Well, as you all know already, the motu proprio restoring real access to the 1962 Missal is finally out. CWN has a fine and extensive comment, as does Gerald. Barbara Nicolosi has delicious in-your-face remarks here and here for those who rightly fear that their silly "Barney" and "Halloween" Masses are threatened by the big old Latin boogeyman.
I'll only add two things to what many others, far better equipped than I, have already written.
First, I'm delighted that we the laity, ignored and misled for forty years, can finally again have a Mass with an organic connection to the liturgical tradition of our Church, as the documents of Vatican II always intended (but were hijacked to subvert).
Second, I was a little disappointed that the MP tells us that the 1962 Missal is to be known as the "extraordinary" form of the liturgy, until I thought about it a bit, and then it hit me: we all know from the example of the "Spirit of Vatican II" folks' innovation of "extraordinary" Eucharistic ministers that "extraordinary" really means "mandatory, universal, and permanent."
Now I feel really good!
In 1867, Matthew Arnold wrote "Dover Beach", a haunting poem evoking the "melancholy, long, withdrawing roar" of the Sea of Faith. As a boomer who finished Catholic elementary school in 1964 and then watched my Church falter, I've found the roar all too audible. So here I wait, listening for the whispers of that Sea's invincible return.
