liturgysite.com
CHANGES TO THE PROPER
Changes to the Ordinary (the unchanging part of the mass) were naturally more apparent, but there were significant changes to the Proper (those parts which varied), which are often overlooked in accounts of the reform.
1. The number of Prefaces was increased from 1410 of which were in place by 1000 AD) to 78, so that they reflect more fully the pattern of the church year.
2. In conformity with the CSL’s requirement that a fuller selection of holy scripture be made available to the faithful (CSL 51) the historic Roman pattern of two readings on a one-year cycle is replaced by a completely new three-year cycle of four readings for Sundays, including this an Old Testament reading and a responsorial Psalm, and a separate, new two-year cycle with two Readings and a psalm on weekdays. For the first time every weekday now has a set of readings allocated to it. Some have criticised the new pattern on the grounds that there are not enough passages in scripture suitable for use as readings over three or two years.
3. Rather than retain the ancient readings pattern (the gospels date from the sixth century, the full set of readings from the ninth), if only as Year 1 of a new two- or three-year lectionary, it was decided to start anew. Collects and other prayers were moved and reallocated to fit in to the new pattern of the church year and were also changed in small details, often with the apparent aim of downplaying ‘negative’ themes such as sin, guilt, judgement and hell.[1]
4. Outside the periods of Advent, Christmas, Lent and Eastertide, the calendar was totally reorganised in a new pattern of numbered ‘Sundays of the Year’ in place of the historic system built on ‘Sundays after Pentecost’. The pre-Lenten period of Septuagesima (seventy), Sexagesima (sixty) and Quinquagesima (fifty) Sundays, so called because ‘Quadragesima’, the Latin term for Lent means ‘forty‘ (days before Easter) was also abolished. The fifth Sunday of Lent was no longer to be kept as Passion Sunday. These last two changes permitted a clearer focus on Ash Wednesday (as the beginning of Lent) and Palm Sunday (as the first day of Holy Week) respectively. There were also changes to the Calendar of Saints.
FACING THE PEOPLE
It was assumed that in the early centuries of the church the celebrant faced the people,and critics of the traditional liturgy called for a return to what they took to be the original practice, and an end to what was described as the priest ‘turning his back’ on the congregation.
However, scholars are now agreed that in the early church, and ever since for that matter, right up to the implementation of the reforms following the Second Vatican Council, both celebrant and congregation faced East, because according to a very early tradition, the Lord would return from that direction at the end of the age. Liturgists had been misled by the layout of the ancient Roman basilicas in which the altar was built on a platform at the Western end of the church, the main doorway being at the Eastern end. Then the priest faced forward, not to look at the congregation or to be seen himself, but because he was praying to God, which meant looking eastwards.
The change went ahead anyway, even though it was not required in any Council document.[2]