Here’s a recent tweet from a U.S. bishop:
“If I was in the position to design the celebration of Mass, I would use the vernacular for the readings and orations, Latin and Greek for the chants and the Institution Narrative in Aramaic which was the actual language of Jesus. I would also blend the two types of the ritual.”
Nope. Not me. When I think about “designing” the Mass, I think instinctively of how Mother Church has already done that. The above plan would wipe out wide swaths of Vatican II, the work of Paul VI in implementing Vatican II, the General Instruction of the Roman Missal, and the prescriptions on music found in Musicam Sacram (Rome, 1967) and Sing to the Lord: Music in Divine Worship (U.S. Bishops, 2007). It also steers clear of the main message of Pope Francis’s motu proprio of last Saturday, which doesn’t speak of blending “the two types of the ritual,” but puts forth the Missal of 1970 (with its GIRM) as the way forward for the pope and the bishops in communion with him.
awr
