[Continuing with selected passages found in Chapter Two of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, in this issue Paragraphs 41 and 42 are analyzed. The first refers to the constant and blatant ignoring of Rome's direction regarding Gregorian Chant. The second paragraph reflects on one of the most deceptive and binding ways to enforce the abuses of the liturgy under the umbrella of "uniform posture as a sign of unity" which only enables modernists to justify that there is no longer a need to kneel before Christ the King, Who sacrificed Himself on the cross and to Whom "every knee shall bend."]
Paragraph 41 of GIRM reads as follows:
"All things being equal, Gregorian chant should hold a privileged place, as being more proper to the Roman liturgy. Other kinds of sacred music, polyphony in particular, are not in any way to be excluded, provided that they correspond with the spirit of the liturgical action and that they foster the participation of all the faithful. Since the faithful from different countries come together ever more frequently, it is desirable that they know how to sing at least some parts of the Ordinary of the Mass in Latin, especially the profession of faith and the Lord's Prayer, set to simple melodies."
Comment and Analysis: All well and good. However, how many documents issued by the Holy See have been ignored in the past three decades? I thought Inaestimabile Donum was going to "solve" the problem of liturgical abuses once and for all. I had a lot to learn. A whole lot.
Gregorian chant will continue to be ignored. Revolutionaries will arbitrarily give profane music their own stamp of approval as "sacred music," and that will be that, all of Rome's exhortations to the contrary notwithstanding. And how very, very ironic it is the reality of immigration which justifies the use of Latin in some parts of the Mass, not the inherent importance of Latin as a sign of the permanence and immutability of the Holy Faith and as the sign par excellence of the universality of the Church and the mystery that is the worship of the Blessed Trinity in the Mass.
Paragraph 42 of GIRM reads as follows:
"The gestures and posture of the priest, deacon and the ministers, as well as of the people should allow the whole celebration to shine with dignity and noble simplicity, demonstrating the full and true meaning of each of their diverse parts, while fostering the participation of all. Therefore, greater attention needs to be paid to what is laid down by liturgical law and by the traditional practice of the Roman Rite, for the sake of the common spiritual good of the people of God rather than to personal inclination or arbitrary choice. The uniformity in posture to be observed by all taking part is a sign of unity of the members of the Christian community gathered for the sacred Liturgy: it both expresses and fosters the spiritual attitude of those assisting."
Comment and Analysis:
This paragraph is entirely vitiated by the one which follows it, as you will see momentarily. The authors of GIRM acknowledge in this paragraph, albeit obliquely, that there have been grave abuses in the implementation of the Novus Ordo, with the adoption of bizarre gestures and postures being only two of those abuses. Typical of postconciliar documents, however, GIRM does not mandate the adoption of any particular type of gestures or postures. It merely calls for "greater attention" to be paid to what "is laid down by liturgical law and by the traditional practice of the Roman Rite."
Never mind the fact that most of the traditional practice of the Roman Rite was thrown out the window by the Consilium when it drafted synthetically the text of the Novus Ordo. However, the little that does remain, such as kneeling from the Sanctus to the end of the Canon, has been under attack in diocese after diocese, especially in recent years. No exhortation to pay "greater attention" to what is laid down in liturgical law is going to stop the revolutionaries who have been so successful in getting the abuses and innovations they foster on an unauthorized basis later approved by Rome and made part of liturgical law. Furthermore, the revolutionaries in charge of the liturgy at the diocesan and parish use "uniformity of posture" to ban kneeling or even genuflecting for the reception of Holy Communion, to say nothing of encouraging people to hold hands during the Our Father.
Thomas A. Droleskey, Ph.D.
Monday: Part Twenty-five: Standing for Nothing!
For past columns in The DAILY CATHOLIC by Dr. Droleskey, see Archives