Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness - Urgent Care for Sick Church

When one looks backward at the Old Liturgical Movement, unless they knew better, one would be tempted to categorize the proponents as traditionalists in the modern sense that term is used. Their desire was to get people to know about the liturgy. They wanted people to understand what was going in the liturgy. Of course, this ultimately led to a complete undivinization of the liturgy. Kwasniewski talks about how the saints knew that asceticism was to be practiced in the mystical life (Noble Beauty, 93). Here is a glaring problem with the Novus Ordo. When one looks at the Novus Ordo, many of the fasts are taken out. There is no pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima, no daily Lenten fasting (Byzantines practice daily Lenten fasting, another commonality we have with the Tridentine Rite, and another difference with the Novus Ordo), and no abstinence on Fridays. Many of these rules were already being adjusted prior but they certainly paved way for what was to come in the Liturgical malform.

Kwasniewski states, "[t]he real crisis of Catholicism at the time of Council was not located in its mysteries, rituals, or symbols, which are enduring and life-giving, but in lack of devotion to them on part of many of the clergy, which begot a lack of desire to lead the faithful into a better understanding of them (97). As mentioned, we see the deteriorating devotion prior to the Council so many Neo-Catholics have attempted to remove blame from Vatican II by referencing those. But we can see that Vatican II did nothing to fix the lack of devotion which is what a Council is supposed to do. So let's cool our jets and stop slabbing off onto people the idea that Vatican II made massive achievements and was by any means a holy Council. If it was a holy Council, it would have reversed the direction the Church was careening on. It did not. Councils are instituted to correct error. Vatican II adopted error. It cannot be held that the faithful are bound to the full tenants of Vatican II since the faithful can never be bound to error.

This lack of devotion is obvious enough in the adjustments to the fasting regulations. Before, it was mandatory to fast up to six hours prior to receiving the Eucharist. This was adjusted under Pius XII to one hour. Even a more traditionalist Pope like the Ven. Pius XII certainly committed error on this legal issue. A Pope can commit error on laws not pertaining to the faith and since dioceses are allowed to be stricter, one cannot insist that the faithful were ever necessarily bound to following this new obligation which was actually a diminishment of the prior obligation. But here we already see a culling of the asceticism that goes along with the mystical life. We cannot have a mystical life by indulging ourselves in food. A mystical life is impeded by the lack of asceticism in our lives and it is helped and aided along by asceticism. When there are no ascetics, the mystical life is devoid of meaning. Hence why the New Age can get us no where. And yet we see New Age concepts being brought in on a constant basis into the life and theology of the Church. We see this with the teaching on human dignity, religious liberty, and the liberty of conscience. These things had no existence prior to the Second Vatican Council.

Clearly, this is not all the fault of the Council but the Council had the responsibility to culling the lack of devotion. The Council had the responsibility of engendering new devotion to the Catholic faith. These things, the Council did not do. As a result, we see the "Mass" being turned into a clown show by stooges. Heretics have strutted themselves into the Church and claimed seats of power which do not properly belong to them (if you are ever turned away from the Holy Eucharist by "Fr." James Martin, remember that you were graciously excommunicated from heresy by divine fiat). How has this happened if Vatican II is truly a holy Council? We may be tempted to say the implementation of the Council was "misunderstood" but that would insist that the implementation of the Council's clear-cut theology was laid out firmly against this madness. It is not. It seems to be the clear-cut meaning is in favor of this madness. Unlike with the Council of Nicaea which denounced in unequivocal terms the heresy of Arianism, we don't see that from Vatican II. We instead have people in the Church who now think that the only thing about Church theology and liturgy that matters is Vatican II.

Kwasniewski concludes, "The Liturgical Movement prior to the Council lamented the fact that Catholics, generally speaking, did not possess an intimate knowledge of their liturgy or cherish a particularly intense desire to live 'under the sign' of liturgical seasons and feasts." (108) This is a primary difference between the East and West. The West did not have a means of fully explaining the liturgy to people. It should have nevertheless made the effort. But the rise of scholasticism made the focus of the West on the paper theology of the Church rather than the essence of the liturgy. While Quod Primum made this effort, we see this mentality in the West still today. Because the liturgy was never fully explained to people, people began to think of the liturgy as something that could be changed, even ignoring the dogmatically binding statements of Quod Primum which binds all Catholics to the affirmation of the Tridentine Mass as the ordinary Mass for Catholics (yes, my rite is an extraordinary exception, but as it was older than 200 years at the time Quod Primum was written is stil an acceptable practice for Catholics), and thinking that liturgical expressions are only optional outward expressions of the interior faith. The faith, under this assault from this type of scholasticism, has been reduced to creedal affirmations.

Unlike in the East which has been greatly supplemented by the works of St. John Chrysostom, St. Germanos of Constantinople, and St. Nicholas Cabasilas, the West has not made the focus or core of their theology the liturgy. In the East, when asked a theological question, we turn straight to the liturgy and make a clear statement of what the faith is. The West does not have that. The West has been under the chains of the scholastic influence for quite some time. This in no way is meant to denounce the scholastic philosophy as a theological system but rather to propose a correction to the scholastic philosophy in that it should not find itself disconnected from the liturgical expression. If the scholastic method found itself reconnected to liturgical expression, there would be no doubt a firm a denunciation of all heresies and a full affirmation of orthodox Catholicism throughout the world. Until then, there is need to stop the further malforms that are being brought into the Church by the liberals through their Neo-Catholic dupes.