28 November 2013

Vetus and Novus

It has suddenly dawned on me why Benedict XVI devised those rather odd terms "Ordinary Form" and "Extraordinary Form". You bright things out there will have spotted it yonks ago, but we old gentlemen eventually catch up ...

He didn't want to use the word novus. He didn't want to perpetuate the idea, common both to its friends and its enemies, that the Pauline Missal was "new". He would rather it had been promulgated explicitly as within the tradition of the evolving Missals since 1570, rather than as a new liturgical start bestowed upon the Church by the New Pentecost of 1964. Novus/Vetus  seemed to him to express a Hermeneutic of Rupture.

2 comments:

Jacobi said...

I agree Father, the terms have always struck me as odd.

But the term for the new Mass, the “Ordinary Mass” is appropriate since, in its varied though always banal forms, it is ordinary to the point of being unnoticeable, which could be why Mass attendance continues to fall.

The term for the ancient Catholic Mass, the “Extraordinary Mass”, on the other hand, is always, century after century, quite extraordinary in its ability to lift up the heart and mind to God!

The Sybil said...

"Ritus Antiquior" and "Ritus Recentior" where terms also employed in the SP which have not caught on.