Eye-Openers from the New Translation

Now that we have the new, vastly improved English translation of the Roman Missal, for the first time since childhood, I need a hand missal for the Ordinary Form of the Mass.  Of course there are pew cards at church with the new, corrected versions of the people's responses; but I want to savor the new translation with my eyes as well as my ears.   My local Catholic bookstore did not carry any nice missals with English on one side and Latin on the other, and there wasn't time to find and order one, so I picked up a copy of the New Saint Joseph Sunday Missal for 2012 -- a very good investment for just a few bucks.

There are a few realities to which the new translation has opened my eyes.  Firstly, when samples of the new translation began to come out a few years ago -- before I ever attended Mass in the Extraordinary Form -- it became clear to me for the first time that the Mass is full of scriptural allusions and signs of the supernatural that had been effectively blotted out in the now-obsolete translation.  Now that we have a translation more in line with the original Latin, these little treasures have been restored: it is like getting a pair of glasses after a lifetime of myopia, and realizing for the first time that you hadn't really been able to see. 

The second eye-opener was that the Ordinary Form of the Mass has actual propers -- introit, offertory, communion -- that should be sung.   All I have ever gotten all my life was the four-hymn sandwich.  It was embarrassing to be a cradle Catholic and not know until this summer -- when my chant schola was asked to sing the Simple English Propers for a Mass in the Baker Diocese -- that Mass in the Ordinary Form is supposed to have sung propers, and that the four-hymn sandwich is supposed to be the option of last resort.  But that one Mass this summer was the first Ordinary Form Mass I have ever attended with all the sung propers...and I haven't been to another one since.

The third thing I have come to realize, now that I require worship aids for the Ordinary Form, is...just how hard the Ordinary Form is to follow.

It is a common complaint about the Extraordinary Form of the Mass that it is too complicated and difficult to keep track of.  However, once you get past the Latin, the structural simplicity of the Extraordinary Form becomes evident.  Whether it's Low Mass, Missa Cantata or Solemn High Mass, the Extraordinary Form has one penitential rite; a single, one-year cycle of readings; one Eucharistic prayer -- the Roman Canon -- one set of prayers post-consecration; and a few variable parts which are dictated by feasts or seasons, and are therefore entirely predictable.  In this rootless age, the world considers this stability to be boring.  The reality, however, is that it has the two-fold advantage of being (a) comforting and reassuring, and (b) memorable.  Constant repetition plants  the liturgical texts firmly in the memory, where they become seeds for meditation and aids in the cultivation of virtue.

The Ordinary Form, on the other hand, seems to consist almost entirely in variations, the use of many of which is determined entirely by the pleasure of the priest.  There are three forms of greeting; three forms of the penitential rite; eight possible Gospel acclamations for use during Lent; two possible professions of faith; no fewer than ten (10) choices of Eucharistic prayer; three possible memorial acclamations; and four options for dismissal.  Unless you know your priest well enough to be acquainted with his customs and preferences, there is absolutely no way to know which of any of these he is going to use, which leaves missal-jockeys at a loss.  By the time a person figures out which Eucharistic prayer the priest is saying, and then finds it in the missal, it's half over.  One questions the extent to which all this freedom of choice conduces to the ability of the average pew-sitter to participate in the Mass.

Indeed, it is often said of the Tridentine Mass that it makes passive spectators out of the faithful in the pews; but one has to wonder whether that is not in fact more true of the Ordinary Form of the Mass, especially as it has been celebrated in so many places for so many years.  The anti-traditionalists make much of the fact that the older form of the Mass is in a language that the people (allegedly) do not understand; the music is (purportedly) beyond the ability of most people to sing along with; and the people don't get to say anything because the responses are (frequently) said for them.  What the "active participation" crowd fails to grasp is that this freedom from exterior bustling actually leaves one with enough time and energy to participate interiorly, and that this is aided by the structural constancy of the Extraordinary Form. 

The Ordinary Form, however, creates a new set of problems.  The vernacular Mass, coupled with the proliferation of options, has the effect of excluding those whose vernacular is other than that in which the Mass is offered.  At least when the Mass was always in Latin, a Spanish-speaking Catholic could attend Mass in Nagasaki and still feel at home, supported by the knowledge and experience gained from the constant repetition of the same texts, over and over.  The same problem arises when it comes to singing along with the music: will that Spanish Catholic be able to sing Japanese songs in Nagasaki?  Besides which, the stuff that (contrary to the mind of Vatican II) has supplanted Gregorian chant is often so terrible as to be truly unsingable.  On top of this, the lousy English translation of the Roman Missal did a lot to obscure the supernatural aspect of the liturgy and and distort Catholic theology, thus barring Catholics from receiving the truths contained in the Mass; thankfully, this is now being corrected.  But the renewed need for worship aids occasioned by this new translation brings home the fact that the person regularly attending the Ordinary Form is ceaselessly buffeted by the vicissitudes within the Ordinary of the Mass itself that are the product of so many zillions of options.  You may well ask: why don't I just forget about the worship aids and just sit and listen?  You mean -- quit worrying about trying to follow the Mass and become...a passive spectator?

If there is one thing to which the new translation of the Roman Missal may open many eyes, it is that the attempt by the post-conciliar experts to construct a whole new Mass may have been very ill-advised, and that we would perhaps have done better to just leave the Mass alone.  But then, as the late Fr. Richard John Neuhaus once pointed out, it is a mark of our fallen human nature that we always make things harder than they need to be.

Is Passing Cooties a Necessary Expression of Ecclesial Communion?

The last post featured a discussion about hand-holding at Mass as forced intimacy.  Now the question arises whether hand-holding is a necessary component/expression of communion -- that is, ecclesial communion (cf. paragraphs 946 et seq. of the Catechism of the Catholic Church) -- with our fellow Catholics.

In arriving at an answer to this question, a few salient facts need to be recognized.  Firstly, the Church does not instruct us to hold hands during Mass.  Secondly, at least some of our shepherds, exercising their legitimate teaching and governing authority, are discouraging the practice. Thirdly, non-Catholics and even some who are not baptized often attend Mass and get swept up into the hand-holding; in what sense can we truthfully express "communion" in the sense it is here meant with those who are objectively and by definition not in ecclesial communion?  Fourthly, why, if hand-holding is essential, is it not done in every Catholic rite?  Fifthly -- and perhaps most significantly -- the practice only dates back to about the 1970s.  If hand-holding is indispensable to our sense of ecclesial communion, why did it take until about 40 years ago for us to start doing it?

Hand-holding is totally unnecessary.  We are already one, not only with each other at Mass, but also with the Holy Souls in Purgatory and all the blessed in heaven, and all who will ever attain heaven, as members of the Mystical Body of Christ and partakers of the one Eucharist.  In fact, here is a secret: where everyone at Mass is really focused on God, and giving Him the worship that He is due, without diverting their attention to their neighbors, the whole community aspect takes care of itself -- and in a much deeper and satisfying way than the superficial, pop-psychology group-therapy ice-breakers that have crept uninvited into the liturgy.  God even occasionally grants us a feeling of the love-communion between ourselves and the rest of the congregation, even though we do not know them: a taste of the Communion of Saints. This is true even in -- perhaps one could say especially in -- the allegedly stodgy, hide-bound, chauvinistic Traditional Latin Mass, where there is no room for the touchy-feely infestations that have plagued the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  Here is a fulfillment of the Scriptural promise that if we seek first the Kingdom of God and His Justice, the rest will be added unto us.


But we short-circuit this promise when we do our own thing at Mass and try to do "communion" on our own.  This makes hand-holding not only unnecessary, but worse than unnecessary.  It is a distraction that diverts our attention away from the Eucharist that is the true source of our Christian unity, and even causes us to believe that the Eucharist is not sufficient.  It leads us away from a true understanding of our Catholic faith, and toward a distaste of that which is authentically Catholic and therefore really calculated to bring us closer to God.

Even though hand-holding only started the ecclesiastical equivalent of thirty seconds ago, there are many who ascribe all kinds of imaginary meaning to the practice, and would feel deprived of a sense of communion if they couldn't engage in it.  That a false significance, unsupported by any legitimate authority, has attached to this innovation in so short a time itself shows its perniciousness.  Authority is critical in the Church, even more than in the arena of the civil law, where binding precedent must always be consulted before a legal determination is made; the acceptance and embrace of traditions of men ought to be completely foreign to the Catholic mind.  Yet here is a classic example of an artificial tradition in action, to the detriment of true faith.  This false tradition can't be done away with too soon.

Yes, Please Keep Your Cooties to Yourself

I hope Fr. Finigan does not mind my lifting this great picture which perfectly captures my sentiments on the subject of hand-holding during Mass.  In a word, I can't stand this practice.  It is one of the reasons I wear a veil at Mass: it sends the message -- pretty effectively -- that I am highly unlikely to welcome hand-holding.  If somebody does forcibly grab my hand, I just look that person the eye and tell him no, I do not hold hands. I don’t see where it is uncharitable not to submit to this importunity.  On the contrary, I ask where the charity is in allowing people to force themselves on others with impunity. If they don’t know better, then they need to learn; if they do know better, then they need to be reproved.

Fortunately, priests and even bishops are beginning to come to the aid of their shy, reserved, and introverted lambs and beat back the assault of touchy-feely-ness at Mass.  Bishop Roger Foys of the Diocese of Covington, Kentucky is putting the kibosh on hand-holding during the Our Father on the grounds that it is not a legitimate part of the liturgy.  Naturally, this is creating an uproar among the poorly formed.  Those of us, however, who recoil with horror from unwarranted intrusions into our personal space wish blessings upon the good bishop and hope and pray for a great many more like him.

What the touchy-feely, group-therapy-oriented crowd don't seem to get is that touching such as hand-holding, hugging, etc. are products of real intimacy and not producers of it.  You can't create intimacy with another person by forcing that other person to accept an imposition.  As the great 20th-century Catholic philosopher Dietrich von Hildebrand pointed out, there are steps to be gone through on the path to intimacy with another person — even God.  This truth is exemplified beautifully in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass in the prayers at the foot of the altar, wherein the priest only approaches the altar of sacrifice by degrees, after putting himself on his guard against presumption and irreverence, and carefully preparing his soul by contrition for his sins.  The steps to intimacy are necessary; hand-holding with strangers and other foolish practices designed to bypass them violate the natural order.

In fact, I will go farther and submit that there is a sinister purpose behind these ice-breaking exercises, namely, the breaking down of necessary inhibitions, thereby making individuals vulnerable to manipulation.  Indeed, a great deal of what we have been seeing and hearing at Mass in recent decades must be characterized as manipulation: the secular music; the gimmicky props and vestments; the joke-laced homilies; the touchy-feely intrusions.  In none of this stuff is there any food for the intellect or even the memory.  Take the stuff away and people scream that they are being deprived of that which brings them closer to God; but really, they have just been having their emotions massaged and manipulated.  After such soothing treatment, we are prepared to swallow anything served up to us, which is what we have been doing, to our detriment, for the last half-century.

So thank God for the shepherds who are doing something to divest Catholic worship of the worldly accretions and encrustations that have done so much damage to our faith and our Christian witness. 

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. 

Sound Matters

My dear friend, The Redoubtable Marcus Magnus, turns up the darndest things.  He is a fount of all kinds of stuff I would never even think to look for on my own.  Such as the following line that ought to be silkscreened on T-shirts and distributed to bishops, priests and seminarians all over the country:

QUIDQUID LATINE DICTUM SIT ALTUM SONATUR

Whatever is said in Latin sounds profound.

Another reason why -- although I am a chauvinist for English in most matters -- some things really are better in Latin.

The Joys of Tradition and Other Reflections

This is the altar at Our Lady of the Valley Catholic Church in Caldwell, Idaho, set up for sung Mass in the Extraordinary Form last Friday, July 15th.  It was a votive Mass in honor of the Precious Blood of Jesus, celebrated by -- who else? -- the inimitable and irrepressible Fr. Andrew Szymakowski of the Baker Diocese, and attended by the Bl. Margaret of Castello chapter and a number of visitors.  This was Father's next-to-last visit to the Dominicans before going to Catholic U. in D.C. to get his degree in canon law.  

This was an historic occasion: the first Mass in the Extraordinary Form ever offered in this parish.  I wish I could have snapped some shots during Mass, but I had to lead the schola.  I was terrified of being responsible for knowing when to begin each of the propers, as this was only my fifth ever Missa Cantata, but I have it on the best possible authority that I did not err in that regard. The propers for the feast of the Precious Blood are, hands down, the hardest music our little schola has ever tackled up to now; everything else should come as child's play after this.  

I wish everybody who hungers after reverent, traditional Catholic worship and solid, forthright, undiluted Catholic preaching could have been there.   Would that more people had heard Father's homily on the Eucharist, the need for reverence for the Blessed Sacrament, the need for proper dispositions when approaching the Eucharist, and the capital importance of confession and not receiving Holy Communion in a state of mortal sin.  Someone commented that we hadn't heard the words "mortal sin" from the pulpit as many times in the last year as we did in just that single homily.  

There is a common misconception that those who love Catholic tradition are dour, gloomy and joyless.  It is indeed tough, after tasting the beauty of the Tridentine Mass, and drinking at the fountain of sacred chant and polyphony, to be cheerful while listening to "Gather Us In" and dodging gropey little old ladies during the sign of peace at the Masses we usually attend; and some of us are not as good as we should be at concealing our abhorrence.  But the absence of the happy and clappy, or of a taste for the same, is not a sure-fire sign of misery, any more than the presence of these things infallibly indicates authentic joy.  

For proof of this, one need look no farther than the example of Friday's gathering, and particularly the person of the worthy young priest of the old school who traveled so far to give us this special occasion.  I suspect that people who don't like unalloyed Catholicism -- and there are many -- have listened to Fr. Andrew's no-holds-barred preaching, or run afoul of his charitable yet uncompromising exercise of priestly authority, and written him off as a stilted, dour, severe, puritanical, Latin-spewing, Prussian-style killjoy.  Such a judgment would be as wrong as it is rash and unjust.  After Mass, Fr. Andrew and the Dominicans went to a local restaurant and had a laugh-fest that brought the house down -- all without drugs, alcohol, or raunchy humor.  Father himself laughed until his stomach hurt; then he laughed some more.  Nor was this a one-off: casting out doom and gloom is part of Father's stock in trade.  I am sorry for all those who have cut themselves off from ever seeing that side of him, or who would fail to appreciate it even if they did see it.

And I am sorry that the attempt was made by some in the Church to cut Catholics off from the joy of Catholic worship as it has been performed for so many centuries.  The Mass is truly the Passion and Death of Christ, the Sacrifice of Calvary re-presented on the altar in an unbloody manner; it is also a window on eternity, an image on earth of the worship that is offered forever in heaven, where every tear is wiped away, and death and mourning and crying are no more.  I have said before in this space that the Mass of tradition communicates truths of the faith more clearly than what we have been used to seeing over the last 40 years.  The joy of heaven is one of these truths.  Even if we are not immediately conscious of it during Mass, it bears its fruits. 

Time for a Novena

Unless you attend Mass in the Extraordinary Form, you have probably never seen a maniple on a priest's arm, as it fell largely into disuse after the Second Vatican Council.  Like the mappula, or handkerchief, that the Romans wore knotted around their left arm to wipe away tears or sweat, the priest wears this over his left arm during Mass.  In a solemn High Mass, the deacon and subdeacon also wear maniples.  The maniple has never been abrogated, and there is therefore no reason why it cannot be worn even in the Mass of Paul VI.  In fact, in these times, it would be especially appropriate.  The maniple is a symbol of the toils and suffering of the priesthood.

Many of the vestments worn by priests -- vestments whose use has lapsed, or whose meaning has been forgotten -- are in fact reminders of suffering.  The amice that covers the priest's neck and shoulders symbolizes not only trust in God, but the blindfold the soldiers placed on Jesus while they slapped His face.  The alb symbolizes not only purity of heart, but also the garb that Herod put on Jesus to ridicule Him.  The chasuble represents not only divine love, but also the purple robe the soldiers threw over Jesus when they crowned Him with thorns.  The girdle, stole and maniple together represent the cords that bound Jesus, and the rod used to beat Him.

The priest is in fact alter Christus -- another Christ -- and in nothing does he resemble Christ more than in his suffering.  The heart of the priesthood is self-sacrifice.  As alter Christus, the priest is truly priest and victim at Mass, just as Christ was Priest and Victim on Calvary, of which the Mass is an unbloody re-presentation.  The priest really immolates himself every day at the altar.  That is why -- at least in the Extraordinary Form of the Mass -- the chalice is vested in a veil that matches the priest's vestments: to underscore the unity between the priest and the gifts on the altar.  And in receiving Holy Orders, the priest has knowingly and willingly sacrificed himself to the service of God.  This is why (apart from the fact that the Church cannot ordain women) feminists who want to be "priests" do not have an authentic calling: they are in it for prestige to which they feel entitled, not sacrifice.  Recognition of the self-sacrifice of priests is also one of the reasons why they used to be given precedence and enjoy a certain amount of deference.  Today, in an age when all the symbolism of the liturgy and vestments, the Catholic sense of the supernatural, and even the legitimate distinctions between clergy and laity have been swept away, much of this has been forgotten, even by many priests themselves.   

It is this time, when we are thus weakened, that the Enemy has chosen to launch one of his fiercest attacks on priests.  Priests today are suffering intensely, and all the more so because it is frequently at the hands of those who should be loving and supporting them, including their own.  It is just as Our Lady of Akita predicted on October 13, 1973:

The work of the devil will infiltrate even into the Church in such a way that one will see cardinals opposing cardinals, and bishops against other bishops. The priests who venerate me will be scorned and opposed by their Confreres. The Church and altars will be vandalized. The Church will be full of those who accept compromises and the demon will press many priests and consecrated souls to leave the service of the Lord. 

She also provided the solution: "With the Rosary, pray for the Pope, the bishops and the priests."  Now seems like a good time to begin a 54-day novena of Rosaries for the Pope, the bishops and the priests -- and especially those whose spiritual peril is greater than ordinary.  This prayer, attributed to St. Therese of Lisieux, might be a good way to close each Rosary:

O Jesus, eternal Priest, keep your priests within the shelter of Your Sacred Heart, where none may touch them.

Keep unstained their anointed hands, which daily touch Your Sacred Body.

Keep unsullied their lips, daily purpled with your Precious Blood.

Keep pure and unearthly their hearts, sealed with the sublime mark of the priesthood.

Let Your holy love surround them and shield them from the world's contagion.

Bless their labors with abundant fruit and may the souls to whom they minister be their joy and consolation here and in heaven their beautiful and everlasting crown. Amen.

Pentecost in Oregon

A rare treat for Pentecost: Holy Mass in the Extraordinary Form at the old St. Francis Church in Bend, Oregon, celebrated, as ever, by the inimitable and irrepressible Rev. Andrew Szymakowski.  Your humble correspondent had the privilege of joining the local schola cantorum (directed by Stephanie Swee) in the loft.  We also had the benefit of the expertise of Father's old friend Bill Costa, a retired chorister and director from Dallas, Texas.

St. Francis did not entirely escape the ravages of the spirit of Vatican II (carpeting, stark Novus Ordo ironing board in front of the main altar, and no more altar rail), but it is still a beautiful little church.  It is, however, also a poorly-lit church, and so I was not able to get pictures of the high altar and reredos, which contains some of the most stunning statues I have ever seen of St. Francis, St. Patrick and St. Teresa of Avila.  Still, I did not leave with an empty memory card.  Here is one of the side altars:

And here is the statue of Our Lady on top of the other side altar:

It was a beautiful Mass, for which alone the six-hour drive to Bend would have been worthwhile.  But there was more to come. On the old calendar, Pentecost is not over: this is the Octave of Pentecost.  Instead of heading straight home on Monday morning as planned, I went up to the little town where Father is currently stationed and attended High Mass for Pentecost Monday and Pentecost Tuesday.  Bill Costa and I formed the choir for both Masses.  The rest of the time was devoted to meals, conversation and laughter -- just like in the Nyssa days when we'd take Father to dinner after Mass.  By the time I started back for home on Tuesday, the three of us had all the world's problems solved.

So I got not one, not two, but three High Masses this weekend, as well as three and a half days in Oregon making new friends and visiting with old ones.  It was a tonic for body and soul.

A Victory for the Rights of Catholics

From the time it became known that an instruction  on Summorum pontificum was coming, devotees of the Extraordinary Form feared -- not without reason -- that liberals in the Church would seize the opportunity to choke off the Pope's initiative to restore traditional worship and effectively shelve the pre-conciliar liturgy once again.  Now that Universae ecclesiae is out, it appears to be viewed as a defeat by some in the traditionalist camp.  Universae ecclesiae certainly must be regarded as a defeat by anyone unrealistic enough to demand the complete and universal suppression of the Mass of Paul VI, effective immediately.  The instruction certainly has its flaws, and as a lawyer, I cannot help spotting its loopholes.  But overall, I find myself bouyed and encouraged by Universae ecclesiae, which vindicates the legitimate rights of Catholics -- all Catholics, whether they like it or not -- in matters of liturgy and worship.  Some observations:

-- The hermeneutic of rupture -- the idea that we created a "new Church" after Vatican II, and that the traditional liturgy and all its accoutrements, including chant and Latin, must be abandoned -- is once again clearly condemned as error.  The notion that we are well rid of those things that we had "gotten away from" after the Council is not in line with the mind of the Church.  The instruction reminds us once again of what the Holy Father said in his letter to the bishops at the time the motu proprio was issued: "There is no contradiction between the two editions of the Roman Missal. In the history of the Liturgy growth and progress are found, but not a rupture. What was sacred for prior generations, remains sacred and great for us as well, and cannot be suddenly prohibited altogether or even judged harmful."

-- It is clearly the intent of the Holy Father that the Mass of tradition once again enter the mainstream of Catholic life.  It is not just for the trads; it is for all Catholics.  It is a part of our patrimony and our heritage as Catholics, and we have a right to it.  Those of us who are devoted to traditional worship are not to be considered as denizens of the fever swamps:

8. The Motu Proprio Summorum Pontificum constitutes an important expression of the Magisterium of the Roman Pontiff and of his munus of regulating and ordering the Church’s Sacred Liturgy.  The Motu Proprio manifests his solicitude as Vicar of Christ and Supreme Pastor of the Universal Church,   and has the aim of:
a. offering to all the faithful the Roman Liturgy in the Usus Antiquior, considered as a precious treasure  to be preserved;
b. effectively guaranteeing and ensuring the use of the forma extraordinaria for all who ask for it, given that the use of the 1962 Roman Liturgy is a faculty generously granted for the good of the faithful and therefore is to be interpreted in a sense favourable to the faithful who are its principal addressees;
c. promoting reconciliation at the heart of the Church.

-- Innovations that have cropped up in the liturgy since 1962, such as altar girls and Communion on the hand, will not take place in the Extraordinary Form.  The ethos of the form shall thus be preserved.  Those who would seek to sabotage the regular celebration of the Extraordinary Form by introducing these things into it will not be permitted to do so.   Does this instruction stop them from trying?  It may very well do so in some cases, despite the fact that we generally cannot know about abuses that do not take place because they have been prevented.  But even if it be the case that no abuses are in fact prevented, we are still better off for having the instruction than otherwise, just as we are better off for having laws against stealing, even though the law fails to deter all thieves.

-- Even though liturgical practices introduced since 1962 do not apply to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, the instruction gives the lie to the contemporary notion that that the Extraordinary Form is a dead thing, a museum piece or a fly stuck in amber.  The instruction contemplates, in Paragraph 11, the creation of new liturgical books and texts pertaining to the Extraordinary Form.  For example, feast days for saints canonized since 1962 will find a place in the Extraordinary Form.  No doubt the Feast of Divine Mercy will also be incorporated into the older rite.

-- The question of what constitutes a "group of the faithful existing in a stable manner" who requests the Extraordinary Form is to be liberally construed, as is the question of what qualifies a priest to celebrate the Extraordinary Form.  Groups of the faithful need not have been devoted to the Extraordinary Form prior to Summorum pontificum, and they need not belong to the same parish or even the same diocese.  Priests cannot be required to be expert Latinists in order to celebrate the Extraordinary Form -- a prerequisite, by the way, that would have disqualified the Cure of Ars himself, who flunked his Latin exams in seminary.

-- Bishops are to assist their priests and seminarians in training in the Extraordinary Form.  The instruction does not affirmatively require them to do so, though I am given to understand that the authoritative Latin text is actually much more strongly worded than the English translation.  If the bishops are exhorted to provide opportunities for their priests to train up in the older rite, even though they are not being ordered to do so, then it must be the case that they may not legitimately forbid or hinder such training.

Will there still be bishops, chanceries, priests and laity hostile to the Extraordinary Form of the Mass?  Yep.  Are there still dioceses where we who desire the Mass of Tradition are asking our priests, in effect, to be pioneers and take the arrows?  You bet.  But a priest is chosen and trained and fortified by the Sacraments, especially of Confirmation and Holy Orders, precisely to take arrows.  How can he be faithful and not expect arrows?  And can a faithful priest of the Roman Rite bear to remain for long ignorant of half of his rite, and to forgo unlocking the treasure that has enriched centuries of saints?   And how can we in the pews, who expect our priests to put themselves on the line for us, not support them and take the arrows with them?  The state of affairs that has persisted for almost the last half-century need not continue -- ought not continue -- now that it is plainer than ever that the hostile forces have neither the law nor the mind of the Church on their side.  This is a huge victory, if only we grab hold of it and use it. 

It's funny how, in an age when we are so big on claiming and asserting our "rights," so many  of us Catholics gladly jettison our legitimate rights to the treasures of our heritage and to the liturgy and sacraments properly celebrated.  Indeed, we bristle with indignation whenever anyone seeks to vindicate or even remind us gently of our legitimate rights.  We prefer to wear ourselves out chasing after the "right" of women to be ordained; the "right" of girls to serve on the altar; the "right" of laymen to march into the sanctuary and handle the Sacred Species; the "right" to receive Holy Communion on the hand; the "right" of middle-aged adolescent garage bands to play at Mass; the "right" to have the Church witness gay "marriage"; the "right" to contracept; and all sorts of other imaginary "rights" to which we have no legitimate claim and that we simply have no business pursuing.  Our thinking on the whole question of rights is now so warped as no longer to remotely resemble anything Catholic. 

Thank God Pope Benedict still thinks like a Catholic,  still shines a light on our true priorities, and still looks out for the legitimate rights that we throw away like yesterday's garbage. 

Did Archbishop Lefebvre Really Save the Mass of Tradition?

With the beginning of Holy Week, I look ahead with trepidation to the services for the Sacred Triduum.  The liturgical mediocrities (at best) and abuses (at worst) that prevail in my area at all times of the year are especially painful during this week, when the high, the solemn and the majestic are forced to give place to the low, the frivolous and the banal.  At such times, my thoughts turn most to the cause of restoring the traditional liturgy, which seems to move at the speed of mammal evolution; and the line of thought runs inevitably to a man whose career has been a significant factor in this cause.  

A few weeks ago, the Church celebrated the Annunciation.  March 25th was not only the feast of the Annunciation, but also the anniversary of the death of Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Society of St. Pius X.  It was the occasion for numerous heartfelt acclamations of the archbishop and calls for his sainthood.  Most of all, there were the repeated claims that it is to Lefebvre that we owe the preservation of what is now known as the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.

Nobody can seriously question my credentials as a lover of Catholic orthodoxy and traditional Catholic worship.  I have declaimed from the rooftops on these subjects.  But when I hear Archbishop Lefebvre extolled as the savior of the usus antiquior, I cannot help asking, from behind unfriendly lines in the liturgical wars, this one simple question: Really?

I don't want to get into the question whether Lefebvre and the bishops he consecrated were legitimately excommunicated.  Two popes thought that they were, and proceeded accordingly; that is good enough for me, and should be good enough for any Catholic.   I don't want to get into the question whether a state of emergency existed in the Church that justified Lefebvre in defying the Pope and violating canon law.  There is no question that the Church has been wracked by a terrible crisis from within over the last century; but it is the Church, not the Lefebvrists, who is the ultimate arbiter of the state-of-emergency issue, and the Church has ruled against Lefebvre.  I also don't want to debate whether the priests of the Society are suspended.  The fact is that they are suspended, and they lack faculties from the bishops who have actual jurisdiction to grant them faculties.   What interests me is the claim that without Lefebvre, the Mass of tradition would now be extinct.

Concerning which, some thoughts:

-- Despite the changes in the liturgy under Pope Paul VI, and whatever may have been the desires of some elements within the Church, the Tridentine Mass  was -- Deo gratias -- not formally abrogated.  In 1984, four years before Lefebvre did the act for which he incurred excommunication, the Congregation for Divine Worship and Discipline of the Sacraments issued Quattuor abhinc annos, which allowed bishops to authorize celebration of the traditional Mass under certain conditions.  Let no one attribute this document solely to the agitations of the archbishop or his Society: they were far from being the only ones in the whole, entire Church who wanted the preconciliar liturgy, as Summorum pontificum makes clear.  Whatever one might think of this document, or the stinginess of the bishops in authorizing the traditional Mass, Quattuor abhinc annos did prove -- and Summorum pontificum later affirmed -- that the restoration of the older liturgy was never decisively foreclosed.


-- In 1988, Pope John Paul II ordered Archbishop Lefebvre not to consecrate some bishops.  Lefebvre went ahead and did it anyway, after having agreed not to.  The Pope was clearly within his rights.  How could Lefebvre's act be understood other than as it was understood by the Pope himself: a frontal assault on the unity of the Church under Peter?  Can one commit schism in order to combat evils within the Church?  Can one do evil in order that good may prevail?  Aquinas answered that question in the negative.


-- In his motu proprio Ecclesia Dei adflicta, issued two days after Lefebvre's schism, the Pope called for "a wide and generous application" of the directives of Quattuor abhinc annos.  This clearly did not happen.  It could be argued -- not untruthfully -- that this was because a large number of bishops were inimical to the older form of the Mass.  But does this rule out the Lefebvrist movement as a factor?  Could it be that the defiance of Lefebvre and his followers helped to discredit the preconciliar liturgy and its devotees, and served as an excuse to block restoration?  How many priests and bishops who might otherwise have been sympathetic were turned off because of the Lefebvrists?  Might we have had something like Summorum pontificum sooner if Lefebvre had submitted to the Pope's rightful authority?  Indeed, if the cause of restoration had not been given the appearance of association with schism and rebellion, would there have been a need for Summorum pontificum?


-- There is nothing that the "progressive"/"liberal" elements in the Church hate so much as being confronted with a syllable of Latin, or a bar of chant, or a whiff of incense, or any other slight vestige of tradition in the liturgy -- unless it is coming face-to-face with somebody who loves tradition and is determined to do something about it.  Unfortunately, the priests and bishops of the Society are not around to discomfit the progressives.  Instead, they have quit the field of battle, going off to hide in their caves and fortresses, abandoning the parishes and chanceries to the progressives, and leaving the rest of us outgunned and outnumbered.  True, the Society is vocal and does the internet and print version of dropping propaganda leaflets over enemy territory; but did not Napoleon observe that the side that stays within its fortifications is beaten?  The reality is that these priests and bishops, who remain suspended and without faculties, are not in the trenches, and give neither aid and comfort to those they have left overwhelmed in parish and chancery, nor grief to the liberals.  The liberals are in fact perfectly content for the Society to stay right where it is, and to invite the rest of us to go and join it there and stop threatening their hegemony.  This should give the Society pause.

-- In fact, so far from giving the rest of us traditionalists aid and comfort, the Society continues to discredit us by (a) remaining outside the fold, despite the present Holy Father's bending over backward to accommodate them; and (b) continuing, notwithstanding the many concessions made to it, to act as though it is the True Church, and as though it is there to instruct Rome instead of the other way around.  This causes the rest of us who want to see the Mass of tradition restored to be viewed with suspicion.  To be viewed with suspicion by our bishops is particularly painful to those of us who refrain from attending Society chapels precisely to avoid either appearing or becoming disloyal to our bishops, however much they oppose that to which we are devoted.

I submit that there needs to be a serious re-examination by the Lefebvrists and their cloud of supporters of the proposition that Archbishop Lefebvre saved the Tridentine Mass.  This form of the Mass certainly has had its enemies in the Church, and still does; but it also has its devotees, not all of which reside within the confines of the SSPX.  The Lefebvrists need to consider whether their founder's break with the Church, and their own continuing isolation, have not in fact served the forces of modernism they claim to oppose, and delayed for years the restoration of authentic Catholic worship.

A Curious Thing about Priestesses

Ever notice how the women who want to be Roman Catholic wymynpriestesses never seem to be interested in Latin, Gregorian chant, the Breviarum Romanum or the Extraordinary Form of the Mass?

On Being Starved into Submission

I recently attended my first ever Missa Cantata, celebrated by the inimitable Fr. Andrew Szymakowski -- the first Mass in the Extraordinary Form that I have been able to attend since the beginning of January.  I was reminded that one of my favorite things about the Extraordinary Form is that the priest blesses the communicant with the Host before placing It on the tongue: a miniature benediction of the Blessed Sacrament for each person who comes to receive It.

This detail set me on a train of thought.  Why, I wondered, is this not done anymore?  Who was the great brain who considered it necessary to discontinue this practice?  I can't come up with one earthly reason why this blessing with the Host should not be done in the Ordinary Form of the Mass; yet it almost never is.  I never, ever saw a priest do it until I attended my first Mass in the Extraordinary Form; and Fr. Andrew is the only priest I have ever seen do it in the Novus Ordo.  

But then, of course, in recent decades, a great many things have been swept away in the Church's Great Leap Forward.  Beautiful altars and statues and icons, myriads of devotions and blessings, numerous disciplines and countless symbols and marks of Catholic identity  -- even the traditional language and liturgy of the Latin Rite -- have been unceremoniously dumped for the sake of the alleged "springtime" of the Church, in which we were expected to divest ourselves of the vast accretion of superfluities and get "back to basics."

Surely this infantile regression is not the work of Divine Charity.  Extras, as Sir Arthur Conan Doyle once observed through the lips of Sherlock Holmes, can issue only from the goodness of Providence.  This Goodness provides us with an abundance of extras that are nothing less than the effusions of a loving Heart.  Music; flowers; the sunlight on the water; the night sky; chocolate; painting and sculpture; gatherings of friends over a pint of beer or a glass of wine; we don't need these things to keep body and soul together, but we do need them to feed our souls and our humanity.

Still, the world is filled with people who have forgotten their humanity, and not only take no thought for their own souls, but believe that nobody else should, either -- and unfortunately, many such have the power to impose their whims on others.  These are the totalitarians.  Not content to lead their own lives, they must run the lives of others.  The totalitarian mindset that goes by the Orwellian name of "liberalism" always keeps people at or below the level of bare subsistence. That way, they can focus on nothing except surviving, and are thus easier to control.

This is true whether totalitarianism subsists in secular governments or in the Church. The mentality that holds that we ought to do away with all that which is not strictly "necessary" in worship, without all the little extra treats that used to nurture our devotion, is nothing but totalitarianism.  All the years the liberals have held sway, we have been kept hungry.  So hungry that we are ready to wolf down whatever poison they dole out to us -- poison that has turned our stomachs against the real food of Catholic faith and tradition  and devotion that has nourished saints for centuries.   Thus Catholics become docile foot soldiers in the armies of dissent, and loyal tools in the hands of those who hope to dismantle the Church and rebuild it according to their own ideas.

The blessing of each communicant at Mass with the Host is a very small detail -- if a blessing imparted by Christ Himself in the Eucharist can be called small.  But it does prove that real love resides in and provides for the smallest details, however easy they may be to miss.  Real love seeks to satisfy even the tiniest desires of the beloved.  Indeed, to real love, nothing is tiny or beneath notice.  Real love leaves undone nothing that can possibly be done for the beloved's happiness.  

All of which is useful in helping us to distinguish real charity from the false ethic of deprivation in mockery of charity; from the enlightened sterility  disguised as love of poverty that actually quenches the Spirit; from the pharisaical pride of the liberals, who are liberal only with their destructive powers, and who attend to the tiny details only in order to smash them.

Of Daggers and the Extraordinary Form

I love the Extraordinary Form of the Mass.  I love sacred polyphony, traditional hymns, and Gregorian chant (and, aided and abetted by a certain Dominican friar just south of the border, am quickly becoming a Dominican chant addict).  I love the Latin, the silence, the atmosphere that fosters recollection, and especially the priest turning away from me and facing God.  I am very sorry that so many of my fellow Catholics do not love these things, and indeed loathe and despise them, and flee from them as though they were mortal sins.  I am especially sorry that this number includes even many priests and bishops.

When you love something, you want everybody else to love it, too.  How do I convince my fellow Catholics to love the Extraordinary Form of the liturgy and all that goes with it?  Unfortunately, I am about the last person on earth equipped to bring about this much-desired result.  Too often my passion for these things, coupled with frustration and impatience, turns into hot-blooded vehemence.  Then out fly the daggers from my mouth, and from my keyboard.  And how sharp my daggers are, and how swiftly and skilfully I drive them home!  Right through the heart of charity.

Should I blame my fellow Catholics -- sincere, observing Catholics who try to live their faith as they understand it -- for looking at the Extraordinary Form and seeing a monstrosity where I see celestial beauty?  Or for listening to Marty Haugen's "Mass of Creation" and hearing the music of the spheres where I hear nails screeching on a chalkboard?  Or for reducing to just another political special interest my desire to revive the Mass of tradition in my city?  After years and years of the wolves overrunning the sheepfold, how can the average Catholic be expected to know that the very things they despise are the keys to the undreamt-of supernatural realities for which they strive?  Or that the liturgical mediocrities they cherish actually hinder our confrontation with God, as Dietrich von Hildebrand warned they would do 45 years ago?  Merely human talents and abilities hesitate and collapse, or rage impotently, before such difficulties. 

And so when I find myself about to rage, impotent to do anything except give unnecessary pain, I must just shut my trap, set side my quarrel, and give place to those practiced in the ways of charity and patience.  And I must resign myself to the fact that charity and patience do not move nearly as fast as I want them to, but do move at just the right pace for both the sensibilities of all concerned and the lasting good of the ultimate desired outcome.  

The purpose of this long preamble is precisely to talk myself into giving way to one more practiced than I in charity and patience, who expresses more eloquently than I can why we should love the liturgy in its Extraordinary Form -- and who finds that the best way to do so is by explaining why he himself loves it.  Rev. Christopher Smith is a young priest devoted to the Extraordinary Form of the liturgy, and whose methods of coping with opposition are far superior than, say, mine.  He begins thus:

I was having a delightful meal recently with a bishop whom I love and respect as a father, and who has been extraordinarily kind to me. My personal policy never to even mention the extraordinary form of the Mass at the dinner table was circumvented by one of my brother priests whom I also esteem as a friend and colleague. “So what do you think of the Tridentine Mass, Bishop?” Sweat began to form on my brow as my stomach churned and the previously delectable filet mignon on my plate suddenly revolted me. “Not again,” I said to myself as I began to drown out what I knew would be an deluge of verbiage against the Missal of Pius V/John XXIII by reciting the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar from memory.

Read the rest here -- especially if you are curious to understand the attractions of the Extraordinary Form.

And if you have ever been the recipient of my dagger-thrusts...please forgive me.

Fulton J. Sheen Explains the Tridentine Mass

I have posted this before, but it's worth posting again.

This film, called The Eternal Gift, was shot on Easter Sunday, 1941.  It is solemn High Mass at Our Lady of Sorrows Church in Chicago, and is narrated by Bishop -- then Msgr. -- Fulton J. Sheen.  

Our Lady of Sorrows parish was founded by the Servites in 1874.  The present church building was begun in 1890 and dedicated in 1902.  Our Lady of Sorrows is a national shrine, and was granted the title of basilica by Pope Pius XII in 1956, fifteen years after this film was made.  It still looks now very much as it did in 1941 (except for the stupid felt banners). 

The First Post of the Year...

...and it has to be about the fact that, effective January 10th, we in Boise are losing our only accessible Traditional Latin Mass (apart from the SSPX chapel).  The good Fr. Andrew Szymakowski, pastor of St. Bridget of Kildare in Nyssa, Oregon, is being transferred to another parish not far from Portland.  Apart from the SSPX chapel, this leaves Boiseans with no Traditional Latin Mass within 300 miles.

The Catholics of Nyssa, whether they know it or not, are most unfortunate to be losing Fr. Andrew.  He is a true shepherd, with the rod and the staff to prove it, and he's not afraid to use them: any wolf foolhardy enough to take on Fr. Andrew has met its match.  Although brought up by the FSSP (to which he no longer belongs), Father is perfectly willing to celebrate the Novus Ordo (for which he is hated and despised by the über-trads); he clothes himself and his chalice in aesthetically pleasing vestments, says the black, does the red, and brooks no nonsense.  He takes seriously both his authority and his responsibility to exercise the same: he says yes when charity demands it, and no when no needs to be said, heedless of howls and derision.  He preaches doctrine fearlessly, plainly and straightforwardly, unafraid to step on toes or prick consciences.  He has been a friend to my chapter of lay Dominicans, and was good enough to concelebrate at the Mass where I made my perpetual profession in October.  And he is, besides all this, quite a character.  It is not possible to sit stony-faced and glum with Fr. Andy and his energetic personality at the table.  My friends and I who went out to Nyssa for Mass had many laughs with him over dinner afterward.  We will miss him very much.

And we will miss the Traditional Latin Mass.  Having endured the penance of 100-mile round trips, and given thanks for being spared the penance of getting up at 4:30 a.m. for it...well, I guess we put out of our minds all thought about the penance of not having it at all.  We did not attend for political reasons, or because we think the Novus Ordo is invalid, or because we wanted to bask in the glory of being an oppressed minority in the Church; we attended because we love the TLM as a thing worthy of being loved on its own merits. I, for one, get more truths of the Catholic faith from one Traditional Latin Mass than I got out of 12 years of Catholic school.  It is the same Mass, albeit with a few changes, that has nourished generations upon generations of saints: if Ignatius Loyola or Alphonsus Liguori or Don Bosco or Faustina, while still living on this earth, were to be plucked out of their own times and set down in a church during the Traditional Latin Mass now, in 2011, they would feel at home.   Now that I have a few dozen TLMs under my belt, I can read explanations of the Mass by St. Alphonsus or Dietrich von Hildebrand and understand what they are talking about.  And there is always something new to discover, something the meaning of which had never struck home before.  I am sorry to say that very few people attended.  It is unfortunate that so many excluded themselves from so much beauty, and from this inestimable treasure of our Catholic heritage.  It could have been even more beautiful still if Father had had the personnel to celebrate Missa Cantata or High Mass, but sufficient interest from those with the necessary qualifications could not be mustered.  And now it has been taken away.  I suppose that is only just.

God bless Fr. Andrew, and keep him safe, and prosper his ministry.  And God help us as we now turn to the task of bringing this pearl of great price, the Traditional Latin Mass, back and close to home.

Why the Extraordinary Form Is Better

I know that for what follows, I am going to be solemnly apprised of the validity of the Novus Ordo Mass, and the fact that I am opinionated, and that I have no business holding that one form of the Mass is superior to another, and that I lack charity, and that I think I am more Catholic than the Pope, etc., etc.  Oh well.  Whatever.  Let not the apostles of "tolerance" rush to judgment.  I'm not a sedevacantist, and I have deliberately refrained from attending SSPX Masses, and I don't think the Novus Ordo is invalid.  But I do think it is not as good as the Mass we tried to shelve 40 years ago.

WHY I THINK MASS IN THE EXTRAORDINARY FORM IS BETTER THAN THE NOVUS ORDO

1. The Extraordinary Form Is Better Equipped to Focus the Mind on God.  The single biggest way that the Extraordinary Rite of Mass focuses the mind on God is by the priest facing God and not the congregation.  I have heard it argued that versus populum is of older vintage than ad orientem; however, if that is true, once you have attended a Mass in which the priest faces ad orientem, it is easy to understand why versus populum was previously abandoned.  In the ad orientem posture, the priest faces God.  He faces in the same direction as the congregation, thereby underscoring the unity of purpose between the priest and the faithful.  Another way in which the Extraordinary Rite focuses the mind more on God is by the fact that the Rite is celebrated in Latin and not in the vernacular.  This brings home to us the fact that the words spoken are the voice of the Church, and that they are addressed, not to us, but to God.  These reminders that we are not the center of worship are healthy, and help us to direct our minds where they should be directed during Mass.  (And yes, I realize that the Novus Ordo may also be celebrated in Latin and ad orientem, but let's face it: how often is that done?  The Extraordinary Form of Mass, on the other hand, is always done this way.)

2. The Extraordinary Form Sheds More Light on Truths of the Faith. One could go on meditating on the Mass until the end of time, and still not unpack all of its significance; but I find that there are some truths that the Extraordinary Rite makes more obvious.   One is the awesome dignity of the priesthood.  Another is the fact that the Mass is the Sacrifice of Calvary.  Mass in the Extraordinary Form teaches me that the priest is not just any old guy doing a job, but a man specially selected and set apart in order to perform the Holy Sacrifice.  I can tell this by the fact that he is facing God, as I am, but he is permitted to approach the altar and to stand in the breach, as it were, between God and myself, obtaining God's pardon and grace for me.  I can also tell this by the fact that the priest does most of the praying and performs most of the external actions, while I sit, stand or kneel quietly.  This teaches me both the futility and the needlessness of relying purely on my own efforts to win salvation: futile, because I am powerless, and needless, because in that moment, God has appointed a minister to do for me what I cannot do for myself.  And all of this teaches me that the Mass is none other than the Sacrifice of Calvary.  The priest is alter Christus: Christ, in the person of the priest, entering the Holy of Holies, offering His own Self to secure redemption, as Paul says in Chapter 9 of the Epistle to the Hebrews.  The Holy Sacrifice itself is offered in silence: this teaches me that I am in the presence of Mystery.  This silence is not the muteness of ignorance, nor the silence of an empty church; it is the expectant hush falling over Calvary as the Savior breathes his last.  This moment is so solemn that when the priest first approaches the altar at the beginning of Mass, he does so in stages, begging mercy and the forgiveness both of his own sins and those of the people.  The penitential right is not slopped or rushed through, but dwelt upon, to make us understand our own sinfulness and nothingness before the stupendous mystery in which we are about to enter.

3. The Extraordinary Form Is Less Susceptible to Liturgical Abuses.  How can a priest improvise Latin nowadays?  No doubt it was done in the past; but at least the faithful (those not conversant in Latin) did not need to be contaminated by it.  And since the priest is not facing the people, and there is not an army of laity in the sanctuary, there is no room for the carnival atmosphere that too often pervades the Novus Ordo Mass. 

4. The Extraordinary Form Sheds More Light on the Reality of the Communion of Saints.  There is no touchy-feely stuff in the Extraordinary Rite; no hand-holding (yuck); no forced intimacy with our neighbors in the pews (double yuck); yet there is a greater sense of unity with the whole Church, Triumphant, Suffering and Militant, in this rite.  The fact that the priest and the faithful are all facing in the same direction underscores the unity of purpose and intention in this solemn act of public worship.  Plus, the Extraordinary Form of the Mass is the Mass -- admittedly with some changes -- that has nourished centuries of saints.  It sheds light on their words.  When St. Faustina describes her mystical experiences during Mass, or when Dietrich von Hildebrand explicates the opening prayer at the very beginning of the Mass (Introibo ad altare Dei) -- now I understand what they're talking about.

5. The Extraordinary Form Is Hated and Despised by All the Right People.  Take it away, Michael Voris.

This program is from RealCatholicTV.com

The Mass in the Extraordinary Form is a precious treasure that we were foolish ever to try to change or throw away. I hope that one day the Extraordinary Rite will become the Ordinary Rite, and eventually displace the Novus Ordo entirely.  Until that day comes...I'll continue to attend the Extraordinary Rite whenever I can, and tough it out whenever I can't. 

My First Extraordinary Rite Mass

Now I have been to the Extraordinary Rite Mass.  Low Mass was offered tonight at 6:00 p.m. at St. Bridget of Kildare in Nyssa, Oregon by Fr. Andrew Szymakowski, FSSP.  I am posting a picture of St. Bridget of Kildare because none of the pictures I took of the sanctuary of her pretty little church came out to my satisfaction.

Concerning my first Extraordinary Rite Mass, some observations:

-- Since I read through the Ordinary of the Mass ahead of time, and got my ribbons in place to mark the propers, I was able to follow along relatively well.  The only things that threw me were the periods of silence, because, not knowing how long it takes the priest to recite the silent prayers, I ran the risk of missing things through trying to find my place.  I will need more Masses to get used to the responses.

-- Fr. Szymakowski keeps veils on the tabernacle in accordance with the liturgical season (tonight they were purple, and he changed them before Mass to rose-colored for Laetare Sunday).  These veils are quite lovely and look to be of antique vintage.  (I took pictures before Mass, but they didn't come out.)  He also uses a chalice veil and a maniple.

-- Tonight we heard Low Mass.  There are those who have their complaints about Low Mass, which is somewhat shorter than High Mass and contains no music, because they consider it to be minimalist.  But when I compare Low Mass to Sunday Mass in the Ordinary Rite stuffed to the rafters with campfire hits from Oregon Catholic Press, I consider Low Mass to be infinitely preferable.  If you have access to the Extraordinary Rite on a daily basis, or at least a frequent basis, even if it's "only" Low Mass, then you need to count your blessings.

-- Now I understand why, for generations, people prayed the Rosary and practiced other private devotions at Mass.  It's not because they weren't paying attention, or because they didn't know what's going on.  But, in stark contrast to the Ordinary Rite as frequently executed, there are lengthy periods of silence.  True, the Second Vatican Council wanted people to focus their attention on the Mass; but it would seem that if the faithful were properly disposed in the days before the Council, then they were offering their prayers with those of the priest who prayed in silence.  Besides, what could be more appropriate at the foot of the Cross -- which is exactly where we are at Mass -- than prayer? 

-- The priest's role as intercessor for the people stands out far more clearly in the Extraordinary Rite than in the Ordinary Rite.  Why?  Because he is facing God, and not us; because much of his prayer is silent; because he is clearly doing almost all of the work.  There are many, both within and without the Church, who find this objectionable.  I find it consoling.  Contrary to what we have tried to make priests in recent decades, and what they have tried to make themselves, a priest is not Just One of the Guys.  He is chosen to approach the Altar of the Lord, to speak on behalf of the Church, and he has been consecrated and specially fitted out for this task.  Since, in the Extraordinary Rite, laymen are not prancing around in the sanctuary, the fact that the priest is specially set apart is quite clear.  I think greater exposure to the Extraordinary Rite would help to put the kibosh on the business of blurring the distinction between laity and clergy. 

-- There are, in fact, very few tasks for the laity to perform at Mass in the Extraordinary Form.  Even when we receive Holy Communion, we are not required to say anything, only to receive the Eucharist.  To me, the lack of visible tasks for the laity to perform during Mass is a reminder that our own efforts, by themselves, count for next to nothing.  We need the help of grace, and we are getting this at Mass.  We must cooperate with grace, do what lies to hand, and then leave the rest to God, getting out of His way.  This requires us to mortify our desire to busy ourselves with many things.  By wanting to take on all sorts of jobs at Mass, all we're really doing is making life harder than it needs to be.  "Martha, Martha, you are anxious and troubled about many things; one thing is needful. Mary has chosen the good portion, which shall not be taken away from her." Luke 10:41-42.  "Be still, and know that I am God."  Psalm 46:10.

-- And, though we have lost this to a great extent since Vatican II,  stillness lies at the heart of the Mass.  Silence is the language of God.  The greatest wonders of all are out of the reach of our senses.  In the Extraordinary Rite, this is exemplified by the fact that the Holy Sacrifice itself takes place in silence -- at least, we in the pews cannot hear the words of consecration.  The silence of the congregation -- even a very small one, like we had tonight -- is a sure sign of active participation.  I was reminded of the hush that must have fallen on Calvary (which is where we in fact were), in those last moments before the great work of Redemption was accomplished.

So those are my preliminary thoughts on the Extraordinary Rite.  If you live in Boise, and you want the Extraordinary Rite, it is now within reach (only an hour's drive).

Dear God: please bless Fr. Szymakowski.  Please inspire more people to attend the Extraordinary Rite Mass in Nyssa, so that Father will be able to offer it more than once a month.  And please drive down the price of gas so we can all afford to keep going out there.   

Gearing Up

This Saturday evening, I plan to attend my first live Mass in the Extraordinary Form.  Since this is my first one, and I want to know what to do and get out of it as much as I possibly can, I have begun my preparation.  Today, I went out and picked up Baronius Press' Summorum Pontificum edition of the 1962 Missal -- the last one in the shop, as it so happened, sitting apart from all the other prayer books, as if it had been set out just for me.

As I looked through this classy volume, I couldn't help contrasting it with The Redoubtable One's one-volume English-language breviary, circa 1962.  The language in it is far superior to the ICEL translation of the Divine Office currently in use; on the other hand, the volume is full of the sort of weird, cubist/LSD-type drawings that still infest the covers of missalettes -- a symptom, even at that early date, of coming dislocations.  However, there is no place for that kind of nonsense in this missal.  Here is a typical illustration:

(For those of you who have clamored to see a picture of me, there's my thumb.)

Since beginning this Mass preparation, I have been reflecting on the fact that, in the wake of Vatican II, the liberals have succeeded not only in having Gregorian chant, the Latin language, and the Tridentine Mass shelved; they have also managed to instill in many Catholics a visceral hatred of these things.  The standard objections to these "relics of the past" -- nobody understands Latin, chant is "too hard" or "too depressing," etc., etc., etc. -- are so irrational and without foundation that hatred and prejudice, coupled with an utter lack of understanding of true Catholic worship, are the only explanations for them that makes sense.  

There is nothing "hard" about the Mass in Latin.  Generations upon generations of people far less educated than you understood the Mass.  And understanding the Mass is what the Missal is for.  I will grant that the Missal is a little on the complicated side, but the difficulties are not insurmountable.  Certainly, if you know your way around a breviary -- and not a few laymen do these days -- then the 1962 Missal will not be too hard to figure out.  Even if you don't recite the Office, the help is out there.

But here is the essential beauty of the Missal:

English on one side; Latin on the other.  Simple!  Not to mention all the nifty explanations in between -- because it doesn't kill us to learn new things.

And then there is the handy-dandy cheat sheet for when to stand, sit and kneel:

This Missal is also a treasury of devotions and essential Catholic prayers, which make it even more worth possessing.

So I, for one, am not worried about being able to follow what's going on at Mass this Saturday evening, or how I'm going to engage in "active participation."  The "active participation" starts now, with this volume.

The only thing that worries me is how, once I have experienced the beauty and the power of the traditional Mass, I'm going to be able to cope with the crappy music, etc. at the regular Masses I'll attend on the days when I can't get the Extraordinary Rite.