From the turn of the twentieth century onwards, the Sacred Liturgy was treated less and less as a precious heirloom, a birthright that was to be maintained and enhanced for future generations, and more and more as a playground for “experts” to experiment with inorganic changes designed to make the Sacred Liturgy more palatable for modern man. Leaving aside for now the observation that the changes made by these “experts” seem to reveal their apparent belief that modern man is an imbecilic pleasure-addicted monkey with attention deficit disorder (the argument that the new anthropocentric direction of the Church actually degrades man is an article for another time), the more important point is the focus of the changes: man.
The Traditional Latin Mass did not descend from heaven on a cloud, was not taught to St. Peter by our Lord, is not the “original” form of the Sacred Liturgy. There have been changes, sometimes radical, in the history of the Sacred Liturgies of the Western Church. These changes, almost invariably, had a very different focus from those made by the “experts” of the twentieth century: Almighty God. The Mass was changed to show ever more clearly the dignity of He Whom we worship, and to emphasize the primary end of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: adoration. When the Sacred Liturgy was changed out of lesser motives, such as Urban VIII's humanistic reforms of the Breviary, the result was a wounded rite, an ulcer in the Church that gnawed at her until she could stand it no longer (the reforms of the twentieth century actually started out on the right foot by reversing Urban's damage ... and then tripped up immediately by imposing new radical changes on the Breviary). So too shall it be with the changes of the twentieth century – someday they will be recognized for the festering sores that they are and our Sacred Liturgy will be restored. My argument rests on the focus of the change, and not as much upon the substance. I will therefore start my analysis with what seems a very little change.
At least eight or nine times during the course of daily worship, the versicle Benedicamus domino (“Let us bless the Lord”) sounded from the choir and corridors of a medieval church. This chant, along with its response Deo Gratias (“Thanks be to God”), served as the normal concluding sentences for each of the eight office hours ... except matins. They closed the various orations and preces that occurred throughout the day. During penitential seasons, the Benedicamus versicle was intoned at the end of mass ... The omnipresence of Benedicamus domino in the divine service is rivaled by the numbmer of references to the versicle in medieval literature. ["Benedicamus Domino": The Unwritten Tradition. Anne Walters Robertson. Journal of the American Musicological Society, Vol. 41, No. 1 (Spring, 1988), pp. 1-62 ]
The suppression of the Benedicamus
Domino versicle
in penitential Masses is a reflection of the sad modern mental
sickness of compartmentalization. To the modern mind, everything has
a place and everything must stay in its place. The wonderful
holistic, interconnected mess that is reality is anathema to the
modern mind, which seems to scream, “neatness and order über
alles!!!.” Thus, the reaction of modern man to the
greatest, most tangled mess of them all, our Holy Mother the Church,
is to chop her into little bits and stuff them each in hermetically
sealed compartments. Though this particular amputation was not nearly
as major as some of the later dissections of the Mystical body (e.g.:
the nova vulgata changing the passages used in the Ordinary of the
Traditional Mass) it is still an important moment in the devolution
of the liturgy in that worst of centuries, the twentieth.
The Benedicamus Domino was one of the unifying versicles of the Western Liturgy. These versicles tied the liturgy of the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to the Divine Office. It should be remembered that in catholic lands, the Divine Office was not simply the private prayer of the clergy as it is treated today. It was given its proper place in a Catholic's life as one of the official public liturgies of the Church. Throughout the day as men dropped into the local church as the hours were chanted, the versicle Benedicamus Domino would be chanted at the end of the hour. Likewise, in penitential seasons, in the Mass. But it was more than the simple occurrence of the versicle in both liturgies that made up the tie that bound them together, it was the rules of when it appeared in the Mass. The Benedicamus was tied, it is true, to the Gloria, but both were tied to the Te Deum, Sts. Ambrose & Augustine's great hymn of thank2giving to almighty God. When the Te Deum was sung in the Office, so the Gloria and the Ite Missa est in the Mass, when not, the Benedicamus made its appearance in the Mass, uniting the whole daily cycle of prayer in the penitential expectation symbolized by the purple vestments worn throughout and inviting the faithful to remain in expiatory prayer, as Dom Gueranger tells us in his Explanation of the Prayers and Ceremonies of Holy Mass:
In Masses at penitential times, in Lent, for example, instead of the Ite Missa est, the Deacon says Benedicamus Domino; the faithful are not dismissed, because it is supposed that they would like to remain longer in prayer, during these days of expiation.
It could be argued that the Benedicamus Domino in the 1962 Missal, still keeps some of this significance, as it is used when there is a procession or some other liturgical function following the Holy Mass (e.g.: Benediction). I would suggest, however, that by severing it from the penitential absence of the Te Deum/Gloria, and allowing it only in very rare circumstances, serves the dual purposes of downplaying penance and severing the Sacred Liturgy of the Holy Mass from that of the Divine Office. The Mass and Office are safely compartmentalized, the Office being pushed even further from the minds of the laity, and that nasty “mediaeval” concept of penance is hidden from their eyes – a win-win for the “experts.”
There is little the average Traditionalist can do to work for the reversal of the twentieth century changes, especially now that the new century has brought yet more changes to the Traditional Latin Mass. But we can pray. When the Priest, clad in purple, turns to us and intones “Ite, missa est,” after we respond “Deo gratias,” we can add silently, “but no thanks, Father, I don't think I'll be dismissed just yet, I think I'll stay and pray and offer penance for the restoration of the Sacred Liturgy.”
"Wherever the Catholic sun doth shine,
There's always laughter and good red wine.
At least I've always found it so.
Benedicamus Domino!"
-Hilaire Belloc
Nicholas Trandem for Volume I, Issue 5
