One thing I wish would be added to the Tridentine Mass

[Ourladyofconsolation06]

After the consecration (at about 8:15) the priest spreads his arms, imitating Our Lord on the cross. This is done in the Ambrosian liturgy (celebrated above) and in other monastic pre-Vatican II liturgy's. What does the Priest say while doing this? It really struck me as beautiful because it strongly signifies the Priests role as an Alter Christus

[batteddy]

It is very nice. Of course it IS already "covered by" the Ambrosian Rite, so it's not like it is totally absent from the Church.

 

I'd be most convinced if someone could show that the tradition was once Roman but got dropped at some point. I'm all for restoring stuff that degenerated over the years...adding stuff I am slightly more wary.

[PeteC]

After the consecration (at about 8:15) the priest spreads his arms, imitating Our Lord on the cross. This is done in the Ambrosian liturgy (celebrated above) and in other monastic pre-Vatican II liturgy's. What does the Priest say while doing this? It really struck me as beautiful because it strongly signifies the Priests role as an Alter Christus

The Unde et Memores. Many religious orders also have/have this posture. Even in their NO revised rites in which case it is done at Memores igitur mortis et resurrectionis (II), Memores igitur, Domine, eiusdem Filii tui (III) or Unde et nos, Domine (IV)  . It was also a common posture for medievel Uses.

[Ourladyofconsolation06]

Thanks Pete!

[Kenny]

That's a very interesting way of swinging the thurible at the consecration!

[QuisUtDeus]

I'd be most convinced if someone could show that the tradition was once Roman but got dropped at some point. I'm all for restoring stuff that degenerated over the years...adding stuff I am slightly more wary.

 

That's a slippery slope, though.  They threw away a lot of stuff when they finalized the Missal, and probably for good reason.  I'd like to keep the TLM the same, but perhaps allow different Masses such as these more widely.

 

[batteddy]

That's a slippery slope, though.  They threw away a lot of stuff when they finalized the Missal, and probably for good reason. 

 

That's one attitude I don't like. That they "finalized" the Missal. That it became a finished product a given point.

 

I don't mean strange local abuses and accretions of the middle ages. I mean stuff from very early on that became vestigial in what the Catholic Encyclopedia calls "the shortening of the Mass"...there are lots of little pieces of things I think should be re-expanded and restored.

[Ourladyofconsolation06]

Another part of the Ambrosian Rite I like is the "silent lavabo" right before the consecration.

[DominusTecum]

Why not leave it as it is? The Mass is of a perfect length... no need to make it longer, or it risks being more of an empty and hollow ceremony, a lot of fluff around the essentials, as people might see it. If it's any shorter, it'd not be reverent enough.

 

 

[MagisterMusicae]

Indeed.

Adding things to the Mass was as much a problem in the decades before Vatican II as was reducing parts of the Mass or omitting ceremonies.

Even if some practice can be shown to have been practiced in the Roman Rite then we must still ask the question: Why do we not have it any longer?

Many things do go out of practice for good reason. Often it's for not such a good reason, too.

Still, the "Roman" principle, which you find if you study the details about the history of the Roman Rite and the rubrics, is to do only what is necessary to achieve the objective. This is why the altar servers do not meet up and genuflect every time they go to the Credence (since they are not leaving sight of the altar and not passing the center). That's why it's not principled to have twenty altar servers. You have the men you need to perform the function, no more, since more does not somehow add to the reverence. You make only the reverences, genuflections and motions minimally necessary.

As Pius XII explained in Mediator Dei, the liturgy is not a testing ground for new devotions. It is a public prayer, and the prayer of the Church. Things do get added and dropped, but only organically and over time. Now that the Mass, since Trent has been as fixed as it is, and the rubrics too, only a few legitimate customs remain. Where the rubrics are unclear or allow liberty, that's where we have customs, and perhaps where we will see organic development.

I agree. They symbolism is beautiful. But it's Ambrosian. The Ambrosian Rite is beautiful, but it's not Roman. It is no more Roman than the Sarum or Mozarabic Rites (even if it each does to some extent follow major parts of the Roman Mass). Each has its particular venue.

The Mass I (and I assume most here) attend is the Roman Rite.

That doesn't mean that the Mass is perfect as it stands now. IMHO, some of what happened in the 1965 Missal was a welcome and good restoration (especially as regards the restoration of the roles of the choir, deacon and subdeacon), even if there were many other problems.