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Your the Brick by Brick file from the Journal Star with my emphases and comments.

Consecration at Denton seminary to celebrate ‘crown jewel’

By ERIN ANDERSEN / Lincoln Journal Star

Sitting atop a hill in Denton, Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary is visible for miles around.

Passers-by sometimes confuse it with a hotel.

But in this sprawling complex of multicolored brick and glass live 72 men studying to become priests of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite—priests who perform the traditional Latin Mass. [I admire the chutzpah in this phrase, but no Roman priest is ordained for a book.  Latin, Roman priests are not ordained for the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  We are ordained for the Roman Rite, which – juridically at least – has two forms.  If a man is in a group which uses only one form, that is another matter.  And we can debate whether or not there is really only one Roman Rite from a theological point of view.  But we are all priests of the Roman Rite.  So… that corrective in mind, let’s move along in reading the article, which from the first paragraph shows that the writer did some homework…]

Wednesday, the Catholic Church marks the completion of the $14 million seminary with the consecration of its newly finished Chapel of Saints Peter & Paul. It is the first U.S. chapel built for seminarians in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite in 40 years, said Father Joseph Lee, former seminarian and now ordained priest serving in Kansas City. [Kanasas, I think.]

Lee and others refer to the chapel as "the crown jewel" of the seminary.

Designed by Thomas Gordon Smith Architects, the 10,000-square-foot chapel reflects a contemporary rebirth of classical Catholic architecture.

That includes wooden choir stalls facing the center of the chapel, rather than church pews facing the altar. The stalls seat 92 priests and seminarians. Chairs will be set in the back of the chapel for laity and visitors.

The seating, and the four-story-high ceiling, provide ideal acoustics for the awe-inspiring Gregorian chants through which seminarians present the liturgy. [Hmmm… okay.  Perhaps "pray the liturgy" might have been a little clearer, but that’s fine.  The good point here is "awe".]

An elevated white marble altar, featuring a 31-foot marble canopy or baldachin, stands at the end of the chapel. The ornately carved structure once sat in a Quebec, Canada, church that was decommissioned in 2000. Seven smaller altars named for saints are throughout the chapel. A choir loft sits in the back. [Do choir lofts sit?  Yah… picky, I know.]

The Denton seminary is operated by the Lincoln Roman Catholic Diocese. It is one of two southeastern Nebraska seminaries overseen by the Lincoln Diocese. St. Gregory the Great Seminary opened in Seward in 1998 – the first free-standing diocesan seminary to open in the U.S. in decades. It teaches priests mainly for the Lincoln Diocese.  [Do you get the sense that in Lincoln someone has his head screwed on in the right direction?]

Our Lady of Guadalupe Seminary, which opened in 2000, teaches priests from all over the world to celebrate Mass in Latin. It is the only seminary in the United States devoted exclusively to teaching the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, Lee said.

Our Lady of Guadalupe is the English-speaking seminary of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, an international community of priests dedicated to the traditional Latin Mass. The fraternity was established in 1988 by Pope John Paul II. The fraternity has two seminaries, one in Denton and the other in Bavaria, Germany.

Before 1962, Catholic Mass was always in Latin. But reforms by the Second Vatican Council (1962-65) allowed priests to celebrate Mass in the language of that country.  ["Allowed" that parts of Mass sometimes be in the vernacular.  The Council did not oblige this or that all the Mass be in the vernacular.  Indeed, the Council required that Latin remain the language of worship and that pastors should make sure their flocks knew to sing and speak the parts pertaining to them in Latin and their mother tongue.]

In the early 1980s, Pope John Paul II asked bishops from around the world how this new form of liturgy was being accepted. People stood on both sides – some liked hearing Mass in their language, and others said the traditional Latin Mass was more meaningful, explained Father Calvin Goodwin, Latin instructor at Our Lady of Guadalupe.  [This focuses on the language, but leaves apart the other issues of changes to the theology of the prayers.]

In 1984 the pope made some initial and cautious steps toward the re-emergence of the traditional Latin Mass, he said. Four years later, he expanded permission for Catholic churches to return to the Latin Mass.  [Remember!  The newer form of Mass in Latin is also "the Latin Mass".]

"In 1988 there were about six regular celebrants authorized for Latin Masses," Goodwin said. "By 2005, there were around 250 Latin Mass celebrants."

Since then, Pope Benedict XVI has made it possible for all priests to celebrate Latin Mass if they choose, [They always could, in the Novus Ordo, use Latin… clean up these terms when using them yourselves.] and has made it obligatory for churches to provide a Latin Mass if Catholics request it.  [Well… that has a long way to go yet.]

"Weekly up to around 400 churches celebrate Latin Mass," Goodwin said. "It has grown steadily over the past 20 years, as has our community (the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter). We started with 10 to 12 priests; now we have well over 200 priests."

Many of those priests are younger; the average age is 36. Among other priestly fraternities, the average age is 65 to 75, Goodwin said.  [As I have been saying, younger men want this.  Even those not in the ranks of a specialty group want our Church’s patrimony.  In another few years, maybe five years or so… we are going to see something remarkable happening.]

Much of the demand for Latin Mass comes from younger Catholics seeking a return to the old ways of worship.  [Not just "old" ways, but "Catholic" ways… "traditional" ways… "continuous" ways.]

Experts may see Latin as a "dead" language, but it is ideal for the church because the meaning of the words stand the test of time, Lee said.

"Thus Latin is excellent for theology and the transmission through succeeding ages of the unchanging – and unchangeable – doctrines in which the continuity of precise meanings is necessary among different cultures and times," he said.  [Well said.]

"Also, one finds the sound of Latin to be sublime and lofty, devoted as it is uniquely to the worship of God."

Catholics do not need to understand Latin to appreciate the Latin Mass, Goodwin said.

In fact, it was only when Mass was said in the language of the community that "people drifted to the idea that the primary point of Mass was to understand everything that was said and going on," he said.

"Mass is not a lesson or a class, or a primary form for the exchange of information.

"The primary point (of Mass) is not to understand it for the information conveyed. The primary point is to be present with your heart and soul as our lady St. Mary and St. John were present at the foot of the cross," Goodwin said.  [We can add a lot to this, but I think that Fr Goodwin hit it on the head by steering the point of Mass away from the didactic.]

Mass is the re-presentation, in an unbloody manner, of the sacrifice of Calvary in which Jesus offered his life to atone for the sins of all humanity, Lee said.

Catholics attend Mass to "understand the experience and the reverence and the devotion and the solemnity that are proper to the worship of God," Goodwin said.

Well done.  And WDTPRS kudos to the Fraternity for their new jewel!

Brick by brick.

Here is some brick by brick new from Georgetown University sent by a reader.

My emphases and comments:

Student Push to Reinstate Campus Latin Mass Succeeds
By Lenard Babus Feb 09 2010

A renewed push by students for the reintroduction of regular celebrations of the Tridentine Mass, or a traditional Mass conducted in Latin, will provide the Georgetown community with a new option for Roman Catholic worship on campus.

Starting Feb. 11, the traditional Latin Mass will be offered one weekday per week every other week. This will be the first time that this Mass has been offered on campus since May 2008.

The main advocate for the pre-Vatican II Mass (Mass said entirely in Latin]) Kieran Raval (COL ’13) describes the Latin Mass as a way to feel a greater connection to the long historical and religious traditions of the Catholic Church as well as to grasp a greater understanding of the Novus Ordo Mass (post-Vatican II Mass).

“I gained a sense of our Catholic spiritual and liturgical heritage by attending the traditional Latin Mass, which has helped me better understand the Novus Ordo,” Raval said.  [Get that?   This is my constant theme.  The older Mass is what we need to go deeper and to have continuity.]

He stressed that neither Mass is spiritually superior to the other, but that they can work in unison to enhance one’s overall religious experience. The two Masses are aesthetically different, and preference for one over the other is based upon personal choice.  [hmmm]

In the traditional Latin Mass, the Mass is celebrated in Latin and the priest faces away from the congregation as a gesture symbolic of leading the congregation toward God. The traditional Latin Mass uses Gregorian chants as well as a more complex set of actions, gestures and postures by the priest.

Fr. Stephen Fields, S.J., the priest who celebrated the traditional Latin Mass when it was previously offered on campus, indicated that the traditional Mass is very popular among young people, possibly due to its contemplative nature.

“My assumption is that, in a world of constant [noise], [young people] find that the contemplative silence of the Extraordinary Form nourishes their lives of prayer,” Fields said.

The traditional Latin Mass will be celebrated by Fr. G. Ronald Murphy, S.J. when it resumes this week. Murphy agreed that aesthetics are an important factor underlying personal preference for either Mass. He said he believes that more important than individual preference for either Mass is the realization of what Mass itself signifies, however.

“I like any type of worship that helps people come to a realization about what they are saying,” Murphy said.

Murphy also described the difference between the two types of Masses as a shift in focus.

“The old liturgy is very much God-centered and believes, in a way, that the best way to worship is to stand together and face God. The new liturgy wants us to face God and each other,” Murphy said.

Student support has been integral in reinstituting the Mass. According to Raval, approximately 30 students have shown enthusiasm for the Extraordinary Mass. Additionally, a lecture series that aims to educate the community about the traditional Latin Mass and to address any questions or concerns is planned for the future.

Andrea Pittaluga (SFS ’10), a student organizer of the lecture series, said that lecture topics may include explanations of the steps of the traditional Latin Mass, the different vestments and the connection to ancient Jewish temple worship. Dan Galloway (SFS ’13), another student lecture series organizer, indicated the lecture series would provide the community with knowledge about the subtleties of the traditional Latin Mass and would benefit observers’ religious experiences when in Mass.

Raval stressed that apart from providing an additional means of worship, the traditional Latin Mass will enhance religious experience on campus.

“Finally, I would like to note that all, Catholics and non-Catholics, are welcome to come and experience the beauty and reverence of this liturgy. By coming to a celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass, even those who prefer the Novus Ordo will gain tremendous insight into the mystery of the Eucharist and the liturgy as a whole,” Raval said.

From a priest reader:

I’ve been a priest since 1984 and when I was ordained my bishop did not look favorably on the traditional Latin Mass.  Therefore my seminary training at St. Meinrad did not include any mention of the Tridentine Mass, other than the occasional joke about it.  I love to celebrate the Sacrifice of the Mass in English because I know what I am saying, but continue to be drawn to the traditional Latin Mass because of its solemnity, history and beauty.  My question to you is, how hard is it to learn to celebrate the Tridentine Mass?  I earned a "D" in Latin back in college, and have been told by a former Latin teacher to stick with English.  I don’t have a gift for languages.  For the past three years, during Lent in my parish, we have chanted the Pater Noster at Mass, and I still have to have the words in front of me.  I am not good at memorization.   I’ve seen two different workshops available, one offered by the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius and the other by the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter.  Any recommendations?  Comments?

Thanks.  I am sure there are many priests who hesitate even to start because they think it must be really hard.

That said, it is sure going to be hard for some priests, but not impossible.

Think about it this way: there were many generations of men who learned how to say Mass who weren’t exactly rocket scientists.  Right?  If they did it, anyone can do it.

It helps a great deal to have strong Latin.  But a priest is to be idoneus, suitable, to say Mass.  He must have the minimum tools for Mass.  He must be able to pronounce the words properly, at the very least.  He doesn’t have to be a Latin expert. 

The workshops mentioned above are very good.  They will be able to steer you toward good tools.

Memorization is important, but not an absolute obstacle: that’s why we have books and altar cards on the altar!

It can be done.

Finally, you would also need to make it clear to any overly zealous trad lay people that if they decide to snipe at you from the pews because they think you didn’t wiggle your pinky finger the right way at the third comma according to the final authority in all things rubrical – their own recollection of how old Msgr. Guido O’Leary did that at St. Ipsidipsy in Tall Tree Circle when they were ten and following their authoritative St. Joseph Daily Missal – then they can just wait… and wait…. and wait … until the good is no longer the enemy of the perfect.

I think, dear Father, the best thing to do is just to start. 

Build it up, brick by brick, and you will find that it isn’t so hard as all that once you get used to it.

That said, I invite PRIESTS to chime in with their comments about learning to say the TLM.

I was sent this reliable information about an upcoming event in NYC.

CARDINAL TO CELEBRATE MASS MARKING 15TH ANNIVERSARY OF PRO-LIFE ENCYCLICAL

New York, Feb. 12, 2010 – New York’s Agnus Dei Council of the Knights of Columbus announced today that Edward Cardinal Egan, Archbishop Emeritus of New York, will celebrate a Pontifical Mass to mark the 15th anniversary of Evangelium Vitae (“The Gospel of Life”), the pro-life encyclical by Pope John Paul II.  Issued on March 25, the day nine months before Christmas when Catholics celebrate the Annunciation to Mary of the Incarnation of Jesus Christ in her womb, the 1995 encyclical condemns murder, abortion and euthanasia.

The Pontifical Mass for Life begins at 7:30 PM at the Church of the Holy Innocents, 128 W. 37th Street, in Manhattan.  Before Mass, there will be a Rosary for Life at 7:00 PM.  Organist and choirmaster, David J. Hughes, will lead the choir singing Tomas Luis Victoria’s Missa de Beata Mariae Virgine.  Edward Cardinal Egan will celebrate the Mass according to the Roman Missal of 1962, the form of the Catholic Church’s Mass before the Second Vatican Council.

According to Richard Janniello, past Grand Knight of the Agnus Dei Council, this is the second year the Knights have sponsored a special Mass for the Feast of the Annunciation.  “It was no coincidence that John Paul II issued his great pro-life encyclical on the Feast of the Annunciation and Incarnation.  It’s the preeminent pro-life Feast in our Catholic calendar,” he said, “because it reminds us every year that Our Lord’s human life was sacred from the very moment of His conception in the womb, already nine months before His birth.”

Evangelium Vitae explicitly recognizes this link in its opening words:  “Mary’s consent at the Annunciation and her motherhood stand at the very beginning of the mystery of life which Christ came to bestow on humanity. Through her acceptance and loving care for the life of the Incarnate Word, human life has been rescued from condemnation to final and eternal death.”

The Pontifical Mass for Life also marks an important milestone for the New York Archdiocese.  At the request of the Agnus Dei Knights, it will be the first time since the Second Vatican Council that an American Cardinal will celebrate a Pontifical Mass in New York City according to the form in use before the Council.  Anthony Ignacio, current Grand Knight of the Agnus Dei Knights, explained “the men of our Council share a special affection for this form of the Mass and His Eminence has shown extraordinary generosity in agreeing to celebrate it in this form.”

The Pontifical Mass for Life will be the third Pontifical Mass according to the earlier form celebrated in New York City in the last year.  “These Masses have become more common since Pope Benedict XVI’s Summorum Pontificum made the 1962 form available to every priest in the Church,” said Ignacio.  Before becoming Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger often celebrated Mass according to the earlier form.

WHAT:  Pontifical Mass for Life
WHERE:  The Church of the Holy Innocents, 128 W. 37th Street, Manhattan
WHEN:  Rosary for Life, 7 PM; Pontifical Mass, 7:30 PM; Reception to follow in the Church Hall
For more information, call (212) 569-1252 or visit www.traditionalknight.com.

Are there special Lenten programs for penance in your dioceses or parishes?

From a reader:

FYI, the Diocese of Paterson (NJ) is for the second year offering confessions at every parish on Monday’s throughout Lent.
Here is the link to the website with further information should we wish to read more.

http://www.welcomehometohealing.org/

It is promoted with billboards throughout the area.

Here is something quite interesting for your Brick By Brick file.

I picked up from the intrepid Andrea Tornielli that Una Voce Malaga has been doing some arithmetic.

Apparently, world wide, since summorum Pontificum went into effect some 138 cardinals or bishops have been celebrant for or presided at Holy Mass or Vespers in the older, traditional form of the Roman Rite.

Il sito spagnolo di Una Voce Malaga, rilanciato a sua volta dal blog Messa in latino, ha stilato un puntuale elenco con i nomi – divisi per Paesi – dei cardinali e dei vescovi che hanno celebrato o assistito alla forma “straordinaria” della messa secondo il messale romano antico (o comunque di vespri solenni secondo l’antica forma) dopo la liberalizzazione stabilita da Benedetto XVI con il motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. Questi i dati: Germania 3, Argentina 3, Australia 6, Belgio 1, Brasile 4, Canada 6, Cile 2, Cina 1, Colombia 1, Danimarca 1, Filippine 3, Francia 17, Gabon 2, Italia 15, Irlanda 2, Kazakhstan 1, Liechtenstein 1, Monaco 1, Nigeria 2, Nuova Zelanda 1, Polonia 7, Regno Unito 9, Repubblica Ceca 1, Spagna 4, Sri Lanka 1, Svizzera, 2, Ungheria 2, Usa 33.  Dei 138 ben 20 sono cardinali, 4 spagnoli, 4 americani e 4 italiani (Antonelli, Piovanelli, Poggi e Scola). I vescovi italiani sono 11. Guardando a questi risultati si potrebbe dire che è ancora molto poco. Ma credo che lo sguardo più giusto sia quello del lungo periodo: è cominciato – nonostante le difficoltà, le tensioni, i dinieghi anche clamorosi, le polemiche mediatiche, le rigidità e le rivendicazioni – un processo positivo, nella linea voluta da Benedetto XVI, quella della riconciliazione e dell’arricchimento reciproco fra i fedeli che seguono la messa nelle due forme ora previste del Rito romano. E’ un segno, ancora piccolo ma incoraggiante, dei frutti che sta portando il modo di governare di Papa Benedetto: quello dell’esempio, dei piccoli passi, di “riforme” che per essere tali devono partire anche dal basso e non possono venire soltanto imposte dall’alto.

Bishop by bishop, folks! 

I was alerted this is exceptionally good news:

A Promising Development at Mundelein Seminary

It warms my heart to see this on the list of classes for next quarter. Will I be taking it? Absolutely!

From a reader:

Mass will be offered in Latin in the Immaculate Conception Chapel at Seton Hall University on all Mondays of this semester at 7:00 PM.  The Latin Masses will alternate between the Ordinary Form and the Extraordinary Form. 
 
Here is the schedule:
 
Feb. 8 – novus ordo
Feb. 15 – extraordinary form
Feb 22 – novus ordo
Mar. 1 – extraordinary form
Mar. 15 –  novus ordo
Mar. 22 – extraordinary form
Mar. 29 (Monday of Holy Week) –novus ordo
Apr. 12 – novus ordo    
Apr. 19 – extraordinary form
Apr. 26 – novus ordo
May 3 – extraordinary form (last week of classes)

I don’t know if you heard this or not, but there is now yet another church in Rome where you can find celebrations of Holy Mass according to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.  

According to Messa In Latino, the TLM will be at the Opus Dei church Sant’Eugenio every third Saturday.   

A couple good things about this.  

First, this is an important parish.

Second, as one of my correspondents wrote:

This is truly good news and a potential game-changer. If they decided to go public with it in their parish, it’s going to have an impact from outside the strictly traditionalist circles, and the usual suspects won’t be able to pretend it’s just another fringe group doing their thing.

I continue to muse about Latin in parish worship.  I just isn’t that hard.  People can and will take to it and Latin can facilitate a deeper kind of active participation.

I had a note from a reader who has to do with the Latin Liturgy Association in the area of Philadelphia, PA.

Weekly Compline at Mater Ecclesiae, Berlin, NJ, Beginning Tuesday, Feb.9, 2010 at 8:05 PM
Sodales:
I am very pleased to bring to your attention the notice below from LLA member John Rotundi  about weekly Compline starting up at Mater Ecclesiae Roman Catholic Church at 261 Cross Keys Road in Berlin, NJ.  For directions to the church please go to the website at www.materecclesiae.org. As you know, Mater Ecclesiae is “totally traditional” with all Masses and ceremonies in the traditional Latin form of the Roman Rite.

[...]

We will have an Orientation meeting on Sunday, February 7 following the 11:00 am Mass. This meeting will cover the general purposes and goals of this group as well as address any particular questions you may have about how to pray the Office or questions pertaining to any particular version of the Office vs. another, etc.

Also, on Tuesday, February 9 @ 8:05 pm, we will pray Compline in the Mater Ecclesiae chapel in Latin either in recitation or full chant (if we get a practice in with those interested). This will continue on every Tuesday night afterwards following my Latin classes for HFA. I shall work on compiling a Compline service booklet (a quick copy and paste job) to send out soon; however, the "Divinum Officium" book sold in the bookstore would perfectly suffice if you want something nicer and more permanent to use.

Compline for Tuesday, February 9 will utilize the regular Tuesday antiphon and psalms, Hymn "Te lucis" in the Ordinary Tone, and the Simple Tone of the Marian antiphon "Ave regina caelorum" if you would like to take a look at the text ahead of time.

I am slated to by at Mater Ecclesiae for a time just after this inauguration of Compline.  I will give some reports if I get any.

Perhaps there will be a change for a Philly blognic. 

I think most of you have read by now the story about the young man who is a hot baseball prospect, with the A’s, Grant Desme, who has chosen to verify a vocation to the priesthood at St. Michael’s Abbey in Orange, CA.

I had this note from a priest friend and sometime poster here at WDTPRS who knows him:

What you may not know is that the young man, Grant Desme, is from the Latin Mass community of San Clemente in Bakersfield.  What you also may not know is that he served Latin Mass for you and for me (he would have been 7th-8th grade when you were in Bakersfield, and was a high schooler during my time there).

God bless him!

Brick by brick.

In an earlier report, we were given to believe that perhaps there would not be another meeting of the and CDF SSPX delegations for a while.  However, Petrus has a bit of news in Italian.

The upshot is that i.Media reports that on 18 January there was a "secret" meeting…. the day after the Pope’s visit to the Roman Synagogue.   The next meeting is supposed to be in mid-March.

The Vatican’s delegation is led by Msgr. Pozzo, Secretary of the Pont. Comm. Ecclesia Dei, and by Archbp. Luis Ladaria Ferrer, Secretary of the CDF.

I hope you will stop and say a prayer for them.

Brick by brick.

In this day of desktop publishing… gosh, even that is a dated term now… and the ability to produce polished videos from your laptop from things you shoot from your mobile phone, we have an obligation to use the tools of social communication and networking in the most effective ways.

A seminarian sent me a note about the following.

Here is a nice little video on YouTube about how to serve Mass.

Have a look!



Discuss.

With a tip of the biretta to the Recovering Choir Director I was guided to The Authentic Update:

My emphases and comments:

Wednesday, January 13, 2010

Some Thoughts About "Turning Back the Clock"

I’ve done a lot of reading (mostly blog discussions) about liturgical reform lately. This is the big topic right now. I mean, it’s always been something of a hot topic, but it is now in the forefront in a way that it hasn’t been before. Beginning with Summorum Pontificum and continuing with changes to the Papal Liturgies including ad orientem celebrations, Gregorian chant, communion kneeling and on the tongue exclusively…now many Bishops following suit...and then the new translation of the Roman Missal coming to us soon, it has become apparent that the "reform of the reform" is no longer a hypothetical thing, but is now a reality.

Just last week, the Pontical Master of Liturgical Ceremonies, Msgr. Guido Marini addressed the Priests of the International Conference of Clergy in Rome. The topic was the "reform of the reform"... a well organized presentation on 5 points central to liturgical reform:

The Sacred Liturgy, God’s great gift to the Church

The orientation of liturgical prayer

Adoration and union with God

Active Participation

Sacred or liturgical music

However, the presentation was less an academic examination than an instruction, [Good observation.] laying out an interpretation of the post-conciliar liturgy that is decidedly orthodox, drawing together many of the issues that have been addressed seperately up to now and creating a coherent foundation for liturgical development going forwards.  [A coherent foundation must, I believe, involve a stronger stress of Summorum Pontificum.]

And that is what I see as the most important point: [This should annoy the progressivists…] This is a forward looking vision for the liturgy, an interpretive foundation for the Missal of Paul VI which brings it out of the morass of inculturating adaptations, innovations and experiments and seeks instead to set it within the liturgical traditions of the Church. [Here it is…] This has been the point of Pope Benedicts reforms up to this point…to set the Missal of Paul VI within the context of the Church’s liturgical tradition.  [Part of Pope Benedict’s plan?]

And yet, the [liberal] reactions to Msgr. Marini’s address and to Pope Benedict’s initiatives all too often appeal to the well-worn cliche: "Let’s not turn back the clock".

This is usually followed by noting that things were far from perfect "back in the day" – and the criticism is most often that Priests rushed through Mass and that the people in the pews just sat and watched, oblivious to what was going on until it was time to receive communion, after which they left. And that may have been true in many instances "back in the day".

But I know a great many Catholics who consider themselves Traditionalists, and I attend Mass in the EF on Sundays (8:30AM Low Mass) and have yet to find a single person who wants to return to that way of celebrating the EF Mass. [The intervening years have taught us a great deal, haven’t they!?] And I have yet to attend an EF Mass in which the Priest desires to rush through as quickly as possible. [One of the fruits of the intervening decades is also a greater awareness of ars celebrandi.] The Mass this past Sunday was a Low Mass and it took about 55 minutes, including an excellent homily. The faithful followed carefully in their Latin-English Missals (including the children who make up perhaps 1/4 of the assembly), very much engaged in the liturgy. This is the state of the Extraordinary Form in 2010. It has nothing to do with "turning back the clock" and everything to do with moving forwards. [YESSSSSSS!] There are new churches, new religious orders, new Priests and new faithful, young and old celebrating in the Extraordinary Form.

And so, [QUAERITUR:] if the current celebration of the EF isn’t "turning back the clock", then how could celebrating the Ordinary Form liturgy, even in the most orthodox of settings, be "turning back the clock"? I have seen Masses celebrated in the Ordinary Form where one gets the impression that the Priest is trying to "move things along", and the now ubiquitous use of an army of EMC’s at most Masses can only be explained by a desire to finish communion as quickly as possible – despite all of the rhetoric that it is the "center of our faith journey". [Good one!] There is the frequent ommission of the Gloria and Creed, homilies without substance or relevance and arbitrary limitations on the number of verses in the hymns…all in order to "get out on time". [Well… I’m okay will fewer verses of hymns.  I’m okay with no hymns at all and using the actual music the Church has assigned.] If there is anything today that is similar to "turning back the clock", it would be this.  [Excellent, point.  Ironic, no?]

This is what Msgr. Marini and certainly Pope Benedict are urging us to move away from…that is, celebrations in the Ordinary Form ought to move forward towards a more reverent and orthodox norm as has been done in the Extraordinary Form celebrations.  [YESSSSSSS!] This is what Pope Benedict meant by mutual enrichment – taking those things from each liturgical form that lead towards a greater reverence and sanctification of the faithful and applying them to both forms.

Such progress could be described in a variety of ways, but I fail to see how it is "turning back the clock". May I suggest that it is actually a case of "winding up a clock" that was long ago allowed to run out, hurriedly replaced by a new improved LED timpepiece whose red-against-black square numbers are beginning to look rather dated themselves.

Nice essay.   I think this person is pretty much on track.

Nice red and black reference there at the end.

I put a Google Thing on the side bar. 

I am not quite sure what it’s for… but…

I put a Google Thing on the side bar. 

I think people are supposed to … I don’t know…  something….



UPDATE 9 Jan 2226 GMT:

There are 99 so far since the original posting at 7 JAN 0111 GMT

Not sure if that is good or not.

UPDATE 10 Jan 0615 GMT:

Lots of pictures of people’s pets.  Interesting.

Especially cats.  What’s with that, anyway?

131 now.

UPDATE 11 Jan 2000 GMT:

163 now.  Have you signed up?

UPDATE 15 Jan 1859 GMT:

229!

UPDATE 19 Jan 0312 GMT:

240

I have also joined a bunch of other people’s google thingies.