Un pasteur protestant converti par le N.O.M

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Candidus - 2014-05-18 20:36:49

Un pasteur protestant converti par le N.O.M

Voici la traduction du passage le plus intéressant de ce témoignage, suivi, en anglais, de la totalité du texte dont il est extrait :

"Je trouve l'accusation [portée contre le N.O.M] d'"ambiguïté volontaire" particulièrement intéressante. En effet, il y a de nombreuses années, alors que j'étudiais pour devenir ministre du culte anglican, j'ai dû écrire un long exposé comparant le texte et la théologie du nouveau rite anglican avec le rite catholique : une comparaison entre le N.O.M et ce que l'on appelait alors "Series III", le rite de la Sainte Communion de l'Eglise d'Angleterre.

Ma conclusion à l'époque (et CELA FUT UN DES FACTEURS QUI M'A CONDUIT, DIX ANS PLUS TARD, A COMPRENDRE QUE JE N'AVAIS PAS D'AUTRE CHOIX QUE DE DEVENIR CATHOLIQUE) était que la principale différence linguistique entre ces deux rites était que le texte [du rite] catholique était volontairement dépourvu de toute ambiguïté tandis que le rite anglo-catholique (parce qu'il devait pouvoir être utilisé à la fois par des anglo-catholiques et des évangélistes) était inévitablement ambigü."

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The casual acceptance of some supposedly “traditionalist” views has done considerable damage. One of these is that the Novus Ordo is an ambiguous rite:

“The Novus Ordo does not signify the Catholic theology of the holy sacrifice of the Mass. It is ambiguous – deliberately so – and tends toward giving a Protestant understanding of the Lord’s Supper, which gradually will replace the Catholic Mass in the eyes and psyche of whatever remaining “Catholic” attend it. It is simple: no sacrifice = no need for a sacrificing priest = no need for an altar but merely a table for a commemorative meal over which the presbyter presides and in which the people of God exercise their universal priesthood and so they, not any priest, worship God in their way instead of in His.”

This is a grotesque distortion – no, worse, an actual direct untruth – simply asserted as though it were self-evident. The Novus Ordo is very clearly a valid Catholic liturgy, in which the doctrine of the Mass as sacrifice is both assumed and unambiguously stated.

Consider the following, from the much criticized Eucharistic prayer II :

In memory of his death and resurrection, we offer you, Father, this LIFE-GIVING bread, this SAVING cup (affirmation of the propitiatory nature of the mass).

Consider the following, from the current English translation of Eucharistic prayer III:

Father, calling to mind the death your Son endured for our salvation, his glorious Resurrection and ascension into heaven, and ready to greet him when he comes again, we offer you in thanksgiving this holy and living sacrifice.

Look with favour on your Church’s offering, and see the victim whose death has reconciled us to yourself. Grant that we, who are nourished by his body and blood, may be filled with his Holy Spirit, and become one body, one spirit in Christ.

May he make us an everlasting gift to you and enable us to share in the inheritance of your saints, with Mary, the virgin Mother of God, with the apostles, the martyrs, and all your saints, on whose constant intercession we rely for help.

LORD, MAY THIS SACRIFICE, WHICH HAS MADE OUR PEACE WITH YOU, ADVANCE THE PEACE AND SALVATION OF ALL THE WORLD…

That is quite unmistakable, and clearly, intentionally and unambiguously expressed: what is being offered is a “holy and living” sacrifice, the sacrifice of Calvary. Or consider this, from Eucharistic prayer IV:

…looking forward to his coming in glory, WE OFFER YOU HIS BODY AND BLOOD, THE ACCEPTABLE SACRIFICE WHICH BRINGS SALVATION TO THE WHOLE WORLD.

Lord, look upon this sacrifice which you have given to your Church; and by your Holy Spirit, gather all who share this one bread and one cup into the one body of Christ, a living sacrifice of praise.

Lord, remember those for whom we offer this sacrifice…

I find the accusation of “deliberate ambiguity” particularly interesting, since many years ago, when I was training to be an Anglican clergyman, I once had to write a long essay comparing the language and theology of the then recently authorised Anglican and Catholic rites: the Novus Ordo and what was then called the “Series III” service of Holy Communion of the Church of England. My conclusion then (it was one of the factors that led me, about a decade later, to understand that I had no alternative but to become a Catholic) was that the chief linguistic difference between the rites was that Catholic language was, precisely, deliberately unambiguous and Anglican language (because the same Eucharistic prayer had to gain acceptance from Anglo-Catholics and evangelicals alike) was inevitably ambiguous.

Take the words of the epiklesis, the invocation of the Holy Spirit, in the Roman rite:

“And so, Father, we bring you these gifts. We ask you to make them holy by the power of your Spirit, that they may become the body and blood of your Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, at whose command we celebrate this Eucharist.”

That’s the epiklesis of Eucharistic prayer III: but the same doctrinal point has to be made about all four prayers: the assumption here is that the Eucharistic elements undergo an actual and supernaturally effected change: there is an actual point at which they become, in very truth and not merely symbolically, the body and blood of Christ.

The equivalent Anglican words at this point are “grant that by the power of your Spirit these gifts of bread and wine may be to us his body and his blood”: the notion of a moment at which change is effected is deliberately avoided: an Anglo-Catholic can assume it, but an evangelical can see these words as referring simply to a mere subjective view, that the bread and wine in some way “to us” symbolise Christ’s body and blood. The idea of the Eucharist as sacrifice is deliberately excluded by the words which follow “we celebrate and proclaim his perfect sacrifice made once for all upon the cross”: in other words, the sacrifice of Calvary was in no way repeatable, and what we now do is simply a distant and subjective memory of it.

Whether you like the new prayers of the Roman Rite or not (personally, I think that Eucharistic prayers III and IV are magnificent, especially in Latin but, though more evidently in the new translation, even in the current English version) it is ludicrous, ludicrous, to claim that they tend towards Protestantism.

The Novus Ordo is a valid Catholic Mass, written in unambiguous language. Let us all, whether or not we like the way it is sometimes celebrated, or the way it was originally translated, agree on that. If we can’t, we’re all in trouble.

William Oddie

http://www.leforumcatholique.org/message.php?num=750808