The motu proprio Summorum Pontificum (2007) of Pope Benedict XVI introduced into the contemporary ecclesial vocabulary a distinction that has since become both fruitful and contentious: the “Ordinary Form” and the “Extraordinary Form” of the one Roman Rite. Benedict was at pains to insist that these are not two rites but two usages of the same lex orandi. The Missal promulgated by Pope Paul VI after the Second Vatican Council constitutes the Ordinary Form; the Missal of Pope John XXIII (1962), standing in organic continuity with the Tridentine codification of Pope Pius V, may be celebrated as the Extraordinary Form.
Benedict’s claim was juridical and pastoral, but its deeper import is theological. The coexistence of the two forms within one rite can be understood as a “polar unity” in the sense articulated by Hans Urs von Balthasar: a living tension of complementary principles whose unity is not the flattening of difference but its orchestration.
Benedict himself rejected the hermeneutic of rupture that would pit preconciliar and postconciliar liturgy against one another. In his famous 2005 address to the Roman Curia, he contrasted a “hermeneutic of discontinuity and rupture” with a “hermeneutic of reform in continuity.”
The liturgy, precisely because it is the Church’s most public act of faith, must embody this continuity in a way that is not merely conceptual but sacramental. The two forms of the Roman Rite thus stand as a visible sign that tradition is not a museum piece nor a revolutionary program, but a living stream whose depth and breadth can be perceived only by holding together its historical strata.
To interpret this polarity in a richer theological key, it is helpful to turn to Balthasar’s account of the Marian and Petrine dimensions of the Church. For Balthasar, the Church is first Marian before she is Petrine. Mary, in her fiat and her immaculate receptivity, embodies the Church’s contemplative, bridal, and receptive essence. Peter, in his confession and commission, embodies the Church’s apostolic, juridical, and governing mission.
These two dimensions are inseparable; yet they are not identical. The Marian dimension grounds the Petrine; the Petrine serves the Marian. The Church is not an institution that happens to have a mystical interior; she is a mystery that necessarily assumes institutional form.
If one applies this polarity to the liturgy, the Extraordinary and Ordinary Forms may be seen as sacramental embodiments of Marian and Petrine accents within the one Roman Rite. The Extraordinary Form, with its hieratic language, ritual density, and pronounced orientation toward transcendence, gives privileged expression to the Marian dimension: receptivity, silence, adoration, and the primacy of divine action. The Ordinary Form, especially as envisioned by the Council’s Constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium, gives heightened visibility to the Petrine dimension: proclamation, pastoral intelligibility, missionary outreach, and the gathered assembly’s audible participation in the apostolic faith.
This is not to reduce either form to a caricature. Both forms are Marian and Petrine; both are contemplative and apostolic. Yet each manifests a particular accent. In the Extraordinary Form, the priest’s orientation ad orientem, his subdued voice in the Canon, and the stability of the ritual gestures place the emphasis unmistakably on the divine initiative. The faithful are drawn into a mystery that precedes them and exceeds them. The silence of the Canon, in particular, is not an absence but a fullness – a sign that the Church receives from Christ what she cannot generate.
Here the Marian fiat resounds: “Let it be done unto me according to thy word.” The liturgy unfolds as something given, to which the Church consents.
In the Ordinary Form, by contrast, the expanded lectionary, the vernacular proclamation, and the audible Eucharistic Prayer render explicit the apostolic dimension of the Church’s life. The Word is proclaimed abundantly; the homily interprets it for the present; the intercessions articulate the needs of the world. The gathered community responds with acclamations that punctuate the Eucharistic Prayer. This visibility and audibility correspond to the Petrine office: to confirm the brethren, to speak the faith in history, to shepherd a concrete people in a concrete time. The liturgy becomes manifestly missionary, oriented not only toward the heavenly Jerusalem but toward the evangelization of cultures.
Balthasar insisted that the Marian dimension is ontologically prior: without the receptive fiat, there is no Incarnation; without contemplation, no mission. Applied liturgically, this suggests that the depth dimension signified by the Extraordinary Form must not be lost, even when the Church emphasizes pastoral outreach.
Benedict’s anxiety, evident in his liturgical writings, was that a purely functional or horizontal understanding of the liturgy would obscure its nature as sacrifice and gift. By permitting the continued celebration of the older form, he sought to ensure that the Roman Rite would not forget its Marian depth: its kneeling before mystery, its sense of the sacred as something objective and given.
Yet the Petrine dimension cannot be suppressed. The Church is sent into the world; she must speak intelligibly; she must gather diverse peoples into one Body. The reforms after Vatican II were animated by precisely this apostolic concern. The Ordinary Form, when celebrated according to the mind of the Church, manifests the catholicity and missionary dynamism of the People of God. The vernacular is not a capitulation to modernity but an enactment of Pentecost: the one Gospel proclaimed in many tongues. The expanded participation of the faithful is not a democratization of worship but an expression of baptismal dignity within hierarchical order.
Here the insight of Valentin Tomberg proves suggestive. In his meditations on the Church, Tomberg speaks of polarities that must be held in creative tension: exoteric and esoteric, institution and mystery, law and grace. He saw the Catholic Church as uniquely capable of sustaining such polarities without collapse, because she lives from a sacramental center.
The liturgy, as the sacrament of sacraments, becomes the privileged arena in which these polarities are enacted. The coexistence of the two forms of the Roman Rite can thus be interpreted as a symbolic dramatization of the Church’s refusal to resolve tension by elimination. Instead of choosing between a contemplative, hieratic liturgy and a pastoral, accessible one, Benedict allowed both to subsist within one juridical framework, as if to say: the Church’s life cannot be reduced to a single modality.
The notions of “extraordinary” and “ordinary” themselves invite theological reflection. The extraordinary is not abnormal; it is a heightened manifestation of what is always true. In Marian terms, it is the luminous clarity of the fiat, the transparent purity of the Bride. The ordinary, conversely, is not banal; it is the habitual, daily expression of the Church’s life. In Petrine terms, it is the steady governance and proclamation that sustain the faithful in history. The polarity is thus not between sacred and profane, but between archetype and mission, depth and extension.
One might object that this theological reading risks idealizing what has often been experienced as division. The history of liturgical reform in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries has been marked by polemics, misunderstandings, and even mutual suspicion. Yet a polar unity does not deny conflict; it seeks to transfigure it.
Balthasar’s theology of polarity is not a facile harmonization but a Christological pattern: in Christ, divine and human, glory and humiliation, obedience and authority are united without confusion. The Church, as Christ’s Body, must learn to inhabit similar tensions.
Benedict’s vision implied that the two forms could “mutually enrich” one another. The Ordinary Form could learn from the Extraordinary a deeper sense of sacrality, silence, and ritual continuity. The Extraordinary Form could learn from the Ordinary a renewed attentiveness to the riches of Scripture and to the pastoral needs of contemporary communities. This mutual enrichment corresponds precisely to the interplay of Marian and Petrine dimensions. The Marian guards the depth; the Petrine ensures extension.
When either is isolated, pathology ensues: a purely Marian Church risks quietism or aestheticism; a purely Petrine Church risks bureaucratization or activism.
The question of authority inevitably arises. The regulation of the liturgy belongs to the Petrine office. Benedict’s motu proprio was an exercise of that authority, not a decentralization of it. Yet the content of his decision pointed beyond sheer juridicism. By acknowledging the continued legitimacy of the older Missal, he implicitly affirmed that the Church’s liturgical memory cannot be erased by decree. The Petrine serves the Marian; authority safeguards mystery rather than replacing it. In this sense, the very act of legislating for two forms becomes a sign of the Church’s interior breadth.
Moreover, the coexistence of the two forms can be seen as an icon of eschatological tension. The Church lives between the already and the not yet. The Extraordinary Form, with its pronounced orientation and sacrificial symbolism, can evoke the transcendence of the heavenly liturgy described in the Apocalypse. The Ordinary Form, with its dialogical structure and scriptural amplitude, can evoke the pilgrim Church journeying through history. Both are true; neither exhausts the mystery. Together they form a diptych: contemplation and mission, adoration and proclamation.
It is important, however, not to conflate liturgical form too rigidly with theological principle. The Marian and Petrine dimensions are not monopolized by particular rubrics or languages. A reverently celebrated Ordinary Form can radiate Marian depth; a hurried or ideologically driven celebration of the Extraordinary Form can betray it. The polarity concerns underlying ecclesial attitudes: receptivity and mission, silence and speech, gift and governance. The two forms of the Roman Rite provide historically concrete matrices in which these attitudes are accentuated, but the ultimate criterion remains holiness.
In the end, Benedict’s project may be understood as an attempt to heal memory. The twentieth century witnessed both liturgical ossification and liturgical experimentation. By recognizing the legitimacy of both forms, he sought to draw the Church into a more spacious self-understanding. The Roman Rite, like the Church herself, is not a monolith but a communion. Its unity does not depend on uniformity but on a shared sacramental center: the Eucharistic sacrifice of Christ.
Such a vision demands spiritual maturity. Polar unity is fragile; it can easily degenerate into factionalism. Yet the alternative – imposed homogeneity or enforced amnesia – would impoverish the Church’s catholicity. Benedict’s liturgical theology invites the faithful to perceive diversity as depth not threat.
In this light, the Marian and Petrine dimensions are not abstract categories but living principles embodied in prayer. The Church kneels with Mary at the foot of the Cross; she stands with Peter to preach the Resurrection. In the Extraordinary Form, one may glimpse more clearly the kneeling Bride; in the Ordinary Form, the preaching Apostle. But it is one Church, one sacrifice, one Lord. The polar unity of the two forms thus reflects, however imperfectly, the deeper unity of love and authority, gift and office, that constitutes the mystery of the Church herself.
