Why The Tridentine Lectionary Is Superior

Cardinal Sarah's rosewater conservative intervention about the mutual enrichment of the two masses (the wrong one and the right one) is in part based on the claim that there is no doubt that the Lectionary of the NO is superior to the Tridentine one.

This is wrong on many levels. Let me explain why.

Firstly, and as already written, the Tridentine Lectionary is the fruit of a long process of slow development, and the Lectionary of the NO is the fruit of a short process of fast subversion. It is not that before the Sixties the Liturgists didn't realise you can have a three-year, massive scripture-reading program. It is that in their wisdom, they chose to do otherwise. This is argument enough for me, and is the most important one. Tradition. Get it?

Secondly, whoever is acquainted with the Tridentine Lectionary notices a trend in particularly (but not only) the Gospel readings: it is pithy, concentrated wisdom. At times it strikes one like a whip. It is chosen as to be a flash to be remembered, rather than a story to be told. It works.

Thirdly, and as pointed out by more learned bloggers than yours truly, the Lectionary of the Tridentine has a muscular, masculine, politically incorrect, unapologetic quality that Bugnini & Co. thought well to neuter, to emasculate. Fifty years later, many (bad) churchgoers and even more (worse) non-churchgoers think that Jesus was a pacifist vegan of sort. The NO Jesus is one-sided, and therefore distorted.

Fourthly, the Mass is not there to make you listen to the Scriptures. The scriptures are learned and interiorised as you learn and interiorise Catholic doctrine: at catechism and with private, devotional reading. Tellingly, the generation who was exposed to more Gospel reading at Mass than any generation before them is also the most ignorant of both doctrine and scripture, and the most incapable of making sense of the little they learn. In contrast, past generations of illiterate peasants knew way more of Catholicism than the arrogant, vapid degree-holders full of themselves crowding (not so much, really) the churches today.

Therefore, the Lectionary of the Tridentine is superior to the one of the NO in its logic, in its impact, in its truthfulness and in its pedagogic scope.

The V II crowd, Cardinals not excluded, do not get any of these arguments. To them, he who has more words wins.

Then we are surprised that we are in the state in which we find ourselves these days.

M