A Colonial Williamsburg Approach To The Paschal Sacrifice

A reader asked me about the Rites of Holy Week prior to the 1955 revision by Pius XII.  Let me refer anyone interested to a fascinating (fascinating to those of us who love the arcane) series of articles by Gregory DiPippo on the Blog New Liturgical Movement.  As I have pointed out in previous postings New Liturgical Movement has definitely gone down the rabbit hole into ecclesiastical surrealism, but the historical research can actually be quite good.  Mr. DiPippo’s series of articles begins with the Palm Sunday offices http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2009/03/compendium-of-1955-holy-week-revisions_28.html and will lead you to the subsequent articles as he gives an extraordinarily detailed description of both the pre-1955 rite and the revisions of Pius XII. 

Let me first explain the importance of the 1955 revisions in preparing the way for the extensive liturgical changes that have followed the Second Vatican Council.  The earlier rites were taken from the 1570 Missal of Pius V which was accompanied by a Papal Bull known as Quo Primum.  Quo Primum declared that

"Let all everywhere adopt and observe what has been handed down by the Holy Roman Church, the Mother and Teacher of the other Churches, and let Masses not be sung or read according to any other formula than that of this Missal published by Us. This ordinance applies henceforth, now, and forever, throughout all the provinces of the Christian world" Pius V went on to say: "By this present Constitution, which will be valid henceforth, now, and forever, We order and enjoin that nothing must be added to Our recently published Missal, nothing omitted from it, nor anything whatsoever be changed within it…. No one whosoever is permitted to alter this notice of Our permission, statute, ordinance, command, precept, grant, indult, declaration, will, decree, and prohibition. Should anyone dare to contravene it, let him know that he will incur the wrath of Almighty God and of the Blessed Apostles Peter and Paul."   In other words, Pius allegedly fixed the Roman Liturgy unchangeable for all time and in all places.  No liturgical changes.  Or so it was held. 

Despite Pius’ monitum to the contrary, over the centuries from the Pius V to Pius XII various minor alterations had, in fact, been made to the Liturgy.  New propers were composed and new feasts were added as saints were canonized.  Prayers were appended to the end of the recited or low Mass.  The communion of the faithful was re-introduced into the body of the Mass rather than more usually being a separate rite before or after Mass.  But none of these changes were nearly as drastic as the revisions to the Holy Week rites that Pius XII introduced in 1955 and yet there was no claim that Pius lacked the authority to change the rites established by his predecessor.  The changes proceeded smoothly but in many respects they were the Fort Sumter of our current Civil War of Liturgical renewal.  Neo-Trads are beginning to identify the original villain of Liturgical Reform of Vatican II as Pius XII and Holy Week as his Trojan Horse. 

Mr. DiPippo goes into great detail about both the pre and post 1955 rites and it would take me, as is did him, a long series of turgid postings to go over them in detail.  Let me just outline a few for you.

1. In the pre-1955 rites only the priest received Holy Communion on Good Friday.  At the Holy Thursday Mass the priest consecrated two large hosts, one for Holy Thursday and one to be reserved in the altar of repose for Good Friday.   The Good Friday host was placed in a chalice covered by an inverted paten and pall and then veiled.  The veil was ties securely around the knob of the chalice and it was carried beneath a humeral veil in solemn procession to the altar of repose where  it remained until the Communion Rite of the Good Friday “Mass of the Pre-sanctified.”   It was then carried in solemn procession back to the main altar of the church where it was placed on the corporal.  Wine and water were poured into the chalice and the priest celebrant communicated.  The other ministers and the laity did not communicate.  In the 1955 revision, Pius XII mandated that sufficient hosts be consecrated for the faithful to also receive on Good Friday

2. In the pre-1955 rites the Thursday Mass of the Lord’s Supper, the Friday “Mass of the Pre-Sanctified,” and the Saturday Easter Vigil were all celebrated about 9 a.m.  The Vigil was a totally separate liturgy from the First Mass of Easter, which was to be celebrated at, or about midnight of Saturday into Sunday.  This Saturday morning vigil led to the perception that “Lent is over at noon on Holy Saturday—pass the chocolate.”  Similarly, Tenebrae (the offices of Matins and Lauds) which should have been said in the final hours of the night before dawn had shifted to early evening of the day before. 

3. The pre-1955 rites required at least six sacred ministers in Holy Orders: a priest, four deacons, and a subdeacon. (It was common for priests to take the liturgical roles of deacon and subdeacon so you didn’t have to have four actual deacons or an actual subdeacon, six priests would do.)  The unavailability of sufficient clergy in most churches led to a bit of cheating where the priest/celebrant, the deacon, and the subdeacon of the Mass of the Pre-sanctified removed their chasubles and assumed diaconal stoles to stand in as deacons for the chanting of the Passion. 

4. The deacons and subdeacon(s) for the various ceremonies did not wear dalmatics and tunicles but the planetae plicatae

or folded chasubles—a chasuble—usually in the “fiddleback” style pinned up over the chest.  (I remember seeing these as late as an ordination in 1964 and they were pinned both front and back, but Mr. DiPippo speaks only of them being pinned in front.  I suspect the ordination folded chasubles were of a different symbolism than the ones in the Holy Week rites as this particular ordination was held a good nine years after the folded chasubles of Holy Week had been abolished.)  At certain times the deacon also wore the chasuble folded over the left shoulder and caught at the right side below the hip so as to give the impression of the “broad stole.”  This was worn over the deacon’s proper stole.  The 1955 revisions did away with all this and replaced the planetae plicatae with tunicles and dalmatics. 

5. The Blessing of Palms on Palm Sunday was an especially curious custom as while it preceded the Mass of the Palm Sunday it was a rite of its own that in many ways paralleled the Mass.  The congregation met ideally in a church or chapel distinct from the sanctuary where the Mass was to be offered.  The rite is a bizarre parallel to the Mass.  The palms awaiting the blessing were placed flat on the altar.  As the sacred ministers entered there was a sung introit followed by collect, epistle, gradual and gospel.  This was followed by a prayer that corresponds to the “Prayer over the Gifts at Mass,” and that, in turn was followed by a preface, Sanctus, and a pseudo-canon consisting of five prayers over the palms.   The palms were the distributed and a prayer, corresponding to the post-communion prayer is said before the procession leaves for the main church where the Mass was to be said.  Violet vestments were used throughout both the Blessing of Palms and the Mass.  (In the 1955 Rite, Red vestments are used for the Rite of Palms, Violet for the Mass.  Similarly the Good Friday Service is done entirely in Black Vestments but in the 1955 revision, violet is substituted for black during the communion rite.  This required   more changes of vestments in the 1955 Rite than in the previous rites, especially for Palm Sunday, Good Friday, and the Vigil of Easter.) 

I could go into far more detail about the pre-1955 rites but the point that strikes me most about both the 1570 Rite and the 1955 Rite is how little it incorporates the faithful.  Other than for the Procession of Palms, there is no point in a congregation gathering—they are entirely irrelevant to the Sacred Action.  It is, at best, an elegant ballet carried out by the corps des prêtres; often it was more of a “Chinese Fire Drill” of confused clergy, obtuse chierichetti, and unmarried men of a certain age and a seminary background who just like to hang around inside the altar rail fussing over burses, discarded copes, and the occasional humeral veil.  I have seen a lot of this crap (carefully chosen word) lately on some neo-trad blogs about how one can have “full, active, and conscious participation” in the Liturgy simply by being present attentively.  I understand that.  That is how I fully, actively, and consciously participate in La Boehme as I don’t think I can any longer hit the higher notes and besides I would lose my season tickets if I even tried.  But La Boehme is not the Mystery by which I am saved.  Popes going back to Pius X have encouraged direct participation in the liturgy by the assembly.   There have always been those liturgical mandarins who have wanted to restrict the liturgy to their own private preserve.  Some are priests.  (You know the pathology: “It’s my Mass!!!  We will do it my way!!!) Others are choir directors.  And now we have “liturgists.”  It can be Father’s “friend” who has his or her hand in every pie.   It can be any combination of people but in the end we must remember that the Liturgy is the work of the entire Church and it belongs equally to every member of the Church. 

So I was delighted to participate in the simple and reverent rituals of my parish church with beautiful music, devoid of pomp, prayerful and solemn but not stilted with our women getting their feet washed alongside the guys, our altar girls and boys, lectors and catechumens.  The only drama it encouraged was to walk the way of the Cross interiorly, in one own’s heart, as we accompanied Christ from the Upper Room of Thursday to the Empty Tomb of Easter Morn.

Reason 2 For Why the "New Mass" Is Superior To The Old Rite

The most valuable experience in our process of being catechized in the faith is our participation in Liturgical Prayer and thus the prayer must reflect fully the authentic Catholic Faith.  

I attended the Divine Liturgy today in the Byzantine Rite—something I like to do—and I noticed that in the Byzantine/Orthodox calendars July 20 is the feast of the Prophet Elijah.  In the First and Second Book of Kings, Elijah was the great defender of True Faith against those Israelites who had fallen into superstitious practices.  The wealthy and secure of Israel had fallen into the worship of the Baals—the local deities, mostly fertility cults—that promised them prosperity.  Elijah was an especial defender of the poor as the Protected of Yahweh, against those of the great and powerful who tried to exploit them for their own gain. 

History shows us that this often happens with religion, even Christianity, when religious leaders for their own greed or power become too close to the politically and economically powerful interests.  Religion, for its own power, will often forget the interests of the poor.  In the history of the Catholic Church we see how this happened in the Ancien Regime, the alliance of Throne and Altar that came tumbling down with the French Revolution.  In the late Middle Agnes and in the Age of Absolutism in the 16^th, 17^th, and 18^th century, the Church too often was part of the problem and not part of the solution—the Gospel Message of Good News for the poor. 

This wasn’t just a Catholic problem.  I remember writing a paper for a course in graduate school in which I explored how the Anglican Prayer Books of 1549, 1552, 1559 and 1662 incorporated a political ideology into the Liturgy that reinforced the absolute authority of the King as well as instructing people to be happy with their subordinate places in society. 

One of the reasons that I am committed to the liturgical changes of the Second Vatican Council is that the Church’s worship embodies and teaches the faith of the Church and the current rites most accurately reflect the faith of the Church as it stands today.  People’s belief is shaped by the way in which we worship.  Liturgy is highly symbolic and the symbols impress on our hearts and our minds the Truth in which we put our faith.  Indeed, not the catechism or the documents of the magisterium, but the liturgy itself is the primary agent of catechesis: faith formation. 

The liturgy in the pre-conciliar rites expressed a theological worldview which was appropriate to the time but to which the Church no longer adheres.  In 1570, when Pius V issued the Missal that incorporated the liturgical changes and direction ordered by the Council of Trent, the Church still held that the earth, not the sun, was the center of the solar system, indeed the center around which the entire universe revolved.  This, in turn, reflected a cosmology which presumed that man was the main point in creation and that all else in creation was subordinate to the relationship of Creator and his human creation.  Stars were not known to be suns and the universe itself was seen to be much smaller than we have come to know it to be.  God was in a heaven only an angel-laden ladder away and the devil was in a hell that occasionally belched fire and brimstone into our atmosphere in Vesuvius and Etna.  In 1570 the Catholic Church still held that absolute monarchy was the best form of government because the (supposed) Divine Authority of Kings modeled in an earthly fashion the Divine Authority of God himself and thus kings were to be obeyed and reverenced.  In the 16^th century the Church still held that European culture was inherently superior to the other cultures of the human family and the Church produced a Liturgy that in language and symbol system was exclusively European with a disregard for the newly discovered worlds of the Americas, Africa, and the Far East.  In the sixteenth century the Church still held to the idea of the Great Chain of Being in which each person occupied the position: King, rich person, woman, leper, bishop, mental defective, widow, etc. to which the Divine Plan had ordained them and in which they must remain.  The Mass reflected these and other ideas which over the subsequent centuries faded.   The Liturgy was designed to mimic the ceremonial of a royal court.  Women, because of their menses, were excluded from entrance into the altar area and were not permitted to exercise certain functions.  The Liturgy was designed to emphasize the mediatorial role of the priest between God and the mere faithful.  The priest offered the sacrifice on behalf of the assembled faithful whose role was to watch and to listen.  They were separated from the sacrifice by railings that divided the church into the section for those ordained and those assisting the ordained, and where the ordinary people could gather. The use of an arcane language which only a few of the faithful understood (and not all priests really understood) was another separation keeping the ordinary faithful at a distance from the sacred action.

Over the intervening centuries the Church’s understanding of the world—both this world and the Eternal—evolved.  The French Revolution swept royal absolutism into the dustbin of history.  The rise of the Middle Class due to the Industrial Revolution made the common person an agent of history, no longer a bystander to history.   The Church accommodated to this.  Through the course of the nineteenth century bishops increasingly came from the Middle Class and no longer from the aristocracy.  As more and more people became educated, class and social status played less and less a role as the Church itself democratized.  While for centuries Popes had come from the nobility, with Pius X the son of a peasant sat on the Throne of Peter.  But the liturgy was fixed and frozen and reflected a world of hierarchy resting on the base of a people who were mere sheep to be guided by their betters.  Baptism no longer conferred dignity and the royal priestly and prophetic character of the baptized was totally obscured.

Moves to unfreeze the liturgy began over a century ago.  Pius X wanted to increase the active role of the faithful in the Liturgy and wrote the motu proprio Tra la Sollectitudine relegating polyphony to the concert hall and restoring the primacy of chant to the Mass precisely to break the monopoly of choirs and encourage congregational singing.   It was, of course, highly ignored.  Pius also permitted the ordinary Catholic to receive communion daily without permission of his or her pastor or confessor and he restored the communion of the faithful to a place within the Mass and not a private ceremony for the few communicants after Mass was over.  Such changes may seem rather minimal to us, but it heralded a different approach to the Liturgy than had been taken for four centuries. 

Even before Pius’ legislation to increase the participation of the faithful in the Liturgy, he and his predecessor Leo XIII had taken the Church for an interesting turn towards recapturing its own historical character.  Both Leo and Pius—and even Leo’s predecessor the arch-conservative Pius IX—were big on restoring the ancient churches of Rome.  They went into many of the older churches—San Giorgio in Velabro, Santa Maria in Cosmedin, Santa Maria in Dominica, San Stefano Rotondo, Santa Costanza, Santa Sabina and others—and stripped away the baroque ornamentations that had been added in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.  They recovered the ancient Roman basilica form.  Their work showed that Rome had never oriented its churches—they did not all face east but the churches of Rome faced every direction of the compass.  Moreover, their historical restorations revealed that the custom in Rome had always been for the priest to face the people across the altar.  Stripped of the baroque decorations, the churches stood in their ancient simplicity devoid of statues though often decorated with ancient mosaics and icons.  Suddenly the baroque liturgy of 1570 was startlingly out of place in these ancient temples. It triggered historians and patristic scholars to research the development of the rites and suggest modifications to the Roman Rite to restore its ancient character.  Those modifications began to take shape with the restoration of the Holy Week rites in 1955 and then more and more appeared in the years during and after the Council until the Missal of 1970 gave shape to the current official rite. 

Pius XII who reigned as pope from 1939-1958 encouraged these studies and wrote two encyclicals that reflected the developing theology of the Church and understanding of its liturgy: Mystici Corporis (1943) and Mediator Dei (1947).  The first—appropriately—returned to a patristic theology of the Church (as opposed to the scholastic approach of Trent and the post-Tridentine theologians such as Bellarmine) and the second gave a vision of the Liturgy that reflected this patristic ecclesiology.  These documents—among other writings of Pius XII—provided the theological basis for the Second Vatican Council. 

The Council itself marked significant developments in Catholic doctrine.  The priestly role of the laity was clearly restored in the Dogmatic (repeat Dogmatic) Constitution on the Church, Lumen Gentium.  (Some people dismiss Vatican II as not being a dogmatic Council: they need to read the documents that are dogmatic constitutions to see their error.)  The Church abandoned its proclaimed right to be established by law in civil society and affirmed the right of the individual conscience to believe according to whatever lights were given it.  It was acknowledged that the Church is the community of the baptized and not only those in full communion with the Roman Pontiff—though, the fullness of Christ’s Church subsists in the Roman Communion.  There were dramatic changes.

And the Liturgy issued by Pope Paul VI to implement the changes mandated by the Council has been designed to express more fully the theological realities as proclaimed by the Church today.  Safeguarding the unique graces and responsibilities conferred upon the ordained, all the baptized share in the priestly, royal, and prophetic office.   All the faithful, with each according to his or her proper order, join Christ the High Priest in offering the Eucharistic Sacrifice with full active conscious participation.  New church buildings reflect this ecclesiology with the faithful gathered around the altar.  Railings have been removed so as to unite priest and people around the Lord’s Table.  The Eucharist is more clearly both meal and sacrifice.  The Chalice has been restored to the faithful to fulfill Christ’s command: “take and drink…”  While the properly vertical nature of the Mass has been maintained, the communal nature of worship has been emphasized over the private by restoring an appropriate horizontal awareness among the community of worshippers.  The baptized are recognized by being given ministries proper to them as lectors, cantors, and even “extraordinary” ministers of the Eucharist.  Indeed the artificial distinction (see Galatians 3:28) of male and female has been—to an extent—removed as women join men in the various ministries open to the Order of the faithful.  There remains more work yet to be done for a fuller expression of our ecclesiology to be reflected in our Liturgical celebrations. 

The cultural variations of the Church as it finds itself around the globe—and even as it finds itself in certain societies such as our multi-cultural America—gives varied expression to the Mass and indeed to all our prayer.  Gospel Music in one place, Mariachi in another, and the Fauré Requiem have all found their place.  In Africa you need dancers if you are to consecrate a church; in America only if you want to give the bishop a coronary.  A priest in India might be seated at a low table-altar for Mass while a priest in Nigeria dances around it holding a bowl of incense.   

The 1970 and the 1570 rites each express the faith of the Church as it was defined at that particular period in history.  I always enjoy a trip to colonial Williamsburg, but that is not the America of today.  I don’t particularly enjoy the usus antiquior of the Mass and I am troubled by it because, unlike Colonial Williamsburg, the Mass is something far to sacred to relegate to historical re-enactment. The Mass embodies and enshrines the faith of the Church, not the Church that was in God’s yesterday but the Church that is in the grace of God’s Present moment.  Of course, if your faith is static and removed from this world in which the Divine Word incarnated himself, that is another matter—one for Elijah who stood against the false gods of his day.  

Thomas Cranmer and the Novus Ordo

Absolution at the 

catafalque in the 

Sarum Rite 

In my previous post, I mentioned that one of the arguments for discontinuity of the Reformation and Post-Reformation Church of England with the Church of England before the Reformation was the new liturgy imposed on the Anglican Church by the Prayer Books of 1549, 1552, and 1559.   If this break in liturgical Tradition signifies not continuity with the ancient Church of England but a new Church, how can we say that the Liturgical Reforms in the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church imposed by Paul VI (the so-called Novus Ordo) do not signify a break with historic Catholicism?  A Catholic who lived in the 1950’s or the 1850’s or the 1250’s would not recognize the current liturgy in the Catholic Church.  How then can we claim continuity?

The reason I bring up this question, of course, is that there are those on the lunatic fringe of Catholicism—or perhaps now beyond even the fringes of Catholicism—who make this argument that the Vatican II Reforms of the Liturgy are somehow equivalent to the liturgical changes made by various Protestant groups from Luther’s Deutsche Messe of the 1520’s to the far more radical revision of the liturgy followed a generation later by the Anabaptist tradition down to the Restoration Tradition with the Disciples of Christ and other Campbellite groups.  Why then does not the Novus Ordo represent a break in Catholicism? 

I think we can see the difference when we compare the liturgical changes in the Anglican Tradition in the sixteenth century with the Catholic experience after Vatican II. 

First: What happened in the sixteenth century Church of England.

In 1549 King Edward VI of England had published under royal mandate a new set of liturgical books for England that did not reform but which abandoned the traditional English rites in favor of entirely new rites.   There had been in England (including the Principality of Wales) for centuries four principal liturgical traditions: the Rites of Sarum (Salisbury), York, Hereford, and Bangor.  Sarum was by far the most common of these rites, the others being more or less localized in the dioceses for which they are named.  These rites preserved ancient English features and differed significantly, though not substantially, from Catholic Rites followed on the continent.   (There were a wide variety of different Catholic Rites in the Western Church as distinct local Rites had developed in the various ecclesiastical provinces and even dioceses.  The “Roman Rite” was but one of many.)  The English Rites—like most Western Rites followed the classic pattern of the Liturgy and used the “Roman Canon” (what is today called Eucharistic Prayer I).  The differences that made the English Rites unique were mostly in the various proper antiphons and in the lectionary and in the rubrics, though the offertory differed from some continental rites in as that it had but a single offering of bread and wine together accompanied by the prayer Suscipe Sancte Trinitas.  After the break with Rome, Henry VIII abolished the Rites of York, Hereford, and Bangor so that the entire kingdom followed the Sarum Usage.  Then, in 1544—still in Henry’s Reign—Cranmer introduced the English Litany, a vernacular set of versicles, responses and collects into the Sarum Liturgy replacing the Latin Litany used in the processional rites which were distinct to the Sarum Usage.  Finally, early in the reign of Edward VI, Cranmer introduced a set of vernacular prayers preparatory for Holy Communion into the Sarum Mass.  All this was done within the context of the ancient Sarum Rite.   But the 1549 book published by Royal Warrant abandoned the Sarum Rite for a Liturgy which, much like Luther’s 1523 Formula Missae, preserved the basic structure of the Mass but not only gave up many distinct Sarum prayers and traditions but eliminated every reference to Sacrifice.  Unlike Luther’s Formula Missae, Cranmer did not do away with the Canon of the Mass (Eucharistic Prayer), retaining only the Words of Institution, but he did eliminate any idea of Eucharistic Sacrifice both from the Canon and from any “offertory” prayers as the bread and wine were prepared. 

The 1549 Liturgy was meant to be the first step towards a more radical liturgy modeled on the Protestant worship found in the Reformed Churches on the Continent, in particular Geneva and Zurich.  The 1552 Prayer Book then introduced a far more Protestant liturgy.  While the 1552 Book left the Liturgy of the Word somewhat intact, moving the Gloria to a post-communion and stripping away the introit (the gradual and alleluia and any sequences had disappeared in the 1549 Book), the Eucharistic Rite was horribly mauled.  The rite placed the distribution of Holy Communion immediately after the Words of Institution, leaving the Canon to be finished in some post-communion prayers and moving the Lord’s Prayer to after Communion.  The purpose in putting the reception of Holy Communion immediately after the Words of Consecration was to emphasize that the Sacrament is given to us for eating Christ’s Body and drinking Christ’s Blood, not for adoration.    Moreover, the 1552 Prayer Book eliminated any vestments other than the surplice (the cope was optional in cathedrals and collegiate churches), the altar cross and candles, and indeed the altar itself (replacing it with a plain wooden table positioned in the chancel.)  All this was to take away any idea of sacrifice and/or its corollary, the priestly ministry of the ordained clergy. 

Cranmer’s intent was to eliminate the ideas

1.   that the Eucharist is a Sacrifice

2.   that Christ is physically present in the Eucharistic bread and wine and thus they can (or should) be adored. 

3.   That the minister of the Eucharist is a priest in the sense of one who is set aside to offer sacrifice. 

The ancient Sarum usage was restored when Queen Mary ascended the throne in 1553 but in 1559, the year after her death, the Protestant Liturgy was again restored by Elizabeth with the 1559 Prayer Book. 

Eleven years later, Pope Pius V—the same Pope who earlier that same year had excommunicated Elizabeth—issued a new Missal for most of the Western Church, eliminating the variety of Rites which had grown up and mandating a uniform Rite for most of the Western Church.  Only those places and those Religious Orders who could show that they had a unique Rite going back at least 200 years were permitted to retain their usages rather than adopt this Roman Rite.  This Roman Rite of Pius V was not the ancient and traditional Roman Rite but a Rite artfully constructed from elements taken from the principal rites of the Western Church.  It eliminated many of the repetitions common in the older rites and it embroidered the 16^th century usage of the Papal Chapel with various (and I would be willing to say, the best) collects, prayers, antiphons, sequences, etc) from different Rites used in the Western Church.  The Reform of the Liturgy following the Council of Trent not only introduced a new Missal, but it eliminated many old customs such as curtaining the altar from view during penitential seasons.  So as to give the faithful more access to the altar and the liturgy, the reforms of Pius V moved the altars from the distant east ends of churches closer to the people, relocating the choirs (in the sense of the chancels, not the scholae cantorum)  behind the altars in what had been the old presbyteria.  In those places where there had been a chancel screen blocking the view of the altar, the screens were torn down.  Most importantly, it gave the Catholic Church a more or less standard liturgical format. 

That liturgy of Pius V underwent minor changes over the centuries, especially under Pius X and then again under Pius XII.  But the Bishops present at the Second Vatican Council wanted a thorough reform of the Rites to facilitate the laity being given a full and intelligent participatory role in the Liturgy. 

The Reforms issued by Paul VI in the 1970 Missal were drastic compared to the earlier reforms of the 1570 Rites, but they were not revolutionary as had been Cranmer’s.  The theology and practice of Eucharistic Sacrifice were clarified and maintained.  The Sacramental nature of the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist was reinforced by the prayers and rubrics.  Repetitions and accretions that had crept into the liturgy were eliminated and ancient practices, lost over the centuries, were restored.   Perhaps the most fundamental shift in the liturgy is that Scholastic Theology took a back seat to Patristic Theology and Praxis in designing the 1570 Missal.  But the main direction of the Liturgical Reforms of Paul VI were

1.   a wider and more increased use of scripture in the new lectionary

2.   the translation of the Mass into the language of the faithful to enable them to more consciously participate both in attentive listening and active involvement in the Liturgy

3.   the redistribution of ministries to restore to the baptized their proper role in the liturgy, most notably restoring the ancient ministries of reader and cantor. 

4.   a emphasis on the Sacrificial nature of the Mass as a participation in the One Eternal Sacrifice of Christ offered on Calvary

Cranmer’s liturgy was meant to be a break with tradition—both doctrinally and in praxis.  Paul VI’s reforms were built on tradition and were anxious to restore the faith of the Church as handed down from ancient times without the liturgy becoming anachronistic.  While a Catholic of the 1850’s or the 1550’s might not recognize today’s liturgy, Saint Augustine or Saint Ambrose or Saint Gregory the Great would.  The Liturgy of Paul VI is consistent with the Faith of The Fathers.