• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

We’re a 501(c)3 public charity established in 2006. We have no endowment, no major donors, no savings, and run no advertisements. We exist solely by the generosity of small donors.

  • Donate
  • Our Team
    • Our Editorial Policy
    • Who We Are
    • How To Contact Us
    • Sainte Marie Bulletin Articles
  • Pew Resources
    • Brébeuf Catholic Hymnal
    • Jogues Illuminated Missal
    • KYRIALE • Saint Antoine Daniel
    • Campion Missal, 3rd Edition
    • Repository • “Spanish Music”
    • Ordinary Form Feasts (Sainte-Marie)
  • MUSICAL WEBSITES
    • René Goupil Gregorian Chant
    • Noël Chabanel Psalms
    • Nova Organi Harmonia (2,279 pages)
    • Roman Missal, 3rd Edition
    • Catechism of Gregorian Rhythm
    • Father Enemond Massé Manuscripts
    • Lalemant Polyphonic
  • Miscellaneous
    • Site Map
    • Secrets of the Conscientious Choirmaster
    • “Wedding March” for lazy organists
    • Emporium Kevin Allen
    • Saint Jean de Lalande Library
    • Sacred Music Symposium 2023
    • The Eight Gregorian Modes
    • Gradual by Pothier’s Protégé
    • Seven (7) Considerations
Views from the Choir Loft

Sheed on the Missal of 1968

Dr. Peter Kwasniewski · April 17, 2014

NE OF MY FAVORITE Catholic authors is Frank J. Sheed, a vigorous Catholic apologist and author of many fine books. He was the finest flower of that remarkable preconciliar “golden age” of Catholic apologetics and popular theology to which, even now, we do not have anything exactly comparable. Sheed’s book Theology for Beginners is an accessible, refreshing, and illuminating book that every single Catholic ought to read at some point in his or her life; the larger Theology and Sanity, laid out on similar lines, is a masterpiece by all standards. And I could mention many other books, all worthy of study.

This is why I was so surprised at a little book of his published by Sheed & Ward in 1968, entitled Is It the Same Church? Coming from the pen of this great man, how disappointing it was! Reading between the lines, it sounds like Sheed is feeling plenty disturbed at what’s going on in the Church by 1968, and yet he more or less forces himself to put a good face on it all, rather than following the heroic path of men like Dietrich van Hildebrand who fearlessly identified the errors that were causing the confusion and who responded to them with cogent arguments that still nourish serious Catholics today.

Perhaps the most dismaying chapter is the fifth, “Mass and Eucharist,” which, in response to the serious objections people were making back in the mid-sixties to the increasingly radical and senseless changes in the Church’s liturgy, repeats the comfortless truism that “the Mass is the Mass.” Sheed seems to think that all you have to say is: “Look, the changes don’t affect the essence, so give up your attachment to the accidents!”―which is a superficial position, both devotionally and theologically. A hippy priest wearing love beads could say Mass in the great outdoors with teenagers singing pop songs and roasting marshmallows over a campfire, and it would still be THE mass. But come now, is this the way that our Lord wants His sacrifice to be represented among us and applied to us? Would it be fitting either to the objective reality of the holy, immortal, awesome, and life-giving mysteries of faith or to our subjective grasp of their meaning and our preparation for partaking of them? Has not our Lord offered us guidance in this matter over the course of twenty centuries of tradition, church councils, and the papal magisterium? Is there no such thing as a profound schooling by means of the celebration of the liturgy, and a worship we pay to God through the very forms we use?

The Sheedian answer―which is all too commonly heard in conservative circles―effectively dismisses as inessential everything other than the words of consecration. Yet this position leaves itself wide open to the critique of Schmemann, for whom the corruption of Western liturgy is proportional to the increasing isolation of the act of transubstantiation as the one “moment of divine activity” in the entire liturgy. While Schmemann is incorrect about many aspects of the history and theology of the Latin liturgy, he is correct to posit corruption as the inevitable result of insisting on the inessentiality or accidentality of everything other than the Eucharist qua confected sacrament. This reductionism―traces of which, incidentally, are seen not only in the Cartesian ethos of the Novus Ordo but also, within the context of traditional Catholic worship, in a determined preference for the Low Mass over the High or Solemn Mass―reflects a shallow grasp of the ecclesial meaning, cosmic dimensions, and heavenly archetype of the Eucharistic Sacrifice itself, a lack of attentiveness to the total signification of the rite in and through the rich intertwining of all its parts.

Apropos the same historical period in which Sheed was writing, Robert Fay observed:

[T]he Christian faith, and the Catholic Church in particular, have been in full-cultural retreat since the 1960s…. Yet there was another revolution in the 1960s―an internal Catholic one―that was in many ways as profound as the one taking place in the streets of Paris, New York, and London. It was a liturgical revolution, and it impacted each and every Catholic at that most fundamental unit of faith―Sunday morning Mass.

With typical forthrightness, Fr. Zuhlsdorf explains what happened, and, by implication, what must be done in order to address the catastrophe:

The Church’s identity was dealt a massive blow with the sweeping changes to Holy Mass and other rites during and after the Second Vatican Council. Paul VI permitted the Consilum, the committee set up to execute the changes mandated by the Council Fathers, to go way beyond the Council’s mandates and make a staggering number of changes not actually called for by the Council. The result was the artificially constructed “Novus Ordo.” Making matters worse, the “spirit” of the times so deeply quaffed by liberals short-circuited even the faithful implementation of the artifically created Novus Ordo. The results were wide-spread liturgical abuses and illicit experimentation, a loss of continuity of worship from place to place and with our forebears, and a grave enervation of our Catholic identity. With the weakening of our Catholic identity, we also became weaker in the eyes of the world at large and therefore easier to drive from the public square.

What, then, is the answer to this crisis? It must begin with the peaceful acceptance of the wisdom of Pope Benedict XVI, who said to every one of the world’s bishops in July 2007:

What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful. It behooves all of us to preserve the riches which have developed in the Church’s faith and prayer, and to give them their proper place.

Once the Mass of the Ages has won the “proper place” that belongs to it, we may then begin to speak with humble truth of a new springtime in the Church.

Please visit THIS PAGE to learn more about Dr. Kwasniewski’s exciting new publication,
Sacred Choral Works, a 273-page collection of a cappella choir music for the Liturgy.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

Subscribe

It greatly helps us if you subscribe to our mailing list!

* indicates required

About Dr. Peter Kwasniewski

A graduate of Thomas Aquinas College (B.A. in Liberal Arts) and The Catholic University of America (M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy), Dr. Peter Kwasniewski is currently Professor at Wyoming Catholic College. He is also a published and performed composer, especially of sacred music.

Primary Sidebar

Corpus Christi Watershed

President’s Corner

    Luis Martínez Must Go!
    Sevilla Cathedral (entry dated 13 December 1564): The chapter orders Luis Martínez, a cathedral chaplain, to stay away from the choirbook-stand when the rest of the singers gather around it to sing polyphony—the reason being that “he throws the others out of tune.” [Excerpt from “The Life of Father Francisco Guerrero.”]
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Urgent! • We Desperately Need Funds!
    A few days ago, the president of Corpus Christi Watershed posted this urgent appeal for funds. Please help us make sure we’re never forced to place our content behind a paywall. We feel it’s crucial that 100% of our content remains free to everyone. We’re a tiny 501(c)3 public charity, entirely dependent upon the generosity of small donors. We have no endowment and no major donors. We run no advertisements and have no savings. We beg you to consider donating $4.00 per month. Thank you!
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    “Booklet of Eucharistic Hymns” (16 pages)
    I was asked to create a booklet for my parish to use during our CORPUS CHRISTI PROCESSION on 22 June 2025. Would you be willing to look over the DRAFT BOOKLET (16 pages) I came up with? I tried to include a variety of hymns: some have a refrain; some are in major, others in minor; some are metered, others are plainsong; some are in Spanish, some are in Latin, but most are in English. Normally, we’d use the Brébeuf Hymnal—but we can’t risk having our congregation carry those heavy books all over the city to various churches.
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Quick Thoughts

    Pope Pius XII Hymnal?
    Have you ever heard of the Pope Pius XII Hymnal? It’s a real book, published in the United States in 1959. Here’s a sample page so you can verify with your own eyes it existed.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    “Hybrid” Chant Notation?
    Over the years, many have tried to ‘simplify’ plainsong notation. The O’Fallon Propers attempted to simplify the notation—but ended up making matters worse. Dr. Karl Weinmann tried to do the same in the time of Pope Saint Pius X by replacing each porrectus. You can examine a specimen from his edition and see whether you agree he complicated matters. In particular, look at what he did with éxsules fílii Hévae.
    —Corpus Christi Watershed
    Antiphons Don’t Match?
    A reader wants to know why the Entrance and Communion antiphons in certain publications deviate from what’s prescribed by the GRADUALE ROMANUM published after Vatican II. Click here to read our answer. The short answer is: the Adalbert Propers were never intended to be sung. They were intended for private Masses only (or Masses without music). The “Graduale Parvum,” published by the John Henry Newman Institute of Liturgical Music in 2023, mostly uses the Adalbert Propers—but sometimes uses the GRADUALE text: e.g. Solemnity of Saints Peter and Paul (29 June).
    —Corpus Christi Watershed

Random Quote

“Iconographic tradition has theologically interpreted the manger and the swaddling cloths in terms of the theology of the Fathers. The child stiffly wrapped in bandages is seen as prefiguring the hour of his death: from the outset, he is the sacrificial victim, as we shall see more closely when we examine the reference to the first-born. The manger, then, was seen as a kind of altar.”

— Pope Benedict XVI (2012)

Recent Posts

  • Hidden Gem: Ascendit Deus (Dalitz)
  • PDF Download • Soprano Descant — “Hail, Holy Queen Enthroned Above”
  • “Dom Jausions had a skilled hand. His transcriptions are masterpieces of neatness & precision.”
  • Pope Leo XIV pays tribute to Palestrina
  • PDF Download • Palestrina’s “Ave Maria”

Subscribe

Subscribe

* indicates required

Copyright © 2025 Corpus Christi Watershed · Isaac Jogues on Genesis Framework · WordPress · Log in

Corpus Christi Watershed is a 501(c)3 public charity dedicated to exploring and embodying as our calling the relationship of religion, culture, and the arts. This non-profit organization employs the creative media in service of theology, the Church, and Christian culture for the enrichment and enjoyment of the public.

The election of Pope Leo XIV has been exciting, and we’re filled with hope for our apostolate’s future!

But we’re under pressure to transfer our website to a “subscription model.”

We don’t want to do that. We believe our website should remain free to all.

Our president has written the following letter:

President’s Message (dated 30 May 2025)

Are you able to support us?

clock.png

Time's up