Mass Confusion: As we pray, so we believe, so we live

October 8, 2025

Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi: “As we pray, so we believe, so we live.”

Over our two-thousand-year history, Catholics learned we become our liturgy. How we pray becomes who we are. Yet, in the years and decades since the Second Vatican Council, our liturgy has become confused. No wonder we Catholics are confused. Our faith, prayer, and lives are not integrated. We live disintegrated from our faith, to varying degrees, because our prayer has become disintegrated from our faith.

The deep, satiating Mass of the Ages, the Vetus Ordo, is frozen in time. The Mass prayed, lived, and loved by nearly all the Church's saints in her history, is no longer a living liturgy organically shifting with the Body as we grow and move. Simultaneously, the Mass experienced by most of the living faithful , the Novus Ordo, was implemented without clearly following the desires of the Second Vatican Council. And, in some ways, it was implemented clearly defying her own documents: for the Novus Ordo presumes the priest faces the people, speaks only vernacular, and all but eliminates sacred chant—despite the Constitution on Sacred Liturgy calling for retaining much Latin, presuming the priest is ad orientem (facing liturgical East, with the people), and recommending Gregorian chant. Additionally, the Novus Ordo, invites liturgical abuse with the nebulous rubric phrases, “according to local custom,” and “in these or similar words,” the former still included, the latter printed in the initial editions of the Missal (No. 8-11, 21, 23, 36-37, 116).

The faithful face a choice: a persecuted Mass, frozen in time yet deeply satiating, or a Mass confused, and less satisfying, yet somehow limping along.

We must also grapple with the collectively dawning realization that the so called “spirit” of Vatican II was not the Holy Spirit, but Satan sneaking in immediately after consolation, as Saint Ignatius warns is common in his Discernment of Spirits. As Bishop Nickless explains, having referenced Pope Benedict XVI, “The so called “spirit” of the Council has no authoritative interpretation. It is a ghost or demon that must be exorcised if we are to proceed with the Lord's work” (Pastoral Letter Ecclesia Semper Reformanda: The Church is Always in need of Renewal).

Where does this leave us in this moment, with the Liturgy of the Mass and how it feeds the body of Christ? Christ in the Liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist is fully present in both Vetus Ordo and Novus Ordo. The reality is that although we are in the early days of implementing the Second Vatican Council, we can see the changes enacted these past 6 decades have sown confusion. The question is, how do we look to the future and move toward a Mass that is what the Second Vatican Council called for? How do we follow the clear vision of the Council and draw Novus Ordo toward the more timeless and satiating, yet frozen Vetus Ordo?

Councils take two-hundred years to be maturely implemented, however long those two-hundred years may be. Holy Mother Church yearns to nourish and feed her children. Two-hundred years from now, I strongly suspect the memory of the Novus Ordo we now know will be, “In retrospect, we bought formula but over time returned to breast milk and made it more accessible.” How we get there is the challenge we face these next two hundred years.

In the meanwhile, whichever Mass we attend, let us lift our eyes to Christ on the Most Holy Cross, hear His Word, and receive His Most Precious Body and Blood, that we may be nourished to go forth and build the City of God amidst the city of sin.

Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi: “As we pray, so we believe, so we live.”

#Catholic #CurrentEventsTimelessTruth #Mass #AdOrientem #VetusOrdo #Shepherding

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