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Ten Reasons To Attend The Traditional Latin Mass

Photo courtesy of Saint Ann’s Church and Shrine in Buffalo, New York.

By Peter Kwasniewski & Michael Foley

Given that it can often be less convenient for a person or a family to attend the traditional Latin Mass (and I am thinking not only of obvious issues like the place and the time, but also of the lack of a parish infrastructure and the hostile reactions one can get from friends, family, and even clergy), it is definitely worthwhile to remind ourselves of why we are doing this in the first place. If something is worth doing, then it’s worth persevering in—even at the cost of sacrifices.

This article will set forth a number of reasons why, in spite of all the inconveniences (and even minor persecutions) we have experienced over the years, we and our families love to attend the traditional Latin Mass. Sharing these reasons will, we hope, encourage readers everywhere either to begin attending the usus antiquior or to continue attending if they might be wavering. Indeed, it is our conviction that the sacred liturgy handed down to us by tradition has never been more important in the life of Catholics, as we behold the “pilgrim Church on earth” continue to forget her theology, dilute her message, lose her identity, and bleed her members. By preserving, knowing, following, and loving her ancient liturgy, we do our part to bolster authentic doctrine, proclaim heavenly salvation, regain a full stature, and attract new believers who are searching for unadulterated truth and manifest beauty. By handing down this immense gift in turn, and by inviting to the Mass as many of our friends and our families as we can, we are fulfilling our vocation as followers of the Apostles.

Without further ado, ten reasons:

1. You will be formed in the same way that most of the Saints were formed. If we take a conservative estimate and consider the Roman Mass to have been codified by the reign of Pope St. Gregory the Great (ca. 600) and to have lasted intact until 1970, we are talking about close to 1,400 years of the life of the Church—and that’s most of her history of saints. The prayers, readings, and chants that they heard and pondered will be the ones you hear and ponder. 

For this is the Mass that St. Gregory the Great inherited, developed, and solidified. This is the Mass that St. Thomas Aquinas celebrated, lovingly wrote about, and contributed to (he composed the Mass Propers and Office for the Feast of Corpus Christi). This is the Mass that St. Louis IX, the crusader king of France, attended three times a day. This is the Mass that St. Philip Neri had to distract himself from before he celebrated it because it so easily sent him into ecstasies that lasted for hours. This is the Mass that was first celebrated on the shores of America by Spanish and French missionaries, such as the North American Martyrs. This is the Mass that priests said secretly in England and Ireland during the dark days of persecution, and this is the Mass that Blessed Miguel Pro risked his life to celebrate before being captured and martyred by the Mexican government. This is the Mass that Blessed John Henry Newman said he would celebrate every waking moment of his life if he could. This is the Mass that the Fr. Frederick Faber called “the most beautiful thing this side of heaven.” This is the Mass that Fr. Damien of Molokai celebrated with leprous hands in the church he had built and painted himself. This is the Mass during which St. Edith Stein, who was later to die in the gas chambers of Auschwitz, became completely enraptured. This is the Mass that great artists such as Evelyn Waugh, David Jones, and Graham Greene loved so much that they lamented its loss with sorrow and alarm. This is the Mass so widely respected that even non-Catholics such as Agatha Christie and Iris Murdoch came to its defense in the 1970s. This is the Mass that St. Padre Pio insisted on celebrating until his death in 1968, after the liturgical apparatchiks had begun to mess with the missal (and this was a man who knew a thing or two about the secrets of sanctity). This is the Mass that St. Josemaría Escrivá, the founder of Opus Dei, received permission to continue celebrating in private at the end of his life.

What a glorious cloud of witnesses surrounds the traditional Latin Mass! Their holiness was forged like gold and silver in the furnace of this Mass, and it is an undeserved blessing that we, too, can seek and obtain the same formation. Yes, I can go to the new Mass and know that I am in the presence of God and His saints (and for that I am profoundly grateful), but a concrete historical link to these saints has been severed, as well as a historical link to my own heritage as a Catholic in the Roman rite.

2. What is true for me is even more true for my children. This way of celebrating most deeply forms the minds and hearts of our children in reverence for Almighty God, in the virtues of humility, obedience, and adoring silence. It fills their senses and imaginations with sacred signs and symbols, “mystic ceremonies” (as the Council of Trent puts it). Maria Montessori herself frequently pointed out that small children are very receptive to the language of symbols, often more than adults are, and that they will learn more easily from watching people do a solemn liturgy than from hearing a lot of words with little action. All of this is extremely impressive and gripping for children who are learning their faith, and especially boys who become altar servers.[1]

3. Its universality. The traditional Latin Mass not only provides a visible and unbroken link from the present day to the distant past, it also constitutes an inspiring bond of unity across the globe. Older Catholics often recall how moving it was for them to assist at Mass in a foreign country for the first time and to discover that “the Mass was the same” wherever they went. The experience was, for them, a confirmation of the catholicity of their Catholicism. By contrast, today one is sometimes hard pressed to find “the same Mass” at the same parish on the same weekend. The universality of the traditional Latin Mass, with its umbrella of Latin as a sacred language and its insistence that the priest put aside his own idiosyncratic and cultural preferences and put on the person of Christ, acts as a true Pentecost in which many tongues and tribes come together as one in the Spirit—rather than a new Babel that privileges unshareable identities such as ethnicity or age group and threatens to occlude the “neither Greek nor Jew” principle of the Gospel.

4. You always know what you are getting. The Mass will be focused on the Holy Sacrifice of Our Lord Jesus Christ on the Cross. There will be respectful and prayerful silence before, during, and after Mass. There will be only males serving in the sanctuary and only priests and deacons handling the Body of Christ, in accord with nearly 2,000 years of tradition. People will usually be dressed modestly. Music may not always be present (and when present, may not always be perfectly executed), but you will never hear pseudo-pop songs with narcissistic or heretical lyrics.

Put differently, the traditional form of the Roman rite can never be completely co-opted. Like almost every other good thing this side of the grave, the Latin Mass can be botched, but it can never be abused to the extent that it no longer points to the true God. Chesterton once said that “there is only one thing that can never go past a certain point in its alliance with oppression—and that is orthodoxy. I may, it is true, twist orthodoxy so as partly to justify a tyrant. But I can easily make up a German philosophy to justify him entirely.”[2] The same is true for the traditional Latin Mass. Father Jonathan Robinson, who at the time of writing his book was not a friend of the usus antiquior, nevertheless admitted that “the perennial attraction of the Old Rite is that it provided a transcendental reference, and it did this even when it was misused in various ways.”[3] By contrast, Robinson observes, while the new Mass can be celebrated in a reverent way that directs us to the transcendent, “there is nothing in the rule governing the way the Novus Ordo is to be said that ensures the centrality of the celebration of the Paschal mystery.”[4] In other words, the new Mass can be celebrated validly but in a way that puts such an emphasis on community or sharing a meal that it can amount to “the virtual denial of a Catholic understanding of the Mass.”[5] On the other hand, the indestructibility of the traditional Mass’s inherent meaning is what inspired one commentator to compare it to the old line about the U.S. Navy: “It’s a machine built by geniuses so it can be operated safely by idiots.”[6]

5. It’s the real McCoy. The classical Roman rite has an obvious theocentric and Christocentric orientation, found both in the ad orientem stance of the priest and in the rich texts of the classical Roman Missal itself, which give far greater emphasis to the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, the divinity of Our Lord Jesus Christ, and the sacrifice of Our Lord upon the Cross.[7] As Dr. Lauren Pristas has shown, the prayers of the new Missal are often watered-down in their expression of dogma and ascetical doctrine, whereas the prayers of the old Missal are unambiguously and uncompromisingly Catholic.[8] It is the real McCoy, the pure font, not something cobbled together by “experts” for “modern man” and adjusted to his preferences. More and more Catholic pastors and scholars are acknowledging how badly rushed and botched were the liturgical reforms of the 1960s. This has left us with a confusingly messy situation for which the reformed liturgy itself is totally ill-equipped to provide a solution, with its plethora of options, its minimalist rubrics, its vulnerability to manipulative “presiders,” and its manifest discontinuity with at least fourteen centuries of Roman Catholic worship—a discontinuity powerfully displayed in the matter of language, since the old Mass whispers and sings in the Western Church’s holy mother tongue, Latin, while the new Mass has awkwardly mingled itself with the ever-changing vernaculars of the world.

6. A superior calendar for the saints. In liturgical discussions, most ammunition is spent on defending or attacking changes to the Ordinary of the Mass—and understandably so. But one of the most significant differences between the 1962 and 1970 Missals is the calendar. Let’s start with the Sanctoral Cycle, the feast days of the saints. The 1962 calendar is an amazing primer in Church history, especially the history of the early Church, which often gets overlooked today. It is providentially arranged in such a way that certain saints form different “clusters” that accent a particular facet of holiness. The creators of the 1969/1970 general calendar, on the other hand, eliminated or demoted 200 saints, including St. Valentine from St. Valentine’s Day and St. Christopher, the patron saint of travelers, claiming that he never existed. They also eliminated St. Catherine of Alexandria for the same reason, even though she was one of the saints that St. Joan of Arc saw when God commissioned her to fight the English.[9] The architects of the new calendar often made their decisions on the basis of modern historical scholarship rather than the oral traditions of the Church. Their scholarly criteria call to mind Chesterton’s rejoinder that he would rather trust old wives’ tales than old maids’ facts. “It is quite easy to see why a legend is treated, and ought to be treated, more respectfully than a book of history,” G. K. writes. “The legend is generally made by the majority of people in the village, who are sane. The book is generally written by the one man in the village who is mad.”[10]

7. A superior calendar for the seasons. Similarly, the “Temporal Cycle”—Christmastide, Epiphanytide, Septuagesimatide, Eastertide, Time after Pentecost, etc.—is far richer in the 1962 calendar. Thanks to its annual cycle of propers, each Sunday has a distinct flavor to it, and this annual recurrence creates a marker or yardstick that allows the faithful to measure their spiritual progress or decline over the course of their lives. The traditional calendar has ancient observances like Ember Days and Rogation Days that heighten not only our gratitude to God but our appreciation of the goodness of the natural seasons and of the agricultural cycles of the land. The traditional calendar has no such thing as “Ordinary Time” (a most unfortunate phrase, seeing that there cannot be such a thing as “ordinary time” after the Incarnation[11]) but instead has a Time after Epiphany and a Time after Pentecost, thereby extending the meaning of these great feasts like a long afterglow or echo. In company with Christmas and Easter, Pentecost, a feast of no lesser status than they, is celebrated for a full eight days, so that the Church may bask in the warmth and light of the heavenly fire. And the traditional calendar has the pre-Lenten season of Septuagesima or “Carnevale,” which begins three weeks before Ash Wednesday and deftly aids in the psychological transition from the joy of Christmastide to the sorrow of Lent. Like most other features of the usus antiquior, the aforementioned aspects of the calendar are extremely ancient and connect us vividly with the Church of the first millennium and even the earliest centuries.

8. A Better Way to the Bible. Many think that the Novus Ordo has a natural advantage over the old Mass because it has a three-year cycle of Sunday readings and a two-year cycle of weekday readings, and longer and more numerous readings at Mass, instead of the ancient one-year cycle, usually consisting of two readings per Mass (Epistle and Gospel). What they overlook is the fact that the architects of the Novus Ordo simultaneously took out most of the biblical allusions that formed the warp and woof of the Ordinary of the Mass, and then parachuted in a plethora of readings with little regard to their congruency with each other. When it comes to biblical readings, the old rite operates on two admirable principles: first, that passages are chosen not for their own sake (to “get through” as much of Scripture as possible) but to illuminate the meaning of the occasion of worship; second, that the emphasis is not on a mere increase of biblical literacy or didactic instruction but on “mystagogy.” In other words, the readings at Mass are not meant to be a glorified Sunday school but an ongoing initiation into the mysteries of the Faith. Their more limited number, brevity, liturgical suitability, and repetition over the course of every year makes them a powerful agent of spiritual formation and preparation for the Eucharistic sacrifice.

9. Reverence for the Most Holy Eucharist. The Ordinary Form of the Mass can, of course, be celebrated with reverence and with only ordained ministers distributing Holy Communion. But let’s be honest: the vast majority of Catholic parishes deploy “extraordinary” lay ministers of Holy Communion, and the vast majority of the faithful will receive Holy Communion in the hand. These two arrangements alone constitute a significant breach in reverence for the Blessed Sacrament. Unlike the priest, lay ministers do not purify their hands or fingers after handling God, thus accumulating and scattering particles of the Real Presence. The same is true of the faithful who receive Communion in the hand; even brief contact with the Host on the palm of one’s hand can leave tiny particles of the consecrated Victim.[12] Think about it: every day, thousands upon thousands of these unintentional acts of desecration of the Blessed Sacrament occur around the world. How patient is the Eucharistic Heart of our Lord! But do we really want to contribute to this desecration? And even if we ourselves receive communion on the tongue at a Novus Ordo Mass, chances are we will still be surrounded by these careless habits—an environment that will either fill us with outrage and sorrow or lead to a settled indifference. These reactions are not helpful in experiencing the peace of Christ’s Real Presence, nor are they an optimal way to raise one’s children in the Faith!

Similar points could be made about the distracting “Sign of Peace[13]; or female lectors and EMHCs, who, apart from constituting an utter break with tradition, can be clad in clothing of questionable modesty; or the almost universal custom of loud chitchat before and after Mass; or the ad-libbing and optionizing of the priest. These and so many other characteristics of the Novus Ordo as it is all too often celebrated are all, singly and collectively, signs of a lack of faith in the Real Presence, signs of an anthropocentric, horizontal self-celebration of the community.

This point should be emphasized: it is especially harmful for children to witness, again and again, the shocking lack of reverence with which Our Lord and God is treated in the awesome Sacrament of His Love, as pew after pew of Catholics automatically go up to receive a gift they generally treat with casual and even bored indifference. We believe the Eucharist is really our Savior, our King, our Judge—but then promptly act in a way that says we are handling regular (though symbolic) food and drink, which explains why so many Catholics seem to have a Protestant view of what is going on at Mass. This unfortunate situation will not end until the pre-Vatican II norms regarding the sacred Host are made mandatory for all liturgical ministers, which is not likely anytime soon. The safe haven of refuge is, once again, the traditional Latin Mass, where sanity and sanctity prevail.

10. When all is said and done, it’s the Mystery of Faith. Many of the reasons for persevering in and supporting the traditional Latin Mass, in spite of all the trouble the devil manages to stir up for us, can be summarized in one word: MYSTERY. What St. Paul calls musterion and what the Latin liturgical tradition designates by the names mysterium and sacramentum are far from being marginal concepts in Christianity. God’s dramatic self-disclosure to us, throughout history and most of all in the Person of Jesus Christ, is a mystery in the highest sense of the term: it is the revelation of a Reality that is utterly intelligible yet always ineluctable, ever luminous yet blinding in its luminosity. It is fitting that the liturgical celebrations that bring us into contact with our very God should bear the stamp of His eternal and infinite mysteriousness, His marvelous transcendence, His overwhelming holiness, His disarming intimacy, His gentle yet penetrating silence. The traditional form of the Roman rite surely bears this stamp. Its ceremonies, its language, its ad orientem posture, and its ethereal music are not obscurantist but perfectly intelligible while at the same time instilling a sense of the unknown, even the fearful and thrilling. By fostering a sense of the sacred, the old Mass preserves intact the mystery of Faith.[14]

In sum, the classical Roman Rite is an ambassador of tradition, a midwife for the interior man, a lifelong tutor in the faith, a school of adoration, contrition, thanksgiving, and supplication, an absolutely reliable rock of stability on which we can confidently build our spiritual lives.

As the movement for the restoration of the Church’s sacred liturgy is growing and gaining momentum, now is not a time for discouragement or second thoughts; it is a time for a joyful and serene embrace of all the treasures our Church has in store for us, in spite of the shortsightedness of some of her current pastors and the ignorance (usually not their own fault) of many of the faithful. This is a renewal that must happen if the Church is to survive the coming perils. Would that the Lord could count on us to be ready to lead the way, to hold up the “catholic and orthodox faith”! Would that we might respond to His graces as He leads us back to the immense riches of the Tradition that He, in His loving-kindness, gave to the Church, His Bride!

It is no time to flag or grow weary, but to put our shoulders to the wheel, our hand to the plough. Why should we deprive ourselves of the light and peace and joy of what is more beautiful, more transcendent, more sacred, more sanctifying, and more obviously Catholic? Innumerable blessings await us when, in the midst of an unprecedented crisis of identity in the Church today, we live out our Catholic faith in total fidelity and with the ardent dedication of the Elizabethan martyrs who were willing to do and to suffer anything rather than be parted from the Mass they had grown to cherish more than life itself. Yes, we will be called upon to make sacrifices—accepting an inconvenient time or a less-than-satisfactory venue, humbly bearing with misunderstanding and even rejection from our loved ones—but we know that sacrifices for the sake of a greater good are the very pith and marrow of charity.

We have given ten reasons for attending the traditional Latin Mass. There are many more that could be given, and each person will have his or her own. What we know for sure is that the Church needs her Mass, we need this Mass, and, in a strange sort of way that bestows on us an unmerited privilege, the Mass needs us. Let us hold fast to it, that we may cleave all the more to Christ our King, our Savior, our All.

 

This article, in rewritten form, is now the opening chapter in my book Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright: The Genius and Timeliness of the Traditional Latin Mass (Angelico Press, 2020).

 

NOTES

[1] See “Helping Children Enter into the Traditional Latin Mass” (Part 1, Part 2); “Ex ore infantium: Children and the Traditional Latin Mass” (here).

[2] Chesterton, Orthodoxy (San Francisco: Ignatius Press, 1995), 132.

[3] Jonathan Robinson, The Mass and Modernity (Ignatius Press, 2005), 307.

[4] Ibid., 311, italics added.

[5] Ibid., 311.

[6] The same author, John Zmirak (who is sound on this issue), continues: “The old liturgy was crafted by saints, and can be said by schlubs without risk of sacrilege. The new rite was patched together by bureaucrats, and should only be safely celebrated by the saintly.” John Zmirak, “All Your Church Are Belong to Us.

[7] As documented in Peter Kwasniewski, Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis (Kettering, OH: Angelico Press, 2014), ch. 6, “Offspring of Arius in the Holy of Holies.”

[8] See, among Lauren Pristas’s many fine studies, her book Collects of the Roman Missal: A Comparative Study of the Sundays in Proper Seasons Before and After the Second Vatican Council (London: T&T Clark, 2013).

[9] Fortunately, acknowledging that this was a mistake, Pope John Paul II restored St. Catherine to the Novus Ordo calendar twenty years later, but what about all the other saints who got axed?

[10] Chesterton, Orthodoxy, 53.

[11] See, among the many who argue for this point, Fr. Richard Cipolla, “Epiphany and the Unordinariness of Liturgical Time.”

[12] See Father X, “Losing Fragments with Communion in the Hand,” The Latin Mass Magazine (Fall 2009), 27-29.

[13] The Novus Ordo “Sign of Peace” has almost nothing to do with the dignified manner in which the “Pax” is given at a Solemn High Mass, where it is abundantly clear that the peace in question is a spiritual endowment emanating from the Lamb of God slain upon the altar and gently spreading out through the sacred ministers until it rests on the lowliest ministers who represent the people

[14] For centuries, going all the way back to the early Church (and even, says St. Thomas Aquinas, to the Apostles), the priest has always said “Mysterium Fidei” in the midst of the consecration of the chalice. He was referring specifically to the irruption or inbreaking of God into our midst in this unfathomable Sacrament.

 

Originally published on July 9, 2015.

94 thoughts on “Ten Reasons To Attend The Traditional Latin Mass”

  1. As Benedict XVI described in his Motu Proprio, “Summorum Pontificum” ( released:7-7-2007, ‘Seven’, the number of the Covenant) the liturgy of the Roman Rite is divided by two descriptive terms. The Extraordinary Form would be defined by the centuries’ old Latin Mass. And the Ordinary Form would be defined by a nation’s native tongue and the New Order of the Mass (Novus Ordo) starting in 1969. I find the theology, prayer, words and worship, art and song, associated with the liturgy and missal of the Latin Mass to be alive, praiseful, elegant and eloquent, whether sung and/or recited. It is not a museum piece because of its age per se, but can easily be seen, in work and word, as the “extraordinary” liturgy that John witnessed in the heavenly court of the Lord as related in the Book of Revelation. We praise Jesus Christ, the Same, yesterday, today, and forever. (Heb.13:8)

    Reply
  2. Great summary. No holds barred. Written with a lot of intelligence. What you said. It’s just the truth. Thank you. I just wish there were more of us taking advantage of the EF Mass when it is offered. At Star of the Sea in San Francisco, where Archbishop Cordileone instructed the pastor to schedule an EF Mass every Sunday before noon a few years ago, the Mass of the ages was finally being offered again in a centrally located church on a Sunday morning. And sad to say, I attended there when I was in the city last Sunday, and I was disappointed that only a few people were there.

    Reply
    • Disappointed? I am *elated* that there were a few people
      there. Given the sorry state of San Francisco, I had no idea there were even *that* many Catholics, much less ones who cared about proper liturgy! keep praying. And God bless Archbishop Cordileone and the priests of Star of the Sea for doing the right thing. If only more dioceses did this you would see more parishes growing. There is a diocese here in our state, where the Bishop encourages the use of the Latin Mass. One parish that offers the EF every week has a young pastor who probably doesn’t even remember before Communion in the hand started in the US, much less before Vatican 2 — his parish is growing – both with young families with multiple children and with converts to the faith.

      Reply
  3. Thank you so much for affirming my decision to keep my 7 year old daughter away from the irreverent parish nearest our home. We started regularly attending a Latin Mass 3 years ago and do not regret it. The only regret we have was not finding and attending sooner. The parish to which we travel 30 minuteshas offered the Mass for 30 years ever since St John Paul II offered the indult, I am told. For myself my earliest memories of church were the last vestiges of reverence and sacred silence. …. before folk masses, holding hands for the Our Father, extended back slapping and reaching across the aisle sessions at the sign of peace, and before Cardinal Bernardin’s Chicago style voting manipulation for receiving communion in unconsecrated hands with no paten. My family always told me that before the changes – what they were told was “Vatican 2”

    Reply
    • Bernardin, George, and now Cupich…what’s the surprise? I now attend the TLM at the Shrine of St. Pius V in Lake Zurich. How about yourself?

      Reply
      • George wasn’t as bad as the other two…

        But…ack! “We Believe”? That was the “Cathechism” book we used in CCD in my parent’s (liberal) parish (in which I was confirmed) and even then, when I was a completely Novus Ordo attending, “move along, nothing to see here” KID, I knew something was off about them.

        Like I said..Ack!

        Reply
  4. The difference(s) in belief between the two rites, TLM & NOM, is somewhat nuanced in the main body of The Mass. However, the prayers at the final Ablution/Purification of the sacred vessels fully exposes the Neo-Catholic/Protestantism of the NOM – compare the two. Also the Lectionaries, with that of the NOM being almost identical to the CofE ASB prayer book – not by accident I would add, as they emerged at nearly the same time.

    But the question is: what actually do we now believe with regard to The Blessed Sacrament? In one rite it is clear and in the other much less so.

    Reply
  5. This is a link for FSSP locations in the USA and in Canada –
    http://fssp.com/press/locations/
    In addition one may contact his own Diocese office to find out where there are other EF (aka Extraordinary Form, Latin, TLM, Traditional) Masses closest to you.

    For those who do not know Latin, or are rusty in Latin, the FSSP has: ‘Latin/English Booklet Missals’, and ‘Latin/Spanish Booklet Missals’ available for about $6.50 each.
    http://www.fraternitypublications.com/labomi.html

    “Differences between the Latin and Novus Ordo Mass”
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VbwrH53-4oU

    Reply
    • You can find a complete set of Missalettes (small Missals) containing the Latin and English texts of the T.L.M. covering the entire Liturgical year according to the 1962 approved text on the following website:
      http://latinmassvictoria.com/
      The Propers of the Mass are only in Englsh to conserve space. The English text uses sacral English familiar to Catholics (e.g., “Thy Will be done” rather than “Your will be done”)

      Not only are all Sunday Masses covered but also many feastdays and Friday weekdays when a T.L.M. Mass is offered. Each Missalette further contains one or more devotions which are often prayed by the attending people after Mass. All these Missalettes can be freely downloaded from our website. They are posted in p.d.f. format but we will send you a copy in Microsoft WORD format upon request. (Our Email address available on the web site.

      Printing may be a bit difficult for those who are not familiar with the booklet format. (Folded letter size paper (8.5 x 11 in.).

      Printing instructions will be posted on our website in the future for printers that have a duplex (double-sided) printing feature. The booklets are stapled together and are typically 60 to 64 pages in size. (15 to 16 letter-size sheets).

      If necessary, I will send a copy by regular mail to those who have no other means of printing and assembling a booklet

      The first such Missalette was printed for Christmastide in 2013. It has been updated in 2014 with corrections and some additions.

      Our website further provides Devotional booklets and Monthly Newsletters the latest one of which will be uploaded in the next week or two.

      We consider a devotional life important for families and those who are living on their own or the elderly. Those booklets can also be downloaded. They also are written in Sacral English and typically contain the traditonal devotions in use before the suppression of the T.L.M. We are working on a whole series of Devotional Booklets for every month of the year and for special occasions such as major feastdays).

      To really participate in the Mass one needs a Missalette to pray the prayers of the Mass together with the Priest.

      Please send us an email if you need assistance or have difficulty with downloading any of the Missalettes or Devotional booklets. (Email is checked once a week.)

      Also note that we are located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada (There exist other cities in the world named Victoria).

      We have bought a complete set of new vestments and many other liturgical goods which do not belong to either our bi-ritual Parish. THis allows for portability in case we might need to move the Mass to another location. We are buying from an overseas supplier offering the lowest prices we could in the world and of good quality).

      Besides the EF Latin Mass, our Parish offers N.O. Masses in English, Spanish and Hungarian). Our parish priest hails from Hungary and he also celebrates the Latin and English Masses.

      Our Parish is, as far as I know, the only one in our Diocese which escaped much of the vandalism that occurred in the aftermath of Vatican II, thanks to a good priest who resisted the N.O. Mass. The Latin Mass totally disappeared in this Diocese in 1986 and was only restored in 2007 by a, now retired, Parish priest.

      Reply
  6. I would also apply much of this to the Eastern Rites. I attend a Ukrainian-Catholic parish, and I know for a fact that I am not the only Latin Rite Catholic who took refuge there, fleeing liturgical anarchy. (The UGCC parish is near where I went to school in my youth; the closest TLMs are in seedy areas =-( )

    Reply
    • Then you will know that much of what they write here isn’t true for the universal church, the concept of reverence where people have to be quiet is missing in Ukrainian Greek Catholic Churches where people come in late and move around during the divine liturgy, where they go and kiss the icons and greet each other during the service. You will also know that Latin was never the universal language of the Mass (since the Divine Liturgy is the same service as the mass) and it was in Greek, Arabic etc right from the begining of Church history.

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      • Look, I love the Eastern rites, but I’ve also seen more than a little evidence that many within them suffer from a massive inferiority complex. They have nothing to prove. They’re beautiful. The Divine Liturgy is amazing. (I doubt St. John Chrysostom would be OK with people talking during liturgy, but deviation from the standard isn’t surprising.)

        The fact remains: the Roman rite is and has been the largest and most significant rite of the Church. It is the rite of the pope. And Latin has been its language since records were sparse.

        This article is about the Roman rite. This site is principally focused on it. If you understand that this is our perspective, perhaps it’ll make more sense.

        Reply
        • Saying Masses at churches I attend are priests whose English is hard to understand and/or distracting (“the refeenement of his voice”—Bryan Houghton, Judith’s Marriage). Would that these priests (not of them foreign-born!) learned and said the TLM.

          Reply
        • http://www.amazon.com/Through-Their-Own-Eyes-Byzantines/dp/1932401067/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1451439232&sr=8-1&keywords=through+their+own+eyes

          Fr. Robert Taft has a very good book (Yes, yes, yes…. I own a dead tree copy) that delves into the very social aspect of Eastern worship.

          Yes, pews are not well-loved in the East because they impede socializing.

          “THE DOORS, THE DOORS!!!” and some other exclamations such as “wisdom, be attentive!” are *not* ceremonial. They reflect the need to break up socializing for the more important parts of Greek worship. These are often lost in the modern celebrations of Orthodox worship because, at least here in North America, they went with pews.

          Reply
          • “THE DOORS, THE DOORS!!!” was not meant to break up activity. It is a command to the porters or subdeacons to close the doors of the church so that no non-Catholic would enter. The porters would stand guard at the doors and be on the lookout for any suspicious activity.

            During the first three centuries of the Church, when the Church was illegal in the Roman Empire. Occasionally spies would try to sneak in and report to the authorities about illegal Christian activities.

            If you read the Apostolic Fathers (e.g. St. Justin Martyr vs. Trypho) especially between 100 – 200 AD, those pagans had some really wacky ideas about Catholic worship which are too gruesome to be mentioned here.

            The Edict of Milan (313) legalized the Catholic Faith and proper churches were built. However, the command remains. Now it is a reminder to close the doors of your mind and senses in order to focus on the great Mystery – that soon the Son of God Himself will come in Sacrifice and Sacrament to us.

        • Dear Steve, this is my last post on 1P5. It is my reply to Muzical, but regards your comment as well. God bless!

          “True. When I am at home, I attend the NOM in my native language because we still have there very good priests. But in the Church at the place where I actually live, the Neocatechumenals were going wild with their usurpations of the vicariate, the parish and the NOM. So what can one do but be thankful to Our Lord for giving us the Oriental (Eastern Catholic) Churches… and capacity to communicate on few languages, though unperfectly. That is how I got an amazing gift from one Oriental priest: the Missal concerning the Maronite rite, having on the left side the rubrics on Arabic, and on the right side their translation on Italian. And there you go… To start is hard, but later it is the same as with the TLM.

          Otherwise, I do understand what Steve means by saying that 1P5 is dedicated to the Western Church and the TLM, and I find this article to be wonderful guide for all the Catholic souls interested in the TLM. However, I need to object again that from the perspective of the Universal Church, there is no such thing as “primacy” of one valid rite of the Catholics over the another (be it the TLM), or as “superior calendar” that could justify some kind of “superiority” of Western over Oriental (Eastern) Catholics. No matter of how large population of faithful we are talking about! The Catholic Church doesn’t acknowledge this kind of “hegemony” or “classisme” that some Traditionalists speak of. There is no “America first attitude” among the rites and groups of the faithful within the Universal Church, nor do the faithful from the Eastern Churches “suffer from a massive inferiority complex”, as Steve believes. This and simular statements and believes of the Traditionalists about themselves, have a dangerous potential to destroy all the good work they are doing for the Western Catholic Church, e.i. the safeguarding of its liturgical heritage and bringing the TLM back to the parishes. Yet, in the future, the final result of this hard work could be actually disapppointing: people will abandon the Traditionalist groups because of such non-Catholic attitude and divisions it can cause in the parishes, an attitude which the Traditionalists keep spreading around no matter of warnings coming on their address from the Church authoritys since the Second Vatican Council. In that sense, though the Traditionalists have good intentions and strong faith in Our Lord, their behaviour towards the Universal Church is no better than the one of the Neocatechumenals. The Neocatechumenals equally devide the parishes while being disobedient to the Church authorities and speaking about their “small communities”, “big families”, “their own priests”, “separation from the other faithful”, “persecution”, “being the true Church”, “sole way of salvation”, etc.

          Futhermore, the Pope Benedict XVI was much more wiser than these two groups: during His pontificate, he gave permition for both rites to spread around – the Neocatechumenal and the Traditional Latin. We know which one is “bad” or “invalid”, but it is interesting that their social effect on the Universal Church is the same – the division and alienation. That proves that even if one attends the TLM, he won’t escape to fail as the Catholic if he doesn’t behave as a Catholic, the Catholic who is in full communion with the Universal Church. I hope the Traditionalist will be able to see and understand this… one day. If not, well… to say it in the language of the Traditionalists, we can expect in the future of the Western Catholic Church that so-called “primacy” will belong to the corrected ad orientem NOM.”

          Reply
    • True. When I am at home, I attend the NOM in my native language because we still have there very good priests. But in the Church at the place where I actually live, the Neocatechumenals were going wild with their usurpations of both – the parish and the NOM. So what can one do but be thankful to Our Lord for giving us the Oriental (Eastern Catholic) Churches… and capacity to communicate on few languages, though unperfectly. That is how I got an amazing gift from one Oriental priest: the Missal concerning the Maronite rite, having on the left side the rubrics on Arabic, and on the right side their translation on Italian. And there you go… To start is hard, but later it is the same as with the TLM.

      Otherwise, I do understand what Steve means by saying that 1P5 is dedicated to the Western Church and the TLM, and I find this article to be wonderful guide for all the Catholic souls interested in the TLM. However, I need to object again that from the perspective of the Universal Church, there is no such thing as “primacy” of one valid rite of the Catholics over the another (be it the TLM), or as “superior calendar” that could justify some kind of “superiority” of Western over Oriental (Eastern) Catholics. The Catholic Church doesn’t acknowledge this kind of “hegemony” or “classisme” that some Traditionalists speak of. There is no “America first attitude” among the rites and groups of the faithful within the Universal Church, nor do the faithful from the Eastern Churches “suffer from a massive inferiority complex”, as Steve believes. This and simular statements and believes of the Traditionalists about themselves, have a dangerous potential to destroy all the good work they are doing for the Western Catholic Church, e.i. the safeguarding of its liturgical heritage and bringing the TLM back to the parishes. Yet, in the future, the final result of this hard work could be actually disapppointing: people will abandon the Traditionalist groups because of such non-Catholic attitude and divisions it can cause in the parishes, an attitude which the Traditionalists keep spreading around no matter of warnings coming on their address from the Church authoritys since the Second Vatican Council. In that sense, though the Traditionalists have good intentions and strong faith in Our Lord, their behaviour towards the Universal Church is no better than the one of the Neocatechumenals. The Neocatechumenals equally devide the parishes while being disobedient to the Church authorities and speaking about their “small communities”, “big families”, “their own priests”, “separation from the other faithful”, “persecution”, “being the true Church”, “sole way of salvation”, etc.

      Futhermore, the Pope Benedict XVI was much more wiser than these two groups: during His pontificate, he gave permition for both rites to spread around – the Neocatechumenal and the Traditional Latin. We know which one is “bad” or “invalid”, but it is interesting that their social effect on the Universal Church is the same –
      the division and alienation. That proves that even if one attends the TLM, he won’t escape to fail as the Catholic if he doesn’t behave as a Catholic, the Catholic who is in full communion with the Universal Church. I hope the Traditionalist will be able to see and understand that… one day.

      Reply
        • Dear Margaret, just to reply to you: thank you! And when it comes to my last sentence, it is a paraphrase of the words of Cardinal Sarah.

          http://www.catholicherald.co.uk/issues/july-21st-2017/cardinal-sarahs-challenge-to-traditionalists/

          It is the same Cardinal that was the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, the same Cardinal that was the president of the Pontifical Council “Cor Unum”, the same Cardinal that is now the prefect of the Congregation for the Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments, the same one that Pope Benedecit XVI appreciates so much that has publicly said to the Catholic faithful: fear not, the liturgy is in a good hands!

          Why then this shivers? In whom you don’t have confidence: Cardinal Sarah or Pope Benedict XVI?

          I fear not. There is no “android” or “cathastrophy” to hit us for God is and always will be in the control of His Church. However, what I see is that the Traditionalist have refused the proposals of the Cardinal Sarah and that they are about to “conquest” the Catholic Church, to get it beck “to themselves”. Perhaps this is what should give the shivers for the Universal Church at the end will have no option but to excommunicate them for their disobedience.

          https://youtu.be/Sh1sK7TdYEo

          Reply
          • As a Ukrainian Greek Catholic, I can’t say what the Roman Catholic Church should do, but quite frankly, I think that there should be *no* hybrid Mass between the TLM and the NO. That would be like changing the Mona Lisa.

            Personally, I MUCH prefer the TLM. It is closer to the Divine Liturgy than the NO. Even some of the propers are the same! The NO…I can’t even describe.

  7. More of this universality rubbish – it just isn’t true that the Mass was always the same everywhere and so could stand as a symbol of Catholicity and anyone who knows the Church and its rites would know that and refrain from repeating this claim.

    The Church in large parts of Eastern Europe, in the middle East and in India (prior to the arrival of the Portugese and to a very large degree after it) used very different rites for their worship. The Mass/Divine Liturgy was not the same across the world and still isn’t. Nor was it in Latin, in the Ukraine it was in Ukrainian, in Greece it was in Greece and in the middle East it was in Arabic (and it still is) – it was not in Latin, I will repeat that it was not in Latin.

    Reply
    • “The Church in large parts of Eastern Europe, in the middle East and in India (prior to the arrival of the Portugese and to a very large degree after it) used very different rites for their worship. ”

      Nobody said they didn’t. But they represented smaller populations of Catholic, and those rites have always been regional, and in many cases, deeply ethnic.

      Nonetheless, the Roman canon is the oldest in the world, and the Mass as it was in the 1950s was, on the whole, mostly similar to what it was in the 550s, and recognizable from before.

      The Novus Ordo is an unprecedented liturgical departure, and there’s not a scholar of Church history who knows anything about it who could tell you differently.

      Reply
    • I beg your pardon, bit Old Slavonic was the liturgical language of the Ukrainian Greek Catholic Church up to 1988. In 1989, the Synod of Ukrainian Greek Catholic bishops changed the liturgical language from Old Slavonic to Ukrainian. We lost half of our parish when that happened.

      Reply
  8. 11. Sacred Scripture is replete with examples of God insisting upon rigorous and reverent liturgy, not the least of which were the rubrics surrounding the Ark of the Covenant where the only “options” were (1) do it EXACTLY as God commands, or (2) die.

    Yet today we have a liturgy in the Novus Ordo, whose myriad anthropocentrisms, positively invite both priest and faithful, both consciously and unconsciously, to treat the Blessed Sacrament with disregard if not outright disdain. God speed the day when the Novus Ordo – that “banal on the spot fabrication” as Pope Benedict XVI once called it – is but an unfortunate memory. The sooner the Church returns, whole and entire, to her traditional liturgical pedigree the better.

    Reply
    • “Now Nadab and Abi’hu, the sons of Aaron, each took his censer, and put fire in it, and laid incense on it, and offered unholy fire before the LORD, such as he had not commanded them. And fire came forth from the presence of the LORD and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.” -Leviticus 10:1-2

      Liturgical innovation…not even once

      Reply
  9. I’m one of those boomers Salesgirl refers to and I didn’t have a clue about truth and beauty in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass was UNTIL I went to a Latin Mass, which thanks be to God, our parish started offering a couple of years ago (Thank you Fr. Buckler and Fr. Tighe!) We use Latin-English Booklet Missal for praying the Traditional Mass. It gives detailed explanations.
    This is a great article. May I send it to our pastor to review for possible inclusion in a future church bulletin?

    Reply
  10. I have long thought it a fault that in the New Order Mass “the mystery of faith” has four options. At a supreme moment for the congregation, the priest tells us or just starts the mystery he wants us to say. As far as I know (perhaps I haven’t be taught properly), in the New Order there is no the in “the mystery of faith.”

    Reply
  11. I attended my first TLM last year and like to attend one once a month. It’s a different level of reverence and solemnity, for sure. I would like to see that Mass done in English, though, as another possible option.

    Reply
    • Consider the Anglican Use, which I understand can be celebrated almost (not quite) identically to a TLM, in Elizabethean English.

      Reply
    • Option-itis is a disease typically found in the Novus Ordo. Unfortunately, for many discovering the Traditional Latin Mass only recently, they may unknowingly carry this ailment with them into the world of the TLM. Might I respectfully suggest a voluntary quarantine as you transition from the new to the traditional so as to rid yourself of any remaining vestiges of this terrible malady. Unfortunately, while traveling back and forth between the two masses, one runs the risk of re-catching this contagion. The best advice anyone could give is to politely yet strongly encourage you to simply choose tradition and stick with it and then allow it to transform you over time. If this is done, there will be no more of this requesting of options business; a business, I might add, which has destroyed the modern rite from the get go. Pax Christi

      Reply
      • I fully get this. I have been attending the TLM for about 9 years, now. Just recently, after a lot of time in Adoration, I had a greater desire to receive the Sacrament more frequently,and because of schedule, attended some NOM’s which left me feeling somewhat “blase”.

        Reply
  12. One other thing (among many others) to add to the list: In the Tridentine Latin Mass (TLM), the Holy Ghost or Holy Spirit is actually being addressed and prayed to. The Novus Ordo Mass does not have an explicit prayer addressed to the Holy Spirit such as the prayer for Sanctification and prayer for Grace in the TLM.

    Reply
    • The suppression of the octave of Pentecost was also a needless insult to the Holy Spirit. On the other hand, the three new anaphoras all include explicit epicleses — which I find to be an absurd bit of orientalism parachuted into the Roman rite without context.

      Reply
    • Perhaps you have never listened to or actually read the Eucharistic prayer..who do you think “Your Spirit” is!?!?! Or perhaps you do not understand the Holy Trinity?

      Reply
      • Seriously? How is “YOUR Spirit” directly addressing the Third Person of the Blessed Trinity?

        Presumably you are referring to the beginning of the Second Eucharistic Prayer (because that’s the one used in 95% of Novus Ordo Masses), which states “Let your Spirit come upon these gifts to make them holy.” This is EXACTLY the problem to which Rexcristiano Delson is referring. The Spirit is not addressed here at all because this prayer is directed to the Father! In fact, it actually diminishes the divinity of the Holy Spirit.

        Kindly take your trolling elsewhere…

        Reply
  13. A most confused article. There were several traditional Latin masses. Many in England wanted the traditional mass of England restored when the hierarchy was restored in 1850 – that is the Sarum rite. There are twenty three traditional forms of mass in the Catholic Church. The tpExtra irdinary form is one. Pope zbenedict made clear that the EF was one form of the western rite; the ordinary form is the other. As for reverence, the EF was often very badly celebrated in the past. Pope Benedict called for a reform of the reform. The Tridentine use does not lead to that, although of course it should be available . We should support both forms of the Latin mass. You should join the Association for Latin Liturgy, the only group supporting Latin in the liturgy. Latin mass is celebrated daily at Westminster Cathedral at 10.30 and on Sunday’s as the main mass at Farm Steert and Spanish Place. The new rite in Latin retains the solemnity and universality of the old rite without the accretions and you can hear

    Reply
    • I think though that the concept of universality must also refer to the past, the saints and martyrs who celebrated the same Tridentine right before us. As for solemnity, even with Latin, the practice of shaking hands during mass and receiving communion in hand seems to distract from solemn meditation, IMHO.

      Reply
    • Why in the world would anyone want to attend a Latin Novus Ordo? The NO was designed, explicitly, with verbal participation and comprehension in mind, hence why there is almost constant talking and in the vernacular.

      Traditionalists do not owe it to Benedict to rescue his pet project. And we do not owe it to people committed to a corrupt and failing pastoral ethos, who scarcely a decade ago were still actively persecuting us at every turn, to rescue them from the consequences of their theological commitments.

      Reply
    • The 22 other forms of Mass referred to above are the Eastern Rites. In the West what we call the Tridentine Mass had variations and customizations according to the cathedral church (Sarum is the most known example), where the books had to be copied by hand by monks. Quo Primum Tempore (July 14, 1570) outlawed any missal younger than 200 yrs. old at the time, which does cover the ancient Sarum, Dominican, Ambrosian, Mozarabic (Toldeo, Spain) Rites along with the Eastern Rites.

      Reply
  14. News Flash: The Catholic Church has never maintained a principle of uniformity in rite. – Cf. Rites | New Advent [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13064b.htm]
    *
    Cf. also section Table of liturgies in the article Liturgy | New Advent [http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/09306a.htm].

    Reply
  15. I didn’t grow up with the latin mass but what made a deep appreciation on me was kneeling for communion at the altar rail( long gone now) then later attending a few masses that had some latin and chanting, today’s mass needs at least some upgrades to get the solemn back.

    Reply
  16. It is interesting to note though that I think for us men, we may go an extra distance to attend the Latin Mass. But to actually be an active parishioner there is not easy. Therefore we should participate in our local parishes still though through groups like the Knights of Columbus. That’s good if you think about it because these are people who need to be are of the issues of crisis in the church as a whole and at local parishes too potentially. Maybe they are not aware of the existence of the Latin Mass still.
    That is also a reason for a young man who loves the Latin Mass to consider being a diocesan priest instead of FSSP or SSPX. The road might be tougher but he could potentially help expose more people to the Extraordinary form. In that way diocesan priests who say Latin Masses are the most important ones right now. Someone who is not familiar with the Latin Mass is more likely to stumble upon it at a regular parish than a FSSP place.

    Reply
    • Why would you actively participate in programs sponsored by your local N.O. parish and attend the TLM on Sunday? I understand for most travel to the TLM is a chore but this isn’t this a matter of principle? Secondly, I don’t think a vocation to the diocesan priesthood to get ordained in and say the TLM is possible in most places. The best way to help priests learn and say the TLM is to start an apostolate/project to produce a Tridentine altar missal with the rubrics in the English (in our case) printed in Red. (I’ve proposed such thing with no offers…)

      Reply
    • As a male who has been discerning a vocation for a while now (and one that should hurry up and commit to something, at that!), I can say that although the idea of becoming a diocesan priest being as traditional as possible and celebrating the TLM as often as possible, so as to “expose more people” to tradition, etc…is very, very attractive – and ought to be to anyone aspiring to the priesthood, as a means towards preaching the fullness of the Catholic faith to the flock – nonetheless, I know that I certainly need the traditional formation, and a guarantee of a traditional formation, at that. I am aware that there are some good seminaries out there, but I am pretty darn sure that even at the best diocesan seminary out there in the US today, I would not receive nearly the same formation as, say, at the FSSP seminary, or, from the religious end, at a place like Clear Creek (where I just spent 10 months). And to me, to my weak, ignorant soul, I personally *need* everything I can get, and I can’t get everything at a diocesan seminary. Formation, especially spiritual, is the most important time of a religious or priest’s education.

      While I strongly believe that good, holy, traditional men are called to the diocesan seminary today, and, as a ‘necessary evil’ celebrate the Novus Ordo, alongside “converting” his flock to tradition in whatever way humanly (and spiritually of course, with God’s help!) possible at the diocesan parish level – and *thank God* for those men who are strong and courageous enough to do perceive and answer that call! – it is definitely not for all. I know on my personal end, I am far too weak spiritually and intellectually to rely on diocesan seminary to form me into a priest of God’s own heart. This might be proof of lacking hope, on my part at least, but nonetheless, I think you get what I am trying to say.

      Reply
  17. A couple of peeves with the TLM that I attend:
    1) Crying babies. You can’t take an infant to the opera or ballet, but interrupt Mass all you like (because we haven’t paid?).
    2) The congregation saying the responses out loud. They aren’t even supposed to say the Pater Noster (no hash marks). Don’t they know the “dialogue Mass” was an early attempt at subversion?
    Oddly, despite being a soft sedevacantist (legitimately elected, but off the ranch), I often find my local Sunday evening NO Mass more prayerful. Celebrant is serious and children absent. The secret is to stay kneeling after the Sanctus and don’t look up till the Agnus Dei.

    Reply
    • 1) My wife and daughter stayed home from the TLM I attended last night because my 14 month old daughter can’t make it through one without crying. My parents brought me to Mass since the moment I was born. My daughter’s first Mass was three days after she was born. Should they not bring their babies to Mass? I would prefer to have my children know who Jesus is before they can say His Name, rather than try to teach them basics once they can talk. So sorry to interrupt…so much for Matthew 14: 19 “Let the children come to me, and do not hinder them; for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”

      2) They do this at the TLM I attend as well. Last night, I caught myself saying the Pater Noster, but stopped.

      Reply
      • Sure it works for you and that’s all that matters.

        Also Mass is the unbloody representation of Calvary, which is not where Jesus made the oft-quoted instruction.

        Reply
        • So you think young children should not be taken to Mass until…what? They attain the age of reason?

          So, only things Jesus said from the Cross should be applied to the Mass? He said “I thirst,” but I doubt you would approve of people drinking things during Mass. Perhaps the Novus Ordo is right to allow the faithful to partake of the Precious Blood?

          Reply
          • I’ve already said you should suit yourself. Can’t add anything more. Plenty like you in every parish, so you’ve got democracy on your side.

          • “Plenty like” me? What does that even mean?

            Answer the question: should children under a certain age not be allowed to go to Mass?

            I don’t know if this would be the case for all families with small children, but I know it would be for mine: if we left our daughter home from Mass, my wife and I would have to go to different Masses because we do not have family close by that could watch our daughter every Sunday nor the money to pay a babysitter. And this would be the case for a while, since we plan to have a lot of children.

            Do you also think that families should not attend Mass together? Or do you just not care as long as the Mass is sufficiently solemn and you are not “disturbed.”

            I’m pretty sure God is more offended by the kind of attitude you are displaying then by any sound my daughter, or any other young child, makes during Mass…

          • Children should be allowed to attend Mass. The Mass is the most……. It is our Feast. It is the Great Feast, we as the Family of God come together to receive the Body of Our Savior.

          • Since you are at one with the mind of God, then you are sure to be right. Keep on ruining Mass for those around you. Deus vult!

          • How egotistical to think that a Mass is “ruined” because silence is broken by the cry of a child. I’m sure Jesus is pleased with you…

            I’m going to keep bringing my daughter to Mass and people like you can just get over themselves.

  18. Jesus took the bread in his hands and offered it to his disciples saying “take and eat, this is my body. ..” he said it in their common language, in his hands to their hands and to their faces, not with his back to them. The most limiting phrase in the English language “because we always did it that way!” especially when it’s not correct! I’ll follow His way!

    Reply
  19. “If we take a conservative estimate and consider the Roman Mass to have been codified by the reign of Pope St. Gregory the Great (ca. 600) and to have lasted intact until 1970…”

    This is off by a couple years. The Mass had been severely altered prior to 1970. So much so, that I doubt any Traditionalist Catholic would want to attend Mass in the parish of my youth in the late 1960s.

    In my parish in 1968, Mass was completely in the vernacular, with the priest facing the people. We had stopped using the Communion rail a couple years prior. Gregorian Chant had completely disappeared, and we were singing Kumbaya. A grand total of three ladies continued to wear veils. Four canons were in use, and some of the translations were false: e.g., the words of institution were: “for you and for all men…” They later dropped the word “men” when someone discovered that that was “sexist.”

    In no way was the Mass “intact” until 1970, at least not in my venue, a suburban parish in the Midwest U.S., and I don’t think my parish was all that much different from the majority of U.S. parishes.

    Reply
    • That “Nieuwe Hollandse Katechismus” was nothing else than devil’s master piece!
      https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nieuwe_Katechismus
      It has brought a great confusion among faithful Catholics in the 1970s and for a long time after that. Even in a very Catholic countries, such as Croatia.
      The consequences of this misdeed are seen everywhere today, especially in the West!
      Btw. I am a Croatian but live in Holland for more than 20 years now. I’ve met some ‘theologians’ and some ‘other kind of faithful’ ones who don’t even believe in Resurrection of Christ. One of them was openly telling that Christ was actually only a man, a very good one, but not real God!? He was just one of many earthlings who was chosen by God,… to do something which is very nicely, bravely and so necessarily for all people, – but (he said), he has failed!!!??? Now, you don’t need to search long to find the source of such lunacy (especially in Holland). The ‘new age jesuits’ and some other lunatics with the one or another theologian title before their names, as E. Schillebeeckx. But, just google it, and you’ll see that many heretical books, as those van him, are very popular in the world these days too. Many libraries are full of such crap, and that very dangerous poison remains active even for the younger generations. The most hardcore apostates that I’ve met, are the people who are now in the 60’s, 70’s, 80’s and older.
      And I must say again, all of them are more or less brainwashed by the uberheretical untheological nonsense-crap called ‘theology of liberation”.
      PS. See and hear this words: “The history of God’s failure is…”(!?!)
      https://thewildvoice.org/pope-francis-gods-failure/
      Connecting of the dots is not too difficult…

      Reply
    • A more accurate dating would probably be c. A.D. 400-1955. Based on my own personal research, I’m fairly certain that at least the Canon of the Mass was formulated late during the reign of Pope St. Damasus I or during the reign of his immediate successor Siricius.

      Reply
  20. A very good article, spoiled by the ubiquitous gas chambers comment. There were no gas chambers, but plenty of lies and war propaganda accepted without question just as Pope Pius XI accepted as truth the lies of the Freemasons against the Cristeros and I suspect Pius XII accepted the lie of “The Final Solution”.

    Reply
    • people pleasing politicians
      that’s one of the risk (and reality) that affect novus ordo leaders/priest/hierarchy.

      pleasing people and politics are important, but it has to be ordered under the most important thing, which is pleasing God.
      God, and His will, has almost disapeared from the horizon for most of us.
      Having an “ingrown” liturgy, that looks at itself, won’t help.

      Reply
  21. I take slight offence with his point number ten about Mystery. Paul’s mystery that he spoke of, was not mystery for mystery’s sake. Oooh, to act mysterious. No.

    The mystery has been revealed in Christ. The all in all. We don’t have to couch anything in mystery of obfuscation any longer.

    https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Ephesians+3%3A6-12&version=ESV

    The mystery of old was that Christ would deliver both Jews and Gentiles alike into salvation, all men. Even the angels were kept in mystery until this was revealed, Paul says.

    If you want to be ritualistic in worship, fine. But, don’t miss-use this particular mystery as permission to act “mysterious”.

    Reply

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