Quiet Repairs: Small Liturgical Changes That Could Restore Reverence in the Novus Ordo
Clipped from https://orderedworship.com/2025/12/17/quiet-repairs-small-liturgical-changes-that-could-restore-reverence-in-the-novus-ordo/
by An Acolyte
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Many traditionally minded Catholics assume that the “Reform of the Reform” is effectively dead. As a result, most proposals for reform focus on highly visible changes to make it similar to the TLM: ad orientem, chant, the suppression of Communion in the hand, the elimination of extraordinary ministers of holy communion, or only using the Roman Canon, etc.
These proposals all concentrate on what the congregation sees and hears: posture, music, language, and distribution. Implemented top-down, they would almost certainly provoke resistance from both clergy and laity. The present generation has little living memory of the pre-Vatican II rite, and abrupt external changes risks accusations that Rome is attempting to reverse the Council.
There is an easier path, and one more likely to bear fruit over time. It focuses on the priest and deacon first, not the people. It accepts the structure of the current Roman Missal while quietly re-forming the sacred ministers’ understanding of who they are and what they are doing.
Most of what follows does not alter lay participation. Little of it requires catechesis. These are internal, clerical changes that would slowly reshape how the Mass is understood and celebrated from the altar outward.
1. Restore Select Private Prayers of the Priest
The traditional Roman Rite surrounded the priest with short, penitential, sacrificial prayers said quietly at key moments of the Mass. They were not instructional. They were formative. They reminded the priest, repeatedly, that he was offering a sacrifice, not facilitating a communal exercise.
At the beginning of Mass, as the priest ascended the altar, he prayed:
Take away from us, we pray, O Lord, our sins,
that with pure hearts we may be worthy to enter the Holy of Holies. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
As he kissed the altar, he prayed:
We pray to you, O Lord, by the merits of your Saints, whose relics are here, and of all the Saints, that you would graciously forgive all my sins. Amen.1
There were additional private prayers throughout the Mass, all ordered toward the same end: reminding the priest who he was, what he was doing, and asking for God’s mercy and help.
The Novus Ord o removed nearly all of them.
This was not because the prayers were doctrinally deficient. Reformers such as Jungmann argued that inaudible priestly prayers contributed little to participatio actuosa and were medieval accretions and therefore had to go.
The result was predictable. The priest now moves from function to function with no prayer. Over time, that shapes self-understanding. The priest is trained to preside or worse, entertain, rather than to offer.
Restoring even a limited set of these prayers would begin to correct that formation. Prayers such as Aufer a nobis, the pre-Gospel cleansing prayer, and the traditional prayers before the priest’s Communion would do real work. They would slow the rite precisely where the priest most needs to remember who he is and what he is doing.
The congregation would not notice. The priest would.
2. Incense Without Prayer: A Small but Revealing Oddity
The General Instruction of the Roman Missal contains a telling instruction. When incense is used, the priest is explicitly directed not to pray. GIRM §277 states that he blesses the incense “without saying anything.”
This is unusual. The Roman Rite rarely directs a sacred action while specifically withholding prayer. Silence normally signifies recollection, not the absence of intention.
In the traditional rite, the imposition of incense is always accompanied by prayer. While several forms existed, even restoring one would be a subtle but meaningful change. Gesture and prayer belong together.
The Novus Ordo retained the gesture but removed the prayer. Over time, that matters. Incense risks becoming aesthetic rather than intentional, another instance of “smells and bells.”
Restoring a traditional prayer at the imposition of incense would be a straightforward repair. It would not affect the congregation. It would simply return to the priest a moment of explicit God-directed prayer.
3. Make the Traditional Offertory Prayers Optional
The Offertory is where the reform made a distinct break with the past.
The traditional Offertory prayers are explicit in their sacrificial and penitential orientation. They name the priest as an unworthy offerer and speak directly of propitiation, sin, and the living and the dead, treating the elements as sacrificial from the beginning. The Novus Ordo retained the language of offering but reshaped the prayers to emphasize thanksgiving for God’s gifts and their origin in creation and human labor. Reserving the sacrificial meaning to the Eucharistic Prayer
While this choice was deliberate, it is also not irreversible.
Divine Worship: The Missal already preserves the traditional Roman Offertory prayers almost verbatim. This is an important addition in the post-conciliar forms of the Roman Rite. It demonstrates that these prayers are not incompatible with Vatican II ecclesiology and are not theologically suspect.
Making them optional in the Novus Ordo would not undo the reform. It would permit recovery. Priests inclined toward a more explicit sacrificial prayers already exist. The Church gains nothing by preventing them from praying these older prayers. It would also open the door for restoring one of the deacon’s ancient duties.
4. Restore the Deacon’s Offertory Prayer and Action
The Novus Ordo rightly emphasizes that the deacon is the ordinary minister of the chalice. But it removed a ritual action that clearly expressed that theology.
Historically, the deacon offered the chalice himself. A third-century legend records St. Lawrence telling Pope Sixtus II, “You were never accustomed to offering the sacrifice without a minister … to whom you entrusted the dispensing of the Lord’s Blood.” 2 Whatever its precise historical value, the legend reflects an early and enduring link between the deacon and the chalice.
As the Roman rite developed, the priest came to pray the chalice offertory together with the deacon. By the late medieval form of the offertory, the deacon supported the priest’s arm as the chalice was raised and recited with him, “We offer unto thee, O Lord, the chalice of salvation…” At the same time, it was clearly understood that the priest, not the deacon, was the chief offerer of the sacrifice and of the chalice itself.3 This ritual action therefore did not confuse roles, but rather expressed them: the deacon’s ministry was ordered to the sacrifice, even while remaining subordinate to the priest’s unique sacrificial office. The deacon’s role was thus tied directly to the offering, not merely to the later distribution of the Precious Blood.
The Novus Ordo altered this logic. While it retained the deacon’s association with the chalice, it removed the offertory prayer and ritual action that had clearly linked his ministry to the sacrificial offering and to the chalice itself. In place of that earlier symbolism, the Novus Ordo restored the deacon’s raising of the chalice at the minor elevation, a gesture that had disappeared from the traditional Roman rite,4 but one that no longer ties the deacon’s role within the act of the offering itself.
It didn’t have to be this way. The offertory prayer of the chalice in the Normative Mass as presented to the Synod of Bishops in 1967 read:
We offer to you, O Lord, this chalice, in which the mystery of the unity of your people is expressed, that it may become the Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ 5
Had this text been retained, it would have preserved a clear ritual moment in which the deacon continued his traditional role of offering the chalice with the priest. Its omission in the Novus Ordo was therefore not preordained, but the result of a later decision based on concerns involving the laity’s active participation at the offertory.6 This concern ultimately led to the loss of the ancient and venerable duty of the deacon, occurring ironically right as his ministry was being re-emphasized at Vatican II.
Restoring the joint offertory prayer would quietly restore a tradition possibly dating back to the time of St. Lawrence. It would root the deacon’s service once again in the offering itself.
5. Anchor the Sign of Peace to the Altar
In the Roman tradition, peace flows from the altar because it flows from the sacrifice. The altar represents Christ. The kiss of the altar is an act of reverence toward Him.
Traditionally, the priest and deacon kissed the altar together. This was the only time in the Traditional Roman Rite where the deacon kissed the altar. The priest then gave the peace to the deacon, and the peace descended hierarchically. Only then did it reach others.
The Novus Ordo severed that visual logic. Peace now appears to arise horizontally, with little reference to the altar at all.
A simple repair would restore meaning without removing the sign. The priest and deacon kiss the altar together. The priest gives the peace to the deacon. Only then does the deacon invite the assembly to exchange peace.
Nothing is taken from the people. Something is returned to the rite.
Why This Approach Matters
These proposals share a common feature. They do not attempt to persuade the congregation. They form the clergy instead.
That is how the Roman Rite historically worked. The Church once had many Octaves, part of their intention was to form the clergy. Liturgy trains the priest and deacon first, trusting that their posture, pace, and orientation would shape the celebration organically over time.
This is not a cure-all. It is slow ritual repair.
If reverence is to return to the Novus Ordo in a stable way, it will not come from Roman crackdowns or visible reversals. Those have already shown their limits. But as new priests are formed by prayers and gestures that quietly insist the priest is more than a presider, the deacon more than an assistant, and peace a fruit of sacrifice, something real can change.
- Since relics are no longer required in altars, this prayer may need to be re-written.
- Josef A. Jungmann, The Mass of the Roman Rite: Its Origins and Development, trans. Francis Brunner, C.SS.R., vol. 2 (Notre Dame, IN: Christian Classics, Ave Maria Press, 2012), 59.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Christiaan W. Kappes, The “Missa Normativa” of 1967: Its History and Principles as Applied to the Liturgy of the Mass (PhD diss., Pontificium Institutum Liturgicum, Pontificium Athenaeum S. Anselmi de Urbe, Rome, 2012), 171, n. 377, citing Annibale Bugnini, The Reform of the Liturgy (1948–1975) (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1990), 362. English translation mine (AI-assisted).
- Paul VI intervened in the drafting of the offertory texts, requiring that they be rewritten so that the laity had verbal-active participation at the offertory. Kappes, “Missa Normativa” of 1967, 131 n. 382.
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