Friday, December 02, 2011

Another One for the Unreconstructed, Ossified Manualists: How to Serve the Dominican Rite Mass

Fr. Vincent Kelber, O.P., celebrating the Bl. Margaret of
Castello chapter's first ever Dominican Rite Mass, November 19, 2011.
Just as a rising tide lifts all boats, the rising interest in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is lifting the boat of the traditional Rite of Mass as celebrated within the Order of Preachers.  Years ago, the Order opted to go with what is now known as the Ordinary Form of the Mass, and put its own Rite into mothballs, soon to be all but forgotten.  But the Dominican Rite is making a comeback -- even going so far as to put in an appearance last month in, of all places, St. Paul's chapel at Boise State University (almost certainly that venue's first ever celebration of Mass in Latin, ad orientem...and yet the building remained standing). 

If you're going to have the Dominican Rite Mass, you're going to need altar boys (no girls, thankfully, per the instruction Universae Ecclesiae); and if you're going to have altar boys, you're going to need instruction.  There is nothing like a teacher for proper instruction; but where teachers have died out, books will have to serve.  And so out of the ashes rises the Dominican Altar Boys' Manual, recovered from oblivion and once again made available through the efforts of Br. Corwin Low, O.P. and Fr. Augustine Thompson, O.P.  If you attend a Dominican parish, or if you are a member of a lay chapter with an interest in reviving the treasures of our Dominican heritage, this would be the perfect Christmas gift for yourself or anyone who serves Mass or trains servers.  

This manual is so reasonably priced that I myself ordered two for the great, big altar boys in my chapter. 

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