⚖️ The Collapse of Ritual Precision and Discipline
The text begins by denouncing the collapse of ritual exactitude as one of the most alarming differences between the traditional Roman rite and the Novus Ordo Missae of a pseudo-Protestant character. In the ancient rite, rubrics were not mere suggestions but "safeguards" forged by centuries of theological instinct and the wisdom of the saints to protect the sacred action from the restless creativity of the celebrant. The author highlights the example of the priest's fingers (the so-called "canonical digits"): in the Traditional Mass, the priest keeps his thumbs and index fingers joined from the Consecration until the ablutions, a gestural confession of the Real Presence and extreme care for every fragment of the Host to avoid accidental profanation. In contrast, the new rite is saturated with hesitation and permissiveness, where "may," "if appropriate," and "according to circumstances" replace reverent obligation.
This shift results in the evaporation of the hierarchy of sacred speech and the suppression of gestures of adoration, such as bowing the head at the name of Jesus, which once functioned as a "bodily catechism" based on the principle Lex Orandi, Lex Credendi (the law of prayer is the law of belief). The text severely criticizes the widespread habit of priests modifying texts, inserting jokes or personal comments, something unthinkable in the ancient rite where the Mass did not belong to the priest. The conclusion is definitive: when ritual precision collapses, the instinct that one is treading on sacred ground also disappears.
🛐 The Extinction of the Fear of God and Asceticism
The author points to the disappearance of the "Fear of the Lord" in the modern rite. Prayers that spoke frankly about judgment, divine wrath, punishment, and eternal death (such as those found in the old Offertory or the Dies Irae Sequence) were edited or eliminated, "wrapped in cotton" so as not to offend modern sensibilities. The direct consequence of this suppression is the dissolution of the sense of sin; and without the perception of sin, redemption itself ceases to be urgent. Concomitantly, there was a decline in the Eucharistic fast and ascetic preparation. What once required fasting from midnight, engraving the Eucharist into the body through hunger, has now become a negligible one-hour requirement. Communion, once received with trembling and infrequency, has become a casual "birthright," often received without confession and without due internal reverence, for "external discipline forms internal reverence."
📉 Horizontalization and Spiritual Deformation
The text identifies a painful anthropocentric inclination in two specific moments of the Novus Ordo: the Our Father and the Sign of Peace. The Our Father, transformed into a communal hand-holding gesture, visually erases the distinction between the priest and the people. The Sign of Peace, inserted at the threshold of Communion, breaks the sacrificial flow with "chatter, turning, and waving," precisely at the moment when the soul should be recollected in interior silence before the imminent reception of the Body and Blood of Christ. The author argues that liturgy forms souls not only by instruction but by posture and atmosphere. The new rite, with its amplified microphones and permissive rubrics, forms an "activist" and horizontal spiritual personality, whereas the ancient Mass formed contemplatives. This explains the vocational crisis: young men seek the priesthood for sacrifice and transcendence, finding in the ancient rite the altar as a "place of death and offering," while the new rite reduces the priest to a mere assembly president or community facilitator.
🎵 The Musical Revolution as Doctrine
Music is treated not as decoration but as theology expressed in sound. The author classifies the post-conciliar musical revolution as "one of the most devastating changes in Catholic worship." The replacement of Gregorian Chant—the native voice of the Church, hierarchical and ascetic—with folk hymns and pop ballads represents a substantial doctrinal shift. Modern music focuses on the community and feelings ("our journey"), mirroring the idioms of entertainment and forming the congregation for sentimentalism rather than contemplation. The text is incisive in stating that the "devastatingly poor music" found in parishes today is a "cancer of a liturgy increasingly centered on human engagement," banishing the sacred silence necessary for the encounter with God.
⚠️ The Terrible Possibility of Invalidity of the Consecration
In the gravest and most critical section of the text, the author addresses the possibility that the consecration in the Novus Ordo Missae may be invalid, drawing on the analyses of Rama P. Coomaraswamy and Fr. Anthony Cekada. The central argument is that the reforms may have compromised the validity of the sacrament by introducing ambiguity in form and intention.
First, the form of the sacrament was altered from a direct operative act ("This is my Body") to an institutional narrative inserted into a scriptural reading, which may give the impression that the priest is merely telling a story and not acting in persona Christi. Thomistic sacramental theology teaches that ambiguity in form generates doubt regarding validity. Second, the priest's intention to "do what the Church does" is guaranteed by the rite; if the rite was rewritten to emphasize a memorial meal and remove the language of propitiatory sacrifice—in a spirit of ecumenism to please Protestants who deny the sacrificial priesthood—then the rite may fail to provide the necessary intention. The text concludes that if the theology embodied in the rite does not align with the perennial teaching of the Church, the sacrament becomes doubtful. And in Catholic theology, "a doubtful sacrament is a null sacrament" in practice, for one must seek absolute certainty in the worship of God.
🔥 Conclusion: The Duty of Memory
The text concludes by rejecting the idea that familiarity with the Novus Ordo is a criterion for adequacy or pleasing God. What was lost was essential and has been replaced by something "terribly inadequate and destructive." Quoting Gustav Mahler, the author recalls that "tradition is not the worship of ashes, but the preservation of fire." The critique of the new rite is, ultimately, a plea for the Church to recover its memory and seriousness, so that the sanctuary may once again be sacred ground and the Mass may tremble again with the "divine drama of Calvary," restoring the glory due to God alone.