What if...?

The Anglicans have an elegant and comprehensible form of service. All they lack is valid orders to make it preferable. If a completely English Mass is desired the first book of Edward VI with very few amendments, would be satisfactory. Instead we have a jumble of Greek, Latin and uncouth English. Evelyn Waugh, 1965.

Evelyn Waugh, (faithful Catholic, and author of Brideshead Revisited), said this right at the beginning of the development of the Novus Ordo (which he referred to as, a "jumble of Greek, Latin and uncouth English"), before it had officially come into practice. I wonder what would have happened if Anglicanism had experienced its theological implosion just one decade earlier, and what we now have as the Divine Worship form of the Mass had come into existence back in the 1960's instead of decades later. How would that have influenced the development of the Novus Ordo? Would it have come about at all? It appears that the progress of the last fifty years have led to the approval of the Divine Worship Missal, but what else could have happened?

Obviously hindsight is (often) 20/20, but it is an interesting speculation. I consider the Divine Worship Mass in its current form a good and proper descendant of the Sarum Mass, but acknowledge that it could be improved upon in the future (by those of holy and sanctified hearts and minds). In its current form, it is a fantastic application of what some seemed to want in the development of the Novus Ordo, without all the problematic compromises. The Divine Worship Mass is what is needed right now. It is the English form of the Mass that retains the traditions of the ancient English Catholic Church, and is a means of helping people see that the Mass can be properly reverent, and completely true to the faith in (almost) a vernacular language.

Yet, I still wonder . . . where would be today if Evelyn Waugh's concerns had been listened to back then? The point of all this is as follows: there are many today who are expressing similar concerns to the problems of the Novus Ordo liturgy as did Mr. Waugh. Will they be listened to? Let us pray, fervently, that the holy Father, and the Popes to come after, take into consideration these concerns. It might very well change the future for the better.