A Beginners Guide to the Problems of the Novus Ordo Missae (Part II)

The faithful were not entertained, instructed, or encouraged at every turn; they were placed, quite deliberately, before God.
“It is a bit like the difference between Kool-Aid and a well-matured red wine,” said my beloved companion in her inimitable way as she struggled to articulate her first experience of a Solemn High Mass.
She did not mean it unkindly. In fact, there was a certain gentleness—even embarrassment—in her comparison, as though she feared it might sound irreverent. Yet it was precisely the sort of image that only someone untrained in polemics, but sensitive to reality, could produce. Kool-Aid and wine belong to entirely different worlds, not merely in taste but in origin, purpose, and depth. One is manufactured for immediacy: sweet, colorful, instantly gratifying, requiring no patience, no formation of the palate, no lingering reflection. The other is cultivated slowly, aged in silence, shaped by time, tradition, and restraint. To mistake one for the other is impossible …