Liturgical Renewal as Envisioned by Vatican II

I want to highly recommend an article in the August-September 2011 issue of Inside the Vatican magazine. It was written by Justin Soutar and its full title is "Missale Romanum, Third Edition: Liturgical Renewal as Envisioned by Vatican II."

Mr. Soutar provides one of the best explanations that I have seen to date about the Missale Romanum that we will begin using the First Sunday of Advent this year.  The entire article is well worth the read; however, here is one excerpt:

"In the last 45 years, the sweeping liturgical and other reforms of Vatican II have been generally misinterpreted as implying a radical change in the nature of the Mass and of the Church.  Celebration of the liturgy in Latin, strict adherence to the prescribed rubrics, the concept of the Mass as sacrifice, and the dignity of the priesthood (in the case of the liturgy)--the Church as the Bride of Christ with infallible teaching authority, preserving and handing on the deposit of faith (in the case of the Church)--all of these have become old-fashioned, 'pre-Vatican II ideas, replaced with an 'anything goes' mentality in 'the spirit of Vatican II.'  The Mass is no longer seen as the Church's worship offered to God but as a celebration of human togetherness subject to the whims of the local community.  Similarly, Vatican II transformed the Church from a monarchy into a democracy, so it's now up to the individual Catholic to believe and live as he pleases, regardless of official Church doctrine and laws.  This unfortunate heresy known as 'the spirit of Vatican II' has done catastrophic damage to the faith of millions of Catholics.  It has even spawned an opposite myth adhered to by some traditionalist Catholics that the entire Second Vatican Council was heretical and its reforms null and void."

Elsewhere in his article, Mr. Soutar reminds us, as Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger wrote in his book The Spirit of the Liturgy, "that we're supposed to worship God the way He wants to be worshiped, not the way we want to worship Him.  This is because liturgy is not our work but our participation in God's work of redemption."

A truly wonderful article!

Justin Soutar is the Catholic author of forty-plus published articles on pro-life issues, the Pope & his message, American politics and elections, terrorism, the Middle East, and other topics in a wide variety of publications, both online and in print.