The Ordinary Catholic Mass that most Catholics attend every Sunday is going to slightly change. And in my opinion, they are changes for the better. I'm going to get into that more in a later post, but first we need to review how we got where we are today.

Here's the deal (it's kind of complicated):
When the Roman emporer Constantine declared Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire in 313, Christians began to begin to formalize their worship. Prior to this, Christian worship was an event in secret, held in houses and basements under fear of being discovered by the Romans (who would torture them, feed them to lions and sell tickets to the spectacle in the Collesium). American Catholic writes:

Stately ceremonies suitable in a huge church emerged. Processions, courtly movement in the sanctuary, metered chant (composed by St. Ambrose) and sung litanies that galvanized the voices of thousands, incense and bells, kissing sacred objects and the use of genuflections became a pattern to accompany the ancient structure of the Eucharist.

The celebrants wore clothes worthy of a Roman senator. Their robes eventually came to be called vestments, since they were retained long after fashions changed. The simple plates and cups of house worship became elaborate chalices and patens. This was an inevitable evolution due to social acceptance, organizing an empire-size Church and, indeed, ecclesial prosperity.

This era witnessed the rise of extraordinary bishops, known now as Church Fathers, such as Augustine and Chrysostom, whose homilies were rich in theology and pastoral in application.

In the year 590, Pope Gregory I ascended to the papacy. In these days, the Church was going through some growing pains and different forms of the Catholic Mass were circulating around the known world. Pope Gregory codified the liturgies, rearranged them and set the basic format into what scholars basically agree is the real beginning of what you'd recognize as a Roman Catholic Mass. Gregory's work was so important and so influential that was declared a saint by popular acclaim and is one of only three popes of the 266 popes to carry the honorific title "the great". (Pope St. Gregory the Great, Pope St. Leo the Great, Pope St. Nicholas the Great are the three. What about Pope John Paul II? Some people call him "John Paul the Great", it's true. There's really no formal procedure for such a title, they have to arise from general use. At this point, there's not enough evidence that the title will catch on. I'd dispute that he earned such a title, but that's more than I really want to get into).

The "Gregorian Mass" still lives today, albeit further developed in history. St. Gregory is the patron of a group that a friend of mine is starting to bring and support the Traditional Latin Mass to Johnson County, Kansas. The group is called The Society of Pope St. Gregory the Great in his honor.

Through the long history of Catholicism, the Mass has endured some ups and downs. By the middle ages (what used to be called the "dark ages"), some problems began to pop up. Basically, people weren't catechized (taught about the Church) very well and started getting confused on what was really going on at Mass. Priests often had crummy country-seminary training and often weren't much better educated than the serfs to whom they were preaching.

These midieval laymen often witnessed the priest raise up the unleavened bread and saying "Hoc est enim corpus meum" ("This is my body") and confused it for the words "Hocus Pocus"-- thus coining the term. It also goes to say that many didn't understand the Mass as much more than a magic trick. Complicated subjects such as Transubstantiation were basically WAY over the head of the regular peasant. These were distant days for Catholics, much of whom who were very removed from their religion. Various Church Councils were called in this time to declare and affirm a number of things, there were five Lateran councils, some in France, some in Constantinople, around Italy-- there were a lot of councils held in a lot of places. These councils had a number of functions like addressing different heresies that people were making up at the time, dealing with the newly re-infamous Knights Templar, making sure that Catholic laity were actually receiving Holy Communion at least once a year, defining the functions (and later, split) of the Eastern and Western Churches, governing politics and how many angels can dance on the head of a pin (seriously). Councils decided all kinds of stuff.

About the time of the Renaissance, the papacy was a moral mess. The eight renaissance popes were big benefactors of the newly-rediscovered fine arts, but were really shady characters. You can do your own research on the renaissance popes, but suffice it to say that they carried a reputation for serving themselves before serving God or man.

Then stuff began to change for the better. The biggest council (in terms of impact on the Mass) was the Nineteenth Council one, beginning in 1545. This Council of Trent took place over 18 years, lasted through 5 popes and became bascially the benchmark of Catholic thought for the next 500 years. It was called to address the heresy of Protestantism, to reaffirm the Catholic Mass and to reform the Church.

Trent was a huge deal and can't be overestimated. It was basically a house-cleaning council and truly formalized the Catholic Mass-- which would go substantially unchanged right up until Pope Paul VI would authorize a New Order of the Mass in 1970.

This New Order of the Mass (in Latin, Novus Ordo Missae) is also a big deal.

We all know about the 1960's. We know that was the decade that changed EVERYTHING. Music. Fashion. Technology. Architecture. Science. Drugs. Politics. Culture. Art. Education. The list goes on and on-- and includes Religion (not just Catholicism, mind you)

In the 1950's and building up to 1962, there was a lot of turmoil in the Chuch. The First Vatican Council in the 1868 began to define how a Catholic should address or embrace biblical literalism and how to combat the heresy of Modernism (a problem the Church has to deal with from time to time). But that council was drawn to a quick close when Italy fell into civil war (a problem Italy has to deal with from time to time) and the business of the Council was never finished. By the 1950's, some people would say that a lot of the bishops of the Church had succombed to the temptations of Modernism and were wandering from the lessons of the great Council of Trent.

At this time, Pope Pius XII died and (Oversimplificaton Alert!) the cardinals didn't know who should replace him. It was a heady time in the Church and there was a feeling that Catholicism would be tied irrevocably to the past or wander dangerously to the modern world. Some people saw John XXIII as a "compromise candidate", he was a nice and jovial old man, trusted and old. May I underscore that he was 77 years old-- and that everyone knew that? It is my belief that he was elected to simply "buy time" for the church to figure out what direction to go. He was to be a "placeholder pope".

Well, in 1962, Blessed Pope John XXIII called the Second Vatican Council (commonly called "Vatican 2") as a "Pastoral Council" that was designed to make sure that the nearly-2000-year-old Church was still addressing the needs of a 1960's Catholic. All the bishops of the world were summoned to Rome and there was a nervous energy in the air. They sought out to "open the windows of the Church" and let some fresh air blow in.

I think that Blessed Pope John XXIII's council caught some people by surprise. A lot of people probably wondered if the Good Pope knew what he was getting into.

Then predicably, John XXIII's age caught him and he died before the his great Council could be completed.

I wonder what Vatican 2 would have looked like if he'd been able to see it to the end. But such thoughts are just predicting history, and predicting history is just making up the story the way you wished it happened.

By the conclusion of the Second Vatican Council, it was clear that the bishops were going to go beyond the essential pastoral concerns of those latter-day Catholics. And by 1970, we'd have a whole new Mass. This New Order, the Mass of Pope Paul VI would be loosely based on that old Tridentine Mass (Mass of the Council of Trent) that had been the gold-standard for 500 years, based in the Gregorian Mass of the Sixth Century.

I'm not here to pass judgement on the Catholic Mass. I can appreciate both forms of the Roman Liturgy, the Ancient Mass and the Novus Ordo. But the differences are so striking and the change was so swift that Catholics of the 1960s describe it as if they just walked into the wrong church.

It was a time of HUGE upheaval for the Faith. Splinter groups would dig in their heels to resist change, others felt that the change wasn't finished went way farther than the Council and the Church ever intended to change the sacred liturgy of the Roman Catholic church. We saw (and see) people who refuse to acknowledge the authority of popes, who assert that every pope since then is an imposter pope, who say that Pope Paul VI was a grand switcheroo with a kidnapped and secretly imprisoned pontiff... Those were heady days to be a Roman Catholic.

In many ways, these are heady times to be a Roman Catholic, but that's a whole different post altogether.

Before I wrap up this post, I want to make a couple things clear: the Pauline Mass is a legitimate form of the Mass. Some people might tell you otherwise; those people are wrong. The Second Vatican Council was a pretty important event. It produced a number of documents that are to serve the Church in its care to the world. Some assert that the documents are poorly written and leave more questions than answers-- I can't speak authoritatively on that subject and will decline to do so. But the documents are real and you can buy them in bookstores and read them for yourself. Enjoy.

Some councils are more important than others. The First Council of Nicaea (325) was tremendously important, it defined what it meant to be a Christian. The Second Council of Lyons (1274) was a pretty big deal, bridging the Roman and Greek Churches and establishing the format for electing popes.

But pop quiz: what happened at the Council of Chalcedon (451)? How about the Council of Vienne (1311)? Yeah, I thought so.

You know what I feel about the Council of Trent (1545). And presumably, the Second Vatican Council will turn out as one of those councils that left an indeliable mark on Catholicism. But I fear that a little more than the bathwater went out through the Church's newly open windows.

Well anyway, there's some changes going on in the United States in the way that priests offer the Novus Ordo Missae. And in my opinion, they're changes for the better.

So here's your homework: read the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops new translation of the Mass at http://www.usccb.org/liturgy/missalformation/OrdoMissaeWhiteBook.pdf See if you can spot the changes.

We'll get to a little more specific review sometime. Hopefully sooner than later, but it's August and you'll get what you get.