Brick by brick… it is happening

Over at the excellent Chant Cafe, I found this from a priest contributor, Fr. Christopher Smith.  My emphases and comments.

I was recently at a Cathedral down South on a weekday and I wanted to celebrate a private Mass. As I was vesting in my Roman chasuble [unthinkable 10 years ago] and my altar server, a seminarian, was preparing the altar for my EF Mass [Extraordinary Form] on the feast of Saint Dominic, a newly ordained priest was vesting in a Gothic chasuble and a layman was preparing another side altar for his OF Mass on the feast of Saint Jean-Marie Vianney. [And 10 years ago it would have been unthinkable to have different side altars in use.] My newly ordained priest friend has not yet learned the EF, but is interested. We both went to side altars at the same time to offer two forms of the Roman Rite, with clergy, seminarians and laity in attendance. It just kind of happened that way, was something not planned. Later that week, my newly ordained priest friend sat in choir at an EF High Mass that the seminarian and I helped to sing, and I concelebrated the OF in the same Cathedral where he was ordained. The Director of Religious Education for the Cathedral, a young woman theologian and student of liturgy, happened to be present at all of these occasions, and she commented on how, in our own way, we were making real Pope Benedict’s vision of the Roman Rite in two forms. [NB:] No one was confused, no one was angry, no one was ideologically motivated to criticize the other.

As I said before, that would all have been unthinkable 10 years ago.

Brick by brick.

Meanwhile…

[CUE MUSIC]

And coffee bean by coffee bean!

Have you enough coffee on hand right now?  Fresh coffee ready for that WDTPRS mug?

I’ll bet the Carmelites in Wyoming have some for you, even as they haul heavy blocks around to build their new monastery.

Mystic Monk Coffee

It’s swell!

http://www.chantcafe.com/2011/08/why-are-seminaries-afraid-of.html

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
This entry was posted in Brick by Brick, Just Too Cool, Mail from priests, New Evangelization, Our Catholic Identity, SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM, The future and our choices and tagged , , . Bookmark the permalink.

17 Comments

  1. jarhead462 says:

    Very good news indeed!

    Semper Fi!

  2. bmadamsberry says:

    That really is what Pope Benedict XVI wants, two forms of the Mass being able to be celebrated side-by-side, without underlining and hidden motivations and agendas. It realls is a beautiful story, and one I hope will occur more and more often as the Catholic Church, and the Catholic Church in America, begins to see what the Pope is really offering: not a crazy right-wing arroach, but a balanced, Christ-centered approach… a Catholic approach.

  3. Carolina Geo says:

    I was privileged to assist at Holy Mass (Traditional Mass) last night – with Fr. Smith as the celebrant – on the Feast of the Assumption. It was a Missa Cantata, and a glorious way to honor our Blessed Mother. As Fr. Smith pointed out in his homily, even though it was not a holy day of obligation, it was a holy day of opportunity. Fr. Smith is a good and holy priest and deserves much praise and, even more importantly, our prayers.

  4. irishgirl says:

    This is very cool! I love it! No fighting, no biting, no ‘blood on the floor’ [not literally, of course ; ) ]!
    Brick by brick indeed, Father Z!

  5. benedetta says:

    Saw a bumper sticker on a car on local highway. It was not, “Honk if…” or rather “Light one up if…” nor even “Take a swig if…” But it just said, simply “We love our priests.” Exactamente.

  6. Charlotte Allen says:

    The “Roman chasuble”? Is that the narrow kind that doesn’t cover the shoulders? There’s a priest at St. Patrick’s in downtown Washington, D.C., who always wears one of those when he says Mass. I hadn’t known it was verboten. I thought it had just gone out of style and the priest was going for the retro look. He looks great in it, BTW. Most of the modern chasubles have way too much fabric and look sort of leftover- ’70s, when overdoing the fabric in men’s clothes (huge lapels, bell-bottom suits) was in vogue.

  7. dominic1955 says:

    That is certainly to be aplauded, but I know there is definitely a reason why I would pretty much invariably choose TLM over NO and its not merely “agenda” driven. Other than for prudential reasons, the NO shouldn’t exist peacefully along with the TLM. Ultimately, it needs to be done away with.

  8. Clinton says:

    I’ve been a member of my parish for about 20 years now. About seven years ago our parish
    agreed to host the local Latin Mass Society, and an additional Mass time was added to our
    Sunday schedule.

    The sky did not fall.

    I began to attend the EF, and now it is my preferred Mass. However, I occasionally serve at the
    early morning OF Mass (it can be hard to ‘cover’, especially in the summer months). At the EF
    Mass I see people who have been fellow parishioners for years, and I also see new faces. OF
    Mass or EF Mass, we’re all supporting the same parish, stocking the same food pantry, sending
    kids to the same parochial school. One of our parish priests has learnt to say the Mass in the
    Extraordinary Form and has substituted when the LMS priest, an elderly man, has been unable
    to celebrate. All of the parish priests have helped distribute Communion at the EF Mass and
    assist in hearing confessions before the Mass begins.

    I’ve read articles from Catholics who maintain that for a parish to begin to offer a Mass in the
    Extraordinary form necessarily sows division, that somehow the folks who frequent one sort
    of Mass will be at loggerheads with the folks who attend another. Piffle. If a parish can offer
    OF Masses in both Spanish and English (as so many do) without turning into a house divided,
    I imagine it can have one or more Masses in the Extraordinary Form and remain a united
    community.

  9. Gail F says:

    “The Director of Religious Education for the Cathedral, a young woman theologian and student of liturgy, happened to be present at all of these occasions, and she commented on how, in our own way, we were making real Pope Benedict’s vision of the Roman Rite in two forms. No one was confused, no one was angry, no one was ideologically motivated to criticize the other.”

    YES. I do think that is what Pope Benedict is after and he is RIGHT.

  10. jaykay says:

    I was in the Sacre Coeur in Paris in June just after the Chartres pilgrimage and came upon a Mass at a side altar just at the Gospel. It was a Latin NO but was ad orientem and was perforce rather silent because of the noise of the constantly circulating tourists. I have to say that it was only at the canon that I really realised it was NO because the canon was audible and the multiple signs of the cross were absent (plus the priest had no maniple). There was a congregation of smallish size but practically all recited the Pater noster and the Agnus Dei & Domine non sum dignus. It was beautifully reverent and it really brought home to me what the Council intended. I had never actually seen a Latin “low” (for lack of a better description) Mass in the OF before but I went away uplifted and yet sad that here in Ireland I’m extremely unlikely, to put it very mildly, to see anything similar anytime soon.

  11. capchoirgirl says:

    Excellent!
    And Father, my two bags of Mystic Monk arrived yesterday! Very prompt service! I ordered the Carmel and the Mystic Monk blend. The Carmel is exquisite–can’t wait to try the other bag.

  12. capchoirgirl: Glad to hear it!

  13. Fr. Frank says:

    @Charlotte Allen re: 70s retro chasubles

    Every time I open the sacristy closet door and see those voluminous wool chasubles with the massive high collars around the neck, I can’t help being reminded of The Coneheads on SNL in the early 80s. “We are from France!”

  14. JonPatrick says:

    Coffee Bean by Coffee Bean …

    I notice that my favorite conservative talk show host, Bill Bennett has started promoting Mystic Monk on his show. (He is Catholic by the way). And I just received notification that my second monthly shipment is on its way :-)

    As for EF vs. OF, for 2 years we attended a parochial EF Mass which started at one church, then moved to a 2nd church after the 1st, a gorgeous building in the traditional design still with its high altar, was closed due to the consolidation of parishes in the diocese :( However in both cases the parish priests were very supportive of our efforts, one even helping to hear confessions before Mass.

  15. Charlotte Allen says:

    @Fr. Frank: Yes, the high, stiff collars and cowl necks on those chasubles are the worst, aren’t they? They make the priests look like Druids. That’s a 70s trend I don’t get, along with the heavy, stiff, ugly fabrics, usually polyester or some other artificial textile that can’t fall gracefully. And don’t get me started on the weird decorations. I spent an entire Mass staring at the cluster of three balls and a wavy triangle embroidered onto the back of one of our parish priests’ chasubles trying to figure out what the hay it was supposed to be. A Wiccan symbol? I finally figured out that it was a bunch of grapes (the triangle was apparently a leaf). “Gothic” chasubles, as I think they’re called, look nice when they 1) don’t have collars; 2) are made of silk, so that they drape nicely; 3) don’t overdo the quantity of fabric; and 4) have a traditional cross quadrisecting the back. Hideous chasubles seemed to have been one of those post-Vatican 2 rebellion fads–where the priests were determine to dramatize that they weren’t one bit like the priests of yore. So they bought all those ugly chasubles and bequeathed them to the priests who followed. Polyester is indestructible, so they’ll be around forever.

  16. cheekypinkgirl says:

    And it would seem Dominic1955 has completely missed the point of this post. Sad.

  17. John Nolan says:

    A director of religious education and a woman theologian to boot is actually supporting the Pope? Now that is really astonishing!

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