The Whappsters have some clippings of Sacrosanctum Concilium and this one deserves inclusion in the sacramentary in some form. For it was from the side of Christ as He slept the sleep of death upon the cross that there came forth "the wondrous sacrament of the whole Church" (13). Why is the rhetoric of our canons often so much more prayerful and theologically rich than our V2 prayers (or their translations) themselves? This is another point the Orthodox remind us of and actually practice: prayer first, official rulings second. Official doctrinal statements may reinforce and guide prayer, but the treasures of our apostolic faith should be stored in the prayers themselves; doctrinal pronouncements are merely the Church's ecclesiastical (legal) instruments that protect title in those treasures.
Speaking of title, all that the motu proprio does essentially is quiet title after an adverse possession. Modernist bishops in the Church had roped off everything predating V2, telling us no one is allowed to come onto that parcel of land without their permission. Well, that didn't stop the SSPX, who went ahead to trespass and occupy it hostilely, openly and notoriously, actually, exclusively, and continuously. Nor did it stop their less seditious cousins who followed the rules but argued all along that they had been unjustly ousted and that the bishops had wrongfully appropriated exclusive title to themselves for land that belonged to all the faithful.
So I like the descriptions of Summorum Ponticum as a "liberalizing" act because it 1) restores some worth to the term "liberal," after its many decades of corrosion and perversion by Liberals and 2) truly does give our Apostolic inheritance back to the laity, which raises the analogy of testamentary challenges, subject for another day perhaps. In the meantime, we can enjoy the recognition by our court of highest earthly appeal that apostolicity in liturgy remains one of the notes of the Catholic Church. The Church Militant retains a life tenancy in that tradition, which means the doctrine of waste must be applied to determine its duties to the grantor (Christ) and remainderman (the Church Triumphant)...or something like that. Back to bar review.
