The Only Way Forward... Is Back

I knew this was going to be my kind of book when I found myself nodding with agreement at the Foreword…

While I used to be an avid reader (or a bookworm, as my Mom would put it), I fell out of the habit of reading during the last few years. These days, it generally takes a very engaging plot for the urge to read to arise naturally in me. This was not a work of fiction, yet, once I got into “Close the Workshop: Why the Old Mass Isn’t Broken and the New Mass Can’t Be Fixed” I was – to use the modern expression – hooked. 

In this book, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski makes two cases: why – as the title states – “the New Mass can’t be fixed,” and why the TLM is the only path if the Church is to move forward. The amount of work put into this book is evident from the start. Dr. Kwasniewski makes both cases with a painstaking amount of clarity, evidence, even sometimes humor(!), and clear-cut arguments that address any and all objections or questions that may arise in the reader’s mind (I know, because I had a few questions myself!). 

For the first eleven years of my life, the only rite of the Mass I ever knew was the Novus Ordo. When I was fourteen, my family started attending the TLM almost exclusively (I say “almost exclusively” because we attend it as much as our situation – slightly more than an hour away from the parish – allows). Looking back, I see that, even if I lived through those years of my life at the Novus Ordo, my faith suffered through them. It is because of this that I am deeply thankful to Dr. Kwasniewski for his work in exposing the errors behind the New Rite and the logic used by its defenders, as well as his work in the traditional movement. 

I must highlight one of the chapters in this book that was one of the most fun and insightful to read for me: “Allegory as a Key to Understanding Traditional Liturgy.” This chapter opened my eyes to many of the symbolic elements of the traditional Mass that I had not noticed or “read through” yet, such as the reason behind why the priest sits at the Gloria and Credo at a Sung or Solemn Mass, as well as why the server lifts the priest’s chasuble at the Consecration. When I return to Mass this Sunday, there will be more things to notice and meditate on at Mass, and even more reasons to appreciate the Old Rite. Since it would take me more words than would be convenient to write here to explain everything this chapter awakened in me, I will simply say that this chapter was a delight to go through. 

I will not deny that one of the greatest joys I derived from reading this book was that of seeing

the “atmosphere” in the Church that almost made me lose my faith be destroyed by Dr. Kwasniewski’s reasoning. As both a traditional Catholic who has the privilege of attending the TLM and a writer in the same arena, I often like to ponder on the differences between the liturgies, the state of the Church today, and how it might all be resolved in the future. There was already no doubt in my mind that the only way forward was to go back – to return to the old ways – to Tradition. Reading “Close the Workshop” has confirmed me in my position, and given me a wealth of knowledge I did not have before. Even if this book was not an easy read when compared to the flimsy sentences we social media addicts are nowadays accustomed to, it is well-worth plowing through – and, I would say, doing so more than once. Even if I might have learned many things from reading this book, I believe it is one of those works that takes more than one reading in order to retrieve everything there is to retrieve, so much is there to ponder over. 

Reverence Expresses Truths about the Faith 

One of the many points Dr. Kwasniewski makes in this book is that reverence expresses truths about the Faith – or, it could even be said, that it helps to communicate that the Faith is True. He writes, “The reverent forms and practices of the traditional liturgy point to and express vital truths about the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass; the numerous casual practices that permeate the Novus Ordo liturgies are not coherent with the meaning and purpose of the same.”

Not to sound condescending, but there are many things one would expect would be obvious in this scientific, advanced modern age of ours. We place so much emphasis on psychology, yet we cannot seem to understand that actions leave a greater impression on our minds than words do; that even small, minute rituals affect what we believe and how we believe. We should know this. Our ancestors knew it. How can we allow it to be said that our ancestors were wiser than we are, with all of our modern theories and ideas? 

As Dr. Kwasniewski writes, “There is an incongruence between the words and the actions.” Think of the words around the Consecration in the Novus Ordo rite. Deficient though they may be when compared to the magnificent Roman Canon, we can all admit that they at least imply that something special is going to occur – something important. But when you look at the actions, things appear entirely different. The casual-looking vestments of the priest, the lack of the union of the digits after the Consecration of the Eucharist, and all the other things one could list are the actions that speak louder than the words. 

Of course, one could say that, to a Catholic unfamiliar with the TLM, there is nothing to compare the Novus Ordo to. Nothing to make it appear inferior. But the very fact that if that person were to be introduced to the TLM and have something to compare the Novus Ordo to he would think it was inferior means something. 

Dr. Kwasniewski writes, “There is anarchy in the place where there should be maximum order.” Again, this is something that may not strike you if you have never been to a TLM before, but it will once you encounter it. You can only say “that is how Mass should be” until people find out that it really isn’t. 

It has been repeated many times before that, “lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.” Meaning, the law of prayer is the law of belief. Perhaps we could say, since the way we pray is the way we believe, it is also the way we will live our spiritual life. If the way we worship is ordered, we will be drawn to lead an ordered spiritual life; but, if the way we worship is disordered, we will not feel the pull towards leading a good spiritual life. 

Now, I am not saying that everyone who has ever lived their life attending the Novus Ordo is doomed to not advance in their devotional life. The point I am trying to make is that perhaps the disordered way we worship in modern times is at the root of the disorder in the Church nowadays. The reason why people don’t pray anymore, but go to Church to be entertained – or don’t even go, when they find that the entertainment is not actually entertaining but rather cringe-worthy. 

I feel like I am simply repeating what so many other people have said, and said it better than I ever could: that chaos has erupted in the Church ever since we adopted a chaotic form of worship. Sure, there were problems before the introduction of the Novus Ordo – or else we would have never gotten the Novus Ordo in the first place –, but it cannot be denied that what we are facing now is exponentially worse. 

This point, that the way we worship is the reason why we have seen so many of the faithful walk away or lose belief, and that giving them chaos when they have come for peace is wrong, is one of the central points of Close the Workshop, and, I believe, one of the most important. Looking around the liturgical wasteland today, and the equal wasteland in the emptiness of the pews, it is hard to prove the author wrong. 

In conclusion, my most favorite thing about this book was its very premise: that there is no solution other than to return to the true Roman Rite, the Mass of the Ages – the traditional Latin Mass, and that nothing will ever work until we do. In other words, burn it all [the liturgical “reform”] to the ground! Let us return to our patrimony, that which is so priceless that the blood of countless martyrs was spilled for! 

“Any attempt at reforming the reform from within the framework of the Novus Ordo would be like trying to put Humpty Dumpty together again.” - Dr. Peter Kwasniewski, Close the Workshop: Why the Old Mass Isn’t Broken and the New Mass Can’t Be Fixed