Many Catholics have witnessed or read about Masses gone wild: polka Masses, life-size scary puppet Masses, and probably worst of all, Los Angeles Religious Education Congress closing Masses. In these extreme cases, it is clear that there is something fundamentally wrong with how the organizers understand the Mass. Yet even some sincere, faithful Catholics wish…
The Rorate Mass takes its name from the opening words of the Introit, which comes to us from Isaiah 45:8: “Rorate, caeli, desuper, et nubes pluant justum, aperiatur terra, et germinet Salvatorem.” “Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just: let the earth be opened and bud forth a…
“October 18th was a memorable day in the long history of the Roman Church. On that day, fifty years ago, Pope Paul VI celebrated Mass according to the unique rites of the papacy for the very last time. Papal Mass, which synthesized the primitive Roman tradition with the international Gallican praxis, remained virtually unchanged since…
Today, I want to broach a controversial topic, knowing full well that I may cause a ruckus. I want to talk about masculinity and the liturgy. I will start with a few caveats. First, I do not believe the liturgy should ever be a controversial issue. It shouldn’t be a matter of politics, factions, personal…
One of the chief arguments for the traditional Christian practice of celebrating the Eucharist ad orientem — the priest and people together facing the same direction, toward the liturgical “east” of the apse — is that the Mass is a sacrifice offered up to God. The German liturgical scholar Msgr. Klaus Gamber († 1989) observes: You stand before…
PUBLISHER’S NOTE: On July 7, 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued an apostolic letter motu proprio (given on his own initiative to the Church) that addressed a serious concern long-neglected: the status of the ancient form of the Roman liturgy. After nearly four decades of difficulties between Rome and those Catholics who favored the preservation of the vetus ordo, the first…
