What Does The Prayer Really Say?
W D T P R S

First reports about the recent workshop at Merton College, Oxford, are coming in.  Damian Thompson of The Telegraph has an initial impression... and it was a good one.

My emphases and comments.

A glorious Mass at Merton College

Posted by Damian Thompson on 30 Aug 2007  at 12:58

My spirits are soaring after attending yesterday’s solemn traditional Mass at Merton College, Oxford, during the training course for priests organised by the Latin Mass Society.

It was glorious to see the sunlight piercing the pillar of incense as priest, deacon and sub-deacon performed the ancient liturgy for which Merton Chapel was built.

I’m going to write about this in more detail elsewhere, but the conference (which ends today) has been a triumph. What delighted me most was the enthusiasm and patent holiness of the priests attending – most of them ordinary parish clergy, not dyed-in-the-wool “traditionalists”.   [This is the truly significant bit in the whole event, I think.]

Everyone was buoyed up by the Archbishop of Birmingham’s sermon on Tuesday, which underlined the fact that the old barrier between older and newer forms of worship has been abolished by Pope Benedict.

Let’s hope that that the social barrier between Catholics attached to the newer and older forms of the Mass also disappears. The Pope understands that liturgical renewal will reinvigorate the whole Church; what Catholics need now are diocesan bishops who are willing implement his reform.  [And how!]