Question:
If the Novus Ordo isn’t a new Mass but instead the ordinary form of the Latin Mass, why is it referred to as such by Pope Paul VI in his Address to a General Audience, Nov. 26, 1969?
Answer:
To be sure, the “New Mass” is new. The term ordinary does not refer to the age of the rite but is purely a legal term, indicating its practical status in the church today. Obviously, if you are talking about the past millennium, then the “extraordinary” form is the ordinary one. So the word does not indicate long-term historical, but actual, current circumstances.The term ordinary has more the sense of a current default mode of liturgy than an evaluation of its value as a rite.
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