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| St. Peter's in Steubenville, OH |
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| The priest and deacon celebrating Mass facing liturgical East. |
By Communion I was sniffling and tearing up over the realization of how much we've lost. But I was also rejoicing over what is coming back in at least a few places. For us, this was the second awesomely reverent ad orientem Novus Ordo Mass in as many weeks. (Read about our experience in Colonial Beach.)
At Communion when the priest raised the host and then the chalice he made me think of an arrow -- pointing to God. He was invisible, unlike the priests who face their congregations. Admit it. When the priest is facing you, you are just as likely to focus on the priest as on Jesus hidden in the host and the chalice. Instead of being the shepherd leading the flock to Christ, he becomes a distraction and often magnifies it by taking on the persona of a stand up comic bantering and making jokes. Every time a priest does that he distracts from the sacredness of the Mass and invites the congregation to disrespect.
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| As visitors to St. Peter's, I couldn't resist taking a photo of the Visitation window. What a glorious church! |
Oh...and don't let me forget the blessed gift of KNEELING AT THE ALTAR RAIL for Communion! Just typing that makes we want to weep tears of joy in thanksgiving. And not an altar babe in sight. Praise God for two weeks of blessing. And we hope next Sunday to be at the Latin Mass at the FSSP parish, St. Benedict's in Chesapeake. Please pray that hurricane Irma heads out to sea and doesn't mess up our plans by heading for the Middle Atlantic.
My last words for this post: Just think how different things would be if this was the way the Novus Ordo was implemented instead of the three ring circus after Vatican II that still continues in some places to this day. Just think: no butterfly vestments, no circus Masses with jugglers and acrobats in the sanctuary, no balloon, polka or jazz Masses. Let us pray that reverence returns everywhere as it has in Colonial
Beach and Steubenville.
Wow. Takes me back to my childhood. I remember when everything changed and I went to Saturday Mass at 6am to help all the Italian Grandmothers dressed all in black to get use to the new Mass. They didn't like it. For me it didn't seem like Mass anymore. It was more like the other churches in the neighborhood. I want the real Mass back too. The focus is to revere the gift of Jesus the Christ coming down to earth...back to us directly in the Holy Eucharist. And all of heaven joining in...Glorious!
ReplyDeleteSo many times, from aged 8 to 18 I knelt on the altar steps at Mass. Starting with the priest bending over as he prayed the opening prayers at the foot of the altar, my diagonal walks from the Epistle side to The Gospel side of the altar carrying the altar stand which in turn carried the the Sacred Liturgy. How close to Christ when my long treasured days of watching, as you described the priest holding the Eucharist to a point which seemed as far as he could reach above his head. What majesty and what reverence!
ReplyDeleteI often describe it to younger members of our parish and even to members of the Clergy who would now have to be over 60 years of age to have offered Mass in the older Form.
Things that happened in our young lives, such as kneeling at the altar rails are so treasured and a loss that is hard to overcome.
I recently mentioned to a young priest that he should be offering the TLM and his response appeared to be one fear that he would be disciplined if he suggested it, before adding that it would turn "a lot more people that you think away from the Mass."
No suggestion of course that it could be a matter of an education program to fully explain the Mass of the ages.
Strange thing about us "traditionalists"....I seem to believe that Sacred Traditions is still one of the three pillars of the Church.
We here in Australia are going through the mockery of same sex unions. The local left wing Sydney Morning Herald, the US definition of The Washington Post has quoted two Jesuit high schools rectors advising why they felt we should vote yes.
The comment from one rector was that people in "good conscience" would be acting realistically to go that way in voting.
"Good conscience" of course falls back on the Winnipeg statement which never ever explained or defined a good conscience as being a personal choice against the" true conscience"........ truly formed.
Mary, you comments seem to me to be so inspired, they are so spot on and you are obviously receiving a wonderful Gift from our Creator. I for one feel a great comfort that the good fight is continuing.
God bless both you dear ones. We are living in challenging times, but God never abandons his people. He has given us some wonderful fearless shepherds like Cardinal Sarah and Bishop Athanasius Schneider. Sometimes I feel like I am holding on to the mast on the barque of Peter in the midst of a hurricane. But God promises the ship will not sink even when some of the crew are drilling holes in the bottom of the boat and the captain is talking on his cell phone.
ReplyDeleteMary Ann, I attended St. Peter's the four years at Franciscan U. I concur totally. The organ? Oh, that organ! With the brass trumpets sticking out! St. Peter's was a rare occurrence of the laity having their way when they somehow got the building declared historic and so at the last minute prevented the removal of the communion rail. Sadly those ugly confessionals and the former reredos did not enjoy the same fate. In the church basement are photos of the 'old church" how it looked prior to 'renovation.'
ReplyDeleteI remember at weekday 5:15PM masses smelling the spaghetti cooking, the odor wafting up from the basement where they were preparing for Bingo!
Who could forget those weekday masses with late and wonderfully saintly Father Ray Ryland's homilies!
Please come to St. Joseph's on Buford Road in Midlothian when in the area, it like Chesapeake is run by the FSSP with traditional masses only.
I love your writing.
Mike Smith
Chase City, Va.
Thank you for sharing those wonderful memories, Mike. I wish we had an FSSP parish in our diocese. Maybe that's the down side of having more vocations than Richmond. We don't have many parishes run by non-diocesan priests. I keep praying for more parishes going to ad orientem. That would be a great beginning.
ReplyDelete"Just think how different things would be if this was the way the Novus Ordo was implemented instead of the three ring circus after Vatican II that still continues in some places to this day."
ReplyDeleteThe more I have read about how the liturgical reform played out in the early 60's - well before the Novus Ordo showed up in 1969 - and the developments and leadership already in place even before the Council, the more I have come to think that such a development was extremely unlikely. For starters, it would have needed a very different pope than Paul VI; and even such a pope would have been limited in how much he could have held back the tide, once it got going. Immanentism was in the water and far too many Catholic clerical and lay leaders wanted to drink deeply of it.
The "reformed" traditional missal in its 1964 and 1967 forms at least still had the traditional lectionary, calendar, graduale, offertory, and exclusive Roman Canon. And yet the silly season unfolded with staggering speed even in that box.
Perhaps we had to go through this liturgical collapse to really appreciate the value of tradition.
One community that celebrates the Novus Ordo the way it should be done is the EWTN friars. I have often said that if every parish offered the Mass like them, we would surely have a different Church today!
ReplyDeleteI am glad to hear such great things about a parish that is so close to Franciscan University. I like them, but have become more skeptical of them than I used to be, because of how deeply committed they are to charismatic spirituality, and how they tend to incorporate much of that even into their liturgies. I saw a video that talked about this online, and was disturbed by it. I was going to post it here, but have decided not to, because I discovered later it was put out by a group that is not in good standing with the Church. Despite this, it is well known that many charismatic Masses and groups engage in activity that often takes away from the reverence that is due to times of prayer, and especially the Holy Mass, and turns out to be more centered on the gifts they believe to have, and on the idea of community. Some of these things may not be outright liturgical abuses, but even those that are not are still clearly absurd within the context of Mass and prayer times. (Michael Voris has a good article on this here: https://www.churchmilitant.com/main/generic/faq-charismatic-renewal ) I am not slamming the entire charismatic renewal, but from experience, I do know that it must be approached with deep and careful discernment. Because Franciscan is well known to be so "all in" to the renewal, I would not have imagined that a parish so close to them would have a more traditional Novus Ordo liturgy. This is wonderful, and I pray that many of the students there have benefited from it, especially spiritually. As a result of your post, I did a search on Google, and found that Franciscan also has EF Masses, too. I am not sure how often, but they do. This is very hopeful, and we just have to keep praying for these signs of liturgical renewal to continue and increase, to the extent that Our Lord wills! Personally, I praying for FSSP priests to come to my diocese also!
Another result of my Google search was that I found Ralph Martin and Patti Mansfield being interviewed by the 700 Club, talking about the fifty year anniversary of the renewal. I like Mansfield, but still feel that she has been far too in-discerning about some of the so-called "gifts" charismatics claim to possess, and how dangerous they can be, because of the possibility of being so easily mimicked by the devil ("holy laughter", for example, which she seems to think authentic). Thus, I am not surprised that she sat down with the 700 Club. As for Martin, I absolutely LOVE THE GUY, but I think he should have known that they were likely to do a hatchet job on him. Many faithful are so anxious to be ecumenical today, they cannot discern a wolf when it is in front of their faces. In fairness, I have not yet seen this interview, but from what I know about CBN, it will likely be one--and they are still wolves, regardless!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DR6I4ZTCsZQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3D2WhjcvXUA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r8CNr9MVenk
Note how this Southern Baptist convert to Catholicism (third link) sees them as the wolves they are, but Mansfield and Martin, both cradle Catholics, do not. No big shock for me.
-Dawn
I will start this by admitting that I'm under 30, so maybe that makes a difference. I've been to St. Peter's with my grandparents as it is their home parish and I agree that it's a very beautiful church and the music is wonderful. However, I feel like the Latin Mass is more of a big pageant than anything else. How can I be reverently prayerful if I don't understand the language? It's like attending my parish's Spanish Mass: interesting, but ultimately unfulfilling. The last time we went to St. Peter's at noon, we had lunch with the family and I was glad to be home in Canton to attend my parish's 5:30 Sunday evening Mass, in English, because I felt like I'd watched a show, not been to Mass. Of course, now I'm wondering if our many Hispanic families feel the same way on the weeks where we don't offer Spanish Mass. Just my 2 cents. Caroline from Ohio.
ReplyDeleteThank you for your comment, Caroline. The Latin Mass is strange if you've never attended it before, but you point out something very important.
ReplyDelete"I feel like the Latin Mass is more of a big pageant than anything else. How can I be reverently prayerful if I don't understand the language?"
Think of a wedding or an ordination or a coronation. They are all "pageants" that emphasize the importance of the events. Sometimes there are unfamiliar customs associated with them, but the pageantry is often awe-inspriing. The pageantry of the Mass shows reverence to God and his position as King of King and Lord of Lords.
The Mass I went to at St. Peter's was NOT in Latin. It was the Novus Ordo celebrated facing liturgical east and in English with several of the prayers (the Gloria and the Our Father) chanted in Latin. Someone in the parish told me they no longer say the Latin Mass there; I'm unsure of the reason. The next time you are there, I suggest you try again. I find using the Magnificat prayer book a real blessing.
But the Latin Mass is not hard to follow if you have a Latin/English missal. My missal was a birthday gift on my 9th birthday. I could tell where we were in the Mass by the prayers the priest said, the bells, the times when the priest raised his voice, etc. And so I would follow along in my missal in English. "I will go in unto the altar of God, unto God who gives joy to my youth." The prayers are beautiful! From nine to 20 I used that missal for Sunday and daily Mass and it is well worn. If a little child could learn to follow along and understand the Mass in Latin so can an adult.
I love the Mass, whatever the form, provided it is reverent. Unfortunately, my experience is that the congregations at the Novus Ordo lack reverence. They often chatter before Mass and many churches are like a gymnasium after Mass with people talking and laughing loudly. I used to stay to make a thanksgiving after Mass in my parish, but I could not deal with the chaos and would leave Mass angry at the irreverence toward Our Lord. So now I get out of church as quickly as possible for my own soul's peace. I have never had that experience at a Tridentine Mass, a Latin Novus Ordo, or an ad orientem Novus Ordo. It is, perhaps, the pageantry that reminds people to be more serious and respectful.
I hope you try it again.
The notion that only older people want the TLM is complete nonsense. No offense to the last poster. I know you didn't mean what you said in a bad way, but the numbers simply don't bear that out. The fact is, it is is mostly YOUNGER people who want the TLM. A lot of older people (not all, but a lot, it seems) want the Novus Ordo poorly celebrated, because they do not realize the gravity of this, they have been poorly catechized, and they just are used to Mass like they have had it for most of their lives, which is basically a Protestanized version of the Mass. For example, an elderly friend of mine left one of the parishes I used to see him at because the pastor has suddenly incorporated a lot of Latin in the responses. He said, "I'm old. I don't know Latin. Why do we have to go back to this?" You see, he never understood the spiritual significance of the Latin to begin with. If so, whether he understood it or not, he would never have said that. Case and point.
ReplyDeleteThen there is the sordid history of how the Mass was changed in the first place. Given this, it is a wonder why it was not changed back as soon as this history and these motives were discovered. Keep praying, however. God will make whatever changes He wills in His time!
https://www.churchmilitant.com/video/episode/the-rest-of-the-top-twenty
Listen for the history of Cardinal Annabale Bugnini.
-Dawn (in my 30s)
I have been to St. Peter's dozens of times, both English and Latin Masses. With 11 kids, my grandparents are frequent hosts for family events. I apologize for assuming you were at a Latin Mass. They still do Latin Mass several times a year, just not weekly. We are fortunate in our Church that there are several legitimate ways to celebrate the Eucharist, and I don't think I've been "poorly catechized". I'm glad you enjoyed your visit, but I'm happy I've got my home parish that does things differently. Caroline
ReplyDeleteWe are all different flowers in God's garden. I think that's why there are so many devotions in the Church. Some appeal to one, some to another. Some are meant for all (like the rosary and the Eucharist), but the variety of forms (Byzantine, Latin, Marianite, etc.) appeal to different people. I think that shows God's great love for us and the fact that each one of us is so beautifully unique. All that is necessary, as St. Augustine said, is to "Love God and do what you will." If we truly love God we will search unceasingly for His will in our lives. Our wills will be conformed to His.
ReplyDeleteMay God bless you, Caroline, and may Our Lady always hold your hand and lead you to her Son.
Didn't mean to imply that you have been poorly catechized, Caroline, but just that the Church, in the wake of Vatican II, has done a lukewarm job in getting across to the people how spirituality important and significant the Latin is. EWTN and Cardinal Arinze have surely attempted to get this across, but in most other sectors, you hear nary a peep about it! This is why many of the faithful see it as just another language that makes the Mass hard to understand, because they don't understand it, but it is so much more than that. It is the language of the Church, and as such, the devil hates it. It is also our unique and precious patrimony, going back many centuries. As Cardinal Arinze once said, it is the same Mass which many Saints, including Saint Therese, attended for many centuries, and this why it should not be so easily dismissed as just one option for Mass among many. http://www.latinmassmagazine.com/articles/articles_2001_SU_Ripperger.html
ReplyDeleteMoreover, not all, but many exorcists say that exorcisms are always most effective in Latin, because it is the mother tongue of the Church, which Jesus founded. http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2016/02/the-devil-hates-latin-says-exorcist.html#.WbIVKcZGncc
This is not to say that everyone must prefer the Latin Mass. No. But every Catholic should realize that Latin in the liturgy is not just another language, like Spanish, French, English, or whatever. Rather, it is the mother tongue of the Church, chosen in the mystery of God, to bring us the Mass of the Ages. Truly, God intended that this should mean something to all of us, and no doubt, it should. We should not see Latin as an outdated vestige of yesterday, but as a timeless treasure of our patrimony, regardless of whether we attend the TLM or not. And, if nothing else, we should all be praying for a true renewal of the Novus Ordo, so that it will begin to be celebrated with the due reverence that God deserves, and that the sacrificial aspects of the Mass will stop being downplayed for the sake of ecumenism, or for whatever other reasons this is happening in many places!
I also wanted to add that I agree with what you said, MaryAnn, about the faithful not behaving reverently in the Novus Ordo. Like you, I used to get mad about this, too. What I realized, though, is that priests need to get across to the faithful how to behave, especially after Mass. There is a priest in one of the parishes I attend, for example, who told the people in a homily not to talk after Mass. He did this in a very nice way. It did not work, however, because many people have continued to stand around and talk after Mass. Thus, I think he should say something at Mass again. He may, but I doubt it will be firm enough for most people to realize how important this is. Today, I think many priests confuse being firm with being mean, and many times are afraid to speak out on an issue like this, for fear that they will drive people away. However, how are the people to know that they are on Calvary at Mass, and that the Tabernacle, even AFTER Mass, is more holy than the Holy of Holies in the Old Testament, if no one ever has the courage to tell them? It is sad!
-Dawn
Mary Ann:
ReplyDeleteThanks for covering this. I will remember this parish as a place to visit when traveling. I normally remember places to go to Sunday Mass in cities such as Minneapolis-St. Paul, Washington D.C., northern Virginia (St. Mary's in Alexandria), San Antonio (Our Lady of the Atonement), Austin, Philadelphia, Columbus (The downtown parish staffed by Dominicans), etc. I feel more at ease on Sunday while traveling if I know that I can attend a parish where liturgical abuses are greatly minimized.
Excellent article on the ancient, and therefore extraordinary, nature of the TLM. Really good! https://onepeterfive.com/busting-myth-tridentine-mass/
ReplyDeleteBTW, MaryAnn, you also sort of mentioned in your post how little incense is used in your average Novus Ordo. I agree, and this so sad. Your average non-Catholic would think it is used at every Mass, but at the NOs I attend, it is only used at Christmas and Easter. Has this been everyone else's experiences, too? I am praying it starts to get used more. After all, it is a powerful spiritual weapon that the Church has let fall by the wayside!
-Dawn
Just so happened to find this, too. Please watch! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dZiSvuAJxOA
ReplyDelete-Dawn