A Catechesis on and Examination of the Use and Construction of Altar Rails in the Novus Ordo Missae

The following article is written by a diocesan priest. The mounting attack on altar rails throughout the Church, renewing the iconoclasm of the 1970s, is a cause of deep concern to every serious Catholic. For this reason it behooves us to understand that even according to the rules that govern the Novus Ordo, there is absolutely no basis for a bishop to oppose the use or the construction of altar rails in churches. – Dr. Kwasniewski

There are many elements in our Catholic faith that can easily be thought of as superfluous due to their lack of effecting certain actions ­– which does not make them invalid or illicit. However, this minimalistic approach is the opposite of what we are as Catholics. We do not love certain elements because we think they make us holier in and of themselves. Rather, we love them because they express to us the reality of Him who is holy. In loving these elements, we do not subject ourselves to a form of separation from sincere affection. On the contrary, our innermost beings are drawn into a deep charity that cannot be described. In other words, we encounter the living God. Devotion is not fanaticism. Devotion is a form of expressing the soul’s inner longing for union with the Divine. The spiritual becoming tangible.

This document has three set purposes. The first is to inform the reader about the historical, theological, and liturgical uses regarding the altar rails. The second is to instill in the reader a richer understanding of the nature of this tradition, and to deepen his love for such things. The third is to examine the legality of liturgical furnishings that belong to this category, the category of the “superfluous” or “not necessary”, and answer the question of whether they may be used, and whether they may be banned. By the end of this document, the reader will understand that altar rails have a basis in the historical and theological dimensions of the Mass, and may be utilized and even promoted, in light of recent legislation.

1. Historical Basis

Our best early resources regarding details in the liturgy come from the fourth century. It was after the Edict of Milan in 313 and the Edict of Thessalonica in 380 that the early Christian witnesses address the liturgy that had emerged into the public eye. Along with this, we still have much evidence of the architecture of the early Christian Church.

A universal constant from this period through the present day was a barrier between the sanctuary and the people. The theological significance of this barrier is to distinguish the Holy of Holies from the inner court, as was done in the tabernacle, and later, the Temple. Our forefathers saw the Mass as the re-presentation of Calvary, and Calvary as the fulfillment of Temple worship. Hence, elements of vesture and architecture, such as the barrier, carried over from our Jewish forbears.

In the East, this took the form of the iconostasis, a barrier at the entrance of the sanctuary. Only clerics and acolytes are permitted to pass through the iconostasis. The priest emerges at Communion to give communion to the faithful there present.

In the West, this initially took the form of a sectioned-off wall, known as a balustrade, which would veil the actions in the sanctuary from the congregation. As time progressed, this barrier would eventually become the rood screen, which was far more common in the West. This screen, while still separating the nave from the sanctuary, served as a mystical meeting point between God’s dwelling place, the new Sancta Sanctorum, and the outer holy place, where God’s elect dwelt. The faithful approached and received the Body of Christ at the roodscreen.

In the medieval era, as Eucharistic theology developed, so did Eucharistic piety. Throughout the West, essentially from the time of the Cluniac Reforms and through the thirteenth century, canon law moved to only allowing the priest, with consecrated hands, to handle the Sacred Species, except by indult. At the same time, already by the nineth century, a combination of popular piety and ecclesiastical legislation brought about the standardization of reception of Holy Communion kneeling on the tongue.

The more modern architecture of the altar rail come into vogue during the Counter-Reformation. To combat Protestant accusations of mystification, artisans made the sanctuary more visible by putting up a rail rather than a rood screen. This became the standard in Christendom for the next 400 years. The rail stood as a culmination of centuries of theological and liturgical development. It still separated the sanctuary from the nave, and allowed a simple and traditional method of distribution of Holy Communion, while also fostering Eucharistic piety and active participation, since the faithful in said churches were able more clearly to observe the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass.

Figure 1: The Ballustrade of S. Maria in Cosmedin, Rome
(source: Liturgical Arts Journal)

Figure 2: The layout of the Temple
(source: Wikimedia Commons)

2. The GIRM and Altar Rails

The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, which governs all things pertaining to the Novus Ordo Mass, explicitly allows for the erection of the altar rail. Following the perennial tradition of the Church, paragraph 295 states that the sanctuary “should be marked off from the body of the church either by its being somewhat elevated or by a particular structure and ornamentation.” In practice, this “or” is inclusive, and sanctuaries are often constructed with a fixed elevation and some structure and ornamentation.

Reading this in light of the tradition, we can only interpret this “structure” as the altar rail. In ecclesial legislation, grants are to be applied broadly in the law, and lower authorities than the Universal Law cannot restrict a grant (Can. 36 §1.). Since it is permitted in the General Instruction, it cannot be forbidden that priests choose to mark their sanctuaries by the use of the rail.

The GIRM also specifies that in the arrangement of the Church there should be easy access when it comes to the reception of Holy Communion. It instructs us as follows: “moreover, benches or seating should be so arranged, especially in newly built churches, that the faithful can easily take up the bodily postures required for the different parts of the celebration and can have easy access for the reception of Holy Communion” (GIRM #311).

Although there is no explicit mention on the usage of the rails themselves in these latter norms, the altar rail is still a traditional means by which these norms may be fulfilled. They provide a literal “easy access” to the Sacrament, whether one is standing or kneeling to receive Communion.

Finally, in practical terms, distribution of Holy Communion via this “easy access” at altar rails only speeds up the distribution of Communion. When the congregation lines up at the rails, the distributor may go from person to person without much loss of time in between people. With this in mind, the more common form of distribution seems to provide less “easy access” for the faithful to receive Communion. Many, especially old people, struggle to very quickly kneel to receive without delaying the rest of the line. It is within their right to receive in this manner. Yet, “easy access” is oftentimes not given at a standard parish for the faithful to receive in this way.

In sum, altar rails fulfills the requirements of the GIRM in a traditional and arguably fuller way that is not in contradiction to the law of the Church. It is an erroneous opinion that they are harmful, or even in contradiction to the law of the Church.

3. Altar Rails in Light of Redemptionis Sacramentum

At this point, the rubrics have not given any explicit statement as to whether the altar rails may be utilized. They have also not specified whether reception at the altar rail is something altogether prohibited, or whether it can be prohibited by the bishop.

This brings us to Redemptionis Sacramentum, written by Cardinal Arinze of the CDW (now known as the DDW) in 2004, during the reign of St John Paul II, written in the wake of the 2003 encyclical titled Ecclesia de Eucharistia, which called for instruction on liturgical norms.

In paragraph 4 of RS, the CDW promptly states one of the greatest reasons for issuing said instruction:

In this regard it is not possible to be silent about… abuses, even quite grave ones, against the nature of the Liturgy and the Sacraments as well as the tradition and the authority of the Church, which in our day not infrequently plague liturgical celebrations in one ecclesial environment or another. In some places the perpetration of liturgical abuses has become almost habitual, a fact which obviously cannot be allowed and must cease” (RS, 4).

The point in the promulgation of this document, as stated above is to root out liturgical abuses from the preceding decades. It further seeks to restore liturgical celebrations to the “tradition and authority” of the Church, as opposed to the innovations which had been introduced since the promulgation of the New Mass in 1969, often by priest celebrants.

Within the same instruction the CDW includes a section that is directed towards bishops. This section, and the following, are crucial, because the whole document is focused on proper liturgical norms being implemented, keeping in mind the Church’s orthopraxical tradition. In paragraph 19, the CDW states, “The diocesan bishop, the first steward of the mysteries of God in the particular Church entrusted to him, is the moderator, promoter and guardian of her whole liturgical life” (RS, 19). The bishop is the protector of the diocese’s liturgical life.

Moving forward, the CDW states:

It pertains to the diocesan bishop, then, ‘within the limits of his competence, to set forth liturgical norms in his diocese, by which all are bound.’ Still, the bishop must take care not to allow the removal of that liberty foreseen by the norms of the liturgical books so that the celebration may be adapted in an intelligent manner to the Church building, or to the group of the faithful who are present, or to particular pastoral circumstances in such a way that the universal sacred rite is truly accommodated to human understanding. The bishop governs the particular Church entrusted to him, and it is his task to regulate, to direct, to encourage, and sometimes also to reprove; this is a sacred task that he has received through episcopal ordination, which he fulfills in order to build up his flock in truth and holiness (RS, 21-22).

It is within the rights of the bishop to create liturgical norms for his diocese. These liturgical norms are for the accomplishment of the same task laid out in Redemptionis Sacramentum itself, that is, to stop liturgical abuses and to educate. Many abuses occur out of “ignorance, in that they involve a rejection of those elements whose deeper meaning is not understood and whose antiquity is not recognized” (RS, 9).

Yet, the above quotation puts a limit on the bishop’s authority, for “the bishop must take care not to allow the removal of that liberty foreseen by the norms of the liturgical books so that the celebration may be adapted in an intelligent manner to the Church building, or to the group of the faithful who are present, or to particular pastoral circumstances.” Thus, the bishop cannot encroach in his liturgical norms upon certain liberties given to the laity and priests alike.

Obviously, this could be taken in an anarchical way that completely contradicts the spirit of the document, by which one claims that everything is an “adaptation… to a particular pastoral” circumstance. In terms, then, of authentic interpretation, what is this liberty “foreseen by the norms of the liturgical books”?

On the most fundamental level, it is that which is printed within the Missal and the GIRM that gives a priest or a member of the lay faithful an option. For example, the priest is given the option to announce the Sign of Peace (Missale Romanum, 128). The lay faithful are given the option to receive Communion kneeling or standing; on the hand (unless there is “a risk of profanation”) or on the tongue (RS, 90). Hence, “it is not licit to deny Holy Communion to any of Christ’s faithful solely on the grounds… that the person wishes to receive the Eucharist kneeling or standing” (RS, 91). These options, which are printed in the rubrics, are liberties that the bishop cannot remove.

But the document does not stop here. It also allows “that the celebration may be adapted in an intelligent manner to the Church building, or to the group of the faithful who are present, or to particular pastoral circumstances in such a way that the universal sacred rite is truly accommodated to human understanding.” Here, we must understand these rubrics within the mindset of its legislator. Again, the point in this clause is not to allow anarchy within the liturgy—far from it! Rather, the mind of the legislator points solely to the traditional practices within the liturgy. This is where altar rails come back into the discussion.

Many church buildings, especially those which have been built in a traditional manner, have retained, restored, or constructed, an altar rail. Is this outside of the purview of the Novus Ordo or Redemptionis Sacramentum? Absolutely not. RS was written for the restoration of tradition within the Sacred Liturgy. The CDW notes, quite explicitly that “the structures and forms of the sacred celebrations according to each of the Rites of both East and West are in harmony with the practice of the universal Church also as regards practices received universally from apostolic and unbroken tradition, which it is the Church’s task to transmit faithfully and carefully to future generations” (RS, 9).

Notably, the CDW is not referring to the perennial Tradition, in terms of doctrine, but tradition, in terms of liturgical customs. RS mentions “tradition” 23 times throughout the whole document. The abuses addressed in RS are against, “against the nature of the Liturgy and the Sacraments as well as the tradition and the authority of the Church” (RS, 4).

With this in mind, reception of Holy Communion at the altar rail, even in the Novus Ordo, is something hardly spoken of in the rubrics, and thus afforded liberty. It is an appropriate adaptation to the liturgy, with the interior of the church in mind. It is an appropriate adaptation to the lay faithful who desire to receive Communion at the rail. Thus, it is not within the purview of the bishop to ban this or any other traditional practice, not explicitly forbidden in the rubrics. The Church’s judgment in these matters has always been on the side of upholding the tradition. The use of the altar rail is a laudable expression of that tradition.

Conclusion

Considering the history, theology, and instructions regarding altar rails, we can now clearly state that these liturgical furnishings are not only permitted, but also a laudatory and traditional enhancement to the sanctuary. They are a gate to the “altar of God, to God my exceeding joy” (Ps. 42). Truly, from the author’s experience, the faithful view the altar rail as an altar for their own sacrifice of their lives, and a place where heaven and Earth meet. In fine, the view, not only of the faithful and clergy, but more importantly of Holy Mother Church, is reiterated by Pope Benedict XVI, “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful.”

Are Pews in Churches a Problem—and, If So, How Much of a Problem?

This article may be considered a continuation of the one entitled “Should the Postures of the Laity at the TLM Be Regulated, Legislated, or Revised?,” which generated such lively dialogue.

A reader once sent me the following letter:

I would like to ask you what is your take on church pews, their place (or lack thereof) in the Traditional Roman Rite and what the Traditionalist movement should do about them. Almost unknown in the East, they have become the norm in the Western Church in the last centuries. There are informal (sometimes odd) ‘rubrics,’ with wide variations from place to place, that direct the faithful to stand, sit, or kneel at different parts of the Mass.
          A priest from the Institute of the Good Shepherd, who is also very familiar with the Byzantine Liturgy, instructing some of us about the Mass and the real meaning of ‘active participation,’ said we ought not to worry about when to sit, kneel, or stand in Mass, as long as we remain standing for the Gospel and kneeling during the Consecration. As to anything else, his advice was simply to follow the local custom. His reason was that pews in the church are a rather recent phenomenon that has never been officially incorporated into the rubrics for the usus antiquior, and that before the introduction of pews the faithful used to remain standing, or would sometimes walk in the church during Mass, as the faithful still do in the Eastern Rites.
          Also, from my own research, I discovered that pews are mostly a Protestant invention. The Protestants emphasized the pastor’s preaching as the most important part of the Liturgy and understood the church to be some sort of ‘school,’ where the ‘students’ had to be able to sit to learn the Bible from their pastor. It was also a way to raise money via pew rents.
          The more I attend the Traditional Latin Mass (which hopefully will recover its rightful place as the sole ‘Ordinary Form’ of the Roman Rite), the more I am uncomfortable with the pews and the mechanical, sometimes almost nonsensical, ‘novus-ordoish’ sequence of standing-kneeling-sitting-standing-etc. during Mass. The pew feels almost like a ‘cage.’
          Do you hold a similar stance? Are pews a good or a bad thing? Should we accept them as a fact, as a good ‘organic development’ like the shortened Roman chasuble, or should traditional Catholics recognize them as foreign to the Roman Rite and start using their wood for a better purpose, like keeping the church and rectory warm in the winter?

I find this reader’s note admirable in its directness. The question of pews is indeed an interesting one. I am convinced it was not a good idea to introduce pews into Catholic churches, in imitation of the Protestants, for all the reasons mentioned. An Eastern Orthodox writer offers a vigorous set of arguments in “A Call For the Removal of Pews in Orthodox Churches,” the main contentions of which are summarized by Richard Chonak:

• pews make the laity into passive observers;
• pews teach us to want Christian life to be without inconvenience;
• pews remove the freedom to engage in devotional acts such as lighting a candle during the liturgy;
• pews make the processions overly regimented;
• pews particularly isolate young children from the liturgy.

Chonak continues: “Going without pews would be a bigger deal for us Latin Catholics in the US than for Orthodox, since a fair number of their churches already lack pews, so that their faithful would have experienced worshipping without them. Most US Catholics won’t have seen a Catholic church without pews unless they have visited one of the medieval cathedrals.” As far as I can tell, no one advocates abolishing all seating, since there are nursing mothers and elderly folk (among others) who will need places to rest. It is more a question of opening up the space in the nave of the church.

George Rutler addressed the question in a 2015 article “The Problem with Pews,” saying, inter alia:

For most of the Christian ages, there were no pews, or much seating of any sort. There were proper accommodations for the aged (fewer then than now) and for the infirm (probably more then than now) but churches were temples and not theatres.  One need only look at the Orthodox churches (except where decadence has crept in) or the mosques whose architectural eclecticism echoes their religion’s origin as a desiccated offshoot of Christianity, to see what churches were meant to look like.  The word “pew” comes from the same root as podium, or platform for the privileged, indicating that if there were any pews in the Temple of Jerusalem they were those of the Pharisees who enjoyed “seats in high places.” The first intrusion of pews into Christian churches was around the twelfth century and they were rare, and mostly suited to the use of choir monks in their long Offices. But filling churches with pews was chiefly the invention of the later Protestant revolution that replaced adoration with edification.

Racks, Butchers, and Choirstalls

According to Dr. John Pepino, the term “pew” appears in an official Vatican document for the first time in 1969, in the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani promulgated together with the Novus Ordo Mass (link)—the first time in Catholic history that the laity’s postures were dictated to them in the same way that ministerial rubrics were dictated:

VIII. De locis fidelium
273. Loca fidelium congrua cura disponantur, ut ipsi oculis et animo sacras celebrationes debite participare possint. Expedit ut de more scamna seu sedilia ad eorum usum ponantur. Consuetudo tamen personis quibusdam privatis sedes reservandi reprobanda est. Sedilia autem seu scamna ita disponantur, ut fideles corporis habitus a diversis celebrationis partibus requisitos facile sumere possint et expedite ad sacram Communionem recipiendam accedere valeant. Caveatur ut fideles sive sacerdotem sive alios ministros non tantum videre, sed etiam, hodiernis instrumentis technicis adhibitis, commode audire valeant.

In the 2002 edition of the IGMR, this text was slightly modified, to privilege the word scamna:

311. Loca fidelium congrua cura disponantur, ut ipsi oculis et animo sacras celebrationes debite participare possint. Expedit ut de more scamna seu sedilia ad eorum usum ponantur. Consuetudo tamen personis quibusdam privatis sedes reservandi reprobanda est. Scamna autem seu sedilia, præsertim in ecclesiis noviter exstructis, ita disponantur, ut fideles corporis habitus a diversis celebrationis partibus requisitos facile sumere possint et expedite ad sacram Communionem recipiendam accedere valeant. Caveatur ut fideles sive sacerdotem sive diaconum et lectores non tantum videre, sed etiam, hodiernis instrumentis technicis adhibitis, commode audire valeant.

The USCCB translation of the latest version of the General Instruction of the Roman Missal renders the passage thus:

Places for the faithful should be arranged with appropriate care so that they are able to participate in the sacred celebrations, duly following them with their eyes and their attention. It is desirable that benches or seating usually should be provided for their use. However, the custom of reserving seats for private persons is to be reprobated. Moreover, benches or seating should be so arranged, especially in newly built churches, that the faithful can easily take up the bodily postures required for the different parts of the celebration and can have easy access for the reception of Holy Communion. Care should be taken to ensure that the faithful be able not only to see the Priest, the Deacon, and the readers but also, with the aid of modern technical means, to hear them without difficulty.

Note the word used in Latin, scamnum (stool, step, bench), a word with an interesting history. In the Salic Law, 5th cent., it means “the rack,” for the torture of slaves (Lex Salica tit. 42. §1: Servus super Scamnum tensus; ibid. §8: Et qui repetit, virgas paratas habere debet, quæ in similitudinem minimi digiti grossitudinem habeant, et Scamnum paratum habere debet, ubi versum ipsum tendere possit). How suggestive of the experiences of many Catholics with the postconciliar liturgy! According to a Latin dictionary, the word also signified a butcher’s display table, which prompts comparisons with extemporaneous liturgical creativity. By the 12th century, the term had acquired the meaning of “choirstall” (ad vesperas monachos in scannis residentes se vidisse palam asseruit: Ordericus Vitalis, Historia ecclesiastica III 13, p. 138).

The compilers of the IGMR might equally well have chosen the Latin term transtrum, or rower’s bench, which makes for an equally suggestive image: the faithful confined to their benches, heave-hoing in unison as they labor to propel forward the ship of the Church! Smelling of tar and sweat, the term would have been appropriate for the workerism that was substituted for the contemplative engagement in which participatio actuosa finds its summit.

The Relation between Pews and Postures

Nevertheless, the question of the postures of the faithful is somewhat independent of the question of pews, for the faithful would have stood, knelt, and quite possibly sat ad libitum in open churches long before the advent of pews. The key question here is whether or not the postures of the laity should be regimented. Prior to 1969, the postures of the faithful were never officially regulated in the traditional Mass. They varied by custom, and even then, there was not the same sense of obligation as we have now. If a person felt sick or tired, he could sit; if someone felt especially fervent in prayer, he could kneel the whole time. In my book Noble Beauty, Transcendent Holiness, I gave the following description:

None of these bodily actions is scripted in the sense that a rubric requires the people to do them, since the usus antiquior is blessedly free of rubrics dictating how the people are (or are not) to participate at every moment. As a result, different people at worship do some or all of these actions, according to their knowledge or inclination, or even what they happen to notice as the Mass progresses, and no one minds this diversity. There is a healthy sense of freedom of movement a little reminiscent of what one may find among the Eastern Orthodox who may walk about during the liturgy lighting candles and venerating icons. The Novus Ordo, on the contrary, perversely takes for granted the Protestant innovation of cluttering open sacred space with benches or pews and turns sitting on them into a scripted pseudo-sacred action befitting its wordy worship. (p. 202, note 24)

The regimentation of lay posture occurred, as we have seen, in 1969 with the Novus Ordo, which enforces specified moments of sitting, standing, kneeling, speaking, singing, or exchanging a sign of peace (though this particular routine has fallen out of fashion nowadays).

But shouldn’t we, in good Thomistic fashion, allow the other side to have its say, too?

A Modest Defense of Pews for the TLM

Pews can be helpful in several ways. First, they are like an extended prie-dieu, making it easier to kneel for long stretches—and this, to my mind, is a good thing. Not many people are ready yet to kneel for an hour or more on a marble floor without a prop to support them. The usus antiquior already requires more asceticism; it seems counterproductive, at this early stage in its restoration, to demand in everyone a footsoldier’s capacity for discipline.

Second, pews seem to foster a more focused and leisurely contemplation of the unfolding ceremonies of the Mass; one can too easily imagine how a group of people amassed in an open space could be disorderly, particularly if a large number of small children were escaping from their families and causing distraction to many.

Third, since we live in a literate age and have grown accustomed to reading our missals at certain points during Mass, it is convenient to have a place to put down and pick up one’s book. The use of a daily missal has permitted me to memorize large parts of the Mass and to meditate on them. It has familiarized me with the calendar of seasons and saints. This is not incompatible with a lack of pews, but I very much doubt it would work as well.

Fourth, until the usus antiquior is again the norm in every church for every Mass, most Catholic families have to deal with inconvenient times of Mass, and it can be a great relief to let the small child sleep in the pew if Mass happens to be very early in the morning or in the mid-afternoon.

One can admit that comfort-seeking is a spiritual error and danger for the Church—the carpeted, air-conditioned churches of suburbia are, in fact, deadly for the spirit of prayer—while not writing off completely the modest convenience of a pew, which might be compared with heating in the winter or electric fans and short-sleeve shirts in the summer.

Such are my thoughts. The great handicap is that it is so rare to have the experience of a Catholic church without pews. One can still see them in Europe, but seldom are traditional Latin Masses held without at least folding chairs being placed out. The closest thing in my experience has been attending silent Low Masses at monastery side chapels, where often there is no seating; one simply kneels near the entrance to the chapel. I would relish the opportunity to worship for a year in a church without pews, and then revisit the subject with the benefit of extended experience.

This church cries out to have (at least some of) its pews removed

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube channel.

The Lingering Problems of Ordinary Time: Guest Article by Michael P. Foley

The Lingering Problems of Ordinary Time

By Michael P. Foley

In a previous article, we noted that the 1969 Missal’s Tempus per annum marks a break from the Roman liturgical tradition in three ways, and that the term “Ordinary Time” does not signify “Mundane Time” or “Ordinal Time” but an “Ordinary of Times,” a standard and nondescript season that stands in contrast to the “proper” seasons of Christmas and Easter. It is our hope that this explanation will put to rest fears that a season (which in the new calendar occupies half of the entire year) was deliberately profaned or desacralized and made, well, ordinary.

But we must be honest: there are still problems both with the term “Ordinary Time” and with the new Tempus per annum that may lead to an unintentional desacralization.

Regarding Ordinary Time as an Ordinary of Seasons:

1. The analogy is flawed. The intriguing concept of an “Ordinary of Seasons” essentially presupposes an analogy between it and the Ordinary of the Mass or of the Divine Office, but such an analogy taken to this level is misleading. The Ordinary of the Mass, for example, is not self-sufficient; for the Mass to be celebrated, it must be completed by propers, and these propers necessarily make the Mass a specific celebration in contradistinction to others. A Mass in Ordinary Time, by contrast, includes its own propers, nor does it need to be completed by the Proper of Seasons in order to be celebrated.

2. An Ordinary of Seasons is pastorally ineffective. As an organizational principle for liturgists, it is a useful construct; but as a liturgical season for the entire people of God, it is befuddling and, as we have seen all too clearly, prone to misinterpretation.

3. An Ordinary of Seasons is an abstraction. Abstract concepts have their place in sacred liturgy and the study thereof, but the seasons themselves should be anchored in the concrete aspects of a particular part of the year. A season that attempts to be generic without being specific runs the risk of being more Cartesian than Incarnational, more Gnostic than Christian.

And regarding the 1969 Missal’s Tempus per annum:

1. It is incoherent. It is bizarre to hold something as distinct insofar it lacks distinction, and it is especially bizarre where the notion of a season is concerned, for an indistinct season is almost a contradiction in terms. In liturgy as in nature, seasons emerge as seasons because they have qualities that distinguish them from other seasons; they have differentiae which make them specifically different from others in their genus. And since when does a single natural season of the year have two phases? Not even an Indian or Martinmas summer qualifies, for it is a fluke appearance of atypical weather in the midst of autumn, not an orderly “second phase” of summer. The very notion of a season is undermined by this artificial tempus interruptum construction.

2. It is based on a false claim. In his writings Jounel links indistinction with purity and purity with the early Church. Each of the new Sundays in Ordinary Time, he writes, “is a Lord’s Day in its pure state as presented to us in the Church’s tradition,” that is, the state in which the primitive Church celebrated it. In claiming to have reconstructed or returned to the worship of the early Church, Jounel shows a confidence that most liturgical scholars today are careful to avoid.

But Jounel also admits that Ordinary Time as a single block is an innovation. As we mentioned in the previous post, the earliest sacramentary shows the Church celebrating the Time after Theophany (Epiphany) and the Time after Pentecost. But even if you insist that the Church had a different liturgical year prior to this eighth-century text, you must nevertheless concede that in whatever manner the early Christians may have worshipped, it is high unlikely that they conceived of these periods in the same manner as Jounel, for the simple reason that Jounel himself admits that he has invented something new. Jounel’s confidence therefore belies the experience of the early Church. Even if he and his colleagues succeeded in the herculean task of resurrecting Sunday in all its pristine integrity, today’s faithful are not experiencing the Lord’s Day in its pure state when their experience of it is filtered through the titular hermeneutic of Ordinary Time or Tempus per annum.

3. It is contradictory. Ordinary Time is supposed to be indistinct, but by the Church’s own admission, it isn’t. According to the Congregation for Divine Worship, Ordinary Time has a highly-structured, three-year lectionary in which “each year is distinctive… because it unfolds the doctrine proper to each of the synoptic Gospels” (emphasis added). Indeed, Ordinary Time may be even more distinctive than the Time after Pentecost that it replaced, insofar as its Gospel readings are logically planned from beginning to end: “There is a common pattern followed in all three cycles: the early weeks deal with the beginning of Christ’s public ministry, the final weeks have an eschatological theme, and the intervening weeks take in sequence various events and teachings from our Lord’s life.” Ordinary Time is also distinctive for including the Solemnity of Christ the King, which celebrates a particular aspect of Christ’s mystery (His kingship over the universe) and which was moved from the Sanctoral Cycle to the Temporal in 1969, even though Ordinary Time is supposed to be distinctive for refraining from celebrating a “particular aspect of the mystery of Christ.”

4. It is mystagogically problematic. For the great liturgist Blessed Columba Marmion, “there is no surer way, no more infallible means, of causing us to resemble Christ” than entering into the mysteries of Jesus through the liturgy and its annual rhythm. [1] When “we contemplate in their successive order the different mysteries of Christ, we do so…with the object that our souls may participate in a special set of circumstances of the sacred humanity and may draw forth, from each of those circumstances, the specific grace it has pleased the Divine Master to attach to it” (emphasis added). [2] For Marmion, the Time after Epiphany is the season for contemplating the “special circumstances” concerning the “wondrous exchange” of the Incarnation and the hidden life of the Holy Family in Nazareth [3] while the Time after Pentecost “symbolizes in particular the pilgrimage of the Church in this life” [4] as an extension of our Lord’s reign through the Holy Spirit.

The GIRM, on the other hand, states that rather than celebrate a particular aspect of the mystery of Christ like the other seasons, Ordinary Time “commemorates the very mystery of Christ in its fullness” (ipsum mysterium Christi in sua plenitudine recolitur). The official English translation for this passage, “the mystery of Christ in all its aspects,” omits the ipsum in ipsum mysterium, a pronoun that places an emphasis on the mystery taken as a whole—the very mystery in and of itself, in its fullness, all at once, and not sequentially (as the “proper” seasons do). Yet as we just noted, this is precisely what the new Lectionary does: its Gospel pericopes begin with the beginning of Christ’s ministry, continue with various teachings and events in His life (which, as Marmion rightly observes, necessarily reveal “particular aspects” of the mystery of Christ), and conclude with eschatological themes. There is, therefore, a tension between the explanatory account of the season and its actual content.

More to the point, having a season recollect the ipsum mysterium Christi in sua plenitudine implicitly discourages a “successive” appropriation of the mysteries of Christ that confers “specific graces” attached to them by the Divine Master. The GIRM appears to be stating that such an appropriation is the function of the “proper” seasons of Christmas and Easter only. Yet if this is true, then the approximately six months of the year that comprise the Temporal Cycle of the 1969 calendar no longer have a clear mystagogical point of entry.

All of which is to say that the difficulties with the 1969 Missal’s Tempus per annum run deeper than the name it popularly bears.

A chart of the traditional Roman liturgical cycle

NOTES
[1] Dom Columba Marmion, Christ in His Mysteries, trans. Alan Bancroft (Bethesda, MD: Zaccheus Press, 2008), 32.
[2] Marmion, Christ in His Mysteries, 29, 30.
[3] Marmion, Christ in His Mysteries, 29, 175 ff.
[4] Marmion, Le Christe dans Ses Mystères, 494, trans. mine.

This article is a summary of a more extensive and scholarly treatment: “The Origins and Meaning of Ordinary Time,” Antiphon: A Journal of Liturgical Renewal 23.1 (2019): 43-77.