Tradition and Accommodation

Part 3 in an ongoing series of essays on the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.

Testimony of an Unaltered Faith

The Introduction of the General Instruction is at great pains to place itself, and the Missal that it prefaces, in continuity with the tradition of the Roman Rite. Despite what many modern liturgists seem to think, the Third Edition of the Roman Missal is clear in rejecting any rupture between itself and earlier versions throughout history.

The present norms, too, prescribed in keeping with the will of the Second Vatican Council, together with the new Missal with which the Church of the Roman Rite will henceforth celebrate the Mass, are again a demonstration of this same solicitude of the Church, of her faith and her unaltered love for the supreme mystery of the Eucharist, and also attest to her continuous and consistent tradition, even though certain new elements have been introduced.

General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 1.
 

In fact, while the very first footnote refers to a Council document, it is not to a document of the Second Vatican Council, but rather to the Council of Trent¹. It draws a clear parallel between this document and several documents of Vatican II².

And what are these references supposed to illustrate? The sacrificial nature of the Mass. The General Instruction goes on to say, “What is taught in this way by the Council is consistently expressed in the formulas of the Mass”. The Mass is, as Tradition has constantly taught, primarily a sacrifice: the sacrifice of Christ on calvary.

So, in the new Missal the rule of prayer (lex orandi) of the Church corresponds to her perennial rule of faith (lex credendi), by which we are truly taught that the sacrifice of his Cross and its sacramental renewal in the Mass, which Christ the Lord instituted at the Last Supper and commanded his Apostles to do in his memory, are one and the same, differing only in the manner of their offering; and as a result, that the Mass is at one and the same time a sacrifice of praise, thanksgiving, propitiation, and satisfaction.

General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 2c.
 

Uninterrupted Tradition

The next section of the Introduction declares even more forcefully the place of the modern Missal in the continuity of Tradition. It calls out the work of Pope St. Pius V in his publication of the Missal of Trent and says that it is building on his work to return to the “norm of the holy Fathers”³.

In particular, it notes that the reformers of Trent worked in “truly difficult times, when the Catholic faith in the sacrificial nature of the Mass, the ministerial Priesthood, and the real and perpetual presence of Christ under the Eucharistic species were called into question”⁴. Surely these are perennial problems, once again rearing their ugly heads in the 21st century as they did in the 16th.

Accommodation to New Conditions

Of course, in the four hundred years since Trent, a lot of history has passed. The General Instruction lays out the changes required in the Missal, both to bring it into conformity with earlier liturgical traditions unavailable to the reformers of Trent and “to accommodate the Church to the requirements of her proper apostolic office precisely in these times”⁵.

In this manner the Church, while remaining faithful to her office as teacher of truth, safeguarding “things old,” that is, the deposit of tradition, fulfills at the same time the duty of examining and prudently adopting “things new” (cf. Mt 13:52).

General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 15.
 

And lest anybody get confused about what liturgical customs and traditions are to be maintained and which things are to be changed, the General Instruction moves on to forcefully lay out the foundations of the modern ars celebrandi in its first two chapters. And whatever you might think the liturgical reforms following the Second Vatican Council required, I guarantee you will be surprised and amazed by that it actually says.

Next time: Chapter I of the General Instruction: Presence and Participation.

1. Ecumenical Council of Trent, Session XXII, September 17, 1562: Denzinger-Schönmetzer, nos. 1738-1759.
2. Second Ecumenical Council of the Vatican, Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium, no. 47; cf. Dogmatic Constitution on the Church, Lumen gentium, nos. 3, 28; Decree on the Ministry and Life of Priests, Presbyterorum ordinis, nos. 2, 4, 5.
3. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 6 – 9.
4. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 7.
5. General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 12.