The perils of the ad populum Mass
I have occasion to go to a N.O. from time to time, and it is amazing, when one attends an N.O. only rarely, how "face-centered" it all is. Even with me, myself, and I, all three of us, constantly thinking, "No, I'm going to focus of the liturgy and Our Lord, focus, focus, focus...", helplessly find myself contemplating the priest's face, his every blink, angle of head, raised eyebrow.
It's just incredible. And then, of course, POW! I've got to shake hands! Er, wait...what? It is incredibly disconcerting experience, and one that is -- shall we say -- "not conducive to prayer."
It's just best to sit in the back, or look out a window, if by God's grace, there's a nice one to look out of.
None of that makes the rite invalid, I hasten to add, because God is always faithful (Romans 3:3), and we have entered into the New Covenant with Him (and thus into all the old ones), and He is always faithful, whether we are or not. But wow, I thank the Lord I only experience an N.O. rarely now.
Closely related to this: there's no way to attend a Traditional Latin Mass for the first time and not be surprised at the ornateness of the priest's chasuble. (A chasuble is the outer most garment of a priest who is vestured to say Mass.)
The ornate chasuble a TLM
priest wears, of which we mainly see the back, prevents all that "face-watching" endemic to the New Mass. The
chasuble symbolizes the royal robe the Roman soldiers threw over Our
Lord, and when the priest vests, he prays of the chasuble as the "yoke
of Christ". And on top of all that beautiful symbolism, it acts as a
mobile iconostasis, an icon screen. separating us from the Mysteries at
the altar as the iconostasis does in an Eastern Liturgy.
An Préachán
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