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The Tridentine Mass - Ultimate Cultural Artifact

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JMJ

Lex Orandi - Lex Credendi, the Law of Prayer is the Law of Belief.  Whoever coined this phrase embodied perfectly the conclusions made by the thought leaders of Organizational Psychology over a hundred years later.

As I've written before: The Mass is the ultimate cultural artifact as it contains and expresses the beliefs, values and assumptions of the Catholic Religion.  Or at least it did until the promulgation of the Novus Ordo Missae.

What beliefs, values and assumptions does the Novus Ordo Missae express? The root lies in the first few words of Sancrosanctum Concilium (SC) as quoted in Rorate's post on the Mass of the Council:

1. This sacred Council has several aims in view: it desires to impart an ever increasing vigor to the Christian life of the faithful; to adapt more suitably to the needs of our own times those institutions which are subject to change; to foster whatever can promote union among all who believe in Christ; to strengthen whatever can help to call the whole of mankind into the household of the Church. The Council therefore sees particularly cogent reasons for undertaking the reform and promotion of the liturgy.
2. For the liturgy, "through which the work of our redemption is accomplished," [1] most of all in the divine sacrifice of the Eucharist, is the outstanding means whereby the faithful may express in their lives, and manifest to others, the mystery of Christ and the real nature of the true Church. (source)



How this obviously ecumenical direction of SC were put into practice is evident for Traditional Catholics, but less so for those who have been steeped in the Novus Ordo Missae for the past 50 years.

Ultimately, people operate on principles (cognitive models) to give structure to and guide their actions within the World.  An understanding of the principles used to guide the creation of the Novus Ordo Missae should shed considerable light on what spirit motivated these changes.

Most Traditional Catholics know of the common references as found on sspx.org and in the Ottaviani Intervention. But there has been more work on this topic and recently the work of Dr. Lauren Pristas was recommended to me by a friend.

Attached below are links to her site and some of the works of interest.

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NB: Dr. Pristas is an academic and the linked words are written in that mode. It will not necessarily be an easy read.


L. Pristas, Ph.D., Professor of Theology, Department of Theology and Philosophy

Theological Principles that Guided the Redaction of the Roman Missal (1970)
The Orations of the Vatican II Missal:  Policies for Revision
The Collects at Sunday Mass: An Examination of the Revisions of Vatican II
The Pre- and Post-Vatican II Collects of the Dominican Doctors of the Church


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