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

I write this, coincidentally, on the morning after having assisted at a Solemn High Mass on the Feast of the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady.
Even now, hours later, my soul still longs to return—to last night, to that sacred time and place where heaven bent low toward earth. There was something so rare, so saturated with reverence and beauty, that the heart instinctively understands it has tasted a small foretaste of eternity. Such is the gift granted by the Mass of the Ages.
Whether one possesses an intellectual grasp of every rubric, gesture, or whispered prayer of this venerable liturgy is, in a sense, secondary. The Traditional Latin Mass operates on a level deeper than explanation. On a purely experiential level—on the level of worship rather than analysis—it is impossible to leave this treasure of the Faith without the unmistakable awareness that one has participated in something truly other. Something awesome, transcendent, and fearsome in the proper theological sense. One …