A Most Important Historical Document

[Stone]

A most important historical document:
the 1969 Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani (the original GIRM) - "The Lord's Supper, or Mass, is the sacred meeting or congregation of the people of God assembled, the priest presiding, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord..."

Rorate Caeli | December 13, 2022

Eleven years ago, in 2011, we in RORATE were proud to be the first to make available online, for the first time, a document that had then become extremely rare: the very first GIRM (General Instruction of the Roman Missal), published together with the 1969 Novus Ordo Missae.


From our post:

7. Cena dominica sive Missa est sacra synaxis seu congregatio populi Dei in unum convenientis, sacerdote praeside, ad memoriale Domini celebrandum. Quare de sanctae Ecclesiae locali congregatione eminenter valet promissio Christi: "Ubi sunt duo vel tres congregati in nomine meo, ibi sum in medio eorum" (Mt. 18, 20).

"7. The Lord's Supper, or Mass, is the sacred meeting or congregation of the people of God assembled, the priest presiding, to celebrate the memorial of the Lord. For this reason, Christ's promise applies eminently to such a local gathering of holy Church: 'Where two or three come together in my name, there am I in their midst' (Mt. 18:20)." [Most of the elements of this statement has been condemned by the Council of Trent - The Catacombs]

This is the original complete definition of the Mass according to the 1969 Novus Ordo Missae: they were arguably the most influential liturgical words written in the 20th century and signaled a watershed moment - in a sense, closing the book written since late antiquity and the chapter begun in Sessions XIII and XXII of the Council of Trent.

Number 7 of the first edition of the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani (the General Instruction of the Roman Missal - GIRM) is the end moment of the original liturgical movement. Its writers also thought they would have the final say in the history of the Traditional Mass - within a few months, the storm started by these words on the edge of acceptability would spark the Brief Critical Study of the New Order of the Mass, presented to the Pope and to the Catholic world under the auspices of Cardinals Ottaviani, first Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and Bacci.

The waves set by that text have not subsided. That famous number 7 and other highly problematic words of the original 1969 IGMR (in which Trent is not mentioned a single time) and Ordo Missae would be amended in 1970, 1975, and 2002. While much was vindicated by the swift and significant corrections of 1970 - and, ultimately, by the proclamation by Pope Benedict XVI that the traditional Roman Missal was "never abrogated -, can it be denied that the spirit of the 1969 IGMR lives on in the New Mass, or "Ordinary Form"?

While the texts of the 1970, 1975, and 2002 IGMR are widely available, it had been impossible up to now to find online the original source of the controversy. Thanks to the generous effort of a priestly source, RORATE can now present to our readers the original 1969 Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani. (Note: this is the entire IGMR, but only the first pages of the original complete publication of the 1969 Ordo Missae, promulgated on April 3, 1969, by the Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, of Pope Paul VI.)

***

The Catacombs - excerpts from the Council of Trent: 

• If any one saith, that in the mass a true and proper sacrifice is not offered to God; or, that to be offered is nothing else but that Christ is given us to eat; let him be anathema.
  
• If any one saith, that by those words, Do this for the commemoration of me (Luke xxii. 19), Christ did not institute the apostles priests; or, did not ordain that they, and other priests should offer His own body and blood; let him be anathema.
  
• If any one saith, that the sacrifice of the mass is only a sacrifice of praise and of thanksgiving; or, that it is a bare commemoration of the sacrifice consummated on the cross, but not a propitiatory sacrifice; or, that it profits him only who receives; and that it ought not to be offered for the living and the dead for sins, pains, satisfactions, and other necessities; let him be anathema.
  
• If any one denieth, that, in the sacrament of the most holy Eucharist, are contained truly, really, and substantially, the body and blood together with the soul and divinity of our Lord Jesus Christ, and consequently the whole Christ; but saith that He is only therein as in a sign, or in figure, or virtue; let him be anathema.
  
• lf any one saith, that Christ, given in the Eucharist, is eaten spiritually only, and not also sacramentally and really; let him be anathema.
  

See also: The New Mass: Article recommended by Archbp. Lefebvre

A few other points, taken from here, The Dangers of the New Mass:

• It was Martin Luther who said, "The Mass is not a sacrifice ... call it Benediction, Eucharist, the Lord's Table, the Lord's Supper, Memory of the Lord or whatever you like, just so long as you do not dirty it with the name of a Sacrifice."
  
• In the Encyclical Mediator Dei, Pope Pius XII condemned the statement that "the eucharistic sacrifice" is an authentic concelebration of the priest as well as of the people present.
  
• 7th Session, Canon 13 of the Council of Trent: The correct Latin translation says:
  

  "If anyone says that the received and approved rites of the Catholic Church, customarily used in the solemn administration of the Sacraments, can be despised or can be freely omitted by the ministers without sin, or can be changed into other new rites by any pastor in the Church whomsoever, let him be anathema."

  
  This canon states very clearly that the Pope, who is the first and supreme pastor may never change any approved Rite of the Roman Catholic Church. The Roman Rite was fixed forever by Pope St. Pius V in Quo Primum. Paul VI tried to establish a whole new Roman Rite. There is only one Roman Rite of the Mass; there cannot be two.