His Excellency Most Reverend Alex Sample, Bishop of Marquette, has something to say about liturgical reform. This is an interview from Catholic Answers.
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Bp. Sample stresses a “hermeneutic of continuity”.
I am not entirely on board with His Excellency (an old friend of mine) about the idea that what Summorum Pontificum established that the Ordinary and Extraordinary Form are actually the same rite. Summorum Pontificum gave a juridical solution to the matter of priestly faculties for the use of both forms. However, Summorum Pontificum did not close off discussion about whether they older and newer forms are historically, theologically, liturgically the same rite. There is a lot more to say about that.
Bp. Sample speaks about his discovery of and his discoveries through the Extraordinary Form.
He speaks about the benefits of Summorum Pontificum, including what I call the “gravitational pull” that the Extraordinary Form will exert on the newer form of Mass.
He stress that if we do not understand that Holy Mass is a Sacrifice, we do not understand what Mass is.
The question of the calendar comes up. A caller has a question of whether priests can celebrate ad orientem in the Novus Ordo. (The answer is YES! His Excellency hits a triple on this one. It would have been a home run but for one nuance.) He gets a question about whether the new translation was really necessary. He gets into the confusion caused in some cases (not all) by Communion services on weekdays (Inter alia he says, “It shouldn’t look like a Mass!”). He talks about the Offertory Prayers of the Extraordinary Form. If he hit a triple on ad orientem worship, he hits a three-run homer on kneeling for Holy Communion!
BTW… kudos to the interviewer. He gets it.
