One problem that has come as a result of the liturgical malformation is how we have all ended up becoming "experts" of the liturgy rather than simply accepting the simplistic nature of the liturgy as a gift from Heaven (Noble Beauty, 169-170). This is caused by the bouncing back and forth from different Masses. As has already been noted, the Novus Ordo does not fix itself into a set rubric. So when one looks at a liturgy, they are more attuned to the abuses in a particular Novus Ordo liturgy. They have less of an appreciation for the beauty of Mass. The focus becomes more about how the Mass has been celebrated and it opposes the concept of the Mass as a gift from Heaven. It's not that Kwasniewski sees thinking liturgically as a bad thing but rather the focus away from the liturgical and heavenly beauty of the Mass is what is the bad thing and that has led us into this liturgical competitiveness among both Westerners and Easterners.
One thing I've noticed in my own journey in the Eastern rites is that there is a mode of liturgical elitism that crops up among the more supposedly "pious" Eastern rite Catholics. They look at their liturgy not as equal to that of the Traditional Latin Rite but as superior to the Latin rites all together. But that's not the duty of the Eastern rites. The duty of the Eastern rites is to call the Latins to a traditional and liturgical frame of reference, not to annihilate the West and coerce it to adopt Eastern rite practices as universal. I have noted far more differences and discrepancies between the Eastern rites and the Novus Ordo that even Eastern rite proponents would like to admit. We have become fixated more on the exterior modes of celebration ourselves. We've been no better than the West on this issue.
Kwasniewski's chapter here also takes a swipe at the emphasis on socializing at church. Socializing is a core part of many Novus Ordo churches. Is it not essential that we develop and grow with other Catholic families though? It certainly is but socializing is not the reason one attends Mass. We work out our own salvation through fear and trembling after all. How are we doing this if we are constantly fixated on socializing? And a coffee hour can be a very good thing and can even be used as a window to offer opportunities to inquire but even when I was an Anglican, the priest would remind us that we do not attend church for the coffee hour afterward or for the people but to make ourselves ready for God, to receive the holy Eucharist in the Mass. If focus is placed solely on socializing, then we begin to lose focus on the Eucharistic mysteries. Lately, my socializing after Vespers and the Divine Liturgy has been reduced to praying with my godfather and saying "I love you" to my godmother. Those three words I found she needed to hear too during Lent when I saw her face light up with relief.
Kwasniewski writes of the liturgical tradition, "it is God's gift to us, it comes before us and goes beyond us, we did not generate and we cannot, of ourselves, guarantee it." (182) Is that not our Eastern attitude toward our Divine Liturgy? Is that not how we are meant to think about our liturgical tradition? Something that is handed down to us as a gift that is not our own? Yes, that is our Eastern attitude. When we talk about Easternizing the West, we are contributing to the great damage to liturgical theology in the West, the same damage when the West talks about Latinizing us. And let's put it simply, if the West is going to "Latinize" us (and they shouldn't), then shouldn't we be concerned about the damage they have done to their own liturgy. If they can suicide their own tradition, they can murder our traditions. Alice von Hildebrand has this to say about the Latin Mass:
"The devil hates the ancient Mass. He hates it because it is the most perfect reformulation of all the teachings of the Church. It was my husband who gave me this insight about the Mass. The problem that ushered in the present crisis was not the traditional Mass. The problem was that priests who offered it had already lost the sense of the supernatural and the transcendent. They rushed through the prayers, they mumbled and didn't enunciate them. That is a sign that they had brought to the Mass their growing secularism. The ancient Mass does not abide irreverence and that is why so many priests were just as happy to see it go." (183-184)
The Novus Ordo has invited in an era of liturgical elitism on all sides unhealthy for the Church. This is not the fault of the ancient liturgies as this spirit is not nearly as grand as it may have been in the first millennium and especially not the second millennium. This spirit of liturgical elitism has been ushered in by the Novus Ordo's arrogant assault on the tradition of the Church which is an assault on the Church itself. Our clergy need to address this and they need to seek the total abolishment of the Novus Ordo before it spreads its errors throughout the rest of the Church.
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