What does the TLM mean to you?

From a reader:

Reason #19878 for Summorum Pontificum.

About Fr. John Zuhlsdorf

Fr. Z is the guy who runs this blog. o{]:¬)
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33 Comments

  1. Joseph-Mary says:

    Amen!
    This morning I attended a Mass with a 70-something priest who ad-libs the Mass. It is an endurance to offer. I am sure he means well, he is a nice man and everything. I suppose he thinks his changes and add-ons make the Mass more “meaningful” but his changes and even cadences make it difficult for the server to even know when to ring the bells! But today we were spared the well meaning guitarist who often comes Saturday morning.
    But the younger priests are not ad-libbling, thanks be to God.

  2. Therese says:

    Jubilate Deo! Rejoice with me, as our TLM group was offered a permanent home at last, and Sunday/Monday Masses as often as we can get our celebrant into town. (On the other hand, now the open rebellion likely begins, as area priests move against the generous pastor who provided for us.)

    Never a dull moment!

  3. yatzer says:

    Please God!!

  4. Jim Dorchak says:

    The cost of driving to the Latin Mass at 5:00 am on Sunday with your family to get there on time:
    1.) 2 hour 45 min driving time….. (at a minimum)
    2.) Having the wife and kids screaming they are hungry as you pass every exit on the interstate on the way to Mass.
    3.) $120.00 in Gasoline purchased on your almost maxed out credit card.
    4.) Peanut butter and Jelly sandwiches on the way home.
    5.) Salvation, beauty, peace of mind, and greater holiness…….
    Priceless!

  5. Vecchio di Londra says:

    We shouldn’t jump to conclusions. He might just be performing on the guitar a sixteenth century lute tablature transcription of a Mass by Josquin, Palestrina or de Rore, while singing the cantus firmus. As one does.
    I have to admit though, appearances are against it.

  6. Father P says:

    Vecchio. I was thinking the same thing. A priest friend spoke of celebrating a Nuptial Mass (EF) for a couple that used just such a setting of the Mass. The husband calls it their “Solemn High Guitar Mass”

  7. APX says:

    No, he was singing one of his re-writes of Cohen’s Hallelujah on Christmas Eve.

  8. jasoncpetty says:

    Barred chords on a twelve-string–at least Father has strong hands? /dangerously overwrought attempt at charity

  9. Justalurkingfool says:

    Not so difficult to bar with a well made instrument. I used to play a twelve string at Mass…..loved the Church music of the late sixties and seventies but liked the “older” stuff even more and the real old stuff more. But, I like them all. I will always love to hear a catchy or beautiful tune. Gorgeous harmonies make it “heavenly”. Probably will attend a TLM tomorrow morning. Fortunately, my parish has one every Sunday and perpetual adoration.

  10. Bea says:

    What does the TLM mean to you?

    1. A chance to grow in holiness rather than staying stagnant or regressing.
    2. Giving God His due instead of people-focus.
    3. Peace after Mass has concluded (not the handshaking peace that disturbs TRUE peace)
    4. A feeling of true one-ness with others because we have all worshiped God, who brings us all together, not the phony-one-ness interjected with everyone singing, responding and shaking hands.
    5. Being able to stay and pray without interruption, rather than have people come to shake your hand, talk to you and socialize inside church.
    6 and so much more too numerous to mention.

    en toto: PEACE and JOY

  11. LeslieL says:

    @Joseph-Mary –
    You have bells? wow…….

  12. Mojoron says:

    That’s all well and good, but you city slickers are very lucky to have any semblance of music let alone a three octave singing guitar and banjo player that we have. There can be no singing by any of the males since her middle “c” is our highest note. When it snows, we may not even have mass or communion for several weeks. Ash Wednesday? There is none. We would have to drive 35 miles to a service at 4 PM. Easter? Its a toss up if we have a Easter Sunday Mass since our priest does the big mass at his home church and we might get another mass, the vigil, without the pomp and circumstance on Saturday at 5. Even if we could have a TLM, there isn’t enough altar servers to serve it unless we enlist the 20 member KofC to serve. Lectors? They speak so fast they’re done before I read the readings to myself.

    Its hard to be catholic with the shortage of priests in our diocese especially in our rural area. That is why I have to marvel at all the complaining by some mass attendee’s on this blog, including Fr. Z some times, they don’t know how good they got it.

  13. kittenchan says:

    It’s sad that the NO is defined by its abuses. I’d bet I’d get jumped on if I said I liked the NO better because at the TLM, as soon as I finish praying the Rosary, it’s over. Look, I grew up steeped in clown Masses, puppet homilies, everybody and the dog up around the altar, liturgical dance, felt banners, the whole nine yards – and I’m not even 30. That stuff taught me that Mass was all about people, and that meant if it wasn’t pleasing and entertaining to me, if it wasn’t meaningful to me, then it was nothing. Well, it wasn’t any of those things, so I fell away from the Church (while still attending Mass because my three brothers had already stopped going and my sister was a functional Protestant because she bought it all and found out evangelicals do it better, so I didn’t want to further upset the parental apple cart). But a crucial part of my reversion was finding out that all the activities and music and “priorities” that I hated about Mass… WEREN’T SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. I didn’t dislike Mass — I disliked how people were *abusing* the Mass. None of those abuses are intrinsic to the NO. Yeah, I’ve heard people lament that the NO is just so much more susceptible to abuses… But that’s because it’s mainstream. If everyone is doing it, and if 90% of everything is crud (thank you Sturgeon’s Law), then it’s obvious that more people are going to meddle with and break the rules of the NO than the TLM. The TLM community is 100% self-selective. The NO is “here comes everybody”. If the TLM were the only game in town, all the dissidents, wreckovators, touchy-feely types, ad-libbers, St. Louis Jesuit fans, and burlap sack artists would still be around, and they’d be wreaking their havoc on that instead. You think RULES will stop them? Sure as heck haven’t so far. They’re just not goring *your* ox right now. But of course, it’s a lot easier to relocate with your special in-crowd than clean out the Augean stables.

    Fro these comments, one might think the NO is inseparable from these mentioned abuses. It’s not true. I guess maybe you all need to take a field trip to Phoenix or something.

  14. Gratias says:

    To me the TLM represents the survival of our shrinking Church. Keep the Faith. Fortunately here in America we can have the TLM now. Like the Irish monasteries, we might be able to transmit it (traditio) to the next generation.

  15. RichR says:

    The TLM means nothing to me. I read about it. I ask for it. Nothing happens. I continue to languish in the liturgical desert. The TLM is a pipe dream for me.

  16. Sword40 says:

    @Jim Dorchak ,
    Having raised 7 kids in the same manner as you described, I can really relate. But they’re all grown and gone out on their own now. I kind of miss those wacky days (not the long drive to a real EF) but those hectic mornings trying to get them all ready for the long drive without spilling on their Sunday clothes.
    We were lucky to find an EF Mass back in 1975. An old retired priest had been asked to say the Mass. He said yes so one of the wealthy members bought an old church and had it fixed up. So for almost 10 years we attended. Then the priest decided that he was way too old to continue (almost 90) so he joined the SSPX. We didn’t have a clue what that was until 1988 when the stuff hit the fan.

    The rest is a completely different story. But now we are home in the FSSP.

  17. kiwitrad says:

    The Latin Mass means to me silence to meditate and to pray, holiness, the Mass of the ages and a total focus on what is happening on the altar. When I go into the Latin Mass the people are kneeling and praying, there is sense of reverence and preparation because something holy is about to happen. When I leave many are still kneeling and praying. When I go to the English Mass it’s like going to a concert. Before Mass people are chatting or reading their newletters and at the at the end of Mass there is headlong rush to get out. Our Bishops have decided when our elderly priest retires there will be no more Latin Masses. We apparently “all belong” to the English Mass. I hope I’ve shaken off this mortal coil by then!

  18. Martlet says:

    I think you said it very well, kittenchan. I was raised with the TLM and well remember the first Sunday that the NO was introduced into our church. The priest told everyone that now, they would have to be full participants. “No more reading the newsletter or that novel you couldn’t leave at home. No more whispering to one another during Mass…” I was in my teens then, and was quite startled. He told people that if they didn’t want to fully participate, not to bother coming. I doubt he would have said any such thing if everyone had been kneeling, praying holy prayers.

  19. Mike says:

    The Traditional Latin Mass means the privilege to unite my participation in the Holy Sacrifice with the participation of all the faithful through the ages, including those ages preceding 1970. And an affirmation of hope for the survival of the Church and of Her Liturgy as agents of salvation in Our Lord Jesus Christ, even as — with little resistance from many of our Church’s nominal shepherds — our society accelerates to its doom.

  20. Palladio says:

    A special blessing from a true priest. The Form defined as extraordinary by Pope Benedict XVI, who wisely shepherded the Church with Summorum Pontificorum. Hence a settled matter within a Rite with two Forms. The Mass which decided me for oblature. The Mass in which I felt, beyond feeling, and knew, beyond knowledge, freedom and peace. An experience beyond experience. A foretaste of heaven.

  21. av8er says:

    kittenchan says:
    It’s sad that the NO is defined by its abuses.

    Precisely. Where were the abuses for the pevious 1900 years prior to VII? (there may have been I honestly don’t know nor have heard of any) I have only been to one TLM while visiting Houston. It was a low Mass but still more reverent than any NO I could remember.
    After watching the video posted by Fr. Z of the TLM narrated by Ven Archbishop Fulton Sheen, I was asking myself, why did it change so drastically? Maybe, as God turns good form bad, this has helped to revitalize our worship as evidenced by the increase of TLM offered.

  22. KateD says:

    Hear, hear, Jim Dorchak!

  23. Justalurkingfool says:

    RichR,

    Isn’t there a Latin Mass at the Cathedralin Austin?

    http://austinlatinmass.org/

  24. Palladio says:

    Not to be pedantic, but it is not true that “the NO is defined by its abuses. It is deformed by its abuses. Thank God for Pope Benedict XVI: one Rite, two Forms.

  25. FXR2 says:

    kittenchan said: But of course, it’s a lot easier to relocate with your special in-crowd than clean out the Augean stables.

    Yeah I get it I know my TLM Parish is a ghetto, but don’t forget It not just my wife and I. We have six children and this is the safest place to raise them. Everyone there believes. Let that sink in everyone there believes. Our family with six children is medium sized. Our children’s friends are Catholic, believe and live their faith. I wouldn’t mind helping to fight the battle but we have to prioritize. In the mainstream Parish I used to attend I know not everyone believes. I got tired of the comments after Mass ‘What another one?’, ‘You know what causes that right?’, ‘Don t you have TV?’, ‘Are they all yours?’. Not to mention the Clinton and Obama bumper stickers in the parking lot. This mainstream Parish is a very orthodox Parish and now offers the TLM every Sunday, but not everyone believes. Yeah the TLM only Parrish is a ghetto, but the safest place for my children.

    fxr2

  26. Per Signum Crucis says:

    I’m sorry. But this saddens me. Every Mass, we say “I believe in one holy catholic and apostolic Church”. ONE Church. Not a Church of the mainstream and the ghetto. Not a Church of “I’m alright Jack” or “Holier than thou” (and again I’m sorry if that is not what some posters intended to convey despite my interpretation of their words). ONE Church with TWO licit rites. My own parish is far removed from the TLM ideal (and yes, we have blue vestments…) but I dislike being made to feel like I have wasted two+ hours of my day every Sunday and feast day just because of that.

  27. mlmc says:

    the picture could be worse- I have been to a “guitar” mass where we we treated to a matronly women in tight danskins performing liturgical dance. I almost bought one of those T shirts that read “friends don’t let friends do liturgical dance” afterwards. Made the lack of kneelers, the felt banners, no stations etc, totally unnoticeable for once.

  28. mlmc says:

    oops- second we should be were

  29. Mike Morrow says:

    kittenchan writes: “It’s sad that the NO is defined by its abuses.” … I’ve heard people lament that the NO is just so much more susceptible to abuses… But that’s because it’s mainstream.

    Complete nonsense. What we now call the TLM was “mainstream” for 1500 years! I grew up in the pre-Vatican II Church…and never before then saw the corruption and decay that appeared almost overnight in 1965. It’s become much much worse since. The newchurch is not the same faith that existed before 1965…pure and simple, regardless of how the many at even the highest levels hide their heads in the sand to escape recognition of the obvious, or to further the subversion.

    If everyone is doing it, and if 90% of everything is crud…then it’s obvious that more people are going to meddle with and break the rules of the NO than the TLM. The TLM community is 100% self-selective. The NO is “here comes everybody”. If the TLM were the only game in town, all the dissidents, wreckovators, touchy-feely types, ad-libbers, St. Louis Jesuit fans, and burlap sack artists would still be around, and they’d be wreaking their havoc on that instead.

    Apparently you fail to recognize that, before 1965, the TLM was in fact “the only game in town”? Yet it never attracted the mangy dogs that characterize newchurch culture.

    Fro these comments, one might think the NO is inseparable from these mentioned abuses.

    One might just think that…but only if one has the intellect and experience and historical perspective to recognize reality. The newchurch is “the same yesterday, today, and forever” as natural ground for perversion of standards because it has that at its core…no standards.

    I guess maybe you all need to take a field trip to Phoenix or something.

    Thank you…in exchange I would advise you to not make up explanations based only on “feelings”. You might discuss the matter with people who lived in and are knowledgeable of the Church as it existed before it was so catastrophically hijacked. A few are still around, although hundreds of millions of the best were abandoned by their church a half century ago and won’t be back.

  30. Martlet says:

    But Mike, I also grew up with the TLM and although it leaves no room for priests to mess with the liturgy, it didn’t mean that people were holier. As I child, I used to wander around the church after Mass and visit all the saints, as represented by their statues — while the adults stood at the back of the church, in the vestibule and outside outrageously gossiping. In my little piece of England, a generation pretty much walked out and left the church forever – in the late 1940s and 1950s, before Vatican II began. Clearly they had already lost a sense of the sacred well before the introduction of the N.O. In my own family, it is as if Catholicism skipped a generation, from my grandmother to me… born in 1950. I think we have to look to society in general to see what is happening within the Church. If I thought that making the TLM compulsory would reverse the trends we have seen since the Sixties, I would be all for it, but as it is, I would settle for priests actually preaching, during the N.O. Mass.

  31. Fr AJ says:

    tcreek, I have a feeling Rome may get involved in this. I’m not sure the Bishop has the authority to ban the TLM though he does concerning the presence of the Blessed Sacrament which he threatened to remove. Curious to hear the reason why, the letter just says for the sake of the salvation of the college president’s soul. Very strange unless the college president said something goofy like the NO is invalid during his meeting with the Bishop…that or the Bishop is militant anti-trad.

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