and I do mean this in more than just a liturgical sense but I digress, this post IS about the liturgical changes in this time.

I have a somewhat strange addiction of buying any Missals I can find, in thrift stores or Catholic bookstores etc. I came across one some time ago called , ” Parish Mass Book and Hymnal - According to the New Revised Liturgy For Every Day”

This book is from 1965 and cites the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy - Sacrosanctum Concilium - as the basis for the changes.

The 1965 liturgy is the ultimate hybrid of the Traditional Latin Mass - Extraordinary Form - and the Ordinary form of liturgy found today.

This liturgy follows the same liturgical calender as the Church had always used at that time - one cycle of readings - and the seasons were Advent, Time After Epiphany, the “-Gesima” Sundays, Lent, Holy Week, Eastertime, Pentecost, and Time After Pentecost.

The Language of the liturgy is what we find today in the New Translation -“And with your Spirit” - ” …And For Many…” etc. It appears that Versus populam was an option at that time based on the drawings in this book , this liturgy also first changes the parts of the mass - from what was traditionally Known as ” Mass of the Catechumens” and “Mass of the Faithful” - to ” Liturgy of the Word” and “Liturgy of the Eucharist” - yet the structure of the Liturgy was still very similar to the Mass of old.

The changes I can identify it seems are:

• Prayers at the foot of the altar are now “the Priest’s private prayers”
• Gloria / Creed/ Sanctus / and much more in the vernacular
• Introduction of the prayers of the faithful
• introduction of bringing up of the “gifts”
• Communion is now given with “The Body of Christ” / “Amen” formula
• Removal of the Last Gospel

So even with all those changes, the Mass was still pretty much what every Catholic knew and had grown up with, while much of these changes were considered drastic at the time - I don’t think anyone had envisioned what was to come next - the Liturgy of 1970.

Annibale Bugnini is the man behind the scenes for these and many of these changes- and those before - such as the Holy week liturgical changes in 1955 - an waxing on Abp. Bugnini is a matter of another post entirely.

Can anyone from 1965 Chime in on this or will it remain forever as the beginning of the end for Catholics in that period.

As a layman - I ask.. On one hand Are these really the changes that the council envisioned for the liturgy - and if they were, why was further tinkering allowed and why was it replaced 5 years later with very different rites than what was known to Catholics before?

Why were these men tasked with carrying on the Tradition of those that went before us so hell bent on doing their own thing with the liturgy? Why was the Entire world hellbent on changing ideals and status quo. Maybe I’ll never know.

Tagged: Catholicroman catholicLiturgyMassEucharist1965Latin masslatinmassOrdinary FormExtraordinary Formliturgical abuseliturgy

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