The prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship has suggested an appendix to the Roman Missal contain parts of the extraordinary form of the Mass.
In an article in L’Osservatore Romano, Cardinal Robert Sarah stated that the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy should not be read with a “hermeneutic of rupture”.
“It would be wrong to consider the extraordinary form of the Roman rite as coming from another theology,” he said.
It would be “desirable” that there be an appendix in an upcoming edition of the Roman Missal that would permit celebrants in the ordinary form to use the penitential rite and the offertory of the extraordinary form.
This would show that the ordinary form and the extraordinary form are “in continuity and without opposition”, Cardinal Sarah stated.
“If we live in this spirit, then the liturgy will cease to be the place of rivalry and criticism,” he wrote.
Instead it would be the place in which we participate actively in the heavenly liturgy, the cardinal added.
Cardinal Sarah also it consistent with the conciliar constitution that, “during the rite of penance, the singing of the Gloria, the orations, and the Eucharistic prayer, everyone, priest and faithful, should turn together towards the East”.
This is “to express their will to participate in the work of worship and of redemption accomplished by Christ,” he continued, adding that this would be especially appropriate in cathedrals.
He recalled Vatican II’s teaching that the faithful should “be able to say or to sing together in Latin those parts of the Ordinary of the Mass which pertain to them”.
He also critiqued the “contemporary Western mentality” in which the faithful are to be “constantly busy” and in which the Mass is to be rendered “convivial”.
The cardinal said the council suggested sacred silence as one of the means of active participation.
“The liturgy is essentially the action of Christ,” he noted.
“If this vital principle is not received in faith, it is likely to make the liturgy a human work, a self-celebration of the community.”
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