Medieval, Baroque, Counter-Reformation...

On one of the blogs I follow there has been a discussion about medieval, baroque or counter-reformation liturgy and which one is the better or more appropriate one now. It seems like a lot of silliness to me really. I know that there are those in the Orthodox Western Rite who think in exactly these terms, although they would couch the argument slightly differently: pre-Schism vs. post-Schism. I still find it a bore. Honestly, who cares? It seems more like being caught up in one's imagination and fantasy than any thing else.
   The Western Rite (WR) is not about re-creating some idyllic golden period, or re-covering a past from 1,000 years ago. It is less about recovery and more about reunion. The temptation to recover something lost is very much within the spirit of the Liturgical movement that led to great changes of the Second Vatican Council. It led to a complete revolution in practice. Besides, how many of us actually lived and experienced the pre-Schism use? (I have heard rumors that the former Vicar General, V. Rev. Fr. Paul Scheirla may well have done so, but that has not yet been confirmed by any hard evidence and so I remain skeptical.)
   What would the vision be if Rome and the East were to reunite? Would it mean that Rome would have to follow only pre-schism Western use? How ridiculous! I can't imagine the Orthodox even making such a claim. We have officially told Rome that we find the restoration of the pre-Paul VI Mass to be very helpful to our relationship. Hmmm, the Russian found that to be a good thing and told the Pope so. Not a supposed pre-schism usage, but the 1962 Missale Romanum. Interesting. We think… it's a good thing. Make's one thing doesn't it?
   The truth of the matter is that the WR has had an official use since it was received in the Antiochian Archdiocese. Its use has been that which was held in the "dissident West" in 1950, and the text was to be the 1958 English Missal. To those who know the use of 1950 and the 1958 Missal, it's a bit confusing since the 1958 greatly simplified things. It didn't have all of the old vigil masses, it lowered the ranking of many feasts, created some new ones, inserted a new Holy Week… but there you have it. It would seem that one was to know the older Mass so well that one could make the necessary changes to the 58 missal and use it.
   Actually, I think the issue of the 1958 missal was simply a pragmatic selection. At the time the only canon in use in our WR was that of the ancient Latin canon. The only missal that was in print at the time which included all of the Latin propers, prefaces, and canon in English, was in fact the 1958 Knott English Missal. It was selected because it was available not because it was the ideal.
   That having been said, there is no evidence at all that supports the notion of trying to recreate a pure Western Rite through Orthodox (i.e., Byzantine) or historical lenses. The WR was not a romantic movement, but one of reunion. It took real living Western Christians and reunited them to the Orthodox Church as they were. The impulse was true ecumenism. It ought also to be noted, and this is no small point, that the use of the WR at the time was the same as the Anglo-Catholics and the Roman Catholics. There was at that time a unity of liturgical practice. This was simply authorized among the Orthodox.
   The necessity of the WR to be somehow liturgically different from the Latins and Anglicans was not part of the deposit of the WR. That is something that developed as the Latins and Anglican (and all of the West) changed to the newer liturgical forms. It was only then that the WR Orthodox stood out as somehow liturgically unique. So what was the original focus that made us different from the West? It was our ecclesial context. We didn't look different, but we lived in union with the East theologically and sacramentally. The liturgy was simply taken for granted… that's how we do things. It was not nearly so self-conscious.
   But times have changed. Clergy are no longer taught the older liturgy, so we need to spend time tutoring them and their communities before they become fully, sacramentally Orthodox. We need to teach them the straight stuff rather than giving some odd notions of our own. One such that I have heard is that communities have been encouraged to use the Liturgy of St. Gregory throughout the year except in Lent, and then to use the Liturgy of St. Tikhon. How silly. Where does this come from? An effort to mimick the East? Or I have heard provisional parishes told not to do the asperges on Sundays because "it is a cathedral or monastic custom, not parochial". Huh? Every parish was required to do the asperges before the principle Mass on Sunday. Enough of the silliness. Just teach the straight stuff.
   It is not about being medieval, or baroque, or pre-schism or post-schism. It is about living the faith with the liturgy that is given. It is about bringing real, living people into communion where they are, not where they might have been. There is a starting point and that has been supplied. It is not the novus ordo. It is the "old mass". For heaven's sake, let us just live it and stop fantasizing about what we might make it.