More on Cardinal Heenan and the Mass

In his thoughtful (as always) comments on my previous post, Part Time Pilgrim raises two questions:

1. I accept the OF gives more prominence to scripture than the EF (I think this is a Good Thing) but does it give more prominence to scripture than to the Eucharistic prayer?

2. How exactly does the OF throw doubt on the doctrine of the Real Presence?

He then adds:

Now it may be that I need to experience more EF masses to understand what he is getting at (although I am uneasy about the idea of liturgical tourism). Having attended OF masses for the last 40 years and still having a firm faith in the real presence I still don't "get it".

I propose to answer these, in a somewhat circuitous way, over this post and one or two more.

I am not attempting to convince PTP or anyone else, but to explain how I see it.

So before addressing these questions directly (this is not evasion: I will get around to them) I want to put them, and my response to them, into a context.

At the time of the unprecedented liturgical changes (never before had the Mass been re-written by a committee of experts) there were dichotomous views expressed about the probable consequences. 

On the one hand, advocates of the changes declared that they would reinvigorate the Church’s worship and thus faith, and also increase the likelihood of full-scale reunion with our separated brethren in various denominations.

On the other hand, there were those, including Cardinal Heenan, who thought they would have an adverse effect on the practice of the faith, and ultimately on the faith itself of many people.

It seems clear to me that what Cardinal Heenan feared is much closer to what we have experienced since the changes than what the liturgical experts expected.  

It is also interesting to note that where we are experiencing some reunion with separated brethren en masse, in the Ordinariate, the newer form of liturgy of the Church is not something they find appealing...

I am not claiming post hoc, propter hoc, with regard to the changes in the liturgy and the collapse of Catholic understanding and practice in the intervening decades, but I think the issue at least worthy of exploration.

So turning to PTP’s questions, I will have a go at No.1 here and return to No. 2 and his additional comments in a subsequent post.

It is hard to do a precise comparison of the time given to scripture, and the time given to the Eucharistic Prayer, because both are variable.  When the readings are long, and the EP2 is used, for example, then it seems likely that the readings may take considerably longer than the Eucharistic Prayer.  Certainly on the most solemn feasts, (consider the Easter Vigil...) Scripture is given far more time.

But prominence isn’t just about length of time; I think the impression which the Cardinal gained needs to be understood in the context of the change he had just experienced.

Formerly, the reading of Scripture at Mass had been done at the altar (the lesson or epistle being read on the right hand side, the Gospel being read on the left hand side).  Thus the readings were primarily addressed to God as part of the preparation for the re-presentation of the Sacrifice of Calvary.

The Lesson or Epistle was by way of saying: remember what You did for us, or promised us, of old; and the Gospel: remember what Your Son did and said...

That was why it didn’t matter, in a sense, whether the people could understand the Latin (though of course, in practice, people had missals with translations, and frequently the readings were subsequently read out in the vernacular for the edification of the people - but that was secondary.)

In the New Mass, the readings were suddenly proclaimed to the people from the ambo in a more didactic (and thus less prayerful) mode.

That shifted the whole balance of the Mass, it seems to me, from being all about the build-up to the Sacrifice, to being a Mass in two halves: the Word, then the Eucharist.  In that way, the Scripture readings had far more prominence than heretofore, and one can easily see why the Cardinal thought they were more prominent than the Eucharistic Prayer.

Of course, one could argue that the new approach is better.  But that is not the issue I wish to highlight at this stage (though I do have a view, as you would imagine). But I think that the first thing it to try to understand what Cardinal Heenan was getting at, and I hope that I may have cast some light on that.

(Incidentally, the rest of the EF Mass is saturated in Scripture, in a way the OF is not - but that is another issue for another day...)


UPDATE

Simon Platt makes a very important contribution in the comment below: I think I have been arguing from a misunderstanding, though my points remain sound, I think, in the light of his explanation.