Posted on 01/09/2012 7:48:58 AM PST by paterfamilias
My wife and I went to the Tridentine Mass at Immaculate Conception Church(Sleepy Hollow, NY).
It has been a very long time since a Mass brought us to tears.
The prayers are beautiful, the reverence is palpable. The women had their heads covered, 90% of the men (and boys) wore jacket and tie, the priest's vestments were very traditional (when was the last time you saw a priest wearing a maniple and his biretta), a lot of young families, an altar boy (about 10 years old) and a fairly young priest, both of whom said the Latin prayers as if it were their native language.
We have lost a great deal in the Novus Ordo.
We will go back the week after next (busy all day next Sunday taking our NRA pistol course!), and the Schola Cantorum will be singing ancient music.
If I like what I hear, I will audition for the Schola. (I have been a chorister since the age of 8)
I have pretty much decided to make this my new parish.
Yes indeed, God bless Pope Benedict indeed for this!
Regrettably, the situation on the ground remains that the bishop still has to give his permission as a practical matter.
Of course any NO priest has the legal right to use the Extraordinary Form, but of course his bishop has the power to make the priest's life a living hell should he exercise that right.
“Of course any NO priest has the legal right to use the Extraordinary Form, but of course his bishop has the power to make the priest’s life a living hell should he exercise that right.”
You are, of course, correct.
In fact, UnaVoceWestchester.org (the umbrella group in my area for the EF Mass) goes out of their way to thank soon-to-be Cardinal Dolan (Archbishop of New York) for his approval.
I sing in a schola that does 1-2 OF and 1 (sometimes 2) EF masses per month. For the OF, we usually sing a hymn at the offertory, after singing the proper antiphon. We also sing a recessional hymn. Sometimes there's a processional hymn immediately preceding the proper introit. Nobody in the congregation, to my knowledge, has complained about not getting to sing enough hymns.
If your OF parish is typical, then probably about 10% want Haugen/Haas songs with no sung propers, 10% would prefer chant - even if they don't know what propers are, and the remainder show up and are indifferent and want simply to be left alone and get through mass as quickly and painlessly as possible.
IMHO this big majority would get the most out of mass if the choir provided chanted propers in order to focus the attention and set a sacred ambiance vs. being browbeaten into singing hymns that they don't really care about.
In my experience, I have found that the best, most reverent, OF mass is usually a purely recited mass with no music. There is some silence here that allows for some quiet concentration without blaring instruments or pop songs.
I wish the Ordinariates were allowed to use the Anglican Missal, which more or less is the EF in King James English.
“Since one is not supposed to applaud at Mass....”
.
Don’t you like applauding and holding hands at Mass?
(Of course, not all at the same time.)
I know we have a bad reputation, but there’s plenty of good folks here.
Haven’t had the opportunity to attend a Tridentine mass yet.
Really?
That's very ...
interesting.
Bless you. I love the singing. Not so happy with my parish since they don’t put the song listings up where folks can see them.
Where I live now I have to drive 200 miles round trip for the monthly Tridentine Mass. Soon I will be moving to California and will be able to attend a weekly TLM just nine miles from my new home. California! Of all places! I can’t wait!
I can’t tell you how happy I am for you! I had a similar experience down here on Long Island (St. Matthew’s Church in Dix Hills, TLM Mass at 9:00am in the chapel on Sundays, 10:30am in the big church on Holy Days of Obligation).
I tell you — it changed my life and the lives of everyone in the family!
Best,
Brian, what a lovely picture!
Here are 2 clips from a TLM held on Dec. 27 in commemoration of the Feast of St. John the Evangelist. This is NOT my home parish, but the pastor of the church in the video often comes to us to say Mass. He requested that our altar boys (including my own 2 sons) and our girls’ schola come to his church to participate in this special Mass.
BTW, the girls’ schola is made up of young ladies between the ages of 12 and 17. The altar boys (with the exception of the MC — he’s a seminarian) are between 12 and 16.
Part 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cJh7R_3NKDM
Part 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qi92a-4q5U8
Regards,
Thanks, I used one of those PhD cameras ("push HERE, dummy" - a Kodak EasyShare) with an old tripod. I used the two second delay to keep motion to a minimum since I was taking the photos from the choir loft. I occasionally update our informal TLM blog at Latin In Patton with photos that we share amongst ourselves.
Thanks for the video links!
Our sons grew up in the Novus Ordo, and we attended the Byzantine Rite for about 3 years prior to Summorum Pontificum. We drove to the TLM in Pittsburgh a couple times a year, but that was all the exposure my boys had to the TLM. When they were 15 and 11, when Summorum was going into effect, they memorized all the acolyte rubrics and responses for the TLM over a three month period.
Surely if an 11 and 15 year old can learn their parts, having little exposure to the TLM, our ordained priests can learn to offer the TLM, even if they were never formally trained in it.
There are Western Rite Vicariates within the ROCOR and the Antiochian Acrchdiocese of North America.
The latter uses adapted versions of the Liturgy you reference, I believe.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Rite_Orthodoxy#Liturgy
My best friend is a cradle Roman Catholic, man.
The hand-holding, the praying the Paternoster with hands outstretched, etc. all really stick in my craw, if you must know.
I once whispered to my sister-in-law, who reached for my hand at the Paternoster at Mass, “I don’t do that hand-holding sh!t!).
Not quite appropriate, I know, but I made my point.
An Episcopal priest I knew who used to live here in Johnstown, Fr. Al Kimel, converted to Roman Catholicism a number of years ago. I recently read that he has moved on to the Western Rite within the ROCOR. Have you heard of him?
I have not. I attend a predominately convert parish in the Antiochian Archdiocese. Our parish came in with the mass conversion of the EOC in the mid-late 1980s, and were catechized by His Grace +Basil of Wichita. We’re Byzantine Rite.
I had a friend at out parish, who used to teach the first 26 weeks or so of our inquiror’s/catechumens class...who was a former Episcopal priest. He had some exposure to the Western Rite Vicariate, but he was a layman in the Orthodox church.
Hey, I have a PhD camera, too! What a small world!
I have to agree with you about learning the rubrics and responses for the TLM. The young people I know certainly had no problem with it, and I’m certain that any priest who wants to could learn them as well.
I have to say, that since the S.P. came out in 2007, I’ve been very encouraged by the number of priests who have shown interest in learning to say the Mass in the Extraordinary Form. Some have acted upon it, and some are still thinking about it, but...the interest is there. And even more encouraging is the fact that ALL of the priests are relatively young — usually under 40.
That’s why all the altar boys and the schola girls are happy to grant any requests for their participation in Masses like the one in the video. Every time they volunteer their time to go to a different parish, the Mass is packed and the priests tell us that parishioner interest in the TLM explodes. The children are excited to share the E.F. with others and are delighted when those others begin to ask for a TLM in their own parishes.
Oh, and BTW...I can’t wait to pop over to your website and take a look at the other pictures. I’m sure they’re spectacular!
Regards,
I am familiar with the Orthodox Western rite in the Antiochian vicariate, but my understanding is it has become significantly Byzantinized.
Leavened Eucharists. Inserting the epiclesis from the Divine Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom, the communion prayer from the same, etc.
In my view this is about as bad as tearing out the iconostases from Byzantine Catholic parishes, replacing holy tables with Latin altars, introducing Roman Catholic statues, and every other sort of Latinization under the sun.
(I don’t mean any offense to my Roman Catholic friends, but Latin customs belong in the Latin Church and not in ours.)
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