A while back we mentioned that the OF's primary problem is its fixation on text, which is unhealthy.
...it was an unkind fate that allowed the
new mass to come to completion just when – elsewhere – the importance
of non-verbal communication was being rediscovered.
This was what was missing from the Liturgical Movement. An appreciation
of non-verbal communication is not incompatible with the writings of the
earlier exponents, such as Guéranger, despite his emphasis on
'understanding'. But as the movement develops, and turns into the
movement to create the Novus Ordo, a blindness to non-verbal
communication (and a parallel lack of interest in gestures and visual
ceremonies) becomes increasingly evident and increasingly problematic....
This is in contrast to the Eastern Rite folks:
...as the Christian East has never forgotten, the Sacred Liturgy is not in
the first place a comprehension exercise. It is the ritual worship of
Almighty God employing multivalent symbols which thus become privileged
sacramentals—sacred language included. Certainly, penetrating the
meaning of the rites and prayers is fundamental, but this is facilitated
by the work of liturgical formation (or more effectively, by liturgical
habituation over a lifetime)—no short cuts, such as the quick rendering
of the liturgy in the vernacular, are viable here. Even the liturgical
proclamation of the texts of Sacred Scripture is not simply a didactic
exercise, although certainly, the vernacular can be of immense help with
participation, as indeed in some other parts of the liturgy (such as
the prayers of the faithful). The Second Vatican Council knew this. But
the wholesale removal of Latin from the liturgy and liturgical
celebrations completely in the vernacular are contrary to what the
Second Vatican Council desired and approved....
These "multivalent symbols' included Chant, the windows, incense.....
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