There is a good story in the online version of the Albuquerque Journal
My emphases and comments.
Monday, February 25, 2008
Church Offers a Weekly Mass in Latin
By Kiera Hay
Journal Staff WriterIf you happened into the San Miguel Mission Church on Old Santa Fe Trail some Sunday afternoon, you might think you were in another decade. [Or in 2008… this is more our future than our past.]
Starting last month, Santa Fe’s much-loved "oldest church," as locals often refer to it, began offering a weekly mass in Latin. [Novus Ordo?… Yah… yah, I know. I don’t want people to forget that Latin is the language of the Novus Ordo, too.]
The service is the first new Latin Mass [Look how confusing this gets.] offered in New Mexico since Pope Benedict XVI resurrected [It wasn’t dead.] the Catholic celebration of the Latin Mass in July 2007. The only other Roman Catholic church to offer a Latin Mass is the San Ignacio Catholic Church in Albuquerque, which has offered a Latin Mass for more than a decade. [See? It wasn’t dead.]
Benedict’s decree hasn’t been universally embraced by Catholics, but several of the faithful who attended San Miguel’s service on Sunday spoke passionately about their desire to take part in the Latin rite.
"It was the way I was raised and I was waiting for the traditions to come back to Santa Fe," said Tracy Crumbacher, 40. [This isn’t about nostalgia.]
Crumbacher, who was at the service with her husband and 2-year-old grandson, said she’s been a regular attendee of San Miguel’s Latin Mass since it began in January. She also attends St. Joseph Parish in Cerrillos.
"I think people want to raise their children in the traditional Mass. It’s beautiful. I think people realize it’s a beautiful way to get to know our traditional Catholic faith," she said.
Benedict’s decree has made it easier for Catholics to celebrate the Latin Mass, also known as the Tridentine rite, by allowing a priest to conduct the service at the request of a group of the faithful. Previously, the approval of a bishop was required.
Crumbacher’s family was part of a crowd of 50 or so people at Sunday’s Latin Mass in Santa Fe. The new service has attracted some 40 to 60 people each week, said Brother Lester Lewis, mission director. Churchgoers are drawn from Santa Fe, Los Alamos and Española. [It will be interesting to track the growth, if any.]
"This is a rather conservative group and they’re concerned with tradition," [NEWSFLASH! DOG BITES MAN!] said the Rev. Arthur J. Jakobiak, who leads the Mass. "Here, they’re a better educated group. They’re business people and they come from professional backgrounds." [Interesting.]
Many were old enough to have at least vague recollections of the Latin Masses that took place before church reforms in the 1960s effectively replaced the traditional liturgical language with local tongues.
But San Miguel’s service did attract a few younger individuals, as well as a handful of families with small children and babies.
"It’s a misconception that people want the Mass out of some sort of nostalgic memory. In fact, there’s been a lot of young people interested in bringing this back," said churchgoer Raymond Saccoccia.
San Miguel— which also offers an English Mass on Sundays at 5 p.m.— is among the oldest churches that remains in use in the United States, Lewis said. The original church dates to 1610, but the structure was largely replaced in 1710, he said.
But the historical nature of the church had nothing to do with the decision to offer a Latin Mass there. Lewis said the Archdiocese of Santa Fe asked San Miguel to host the Latin Mass because other churches are booked up with funerals, weddings, baptisms and other ceremonies.
During the church’s service on Sunday, folks were aided by readers containing the Latin and its English translation. Jakobiak conducted most of the Mass with his back to the congregation— as is traditional during the Tridentine rite— but faced the congregation and spoke in English during his sermon and the Scripture readings.
The priest, a slight but spry man who says he is "pushing 82," had done Masses before in Latin in the U.S. Air Force. After spending 20 years as chaplain at St. Vincent Regional Medical Center in Santa Fe, he said he has been "brushing up" on the language.
It was the students from St. John’s College who triggered the move, Jakobiak said. "They got to me because somebody told them I could" do it.
Students Mark Scully and Murphy Harkins sent a letter, signed by several members of the college community, asking that the rector of the Cathedral Basilica implement the Latin Mass. The rector approved, Scully said, but couldn’t accommodate the request. So a second letter was sent to the Archbishop of Santa Fe, who arranged for Jakobiak to perform the rite at San Miguel.
Scully, 21, said he didn’t regularly attend Latin Masses while growing up in Washington, D.C., and has only a partial understanding of the language.
His desire for such a service, he said, was fueled by spiritual readings on subjects such as the lives of the saints, as well as the Gregorian chants and liturgical music he was required to read during his studies at St. John’s.
"When I realized I could express that every Sunday, I realized this was something worth pursuing," he said.
"My personal inclination is just toward the solemnity and the ancient traditions that are wrapped up in the old Mass," he said.
Journal staff writers Polly Summar and Olivier Uyttebrouck contributed to this story.
Loading ...
Deo Gratias for my brothers and sisters in the Faith who live in Santa Fe.
Unfortunately, Summorum Pontificum is a dead letter in Dallas.
My recent discussion with a certain person at the Dallas Chancery discouraged me. I sometimes wonder why I bother to discuss the TLM with Dallas officials.
But at least the Traditional Latin Mass has been embraced elswhere.
How wonderful it must be to live where priests and bishops have embraced the TLM.
I hope that Catholics in Santa Fe (and everywhere) pray for their TLM-minded brothers in sisters who suffer…yes, suffer…in such places as Dallas.
I visited San Miguel ca. 1986. The sanctuary had been gutted, and the church had a “tourist-trap” ambience. I do hope that the arrival of the TLM at San Miguel will lead to a restoration of the building.
I used to say that if I were archbishop of Santa Fe, I would try to have the church decorated with sacred art made according to local traditions. I am told that this ancient style is only practiced by a few artists.
Could someone explain how a 40 year old says this is the way she was raised, and that she was waiting for it to come back?
Tom, you bother because someday if someone who is neutral rahter than hostile is in power, it can truthfully said that people have wanted this all along, and sought to have it and been denied, so how about it?
No one will be able to lie that they never bothered with the EF because no one was interested.
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
I think it’s tremendous that a group of students from a liberal college pushed for this mass. Actually, the interior of San Miguel has been restored; it is a beautiful chapel with more history than almost any other church in the U.S.:
http://www.evanderputten.org/special/newmexico/sanmiguel.htm
G wrote: “Tom, you bother because someday if someone who is neutral rahter than hostile is in power, it can truthfully said that people have wanted this all along, and sought to have it and been denied, so how about it?
No one will be able to lie that they never bothered with the EF because no one was interested.”
I appreciate your point.
The unfortunate thing is that Dallas officials are aware that interest exists here in the TLM. They simply are opposed to the TLM, let alone the Novus Ordo in Latin.
That is why Father Weinberger, who offers the Novus Ordo in Latin, was “exiled” from Dallas to Greenville, Texas.
Perhaps our bishop is open to the TLM…at least to a greater degree than various folks at the Chancery and will trump the anti-TLM sentiment that flows from the officials downtown…and from the folks
who control the parishes.
At any rate, at least outside Dallas, a few bishops have been kind to the TLM.
At least some of my brothers and sisters are free to worship God via the TLM.
With the expection of our tiny FSSP chapel (our TLM ghetto), Summorum Pontificum is a dead letter in Dallas. I pray that a miracle TLM announcement for Dallas is on the horizon.
Hi Father, ah, someone beat me to sending you the heads up. I saw the article at my parents\’ house earlier today and was going to email you the link once I got back from the gym. I\’ve been curious about attendance and if it will grow. I can\’t fathom that it won\’t.
I am too young to remember TLM if I ever attended one as a child, and as of yet, I\’ve not yet attended Mass there yet but am looking forward to it. I have a friend who for years said she\’ll come back to Catholicism if the Latin Mass came back, (I\’ve kept her in the loop via most of the news from your blog) so now she has no excuse.
In reference to Daniel\’s post above about the Chapel, it is still owned by the Christian Brother\’s and has been maintained by them for a long time. The revenue made from the tourist dollars helps maintain church.
http://www.abqjournal.com/santafe/562734north_news05-14-07.htm (I\’m not sure if you have to have a membership to view that article.)
I know in recent years, some of it has been renovated but as I recall growing up it has always had the familiar Spanish Colonial art created by local Santeros, but it\’s been years since I\’ve been there so maybe I\’m remembering wrong. Still, it is a bit touristy. It takes a lot to maintain the old chapel. I know there are works for a major renovation, more like preservation, in the near future. There was an article in the local paper posted about it, but I don\’t have the link handy. By the time I went to St. Michael\’s HS, the campus had long since moved so we never used the Chapel for school Masses.
While when people think of Catholicism in Santa Fe they automatically think of the Cathedral Basilica of St. Francis, however, the San Miguel Mission church has always been here and continues to thrive. I feel blessed to live in a part of the country that has had 400 years of Catholic history and tradition and I guess most of it was in Latin.
Daniel commented: \”I used to say that if I were archbishop of Santa Fe, I would try to have the church decorated with sacred art made according to local traditions. I am told that this ancient style is only practiced by a few artists.\”
Actually, that\’s not so. There are many many, local artists who devote a lot of their time, talent and faith to local traditional art. Every summer their art is showcased at the Annual Spanish Markets (A big one in the summer and a small one before Christmas.) The majority being Santos and other religous art. This website explains it all. http://www.spanishmarket.org/
And I’ll now stop hogging the comments.
Maria in Santa Fe.
St. John’s is liberal in the best sense of the word. I went to St. John’s in Santa Fe, and came out of it with a stronger faith and eventually felt drawn to the traditional Mass too. The liberal arts curriculum at Thomas Aquinas College is actually based in large part on the St. John’s program.
His desire for such a service, he said, was fueled by spiritual readings on subjects such as the lives of the saints, as well as the Gregorian chants and liturgical music he was required to read during his studies at St. John’s.
Good for St. John’s!
I certainly understand your pain, Tom.
My post was prompted by the fact that I
have friends who tell me (I am fairly new
to this part of the country, and so to this
parish and diocese,) that they asked for
years, pestered their pastors, called the
chancery, etc., to no avail, so they have
become resigned.
They won’t listen to me when I tell them
that it is different now, they must make
their voices heard again, for the record.
I have contacted other people I did not
know through the Extraordinary Form database
and discovered that, no, they had not
contacted the Bishop.
So our Office of Worship can probably truthfully
say that only one person from this entire county
has contacted them since the motu proprio, so
no, there’s not enough interest for them to
bother.
There is one EF Mass in the diocese, a Saturday
afternoon anticipated Mass, unreachable by
public trasportation so far as I know, and
they think that is sufficient.
Ah well…
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
I certainly understand your pain, Tom.
My post was prompted by the fact that I
have friends who tell me (I am fairly new
to this part of the country, and so to this
parish and diocese,) that they asked for
years, pestered their pastors, called the
chancery, etc., to no avail, so they have
become resigned.
They won\’t listen to me when I tell them
that it is different now, they must make
their voices heard again, for the record.
I have contacted other people I did not
know through the Extraordinary Form database
and discovered that, no, they had not
contacted the Bishop.
So our Office of Worship can probably truthfully
say that only one person from this entire county
has contacted them since the motu proprio, so
no, there\’s not enough interest for them to
bother.
There is one EF Mass in the diocese, a Saturday
afternoon anticipated Mass, unreachable by
public trasportation so far as I know, and
they think that is sufficient.
Ah well…
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
Sorry for the double post.
(Save the Liturgy, Save the World)
I just looked at the pictures of San Miguel, and I am pleased the blank white wall and empty sanctuary have been restored.
I am also happy to hear that the traditional sacred arts are alive and well> May the Lord prosper the work of the artists’ hands.
To Daniel: I wonder if your visit coincided with some of the renovations at the church? But yes, I’m very glad that our traditions are very much alive and strong here in Santa Fe.
“Deo Gratias for my brothers and sisters in the Faith who live in Santa Fe.”
You should be using traditional “Splatin” (an old Spanish tradition), thus Deo gracias.
I’m gald to see the TLM return to my ancestral home.