“Innumerable miracles”, reduced to none: Saint Nicholas in the Traditional and Modern Roman Missals

Today is the feast day of Saint Nicholas, and his collect in the traditional Roman Missal alludes to his Greek title of "wonderworker", and the "innumerable miracles" he worked during his life: 

Deus, qui beátum Nicoláum Pontíficem,

innúmeris decorásti miráculis:

tríbue, quǽsumus;

ut eius méritis et précibus

a gehénnæ incéndiis liberémur. (CO 1463)

O God, who made the holy Bishop Nicholas

renowned for innumerable miracles,

grant, we beseech you,

that by his merits and prayers

we may be saved from the fires of hell.

“Poetry is perhaps a little too much for our rather practical spirit”: Saint Alphonsus and the odore suavitatis

Today in the traditional calendar of the Roman Rite is the feast of Saint Alphonsus Maria de’ Liguori, the founder of the Congregation of the Most Holy Redeemer (Redemptorists), and Doctor of the Church. [1] In the Secret prayer for Saint Alphonsus (addressed to the Son), one will notice a lovely poetic echo of the offertory prayers from just a few moments before in the Mass (addressed to the Father): [2]

Order of Mass: Offérimus tibi, Dómine, cálicem salutáris, tuam deprecántes cleméntiam: ut in conspéctu divínæ maiestátis tuæ, pro nostra et totíus mundi salúte, cum odóre suavitátis ascéndat. Amen.

The Prayers for Saint Luke in the Traditional and Reformed Roman Missals

As today is the feast of St Luke the Evangelist in both the traditional and reformed Roman calendars, it seemed worthwhile to compare the prayers assigned to St Luke in the traditional Missal with those of the post-Vatican II Missal. One might have thought, given the very long-standing veneration given to the Evangelists, that their prayers would not have been changed in the course of the liturgical reform, but unfortunately this is very far from the case.

Firstly, it should be noted that the collect, secret and postcommunion assigned for St Luke in the traditional Roman Rite have a long history of being used together: the Corpus orationum (CO) [1] tells us that thirty-five extant liturgical manuscripts, ranging from the 8th to 16th centuries, keep these orations together as a set. Of course, the reformed Roman Rite not only splits up this Mass formulary, but discards one prayer entirely and only keeps the other two in an edited fashion (one minor, one major).

Miniature of Saint Luke from the Grandes Heures of Anne of Brittany
(1503–1508) by Jean Bourdichon

"All the Elements of the Roman Rite"? Dispelling the Myths of the Post-Vatican II Liturgical Reforms

Over the last decade in particular, the figure of 17% has been quoted as the proportion of prayers that survived intact from the traditional Roman Missal into the novus ordo of Paul VI. [1] However, in the wake of Traditionis custodes, with renewed attention being given to the comparison of ‘forms’ of the Roman Rite as well as the canonical and theological controversy over what counts as its lex orandi, [2] it seemed opportune to build on some of my previous efforts and revisit this percentage through a careful and exhaustive analysis of all the orations. By doing this, not only can we arrive at a definitive number, but we can also now have all the relevant data freely and easily accessible in the public domain, so that everyone can see which prayers were preserved, edited or discarded. [3]

The result of this work not only vindicates the labours of those such as the late Rev Fr Anthony Cekada, but it also shows the figure to be too generous. For the actual number, unbelievably, is only 13%.

The Orations of the Traditional Roman Rite in the Reformed Roman Rite:

Lists and Texts of the Identical and Edited Prayers (PDF download)

Yes, a mere 13% (165) of the 1,273 prayers of the usus antiquior [4] found their way unchanged into the reformed Missal of Paul VI. Another 24.1% (307) were edited in some way before their inclusion. A further 16.2% (206) were centonised with other prayers - effectively combining parts of multiple prayers together into a new oration. Fully 52.6% (669) of the prayers in the traditional Roman Rite have been excised from the modern liturgy, memory-holed by the Consilium ad exsequendam. [5] How has this happened? And how did so few notice at the time?

Figure 1: Orations of the 1951/1962 Missal in the 1970/2008 Missal
(duplicates excluded)

The Prayers for the Feast of St Lawrence in the Post-Vatican II Liturgical Reforms

The martyrdom of St Lawrence, from the late 13th-century frescoes
on the walls of San Lorenzo ‘in Palatio’ at the Lateran 

Today's feast of St Lawrence gives us yet another example of the differences, both great and small, between the prayers of the traditional and reformed Roman Rites. [1] The collect in the 1962 Missale Romanum (CO 960) reads as follows:

CO 960: Da nobis, quǽsumus, omnípotens Deus: vitiórum nostrórum flammas exstínguere; qui beáto Lauréntio tribuísti tormentórum suórum incéndia superáre.

 

(Grant us, we pray, almighty God, to extinguish the flames of our sins, just as you granted Saint Lawrence to overcome the fires of his tortures.)

This collect, well attested in forty-nine extant manuscripts from the eight century onwards, is universally used for St Lawrence, and almost always on his feast day itself (a handful of manuscripts use this oration on the vigil or octave). The only textual variation in this prayer is the addition of martyri after Laurentio, in five manuscripts.

On the other hand, the collect in the post-Vatican II Missale Romanum is a new composition, centonised from three pre-existing sources (two collects and one preface):

The Eastertide Collects in the Post-Vatican II Missal: A Problematic Reform

One obvious difference between the two Eastertides of the usus antiquior and usus recentior is the size of each of them. The 1962 Missal has proper Masses for each Sunday after Easter, as well as each day in the Octave of Easter and for the Ascension. In the 2008 Missal, however, all the Sundays and weekdays within Eastertide have proper Masses assigned to them, with collects unique to each day. [1]

Given this, one might have thought that the corpus of Eastertide orations in the older Missal would have been carried over directly into the newer Missal, and supplemented with other Eastertide prayers from the vast repository of the Church’s liturgical tradition. However, as seems to be the case with so much of the post-Vatican II reforms, this is at best only half-true. Some prayers have been edited in ways completely unknown in their manuscript history; others with a long tradition of use in particular times of the liturgical year have been moved to where they have never been used before; still others have been freely combined with one or more other prayers to create novel and original texts.

New 2019 Ordo app for traditional Missal and Breviary now available

We asked our old friend Louis Tofari of Romanitas Press to write a post for our readers when we saw his great new, inexpensive app for priests and laymen. See below from Louis:

The 2019 Ordo for the traditional (1962) Roman Missal and Breviary is now available again from Romanitas Press as mobile apps for both Android and Apple devices.

This digital version of the printed Ordo for mobile devices is not only handy for the traveling clergy who follow the traditional missal and breviary, but also for the laity as a liturgical calendar! 

Never again get stuck without the 2017 Ordo!

Our friends at Romanitas Press have just produced a trial version of their mobile Android app of the 2017 Ordo for the traditional Roman Missal and Breviary (1962) — and it's only 99 cents. The 2018 version for both Android and Apple should be available next month.

This digital version of the Ordo for Android devices is not only handy for the traveling clergy who follow the traditional missal and breviary, but also for the laity as a mobile liturgical calendar for attending the traditional Mass.

This Ordo app is easy to use and each entry lists the class of the day, proper Mass (or options), Office’s color, and variable parts of the Mass and Breviary. Also included are helpful notes such as when a Requiem Mass is prohibited — and specifically for pastors, pulpit announcements of the liturgical year.

The Manifestation of the King of Kings

The doctrine of the Kingship of Christ has been relegated almost entirely to a claim about the private commitment of individual believers to live according to the Gospel, and surely, while this is where our Lord's kingship must always begin, it cannot be where it ends. As Pope Pius XI's encyclical Mortalium Animos warns against a relativistic conception of ecumenism, so does the same Pope's encyclical Quas Primas warn against a narrow subjective conception of the reign of Jesus Christ, who is, in fact, whether we acknowledge it or not, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the Judge of the living and the dead, the One who can and should reign in the social, cultural, political and economic spheres. He has reigned thus before; and if He does not now reign, that is not to our credit, but to our shame.

All this has been on my mind as I ponder the magnificent Gregorian propers for the feast of the Epiphany -- chants that bring the exceptionlessly comprehensive Kingship of Christ very much to the fore, to be pondered, loved, and longed for. Of course, most Catholics no longer hear these or any songs that convey the traditional doctrine, but -- blessed be God! -- Catholics who attend the usus antiquior Mass today, the Twelfth Day of Christmas, will hear these propers spoken or sung. They are always used in the classical Roman Rite because the Church of Rome always believes and professes one and the same doctrine.