Beatification of Paul VI

by Rex Jasper Jumawan


With the beatification of Paul VI, it is very good to indulge ourselves in reminiscence of one of the highlights of his pontificate—the liturgical reform. Fifty years ago, Paul VI promulgated the Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, Sacrosanctum Concilium. It was one of the first issued documents by the Second Vatican Council under the leadership of Paul VI. The reform called for a restoration of traditional forms of liturgy while simultaneously allowing adaptations for modern pastoral needs. This document clearly and precisely expressed a call for changes that would allow the congregation to participate actively in the liturgical action rather than being silent spectators.

To accomplish its goals, the Constitution prescribed a simplification of liturgical rites so that it could become clear while at the same time prescribing some innovative changes to serve the pastoral needs of the modern age. Although it retains Latin as the official language of worship, it recommended the use of vernacular languages.

The changes envisioned by the Constitution on the Sacred liturgy were embodied in the Missal of Paul VI promulgated in 1969. Paul VI promulgated the revised rite of the Mass with his Apostolic Constitution, Missale Romanum, on the third day of April 1969, setting the first Sunday of Advent at the end of that year as the date on which it would come into effect. However, the revised Missal itself was not published until the following year, and the full vernacular translations appeared much later. 

This liturgical reform was received with criticisms by many particularly of the texts of the Missal and the ways in which the rite has been celebrated in practice. Some critics saw the changes as due to, or leading to, a loss of reverence. Some of them would consider the revised liturgy acceptable. However, many traditionalist Catholics regarded the revised rite as unacceptable.

In a speech he gave in 1976, Pope Paul VI unremarkably referred to this revised section as Novus Ordo Missae (The New Order of Mass). Later, some began to use Novus Ordo Missae, or simply Novus Ordo, as a specific term for the entirety of the revised rite of Mass. However, Novus Ordo appears in no official Church document as a term for the revised form of the Roman Rite Mass since in its official documents, the Church identifies only the forms of the Roman Rite Mass by the editions of the Roman Missal used in celebrating them.

Thus, in his motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI referred to this form of the Roman Rite Mass by linking it with the Roman Missal promulgated by Paul VI in 1969. In his letter to bishops which accompanied his 2007 motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, Benedict XVI wrote that the Missal published by Paul VI and then republished in two subsequent editions by John Paul II, obviously is and continues to be the normal Form—the Forma ordinaria—of the Eucharistic Liturgy. Since then, the term "ordinary form" is often used to distinguish this form of the Roman Rite of Mass from the Tridentine Mass which is the Forma extraordinaria.