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A
Short History of
the
Roman Mass
by
Michael
Davies
Chapter
16
Our
Ancient
Liturgical Heritage
Regarding the
Traditional
Mass of the Roman Rite, the "Tridentine" Mass, Father Fortescue
concludes:
Since
the Council
of Trent the history of the Mass is hardly anything but the composition
and approval of new Masses. The scheme and all the fundamental parts
remain
the same. No one has thought of touching the venerable liturgy of the
Roman
Mass, except by adding to it new propers. 35
His final
assessment
of the Missal of St. Pius V merits careful meditation:
There
are many
days still on which we say the Mass that has been said for centuries
back
to the days of the Gelasian and Leonine books. And when they do come,
the
new Masses only affect the Proper. Our Canon is untouched, and all the
scheme of the Mass. Our Missal is still that of Pius V We may be very
thankful
that his Commission was so scrupulous to keep or restore the old Roman
tradition. Essentially the Missal of Pius V is the Gregorian
Sacramentary;
that again is formed from the Gelasian book, which depends on the
Leonine
collection. We find the prayers of our Canon in the treatise De
Sacramentis
and allusions to it in the fourth century. So our Mass goes back,
without
essential change, to the age when it first developed out of the oldest
liturgy of all. It is still redolent of that liturgy, of the days when
Caesar ruled the world and thought he could stamp out the faith of
Christ,
when our fathers met together before dawn and sang a hymn to Christ as
to a God. The final result of our inquiry is that, in spite of unsolved
problems, in spite of later changes there is not in Christendom another
rite so venerable as ours. 36
Msgr.
Klaus Gamber,
one of the greatest liturgists of this century, asks in his book, The
Reform of the Roman Liturgy, a very pertinent question concerning
the
motivation of the reform which followed Vatican II, but was in no way
mandated
by the Council:
Was all
this really
done because of a pastoral concern about the souls of the faithful, or
did it not rather represent a radical breach with the traditional rite,
to prevent the further use of traditional liturgical texts and thus
make
the celebration of the "Tridentine Mass" impossible-----because
it no longer reflected the new spirit moving through the Church? 37
Thanks be
to God,
the Tridentine Mass is not simply "the most beautiful thing this side
of
heaven" but the Mass that will not die. Just as the faithful of Milan
refused
to allow the Ambrosian Mass to be replaced by the Roman Mass, so the
faithful
of the Roman Rite have refused to abandon the Mass that is redolent of
the liturgy "of the days when Caesar ruled the world and thought he
could
stamp out the faith of Christ, when our fathers met together before
dawn
and sang a hymn to Christ as to a God." Its renewed use is spreading
throughout
the world with every day that passes, and each year more and more young
priests are ordained who are resolved to celebrate Mass only according
to the Missal of St. Pius which is as certain to be the Mass of our
children
as it was the Mass of our fathers.
Collect for
the Feast
of St. Pius V
O God,
who for
the overthrowing of the enemies of Thy Church, and for the restoring of
the beauty of Thy worship, didst choose blessed Pius as supreme
Pontiff:
grant that we may so cleave unto Thy service, that overcoming all the
snares
of our enemies, we may rejoice in Thy eternal peace.
 
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