Holy Mass of the Ages, as filmed by Hollywood in 1944

A small portion of "The Mass of the Ages," taken from the Deanna Durbin feature film, "Christmas Holiday."

"The basic error of most of the innovators is to imagine that the new Liturgy brings the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass nearer to the faithful, that shorn of its old rituals the Mass now enters into the substance of our lives. For the question is whether we better meet Christ in the Mass by soaring up to Him, or by dragging Him down into our own pedestrian, workaday world. The innovators would replace Holy Intimacy with Christ by an unbecoming familiarity. The new Liturgy actually threatens to frustrate the confrontation with Christ, for it discourages Reverence in the Face of Mystery, precludes Awe, and all but extinguishes a sense of Sacredness." Dietrich von Hildebrand, 1966.

 

"It is a long established principle of the Church never to completely drop from her public Worship any Ceremony, Object or Prayer which once occupied a place in that Worship." Venerable Fulton Sheen, 1941.

 

"We do not know how to Pray as we ought, but the Spirit Himself Intercedes ..." Saint Paul, Romans 8:26.

 

The Mass, the Highest Act of Prayer, is thus something received from Above, not from below and not to be tampered with. No decent conductor would think of altering Bach's music; it is to be reverently received and carried out according to the author's wishes. Likewise, with Shakespeare; those who present he and his work receive his instruction lovingly and execute it faithfully. But Holy Mass comes from Someone Greater than these! So if we would not tamper with the works of the lesser, why would we do so with the Work of the Greatest?

 

Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi, Lex Vivendi.

(Latin: "the law of what is prayed [is] what is believed [is] the law of what is lived")