The TLM evangelizes in ways the novus ordo doesn’t

In a new document Pope Francis makes claims about the novus ordo, or new Mass created by a deceptive committee after the fathers of Vatican II returned to their home dioceses, which do not hold up and which describe, in fact, only the traditional Latin Mass.

So often those who pronounce with authority on the traditional liturgy do not pray it and thus do not know or understand it. I have offered the two liturgies side by side for over a decade, observing most closely the prayer, and effects on the faithful praying, attending each.

He libels the Church’s traditional liturgy as a kind of empty formalism which cannot evangelize when that is exactly what it has done for nearly 2,000 years. The TLM draws converts every year to my parish. The novus ordo does not.

Doctrinal doubters and deniers, along with many well-intentioned faithful, attend the new Mass exclusively. This is, of course, certainly better than the alternative of profaning the Lord’s Day by not attending Mass. Prsying the Mass, however, should result in the healing and perfecting of our faith.

Typically, dissenters to the Church’s teaching on marriage and life are found in novus ordo congregations but not in TLM communities. To the contrary, faithful who attend the TLM give assent of intellect and will to all that the Church teaches in faith and morals. Which, in fact, is evangelization and which not? 

With TLM: Converts every year. Novus ordo not.

With TLM: entire family attends Sunday Mass, parents together with kids. Novus ordo not.

With TLM: all young courting couples desire sacrament of marriage. Novus ordo not. Traditional Catholic youth “court”, they don’t “date”, acknowledging the Church’s teaching on chastity.

With TLM: couples who ask for infant baptism attend Sunday Mass faithfully and are sacramentally married. Novus ordo often do not.

With TLM: more men participate more often in Sunday and weekday Mass and devotions, at times up to a majority of the congregation at any given moment. Novus ordo not.

With TLM: parents take active role in forming their children in the faith by example and home instruction. Novus ordo not.

Perhaps the most glaring difference is the frequency of confession for those who attend the TLM in contrast to those who exclusively attend the novus ordo and who rarely confess but who receive Communion at the same percentages. Is one to believe all mortal sin has disappeared in the novus ordo?

New parishioners are joining the traditional community on a continuing basis: another new member joined this week. Not so in the novus ordo.

Traditional Catholics also show up for weekday Mass and Wednesday evening adoration. Novus ordo families, with the exception of those who also attend the traditional Mass, do not participate in devotions beyond the Sunday liturgy. Restricting a parish to offering only the new Mass sounds the death knell for community life.

At this link a news item about the latest assault on Catholic tradition: 

https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2022-06/pope-francis-apostolic-letter-desiderio-desideravi-liturgy.html

Yet another document that creates more division where there was mutual peace about the matter of the Church’s way of worship and yet more refusal to allow the Holy Spirit to decide the legitimacy of the new liturgy within the Catholic Faith.

There is a great lack of silence in the new liturgy which in fact has none except where there are perfunctory pauses between prayers, all done our loud, which inhibit congregational reflection. Despite that here is a claim in the new document for that which does not exist:

“Among the ritual acts that belong to the whole assembly, silence occupies a place of absolute importance” which “moves to sorrow for sin and the desire for conversion. It awakens a readiness to hear the Word and awakens prayer. It disposes us to adore the Body and Blood of Christ” (52).”

For those unfortunately addicted to the new liturgy, silence creates an unwanted and uncomfortable agitation, an impatient waiting for the next item or loud interruption of interior quiet which makes room for God.

The traditional liturgy, on the other hand, creates space for profound participation by stipulating that certain prayers of the priest are to be uttered in the low tone to give interior room, through silence for deeper participation on the part of all, entering thereby more deeply into the prayer of mind and heart without the distraction of loudness and constant noise, a frequent characteristic, a feature not a bug, of the new liturgy.