I recently posted about the good news in the Diocese of Raleigh where, in Dunn, NC, at Sacred Heart Church there are now Masses in the Extraordinary Form celebrated with Spanish re-readings and sermon. HERE
For your Brick by Brick file, I share this email about a Novus Ordo development in San Diego. The prose is a bit turgid, but you can take in the good news:
Father I think this falls under the Good News dept. On Monday evening last, the Brothers of the Little Oratory in San Diego [I like Oratories] sponsored an exemplary New Rite, Latin, ad Orientem, Roman-vestmented, Gregorian chanted, properly served mass for Michaelmas [that’s 29 Sept] at St. John of the Cross Catholic Church in Lemon Grove, Ca, about ten miles directly east of downtown San Diego. There were about a hundred and fifty persons in attendance, the reading was properly intoned in Latin by one of the Brothers of the Little Oratory in San Diego, Dr. Roberto Lionello, who is also a Latin-fluent member of the Familia Sancti Hieronymi. By far most of the attendees were parishioners of St. John’s, and most were Spanish speakers, all of whom followed the mass with rapt devotion, and Fr. Navarra homilized on the Archangels as “function and not nature,” after a text by St. Gregory the Great from the new office, in both Spanish and English. The occasional crying and playing of more than a few children also gave testimony of the family oriented congregation, and also that Father Peter Navarra, had promoted this mass to his his congregation, and got a sizable turnout in return.
Generally speaking, the Extraordinary Form is the preference of most of our members, however the Brothers do sponsor “traditionalized” New Rite masses from time to time, simply exercising available options which go generally unused, and apparently the results speak for themselves. We also sang the propers common to the 1972 Graduale, although in this case the feast (which we have celebrated on a number of occasions in years past) is one of several in which the new and old propers coincide completely. Further, the prayers of the faithful, rendered in English were followed by “…exaudire digneris: Te rogamus audi nos” on the litany tone. Communion was distributed kneeling, and on the tongue. The ordinary of the mass was setting XIV, and the office We have been facilitated in all of this since (I believe it was) 2004 by a generous act of our then Auxiliary Bishop Salvatore Cordileone, now Archbishop of San Francisco, who in 2004 brought us – at the expense of his labor in carrying it home from Rome – a Missale Romanum Latin altar missal for the Ordinary Form, as well as a three-volume hard-bound Lectionarium. We have endeavored to use the gift well.
I have always objected to called the Extraordinary Form or Usus Antiquior simply “the Latin Mass”. “Traditional Latin Mass”, yes. “The Latin Mass”… fail. This is because the Novus Ordo or Ordinary Form is also supposed to be in Latin. We should work hard against segregating the use of Latin only in the Extraordinary Form. This is why I think it was such a bad idea with the publication of the Roman Missal with the new, 2011 translation not to include the Latin appendix that was in the now obsolete Sacramentary.
You might be interested to know that a priest gave me a beautifully printed supplement for the newer English Roman Missal that could be easily affixed inside the book’s cover, thus supplying the missing Latin appendix.
Meanwhile, kudos to the group in San Diego.
Let Latin, tool of the New Evangelization, bring us all together.
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The typical “bilingual” parish Mass–with some parts in English, others in Spanish–has always seemed to me more divisive rather than unifying, emphasizing differences rather than bridging them, and guaranteeing that no one can follow the whole Mass. But I wonder whether a liturgy will all parts of the Mass itself in Latin (EF or OF), but with with the readings repeated in both vernacular languages, and each paragraph of the sermon given in both, might be a powerful force for unity where parishioners are otherwise divided by their vernacular languages. Wouldn’t sharing the same Latin liturgy, with each following it in his own language in missal or missalette, create that sense of community that is fractured by the typical bilingual Mass which practically no one present can understand in its entirety? Just as travelers in a strange land could once feel at one with fellow worshipers wherever they were, hearing Mass in the same familiar language used in church back home.
“This is because the Novus Ordo or Ordinary Form is also supposed to be in Latin. We should work hard against segregating the use of Latin only in the Extraordinary Form.”
Amen! But what can the average parishioner do?
Thank you for the Kudos, padre. Sorry to leave that line hanging in the 2nd paragraph, but what I meant to way (I guess I overlooked it when I wrote it), was that verses of the office hymn were sung after the offertory chant, and during communion, after the communion chant and along with O Salutaris. It was a splendid evening!
Once Epiphany comes, I bet a fair amount of Latinos will come out on January 6 for an E.F. mass since Latino communities still by and large celebrate 3 Kings’ Day on January 6. Here in New Haven, Connecticut, it’s a school holiday.
All in all, I only have one problem with anything in this post- calling Roman-style vestments traditional. They’re a baroque ecclesiastical fashion trend that somehow is regarded, along side overly lacy surplices and towering, gaudy reredoses, as being traditional. If you want traditional, Gothic or conical is the way to go! :p Forgive my ranting, Father, but I’m just one of those stodgy Sarum-influenced Traditionalists, rather than Tridentine Roman-influenced. And I mean of those Parson’s-Handbook-reading, frontal-buying, English-surplice-wearing, riddel-curtain-and-rood-screen Sarum-influenced Traditionalists that are sadly miles away from the nearest Ordinariate Use parish.
500 years makes a tradition. They’re also much cooler in the sunny southern climes than Gothic, which looks like polyester table-cloths in fabric thin enough for the land of the sun. They’re also more manageable when it comes to swinging a paten at an giggling alter boy, or tackling a Satanist who’s trying to make off with a consecrated host. Suffice to say, they have their virtues. As does everything to do with the Sarum Rite, which as we all know is the rite proper to England, and which should still be used with greater frequency! But don’t object if the colors of the vestments don’t match in a given liturgy…there was no Martha Stewart rubric for color coordination. ;-)