Yesterday, my lovely wife and I attended Mass at Old St. Mary’s in Chinatown, Washington, D.C. They have the Ecclesia Dei indult, and we were treated to a Low Mass. (I am a 30-year-old convert living in the Arlington Diocese, and our bishop has not found it necessary to grant the indult; consequently I have never participated in the “old” Mass before.)
Had I know the delights that awaited me, I would have gone much sooner. I was struck by the silence, the Tridentine mumble, well-trained altar boys, the lack of pop music, the repetitions, and the reverence of the faithful, the servers, and the priest, among other things. I was also struck by the difficulties a renegade priest would have if he wanted to abuse the ritual to suit his own tastes.
The entire experience was, in a word, perfect.
Very similar to my first experience assisting at a Tridentine Mass about 10 years ago. My wife and I were married in the old rite as well.
Welcome to “The Most Beautiful Thing This Side Of Heaven”.
Unless, of course, he actually understands enough Latin to say whatever he damn well pleases as he goes along. Rite doesn’t make right, unfortunately.
Are you raining on the parade, Herr Professor?
This is hard for me to say, but I’ve found the tridentine mass to be spiritually and emotionally unaccessible. I really wanted to love it, as I’m a fan of and fond of the traditions in our church, and love any sign of reverence for Christ.
I was trying hard to follow what was going on, reading the papers I collected from the pew, but struggled most of the time just figuring out what page we were on.
I don’t know.
Michael,
Would the parishoners know enough Latin to understand what he was saying that was different than their bilingual missal?
Probably not — which is why bishops consistently found throughtout the centuries in visitations that priests babble rather than saying the prescribed words — as anyone who’s heard a low mass at full speed probably suspects.
My introduction to the Latin mass was indult weekday low masses in Atlanta said by a priest who, so far as I could tell, wasn’t really interested. I was as well-prepared as a member of the congregation could be (B.A. in Latin, Ph.D. in medieval stuff, know the text of the Mass, owned a good Missal) and I wasn’t at all convinced that he was saying all the words.
A nice lady (still active in the FSSP parish in Atlanta) thought it was JUST like the masses of her youth, which is why she liked it.
Me, I was uninspired.
Yes, when the FSSP came to town the Sunday masses, with splending music, were much better, but as I suggest above the use of the Rite didn’t solve the problems.
There used to be an indult Mass in Barnesville, Maryland once a month at 4:00pm on a Sunday. Depending on where you live in the Arlington Diocese this is a half hour drive ..or.. an hour and a half drive. I don’t know what the Mass is like but the priest is very old and very good.
Interesting discussions have taken place elsewhere about the “Low Mass Mentality.” Things are no better at High Mass when the priest is sloppy, indifferent, doesn’t know the chant, or can’t pronounce Latin correctly – although these conditions will only be noticed by a few…
However, the rite itself is intrinsically superior. The Reform was an impoverishment.
The “Liturgists” have a point in that careful preparation is necessary — and this means the priest above all.
Traditional High Mass, sung and executed correctly, is amazingly beautiful – the summit of all liturgy.
What Charles A. said. :)
The priest who said Mass yesterday did mumble, his Latin pronunciation was not what you’d hear from, say, Fr. Rutler, and the plaster was also peeling in the church. My point, which I should have articulated more clearly, was that liturgical abuses in the old rite would have to be perpetrated BY the priest and not simply ALLOWED to occur by the priest, which, for a variety of reasons, would improve the chances of hearing Mass said well around here. The absence of a liturgy committee is an attractive idea to me, and John Schultz and his ilk (includng the choir at our parish) nothwithstanding, I’d rather attend Mass without any meddling at all from the laity.
A priest who shows no visible signs of enthusiasm should not be a concern. The good father yesterday said Mass at an alarming clip, and we were out the door in 45 minutes. His homily was quite brief. Many people had their rosaries out during Mass (which shouldn’t be happening, I suppose), but we didn’t, and uninvolved parishioners are a problem everywhere, including our parish, where the pastor does quite an impression of Fulton Sheen every Sunday. One who wishes to participate fully may do so in either rite, but I found it much easier yesterday than I have in the past five years. Maybe the euphoria will wear off, but in the end, here’s a church where the faithful are guaranteed an extended period of time on Sundays to meditate upon our Lord’s passion, death, and resurrection without being jolted into temporal awareness by some person with a microphone. God bless it.
I am glad that you loved the Indult Mass. I don’t have the chance to go as I moved far from one. You are blessed. I really miss it and love to hear about how people find it when going for the first time. I didn’t have the immediately love for it but I did grow to love it. I think that if you attend it over time, it is hard to do with out.
Glad you liked the Mass at Old St. Mary’s. If you’re interested in something other than Low Mass, they have a Missa Cantata on the 1st (mixed quartet) and 3rd (men’s schola) Sundays of the month. Then, on the 2nd Sunday, at 5:00 pm, there’s a Solemn High Mass (with deacon & subdeacon), that’s really splendid. No rushing or mumbling at the Solemn High; the servers their do a marvelous job, too. (I sing with the men’s schola).
I am glad to see that someone writes approvingly of the Low Mass, which is not always appreciated even by people who love the old rite. Historically it is to be sure an abridgement of the Solemn Mass, but it has its own spiritual and aesthetic beauties.
As to ‘mumbling’, unless you are attending a Dialogue Mass there is hardly anything apart from the ‘Dominus vobiscum’s that would be heard by the congregation if the priest is celebrating correctly according to the old rubrics.
Forty-five minutes strikes you as a short Mass? I remember priests from my youth who could have you out at under a half hour, and there was nothing irreverent about their celebration.
The reason that the Indult is not needed in Arlington is that the priests are trained in Liturgy there and it represents an authentic Novus Ordo Ritui as Vatican II intended. There are no female altar services, most altar servers where cassock and circlus (sp). There is a schismatic group meeting at St. Athanasasius Chapel outside near Dulles on 66. To tell you the truth, I find a novus ordo well done to be more edifying than the Tridentine Liturgy. Why? Because I love the Eastern Rite where the laity are directly involved in a dialogue of worship not one where we are represented by the altar servers or where we need to follow a missal just to figure out what is happening.
The Liturgical reform occurred prior to Vatican II with Mediator Dei and was needed.
Why. Well my Orthodox friends switched to an OCA Church to celebrate Liturgy in their vernacular rather than a mother tongue that no one speaks. I would not be Catholic if the entire Liturgy was in Latin even if I was convinced of the Catholic claim.
Yes, I love the Novus Ordo in Latin and Spanish, but I prefer english as my fellow brothers and sisters understand it. Also, in Holy Tradition in the East, the vernacular was allowed. It was not until Trent that all other Western rites and eccelsial languages were supressed to create uniformity.
45 minutes is short as compared to most Sunday N.O. liturgies. I found this amusing because one of the reasons given for all of the revisions was the removal of repetitions. So, as any good government agency would, they removed things and managed to make it longer at the same time.
If only the Church had spent half the energy protecting children that they have spent stamping out the old mass.