I agree that it is not stable, and I wish it were--and I would like to see some day a solution that reunites the rites (or at least the calendars!!!) or, at minimum, defines the Novus Ordo better.
Having said that, I've been near to TLM communities in Virginia (about three, if memory serves), Florida (two), California (two), and St. Louis (also two). So I've seen kind of a swath of what the U.S. has for TLMs, and both liturgically and community-wise, I have serious questions about how TLM communities often play out.
Liturgically, while many of the communities say they want active participation, only one of them made any serious effort to help the congregation do that--and I think participation is important. I don't mean that the congregation needs to hear every word of the Mass or say every response--I'm with Ratzinger's "Spirit of the Liturgy" on this, more or less--but most often what I've seen in TLMs is that the congregation chants and prays NOTHING. I've even gotten dirty looks for chanting/saying the Latin responses with the choir or altar boys, which is just ... weird. I know there are places where it ain't so--in another part of this thread someone mention's a certain St. Mary's--I've just had the bad luck never to find a TLM that welcomed participation, or even made it easy to follow the reading and Gospel (!).
On the community side, I've seen a lot of TLM parishioners and priests who are rigid. That word gets thrown around a lot--but what I mean, for example, are things like the following (examples deliberately taken from different communities): (a) one priest who told a congregation full of mothers that doing laundry on Sunday might not be a mortal sin (maybe he was attempting understatement? but it did not come off that way), (b) another priest who told his congregation that they were better than people who go to the Novus Ordo, (c) parishioners who become scrupulous enough about modesty such that they will not let their daughters wear jeans, etc., (d) intelligent parishioners who are borderline Feeneyites without realizing it because that's the way everyone around them talks, and they don't socialize with anyone outside their community.
Traditiones Custodes is not helping with these sorts of issues, IMHO.
To be clear, I don't say these sorts of flaws are everywhere in the TLM, or are necessarily worse than what can be found in the Novus Ordo--but given my own spiritual state and personal history, the flaws typical of the TLMs near me are more damaging to me--and, I might add, to some other Catholics that I know--than the flaws typical of the NOs around me.
One final point on the stability thing: while it is true that a bad new pastor or a visiting priest might spoil a good Novus Ordo, most (not all!) of the NO priests I know who are progressive are less progressive zealots and more squishy middle types. They want to please. And so when they come into a parish that is already in love with Latin chant (say) they generally try to oblige. The trouble, of course, is when they come into a divided congregation ... I will readily admit that creates problems. As for visiting priests, my experience is that generally pastors choose priests who are sympatico to substitute for them (and even if that does not always happen, that's a one-Sunday risk I'd be willing to take).
I hope this doesn't come off as too opinionated. I grew up with a Latin Novus Ordo (in a Virginia Diocese) that was very in tune with Sacro Sanctum Concilium and I really miss it. This is probably at least in part my homesickness for that Mass speaking. It got replaced a lot with the TLM, which actually drove good Novus Ordos towards extinction in that diocese for a while--which to my mind was a real shame.
"the reform of the reform is not sustainable. its only real use is a bridge to a TLM"
I profoundly but respectfully disagree.
What happens in August when you have a visiting pastor? What happens when you get a new pastor who isn’t on board? It’s not stable.
I agree that it is not stable, and I wish it were--and I would like to see some day a solution that reunites the rites (or at least the calendars!!!) or, at minimum, defines the Novus Ordo better.
Having said that, I've been near to TLM communities in Virginia (about three, if memory serves), Florida (two), California (two), and St. Louis (also two). So I've seen kind of a swath of what the U.S. has for TLMs, and both liturgically and community-wise, I have serious questions about how TLM communities often play out.
Liturgically, while many of the communities say they want active participation, only one of them made any serious effort to help the congregation do that--and I think participation is important. I don't mean that the congregation needs to hear every word of the Mass or say every response--I'm with Ratzinger's "Spirit of the Liturgy" on this, more or less--but most often what I've seen in TLMs is that the congregation chants and prays NOTHING. I've even gotten dirty looks for chanting/saying the Latin responses with the choir or altar boys, which is just ... weird. I know there are places where it ain't so--in another part of this thread someone mention's a certain St. Mary's--I've just had the bad luck never to find a TLM that welcomed participation, or even made it easy to follow the reading and Gospel (!).
On the community side, I've seen a lot of TLM parishioners and priests who are rigid. That word gets thrown around a lot--but what I mean, for example, are things like the following (examples deliberately taken from different communities): (a) one priest who told a congregation full of mothers that doing laundry on Sunday might not be a mortal sin (maybe he was attempting understatement? but it did not come off that way), (b) another priest who told his congregation that they were better than people who go to the Novus Ordo, (c) parishioners who become scrupulous enough about modesty such that they will not let their daughters wear jeans, etc., (d) intelligent parishioners who are borderline Feeneyites without realizing it because that's the way everyone around them talks, and they don't socialize with anyone outside their community.
Traditiones Custodes is not helping with these sorts of issues, IMHO.
To be clear, I don't say these sorts of flaws are everywhere in the TLM, or are necessarily worse than what can be found in the Novus Ordo--but given my own spiritual state and personal history, the flaws typical of the TLMs near me are more damaging to me--and, I might add, to some other Catholics that I know--than the flaws typical of the NOs around me.
One final point on the stability thing: while it is true that a bad new pastor or a visiting priest might spoil a good Novus Ordo, most (not all!) of the NO priests I know who are progressive are less progressive zealots and more squishy middle types. They want to please. And so when they come into a parish that is already in love with Latin chant (say) they generally try to oblige. The trouble, of course, is when they come into a divided congregation ... I will readily admit that creates problems. As for visiting priests, my experience is that generally pastors choose priests who are sympatico to substitute for them (and even if that does not always happen, that's a one-Sunday risk I'd be willing to take).
I hope this doesn't come off as too opinionated. I grew up with a Latin Novus Ordo (in a Virginia Diocese) that was very in tune with Sacro Sanctum Concilium and I really miss it. This is probably at least in part my homesickness for that Mass speaking. It got replaced a lot with the TLM, which actually drove good Novus Ordos towards extinction in that diocese for a while--which to my mind was a real shame.