CRANMER AND THE NEW MASS OF PAUL VI (Continued)

 

Thomas cranmer

III. THE HOLY TABLE.

  A year after Cranmer's ascension to the fullness of ecclesiastical power, one of the foreign Protestants, who invaded England, wrote with great rejoicing to Bullinger, who had succeeded Zwingli in Zurich. "Arae fada sunt heree", the aras have become pigsty. (11) This was not entirely true, since, in various places, pious priests and congregations had preserved the ancient altars. (Something similar was done after the Second Vatican Council, they wanted to eliminate the traditionalist altars of the old Churches, but some secular governments opposed such atrocity. In Mexico, because many ancient churches have been declared national monuments, these altars in many of them were preserved intact, although in front of them is the "table") But in November 1550, Cranmer, through the Privy Council, issued an edict ordering that all altars must be destroyed throughout the Kingdom.

Henceforth, whenever the rite of the Holy Eucharist was celebrated, a wooden table had to be used. With this order went Cranmer's explanation, which, as Philip Hughes says in his definitive work "The Reformation in England" (12), "leaves no doubt that one religion had been replaced by another". The "considerations" (13) warn that:"The shape of a table is the correct use of the Lord's Supper. Because the use of an altar is to make a sacrifice of that Supper; while the use of the table is to serve men to eat at it. If we We come to feed on him, spiritually to eat his body and spiritually to drink his blood, which is the true use of the Lord's Supper, no one can deny that the shape of a table is more apt to represent the Lord's table; shape of an altar "  Cranmer tries after explaining why he kept the word " altar " in his new Prayer Book, and says that by that word he means" the table on which Holy Communion is distributed " , since it can be called an altar, because there it is offered"our sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving."

The edict was enforced rigidly.

When one of the bishops (14) resisted removing the altars in his diocese, he was imprisoned and deposed from his see. In London, the alterations were immediate and sweeping. The bishop, who had been one of Cranmer's chaplains, decided to make a new table the furthest away, the most inaccessible to non-communicators. A contemporary chronicle (15) tells us that in the Cathedral of Saint Paul, "he removed the table in the middle of the upper choir and put its ends facing east and west and, after the Creed, he spread a veil so that no one could to see those who received communion, and he closed the iron bars of the choir, in the north part and in the south part with bricks and mortar, so that no one could stay in the choir ".

There was no longer a Real Presence, nor Sacrifice, it was logical that he eliminated those who attended the Eucharistic rites and did not take communion in them. That is why Cranmer ordered "that there should be no celebration of the Lord's Supper, unless there were a good number of communicators with the priest, at his discretion; and that if there were not more than twenty people, in the parish, of discretion , there would be no communion, unless four, or at least three, communed with the priest. And, to remove the superstition, that any person has or may have in bread and wine, it will suffice that the bread is ordinary to eat at the table with another meal, although it would be more convenient to look for the best and purest wheat bread. And if there is any bread or wine left, the priest will take it for his own use. " 116l.(With much regret we verify that these reforms dictated by a heretic in 1500 are being applied to the letter at this time since, by changing the rite of sacrifice of the Mass according to the Council of Trent and applying the "new rite" they are invalidating the Holy Mass, private Masses were abolished and, I wonder, where is the famous ex opere operato proper to the Everlasting Mass?Now THERE IS NO MASS BUT THERE ARE FAITHFUL WHO COMMUNICATE WITH THE PRIEST to deny this horrible reality is to not want to accept the facts that, every day, strike our understanding and disconcert us. Hasn't the bread used in the modern mass also suffered alterations? The modernist priests in their eagerness to emulate Cranmer also use ordinary bread, can anyone deny it? The examples of this class are unnecessary. Is it not the destruction of the Sacrifice of the Mass and the invalidation of the New Mass?)

"The last stone was to pounce on the mound, under which is hidden the ancient faith of the Holy Eucharist -the phrase is Phillp Hughes was the prohibition of kneeling to receive Holy Communion. (In the" New Mass "gradually suppressed receiving communion on his knees, then given standing up and in the mouth, and lately, communion is given standing up and in the hand. They have gone beyond Cramer's reforms)What was this but idolatry? A rubric was later added to the new Prayr'e Book, in which it was explained "that this was not intended to mean that an adoration was given or should be given to sacramental bread and wine, which was materially received, or to a real or essential presence of the natural Body or the Blood of Christ, as if they were present there ". (17).

As time passed, the table became more table, being able to use it for other purposes. Explicit instructions were given so that "the holy table", in each one of the temples, be placed in the place that the old altars had, except for the cases in which the sacrament of communion had to be distributed. On these occasions, the table It had to be placed in a convenient place within the gate, so that the minister could be heard more easily by the communicants in his prayer and the administration, and the communicants could, in greater numbers, communicate with the said minister.

And, after communion, the same “holy table” had to be put back in its place. “ It was the Puritans who, in the following century, brought Cranmer's work to its logical conclusion, not only to receive communion seated , but to use the "holy table" as a suitable piece of furniture in which to place their hats.

IV. THE CANON OF THE MASS.

  The vernacular and the "holy table" were the practical means by which Cranmer accustomed the ordinary people of England to the new doctrines. Doctrines taken by the current "New Mass" and, worst of all, increased without consideration or prudence.

In this way, the people were able, through this community action, to accept the idea that a simple meal was not a sacrifice and that these rubrics were nothing more than eating a little ordinary bread and drinking a little wine; and that what they were told was what they practiced in memory, as a memory, of something that happened a long time ago. (With this way of thinking, the bloodless Sacrifice that the traditionalist priest celebrates every day is eliminated and about the Bloody Sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross, only a vague memory or "memory" remains of something already passed without significance in the New Mass)And because these practices and usages had a greater impact than theological arguments, on uneducated people, in the short five-year reign of Queen Mary when England, for the last time, returned to the true, faith, Cardinal Pole insisted on the reestablishment not only of the altars and of the Mass, but of the simplest ceremonies that Cranmer had abolished such as holy water, ash, palms - "to observe what is the beginning of the true education of the children of God "and the destruction of what the heretics" make the first point in their attempt to destroy the Church. " (18).

But the center of Cranmer's work, of course, was the theological basis for the new beliefs, translated into liturgical form. His final version of what the Mass had been and what he wanted it to be from now on was not, as Gregory Dix insists, a disorderly attack on Catholic rites, but an effective attempt, put into liturgical form, to sustain and inculcate the heretical doctrine of justification by faith alone. '' (19). Return to retake the heretical doctrine of Martin Luther, on the justification of the soul by faith alone. "Sin a lot, but believe more" typical phrase of this heresiarch. 

And, it is considered, the work of Cranmer like a masterpiece.  The logical consequence of the basic doctrine of the Protestants "of justification by faith alone" has been and is the abolition of the sacraments. External actions obviously cannot be admitted as causes in the economy of grace. Luther, of course, saw this, from the beginning, and suppressed the five (smaller sacraments, at the same time that he attacked communion under a species, transubstantiation, the doctrine of the Eucharistic Sacrifice, taking away their value and true meaning from baptism and communion, which he could not deny, since these sacraments are undoubtedly commanded in the New Testament. Since it was not possible to free Christendom from these external acts, from baptism and communion, it was necessary to empty them of all intelligible meaning. period, all the Protestant sects agreed, thus the Zwingli, as the Calvinists and the Lutherans.

Cranmer accepted, as he was obliged to do, with the logic of Zwingli, that "the doctrine 'Sola fides iustificat' is the foundation and the principle to deny the Real Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Sacrament" (2nd) and, As we have seen, he decided to attack the Mass, with the same vehemence as Luther, in his famous profession of faith: "I declare that all brothels, (though God has so severely condemned them, all homicides, crimes of blood, theft and adultery have done less harm than the abomination of the popal Mass "(21).

Cranmer's alternative to the Mass is clearly seen in his two Prayer Books, the 1549 and the 1552. Like the later engineers of the changes, he thought more conveniently not to make all the changes at once, so as not to provoke the opposition, but there is no doubt that the 1552 version of his liturgy was on his mind from the beginning; and "since that Prayer Book of 1552 still gives us the total structure of the present Anglican liturgy and ninety-five percent of, its very words" (22), we will only take into account here this liuturgy of 1552.

We want to recall here, without comment, a few words that, in his Pastoral Letter of October 12, 1969, Cardinal Heenan wrote: "Why has the Mass undergone changes lately? Here is the answer: " It would have been little less It's impossible to introduce all the changes at once. Obviously it was more prudent to make changes gradually and imperceptibly. If all the changes had been made at once, you would have been shocked. “ Shocking words of this Cardinal that give much to grieve today when we see these changes so evident in the "New Mass."

Let's go back to Cranmer. The Canon was divided into three parts, which are: a) The Prayer of the Militant Church. b) The Prayer of Consecration. And c) The Oblation Prayer. Generally speaking, the first sentence corresponds to the sentences Te igitur; Memento, Domine and Communicating. the second to Hanc igitur, Quam Oblationem and Qui pridie; and the third, Unde et memores, Supra quae, and Suplices te rogamus. (Do not

there is a parallel in the prayers Memento etiam, Nobis quoque peccatoribus and per quem. To appreciate exactly what Cranmer did, we must carefully consider those three parts of his Canon.

 

REFERENCES:

 

12 .- "Original Letters" 11, John ab Ulmis to Bullinger.

13 .- "Reasons Why the Lard's Board should rather be after.

- the form of a Table, than of an Altar. "Parker Society- Cranmer 11.

.14.-George Doy cf chichester.       

15.Wriothesley.       ,

16.-Rubrics ot end of 1552 Proyer Book.

17.-Tha "Block Rubric" - 1552 Proyer Boo.

1 B.-Pole's Sermon, in 1557, "The Reformation in England"

by Philip Hughes, vol. 11, pp. 246-253.

19 .- "The Shape of the Liturgy" - Dix p. 672.

20.-Letters of Stephen Gardiner, p. 277.

21 .-: - Werke, XV, p: 773.

22.-Opus cit. p. 668 - Dix. . '