Three years ago, I started chilling the Veuve Clicquot.
Fitting for the anniversary of the Emancipation Proclamation.
I got up at Oh-dark-hundred to post the text of Benedict XVI’s long-expected Motu Proprio (I had an advance copy under embargo until noon Rome time). The click of the ENTER button was a blessed sound. Then I stuck the Veuve into the fridge for later.
Summorum Pontificum will prove to one of the most important events of Pope Benedict’s pontificate.
In this document he gave a great gift to the Church especially because it is such a great gift to priests. Once priests learn the older form of Holy Mass – and this is especially true for younger priests – they never say any Mass in the same way again. The older form teaches them something new about themselves as priests and about what and who they are at the altar. In turn, this has a ripple effect on people around them.
Summorum Pontificum is part of Pope Benedict’s "Marshall Plan" to revitalize our Catholic identity.
Let’s use this entry for your reflections on Summorum Pontificum three years later. The document went into force on 14 September 2007, but it was released today: 07-07-07.
Post here your reflections and observations. Let’s not use this thread for discussion. Just post your own points without engaging others directly.
And pray for Pope Benedict!
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I was just reflecting this morning how I found out about its release while visiting the Cleark Creek Monastery in Tulsa and listening to it read aloud at lunch that afternoon while dining with the monks. That will always be a prized memory for me.
Thanks, Papa.
it was very important… and i must say that without this website it would not have made much of an impact on me!!!!
I have never celebrated Mass according to the traditional form. I have been present several times at the celebration in the traditional form. The first time after many years (since I was in high school) I was present at what we now call the Extraordinary Form, I expected some reactions and was surprised by the strongest one. It was when the priest prayed the Eucharstic Prayer in the low voice (is that the correct term?). The sense of participation in the sacrifice of Our Lord was so strong. I was stunned. Participating in the Mass in the EF has deepended my love for the Eucharistic mystery and my priesthood. As a result my manner of celebrating the Ordinary Form is affected. My generation (ordained in 75) learned that WE had to be creative and the worse thing you could do would be to NOT “personalise” the Mass. What an inversion of values and ignorance of truth and beauty! Through the teaching and witness of the Holy Father we are being called back to a Catholic sense of worship. We do need to support Pope Benedict in prayer.
The third year’s the charm. After little discernible activity in Cincinnati during the first two years following SP, the past twelve months have witnessed improvements. There is now an Una Voce chapter here, and the gorgeous Old St. Mary church hosts regular celebrations of the Extraordinary Form, generally for major feasts and occasionally during weekdays. Last week, there was a Solemn High Mass for the Feast of Ss. Peter & Paul.
http://unavocecincinnati.org/
Here in College Station, TX (“The most anti-choice community in America” says Planned Parenthood, the “Vocations Powerhouse” says Columbia Magazine, and home of Texas A&M University which lives and dies by tradition), we have nothing to show from SP. The people here are very well catechized, well educated, and appreciate traditional worship. I am in a men’s gregorian chant group that sings all over the deanery, and while chant and polyphony are welcomed as special events, we have yet to see a parish actually do a TLM here in town. It would be very well-received, and people have asked the local priests and bishop, but to no avail. Our diocese also just got a new bishop, so things are chaotic.
However, I have hope.
There has been no change and no talk about the Motu Proprio whatsoever in my Diocese these 3 years. The youth are hungry for traditional worship but the Priests aren’t interested and neither is the Bishop. Such is the Church in Eastern Canada.
My parish is having the Traditional EF Mass at noon (High Mass!) this Sunday.
I’m very excited!!!
I probably never would have attended an EF if not for SP. We now attend as a family (I’m 30, my wife 29, and we’ve two young boys) now and again, and we intend to give our boys the opportunity to learn to serve the older rite. It has deepened our reverence at every Mass and helped us to grow closer to God as well as more knowledgable of his Church. Also, I teach at a Catholic school, where we were able to introduce the EF with the help of the FSSP. Too, I’ll be helping to prepare students for the new translation, a feat greatly aided by my knowledge and experience of the EF. Finally, my second son was baptized according to the ritual in force in 1962. Without taking away the efficacy of the modern rite, we found the older quite powerful. Whatever children God chooses to give us will be returned to Him in that same rite. May the Holy Father be blessed for this great gift!
Where I live (Miami, Florida) you woudn’t know that Summorum Pontificum was ever issued. I suspect most Catholic don’t know about it, and I don’t know if the clergy know or not, but nothing has changed. There was an initial official comment three years ago, the kind that says something to the effect: “we already have a Mass in Latin, so we don’t have to do anything about it”. For all practical purposes, you will not find an EF Mass in this large diocese (some 110 parishes).
Before SP, our Tennessee diocese had only a single indult Mass each Sunday, alternating biweekly between two TLM-ready priests in locations 75 miles apart.
Now, we have a Sunday TLM each week in two different locations, with a half dozen TLM-ready priests, all but one of them ordained less than 10 years. So the progress has been greater than anyone might have predicted, with more expected and the best probably yet to come.
Perhaps our most immediate problem is that the set of gold vestments (priest, deacon, subdeacon) purchased for our first solemn high Mass is probably too ornate for an ordinary “green Sunday” solemn high Mass.
I have only attended about 7 or 8 EF Masses. Wow. The granduer of that liturgy incarnates a contemplative wonder that is at the heart of a soul in love with Christ.
I attend a NO parish, and long for the day when we have EF masses. However, sadly, I think we’ll need a new pastor before that happens.
But thank you, Pope Benedict!!!
I, too, got up at the crack of dawn and kept hitting “refresh” on my browser. Finally – the long awaited text appeared. Shortly thereafter my phone started ringing, and the emails started flying. By evening we’d organized an impromptu dinner party including a couple of priest friends. Alas, we didn’t invite The Widow, one of the revelers brought a few bottles of Moet White Star if I recall correctly.
Here in the People’s Republic we had just been hearing the week before from Cardinal O’Malley (a.k.a. the “Archbishop of Braintree”) how he had explained to Pope Benedict XVI that there was no demand for the T.L.M. in the U.S.A. At that time there were about ten every-Sunday “indult” Masses in all of New England (two dioceses had no T.L.M. at all) and one location with daily Mass – today there are at least twenty-two every-Sunday Masses, two locations with daily Mass, ten parishes with a T.L.M. one or two Sundays per month, about ten other regularly scheduled weekday Masses, and frequent occurrences of “one-off” T.L.M.s for particular occasions. I cannot predict that the numbers will double again in the next three years, but I am aware of several new (old) Masses in the planning stanges in at least four dioceses here.
Sounds like a good reason to raise a glass on 7 July once again!
The morning of 7 July 2007 dawned sunny and steamy in Chicago. By chance friends were driving down from Michigan for a visit. They arrived just after noon.
Shortly afterward we chanted a Te Deum from the window (tonus solemnis). Ee toasted the Holy Father and then went out into the Midwestern summer to enjoy a glorious day.
I was recently talking to some priests who had just come back from Rome. I think they said mass at the Vatican??? (I think that’s what they said) at about 4 am. They all said the EF. They said that the three priests before them said the EF and the three priests after them said it as well. Wow. Who would have thought of that just a few short years ago?
Deo Gratias!
In my area, there hasn’t been a huge amount of visible change. But the atmosphere is different. Instead of traditionalism being a suspicious outlier, there’s more a feeling that traditional things are a respectable variation. People don’t seem half-ashamed, half-defiant about their inclinations or interest.
Of course, some people are _all_ defiant instead…. :) In national and international forums like this, sometimes people really forget the realities of parish life for other people and make some nasty remarks. But overall, I think people’s bitterness has decreased, not only among traditionalists but also among mainstream post-Vatican II Catholics (and even among some of the progressive fringe). If we don’t turn stuff into fights that don’t have to be, it might just work out.
But yes, I’d say that the motu gave us elbow room: to reclaim a lot of different aspects of being Catholic, and to think and feel out how to serve and worship the Lord better, without worrying that we were going against Peter and the bishops.
There are only four locations in my diocese that have the TLM. And when a priest who has very traidtional leanings submitted a petition with 150 names on it to the new Bishop, asking for permission to establish a TLM parish in the diocese, it was turned down.
But still, I’m happy that our Holy Father had the courage to issue the MP-and I pray for him everyday.
Thanks, Papa Benedict-Deo Gratias!
I’ll have to go out to dinner tonight and raise a glass to him!
http://www.latinliturgy.com/id18.htm seems to have both the OF and EF, with a translation of the Latin of the EF.
I’m having trouble finding one of those Latin/literal English side by side things for the Ordinary Form, but of course the USCCB Roman Missal site has the new English translation of the OF:
http://www.nccbuscc.org/romanmissal/
You’ll see that a lot of things didn’t change as much between EF and OF as the old translation made it look like.
Like many others, I arose at Oh Dark Thirty to read the motu proprio. I read it, and felt a surge of gratitude to the Holy Father… it was honestly more than I had hoped for. That was immediately followed by the sense of inevitability that regardless of what Rome said, overcoming the inertia of intransigence in my diocese would take time. I was right. There is now one regularly scheduled EF Mass, approximately 2 hours away. Slowly… slowly… brick by brick.
Let me put it this way; my Bishop has done everything in his power to prevent the uptake of SP by parish priests; one was even loaned to another diocese simply because he was building a thriving parish along traditional lines right under the Bishop’s nose.
As far as I can see the most of the traditional Priests are too scared lest the same should happen to them, all except the best friend of the priest who was moved – and he is tolerated only because his parish is out in the middle of nowhere (the 6 pm Sunday TLM however IS packed.
I am disappointed that I have not seen more in the way of the “gravitational pull” between the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite, which was one of the intentions of Summorum Pontificum. Time will tell. After all, 3 years in the history of Holy Mother Church is like 3 minutes!
I remember the first time I attended an EF Mass. The only word I knew how to describe it was “mysterious,” yet I felt like that wasn’t enough or was kind of a un-intelligent way of putting it. But that’s all I could think of.
Then when I came to this blog, I kept seeing the word “mystery” attached to any article written of the EF Mass, and I was then comforted with my lack of vocabulary to describe the EF Mass. It was really as simply as I had put it originally: mysterious.
I repeat here, what I have just posted on Fr. Ray Blakes blog.
Summorum Pontificum – Deo Gratias !
While I am extremely grateful for Summorum Pontificum, and very happy for all that have thrived under it, I remain saddened at the basic refusial of the Archdiocese of Washington to implement the Holy Father’s vision.
We still have no fully traditional parish, no traditional confirmation, no traditional daily Mass, no traditional parish life. And H.E. Wuerl refused to even come to the first TLM in his own National Basilica.
We need something to put teeth into SP and fast.
Thank God and Papa Benedict XVI for Summorum Pontificum. I’m glad to have the traditional Latin Mass available to me every day of the week within 15 min. drive now. I usually attend a Vietnamese parish; a parish that my own father was involved in founding. I don’t know how far SP could go when it comes to parishes like these; ones that were founded for Catholic ethnic communities and for preserving culture and language in the “new world”. I believe the primary mission for any parish or community is to preserve the Catholic faith. If the EF is what brings attention back to the “Eucharist well celebrated”, then there are serious challenges in all Ethnic parishes.
SP appeared around the time of my ordination. I read it and realized that the faithful were given the right to ask for the older form of Mass. I had no interest or attachment before this, but thought I had better learn it as a matter of professional duty; if the people had the right to ask for it, then I ought to know how to respond. I explored and learned. I have not yet offered Mass in the EF publicly, but my own Catholic identity, sense of liturgy, and senses in which I pray the OF each day have been greatly enriched. Thank you, Holy Father!
There will always be a special “THANKS TO GOD” for this Pontificate. The Holy Father is doing what needed to be done post Vatican II, and with the broad us of the TLM and pastoral explination of why it should have never gone away, it only restores ones faith in CHRIST and His Bride! Lets face it after the council everything went nutso….
PRAISE BE TO JESUS CHRIST for John Paul the Great and Our Dear Papa Benedetto XVI. As the Italian comentator said on 4/19/05, Benedict is a Great continuation of John Paul’s Pontificate, BUT Pope Benedict is clearly HIS own PERSON!
Viva il Papa!:)
Sorry for the Typo’s, meant to say the “broad use, not us”
my reflections can be summed up in 2 words: Deo Gratias
In my Western Dominican Province (http://www.opwest.org/vocations/) permissions to use the Traditional Dominican Rite for Mass and Office have always been given freely according to the Rescript of 1969. So I have said it regularly (privately and publicly) since the day after my ordination in 1985. So have a good number of priests of my province. The number of parishes in the province with pubic Dominican Rite Masses has gone up since SP, but that probably would have happened without it.
The big change was a decision of our provincial and his council that SP and instructions on its implications for “the other Latin Rites” means that permission is no longer required to say it. That is a change, but since permissions were always granted, not a big one. BUT it does seem that in the Eastern Province SP has meant that they are now experimenting with trying to learn to say the traditional O.P. Rite. That is good, but they lost the praxis so the movement is slow.
So I would say, at least in the Western and Eastern Provinces the same slow process seen in expansion of the Extr. Form of the Roman Rite seems to be happening. I will say the Traditional Dominican Rite as supply priest for the EF communities in Petaluma (Hermann Sons Hall, 860 Western Ave. 9:30) and Rutherford (Holy Family Massion, noon), this Sunday. The later will be a missa cantata.
Prior to SP, I thought an increase in the TLM would primarily benefit the laity who had been in the spiritual wilderness following the implementation of Vatican II. After SP, I’ve come to see that the TLM spiritually transforms priests in wonderful ways, especially those who first learned the Novus Ordo. Making priests holier, even though there have been countless spiritual blessings to the laity who have experienced the TLM as a result of SP, strikes me as the most significant fruit of the Holy Father’s generosity.
God has been so good to us!
In Christ,
Last Sunday I started offering the Extraordinary Form at one of my parishes. I will be offering it weekly. I am a newly ordained priest and it took me three years to learn it. The Reform of the Reform is also moving along. Please pray for us.
I find the Diocese of Arlington, Va. to be the most interesting of locations with respect to Summorum Pontificum. Despite a radically anti-TLM bishop, there are now ten parishes plus the chapel of Christendom College that offer public TLMs. This is a diocese with just 68 parishes, but chock-full of conservative clergy.
It shows that the TLM movement was priest- and lay-driven with bishops in the way. Three years ago today Pope Benedict essentially removed the bishops from the equation.
We’re far from ideal, but these three years have been the best years for those of us born after Vatican II. Let’s not rest! More Sunday morning and holy day Masses are needed; more people in the pews and more Gregorian chant and High Masses should be our short-term goals.
SP has brought the TLM to my little city. I have a suspicion that its arrival and the prayers that accompanied my holy priest had something to do with my conversion to the Catholic Church 6 months later.
A Parish only a few blocks away dedicated exclusively to the EF… 4 other locations in our Diocese that offer the EF regularly…all in the past three years. What more needs to be said??
Considering how, a few years ago, I thought I would never be able to attend a licit TLM again in my life, SP is heaven-sent. Those of us who lived during the implementation of the reforms which we were told were mandated by Vatican II and the destruction of all our cherished traditions, were emotionally and psychologically wrenched by the whole ordeal. I was not one of those who “adapted”. I tried to. After a couple of years I lost my faith. How I found it again is not part of this story. I remember how the organist and I sat on the choir loft stairs and wept when our pastor suddenly, one Sunday, did away with the Mass and music we all knew and loved. We used to have litany and benediction every Sunday afternoon and one evening a week. Those were canceled, too. It was a terrible shock to parishioners. We all felt helpless and lost. Our pastor, and all the local pastors acted with unanimity on this, and we all believed that the New Ways were, incredibly, decreed infallibly by Holy Mother Church. From what I could see, though, Holy Mother Church’s face was no longer visible. Now we have SP. Deo Gratias! It is a new beginning. May all our cherished traditions blossom everywhere once again.
maynardus has given the big picture in the Archdiocese of Boston and the attitude of the very nice, able Franciscan priest we have for an archbishop. My pastor is an example of how far out of touch he is. My pastor’s day off is Thursday and there is no Mass scheduled that day, but during Lent, he celebrated the EF Mass at 7 PM every Thursday. It was very well attended. One of the servers was an eight year old boy about four feet tall. He didn’t make a single mistake.
My pastor spent many hours learning the Latin Mass, is still learning and is looking for a spot to offer it at set time regularly. I’m 73 years old and have been waiting for this for a long time. Praise be to God!!
i am quite certain i would not be a Catholic without SP. though a cradle Catholic, i was never catechized and certainly felt the heavy obligation of attending a tedious, thoughtless Mass every week. i had been attending EO Divine Liturgies and was experiencing the greatest faith crisis of my life. I prayed and prayed and prayed and the good Lord brought a woman into my life who took me to Mass at a Parish which offers both a weekly low Mass and a reverent, by-the-rubrics Latin novus Ordo. Since then, i’ve been reveling in learning about my catholic identity [in no small part due to the efforts of blogs like this one] and have come to realize that all the things i saw expressed in the EO Liturgies are present in our ancient forms… that I didn’t need to leave catholicism to find the reverence and joy and mystery and sense of community that I so craved.
I also, through reading blogs like this and becoming acquainted with tradition-minded friends, will be going to my first TLM on july 16. i know we’re not supposed to make this into a discussion, but does anyone know where i can get a hold of reliable translations of the propers online? not completely necessary but, as a blind person, it would be nice to know what the prayers were.
We have had the FSSP in the archdiocese for about 11 or 12 years and last year that ‘community’ became an official parish. There seems to be more openness to the FSSP and to the other fraternities and orders that offer the TLM I think. I found the FSSP in both Rapid City and in Omaha when I was traveling last summer.
But I am not hearing of any encouragement or increase in the offering of the TLM by diocesan priests in the archdiocese. The Archbishop might not impede it though he admits he prefers the novus ordo. And I understand there is some Latin being taught in the seminary but as far as I know, not the TLM. And that needs to happen in seminaries which is the wish of the Holy Father.
However our new young pastor is open to learning the TLM and hopefully this can be pursued. This might save the FSSP priests from driving 75 miles one way twice a month to come to my town. Or perhaps the parish could supply a TLM even one or two Sundays??? That would be nice to have a greater access.
All of You who have TLM regularly in the parish are very fortunate. We have been told we are only allowed one TLM per month, of course the attendance isn’t the best because the TLM is not promoted from the pulpit.
All in All though at least we do have one High Mass per month, hopefully with the new generation of Priests there will be more TLM’s said.
Praise be to GOD
I have lived in four dioceses since the Motu Proprio was announced in July 2007: St. Louis, Venice, FL, Washington, DC and Krakow, Poland. In two of these – Venice and Krakow – progress has been dramatic, with tremendous expansion of access to the traditional liturgy (but with a long ways to go, of course). In St. Louis, progress in an already very tradition-friendly diocese under then-archbishop Raymond L. Burke has been steady, with a second oratory added and curricular improvements at Kenrick-Glennon. In Washington, alas, little progress is in evidence: two Sunday only TLM’s there were and two there are now. But there are more options on the Virginia side.
In Krakow – I had been there the year before, with real difficulty locating any traditional mass. When I returned in ’08, there was an embarrassment of riches – four different Sunday options, including a Latin N.O. at Wawel Cathedral.
So much depends on the local ordinary. When the bishop is actively supportive – willing to invite in traditional orders, give them personal parishes, introduce more Latin and the traditional mass into seminary formation, willing to back up his tradition-minded priests and support laity interest in traditional liturgy and music – great things can happen quickly. That is precisely what happened in Venice, where Bishop Frank Dewane has made an enormous difference in a short period of time in what had been almost a liturgical wasteland where substantial petitions for greater access had not met with previous success.
I think that once some of these great new young priests start taking over dioceses 10-20 years from now, we may see some truly dramatic progress.
My father-in-law gave me a Baronius Press 1962 hand-missal on 7-7-07, with a dated inscription–coincidentally, the very day SP was issued. I will never forget this date. Deo gratias.
As to not break Father’s rules about this post, I will note how great it is to live in an area, Washington DC, where daily Mass is offered on Mondays, Wednesdays (two different Masses), Fridays (two or three different Masses), and Saturdays in the EF. Plus, there are normally Sunday EF Masses at 6:15 a.m., 8 a.m., 9 a.m., 10:30 a.m., noon, and 12:30 p.m. Thus, it is very easy to get to the traditional Mass. Sadly, my domicile, Pittsburgh, is still way behind.
I would like to remind people not to be impatient. As Rich Leonardi posted, a church in Cincinnati is now holding solemn high masses and other liturgies. There are a couple of other efforts as well, and we always had weekly indult masses at the south and north end of the archdiocese. Nevertheless, despite my own interest, I have made it to only one solemn high mass and one NO mass in Latin over the last year. It sometimes takes people a long time to be able to rearrange their schedules (and I have a particularly crazy one), especially when these masses are held at odd times or sporadic dates. We have a new Archbishop and a lot of changes are going on here at once. Things move slowly in Cincinnati — slow but steady is par for the course around here. So while things move quickly in some places, they may move slowly in others. The important thing is whether or not they’re moving.
My “own points without engaging others directly”:
Here in North Carolina these have been three wonderful years, with the MEF growing in numbers of Masses and numbers attending. I have an email list of those who wish to be kept current on MEFs in our state; it’s now over 250 names. The bishops of Raleigh and Charlotte have been especially generous. Along with a number of supportive priests who offer the MEF monthly or on a ferial day, two priests in particular have been very promotive by offering the MEF every Sunday, and offering it at 12noon so that those driving a distance can travel in the daylight. And, like the fudge topping on an ice cream sundae (pun intended), we have not one but three scholae, and another choir director in one city quite friendly to the MEF. No small achievement in a state where as late as 25 years ago Catholics, MOF or MEF, were listed under “others”.
Those curious as to where and when in my state can check the webpage honneurs[dot]free[dot]fr/Wikini/wakka[dot]php?wiki=CarolineDuNord
I’ve said it before: the only folk who now could kill the growth of the MEF are, sadly, some Traddies themselves (full disclosure, ich bin ein Traddy) — those Traddies of a dyspeptic, sulking, bilious, ungrateful, even vitriolic and threatening ilk, who seem to go out of their way not to support priests. The only setbacks that we’ve had here in NC these past three years have been caused directly by such folk.
Do we have a ways to go in NC? Certainly, yet the progress that we’ve made here in during the last two years ought be reason enough to voice optimism for the future.
Observations: Look at how much MORE people are talking about the Mass itself whether it be to hate or to love the EF form or NO Mass. This is great as people are becoming educated on the Mass either way. We are probably the only parish in our Diocese to have a regular EF Mass, but I see quite a few priests with some interest in it–and the seminarians seem to hang out at our Parish and are comfortable with it and have in different ways participated in it. You are so right Father, when you say brick by brick. Pope Benedict is doing just that. God Bless him-and you for all the work you do for the church.
SP has made the TLM more widespread and has encouraged all kinds of Catholics to discover the old rites and liturgies; The texts in the Ordinary Form Mass are being fitted to match the texts of prayers found in the Extraordinary Form of Mass. Thanks be to God and to Christ’s Vicar Pope Benedict XVI!!! Brick by Brick indeed =D
http://teddybarboza.blogspot.com/2010/07/summorum-pontificum.html
Benedícite, ómnia ópera Dómini, Dómino: * laudáte et superexaltáte eum in sæcula. Benedícite, Angeli Dómini, Dómino: * benedícite, cæli, Dómino.
Benedícite, aquæ omnes, quæ super cælos sunt, Dómino: * benedícite, omnes virtútes Dómini, Dómino.
Benedícite, sol et luna, Dómino: * benedícite, stellæ cæli, Dómino.
Benedícite, omnis imber et ros, Dómino: * benedícite, omnes spíritus Dei, Dómino.
Benedícite, ignis et æstus, Dómino: * benedícite, frigus et æstus, Dómino.
Benedícite, rores et pruína, Dómino: * benedícite, gelu et frigus, Dómino.
Benedícite, glácies et nives, Dómino: * benedícite, noctes et dies, Dómino.
Benedícite, lux et ténebræ, Dómino: * benedícite, fúlgura et nubes, Dómino.
Benedícat terra Dóminum: * laudet et superexáltet eum in sæcula.
Benedícite, montes et colles, Dómino: * benedícite, univérsa germinántia in terra, Dómino.
Benedícite, fontes, Dómino: * benedícite, mária et flúmina, Dómino.
Benedícite, cete, et ómnia quæ movéntur in aquis, Dómino: * benedícite, omnes vólucres cæli, Dómino.
Benedícite, omnes béstiæ et pécora, Dómino: * benedícite, fílii hóminum, Dómino.
Benedícat Israel Dóminum: * laudet et superexáltet eum in sæcula.
Benedícite, sacerdótes Dómini, Dómino: * benedícite, servi Dómini, Dómino. Benedícite, spíritus et ánimæ justórum, Dómino: * benedícite, sancti et húmiles corde, Dómino.
Benedícite, Ananía, Azaría, Mísael, Dómino: * laudáte et superexaltáte eum in sæcula.
Benedicámus Patrem et Fílium cum Sancto Spíritu: * laudémus et superexaltémus eum in sæcula.
Benedíctus es, Dómine, in firmaménto cæli: * et laudábilis, et gloriósus, et superexaltátus in sæcula.
Three years ago: one indult Mass location in the diocese, Sunday Mass and confessions only, requests for sacraments in the traditional forms routinely denied.
Now: four locations in the diocese have the TLM every Sunday; one has daily Mass; marriages, funerals, First Communions, etc. are arranged in the traditional rites without interference; some additional private Masses are being said on occasion in other places; the young priests and seminarians are expressing interest in the TLM.
DEO GRATIAS!! Thank you, Holy Father!!
In the Archdiocese of Baltimore, SP has been completely ignored where it has not been countermanded. Not a single additional regularly scheduled TLM has been established and lay petitions to do so have been denied. There is currently only a single Sunday Traditional Mass, which is a Low Mass two weeks out of the month, despite resources for it to be a High Mass. There is no parish life whatsoever connected with this former indult Mass, despite the desire of some parishioners to establish (and support) various catechetical, outreach, and cultural activities. It would be hard to find another large archdiocese where the Holy Father’s motu proprio had had less effect after three years.
The Archdiocese in Oklahoma City is pretty liberal when one has been on the inside and grew up here (it doesn’t look that way on the outside). So, it’s quite amazing what the Holy Father has done for us with the SP. It’s practically a miracle that the Archbishop has called to build a church specifically for the TLM, which will be run by the FSSP. Deo Gratias!
Before Summorum Pontificum there was only one parish in the Archdiocese where the Latin Mass is celebrated. Three years later, sadly, I see no change. I pray for it, but our Archbishop seems to have been silent on the matter.
I am happy for all those whose opportunities have been increased. However, in the Archdiocese of Atlanta, I rather suspect we must pray for the SSPX to come into full communion before wider availability will come to pass.
When SP was released, (I had been to indult Masses before), what immediately became clear to me, because of the hype surrounding it, was the importance of Ad Orientem positioning. It seems strange to be at Masses versus populum now. I am convinved there is significant difference.
I have found in the Extraordinary Form such depth, beauty, mystery, reverence, and humility that my wife and I now attend every Sunday. Indeed the effects of the EF on the priest necessarily emanate from him and affect those around him. My wife and I were just talking the other day about how, since we began attending the EF, we’ve just become… holier. I can’t really explain it, can’t really quantify it, but we are more in love with Christ and more united with him since we began attending the EF. It’s beautiful and one of the things for which I am most grateful to our Holy Father!
As for Diocease of Brooklyn, NY…No new locations since the 2 indult Masses…”0″ in Queens, NY….
As far as I know, there were 3 indult masses in the Archdiocese of Philadelphia before SP, and there are . . . 3 TLMs now. While I am grateful for the masses we have, I was really hoping to see an expansion of TLMs here. Since our seminary here is quite traditional, I thought that they might really champion the TLM — so far no such luck. But I do think patience is in order.
If you launch a boat onto the water, do nothing to guide or propel it, and leave its fate to the currents then sooner or later the tides win out and the boat is beached or cast upon the rocks. His Holiness launched the TLM but has done nothing to guide it (issuing the clarification) or propel it (like saying it himself in public or granting full faculties to the SSPX). Understand that I defer to no one in my undying gratitude to Pope Benedict for the MP. But if he refuses to captain the boat then it could be in serious trouble when his successor is chosen (may it be years from now!).
Before SP, I was content with the Novus Ordo but appalled by many of the abuses. Now three years later, I still see the abuses. The priests in our Diocese who now offer the EF did superb OFs before. I find it very hard to attend the OF now. The only OFs I am not appalled at are the ones at the parishes that offer the EF. It is so hard to attend the OF now. I much prefer the richness of the EF. Its hard to go back. I no longer attend Sunday Mass at my old parish. Its too revolting with the clapping and hand communion and protestant songs. SP also forced me to do more reading as to why and how the Mass changed after Vatican II. That too is an appalling story of dumbing down the Mass of the Ages in order to appease protestants.
From what I can see SP has had little effect in my diocese (Columbus, OH). There was an “indult” EF (weekly) mass at one parish and there remains just that one OF mass as far as I know.
Bishop Lennon’s statement on SP didn’t erect any obstacles to the TLM but also didn’t do much to encourage it.
I attended the EF several times before SP but I haven’t since. That has absolutely nothing to do with SP though. I am happy with my reverent by the book NO mass (though I would like to see more of that “gravitational pull” on the NO in general).
BTW, Even though I don’t regularly assist at the OF I have a great appreciation for it and would love to see a wider application of SP in my diocese.
*headsmack* I heard the rumor way back when that Holy Family was going to become an FSSP parish, and that the Dayton Latin Mass community was moving there for good, but I didn’t realize it had actually happened last weekend! New Liturgical Movement has a nice post on it. (All hail Schnurr the Spur!)
Boy, you go away to one little CMAA colloquium, and you’re totally out of the local loop….
Nothing to get excited about in Dallas. Our FSSP Latin Mass Community is now a parish, or at least very close (maybe waiting on paperwork from the FSSP superior and local Bishop) and it is well attended but in the last 3 years there have been exactly zero additional EF masses added for the entire Diocese.
The OF parish I attend is now singing Agnes Dei instead of Lamb of God, but that’s it as far as “gravitational pull”. Cedric the Entertainer did as much on The Original Kings of Comedy, so I’m not sure who should get the credit. We still get “sweet nothings” for homilies and silly hymns at most Masses.
My only current local EF Mass is over an hour away at St. Francis de Sales Oratory in St. Louis- the other Oratory is even farther into the city. But, I feel like my heritage has finally been given back to me. Even though we only get to go about once per month, my wife and I love it. Our kids on the other hand… “Why do we have to go to church where we can’t understand what’s going on?”
I remember five years ago when I returned from my trip to Rome and shared my pictures with some Catholic friends. I hid the ones of the TLMs I attended offered by the priest who conducted our tour. It was then regarded as something only disobedient Catholics would attend, a shameful thing. Now I would have no problem showing the pictures. In fact, some of these same friends attend the TLM whenever possible. Unfortunately that isn’t too often in our part of the diocese. A wonderful priest comes from a far corner of the diocese a couple of times a year and offers the Mass and it is always well attended. Other than that it is a three hour drive one way if you want to go.
Oh well, if the TLM won’t come to me I guess I will go to it. Moving in a couple of years to NoVa.
My pastor is opposed to the EF mass , he said this mass( the EF) is not a good thing to have.
Sadly there is no EF Mass in my area or even in my country. I had been subscribed to VISnews waiting for word on a new bishop where I live. Then out of no where I got word of SP and I was not expecting it at all. I almost fell out of my chair as I fead it. I printed it out and brought it with me to mass and gave it to our priest. Sadly after that he refused to even discuss it with me. He also cancelled the English mass (which I didn’t attend anyway). I had a chance to speak with the new bishop at my friend’s ordination but he refused to hear of Latin mass in any form. He instead suggested that I ask my priest for English mass. Well I never did that but some of the other English speakers did and they were told that he had to do mass only in Japanese because to allow English would force him to allow any language anyone asked for and he couldn’t take that chance. I might also mention that confession was also cancelled and was by apointment only.
Now I’m not trying to say that these were bad people at all or that they weren’t Catholic but SP while it gives me great joy and hope has also exposed me to seeing the less than perfectly faithful side of people here. I really feel alone and unwecomed at times. The kneelers have now been removed in the church and the pews are so close together that it is physically impossible to kneel during mass. So everybody just stands except for me. I kneel on the bear floor in the aisle. That is the only time I can kneel too. If I kneel for communion or even try to get it on the tounge I will be refused. Oh and they recently took out all the Holy Water citing worry about the flu.
Again I hate to rant or accuse these people of something sinister but clearly SP was not strong enough and is having a clearly opposite effect than the one intended.
CORRECTION! to my earlier post. Bishop Frederick Campbell is our bishop here in Columbus. I had been reading a blog from the Cleveland diocese (where I was raised) before posting and the name must have been stuck in my head.
I think I mentioned this before but my wife was baptised this year as a Catholic largely due to Pope Benedict and Summorum Pontificum. When she attended the EF, she knew she did not just want to attend Mass but wanted to be a member of the Church. It also brought me back from being lapsed, largely due to disillusionment with ghastly innovations in so many (NOT all) NO Masses in my high school and subsequent years.
Our parish is in the belly of the best in Los Angeles. Clearly, the EF is a minority interest but, interestingly, some of my wif’es RCIA class said they selected this parish not because they wanted to attend the EF themselves but because it was a good sign of an orthodox parish – God knows, there are some Catholic parishes near us which make the Unitarians look positively high church!
The best thing for me is that people can now openly debate the merits of EF v OF, compare etc. Before, it was only available on the 7th Sunday of the month in the basement car park of an old folks home (so THAT’s where they hid the Tabernacle!).
So, thank you, thank you, thank you, Holy Father.
I’ve been wanting, since SP allowed me to be introduced to what is now the EF, to find a way to make it my regular Mass. I feel at home with it and I’m pretty sure that’s because of the whole patrimony of the Church thing, however confusing some related issues can be for newbies such as myself. I haven’t been able to attend it as often as I’d like, but don’t know how much of that is difficulty in Cincinnati and how much is my own difficulties in transportation. I hope to be at the EF more in the future and am very grateful therefore to Pope Benedict.
Oh, and courtesy of SP, we are to be convalidated in our Church tomorrow, Deo Volente, under the usus antiquior. :-)
The most important thing about the motu proprio was that it ended a massive deception foisted on the faithful, that being the idea, pushed by most of the church’s (progressive) authorities, that the Mass of 1962 had been abrogated. It was NOT abrogated, it NEVER has been abrogated. Indeed, it’s abrogation was an impossibility under the conditions we had. It’s always been licit and proper, politics notwithstanding, but it had to be said so, since there is so much confusion in the Church. In this motu proprio, this was finally said and said clearly.
The new translations are the next step of honesty to come out of Rome. Many deceptions still surround the N.O. in its current form, as well.
Pope Benedict is earning a lot of titles, but he should be called “The Truthful Pope,” because he is above all an honest man who represents the faith with fidelity & honesty, and that is hugely important.
“Before, it was only available on the 7th Sunday of the month in the basement car park of an old folks home (so THAT’s where they hid the Tabernacle!).”
And it was a different basement car park in a different old folks home every three months (or so, liberally, or so) with no repeating pattern. That was half the problem. Done on purpose to confound the faithful by our wonderful shining examples of leadership, the bishops of the USA.
Our parish added a regular Missa Cantata in September 2007 after Summorum Pontificum, and it has been a blessing for the parish and the Archdiocese of New Orleans alike! The major seminarians have been ready and willing to get up to serve the 7 a.m. Mass, and our numbers have grown over the last three years. I expect several of the newer priests ordained down here for the local dioceses will be adding EF Masses to their regular schedules in the next three to five years, and I am convinced that the richness of the EF attracts good, holy vocations to the priesthood as well.
In the Diocese of Arlington, there were as of last month, eight places where the TLM is celebrated every Sunday. Roughly a thousand people in total attend these Masses, which is about one-fourth of one percent of the total faithful in the diocese. At St John’s in McLean, the Sunday Mass is always either a High Mass or a Solemn High Mass. Rumors to the contrary notwithstanding, even though our bishop does not prefer the Traditional Mass, he does not impede its celebration, but in fact is known to send priests to the seminary in Denton to learn it. There are already indications that our program at St John’s will inspire several vocations to the priesthood, and the pastor has worked to facilitate this end. Older boys or visiting seminarians oversee Low Mass training.
I have found that, in a number of cases throughout the country, there are often two things which prevent the spread of the TLM. One is the shortage of priests who can celebrate it. If you’re a pastor of two or more parishes, being asked to learn to say Mass all over again is a tall order. Not that some don’t make the time for it, but they have to want it as badly as those who ask for it. Speaking of which, there are often not enough of those who ask for it.
I am very pleased with our situation in Arlington, and see a steady rise of interest, and the number of places to fulfill that interest, in the years to come.
Our former ordinary (since retired) several years ago approved an ‘indult’ Mass for our city. It was celebrated at a few different parishes
in turn, before the good bishop agreed to have it as part of the regular Mass schedule of the cathedral itself, just prior to the release of
SP. The cathedral has been my parish for about 15 years now and I was delighted with the addition. I was born after Vatican II, and
prior to SP had attended an EF only a handful of times. I still serve at the early morning Novus Ordo Mass that can otherwise be hard to
‘staff’, but in the three years since SP, the EF has become my preferred Mass.
While I’m sure many of my fellow parishioners choose to attend one of the forms exclusively, I’ve noticed that I am not alone in going
to both. Those folks who think that the addition of an EF would somehow be divisive for a parish are, in my experience, mistaken.
We are, after all, all Catholics–eating the same post-Mass donuts, supporting the same parish school, in the same K. of C. chapter, and
on the same parish council.
Years ago, when the local Latin Mass Society did the heavy lifting and secured the then-necessary permission for the ‘indult’ Mass, a
priest left his retirement to be the celebrant. He remains the primary celebrant, but the priests of my parish assist with both hearing
confessions prior to the Mass and with distributing Communion. Since SP, one of our parish priests has learned to say the EF. Also,
one of the servers for the EF Mass was recently accepted to seminary. I have so much for which to be grateful.
SP has been largely ignored in Australia. However the FSSP have personal non geographical parishes in Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra and Adelaide which started in 2001 at Dr Pell’s “invitation”. Some newly ordained priests have celebrated the EF shortly after ordination but never as their first Mass. Cardinal Pell has celebrated in the EF once or maybe twice and has conferred confirmation in the FSSP chapel. Most parishioners would be ignorant even of the existence of SP. Very few priests are capable of celebrating in the EF. The FSSP are happy to train priests in the EF. There has been minimal diffusion of the EF into suburban parishes and there are people who are very resistant to the EF. There are occasional baptisms, first communions, confirmations and weddings in the older Rite and very occasionally funerals which are not necessarily easy to arrange. The liberal Catholic groups here receive much more publicity from inside and outside the Church than SP can ever get. There are people who hope SP will be forgotten by the time of the next conclave which hopefully will be as far away as possible.
Well without Summorum Pontificum I wouldn’t go to a Latin Mass. My bishop allowed one, and only one! (as if we’re still back in the indult days) right after SP came out. It’s about 80 minutes away, and it’s a small but incredible parish, with a priest who probably would have been a famous archbishop by now if he hadn’t been traditional.
But regardless of the bishop’s opinions, there’s such a huge interest, every single one of the diocese’s newly ordained priests wants to learn it, and we’ve had a bunch of visits by seminarians and even one younger priest who have participated. The parish is so small that you’d think not much happens there, but the power of the Holy Spirit is not to be underestimated! He draws the true faithful to the TLM like a magnet :) That’s what drew me to it – just in the last seven months or so, and I’m just eighteen.
People who say that the SP is like the Holy Father letting off a ship w/o sailing it are mistaken. This is like the Bill of Rights, empowering the faithful in ways that might be used immediately, but also in ways that we’ll see a long time from now.
Veramente Ancilla, La Misse Tridintano e veramente proprio Bellisima
Summorum Pontificum doesn’t apply in Jakarta (also in Indonesia although, as long as I know without formal statement). That’s the position of the former archbishop who has retired last week and still in effect until further instruction from our new archbishop. Because of that, after 3 years since the release, most of Catholics in Jakarta (and Indonesia), still barely know about the Tridentine Mass.
Until recently we are only able to follow a non routine Tridentine Mass in a house (now in a building), not in a church. It’s almost the same as the early Christians followed the mass, underground. Most of priests view us in suspicion, there’s still many faithful that look at the EF as a remnant of the past, the dark ages of the Church, thanks to the ‘modern’ priests who are full of ‘spirit of Vatican II’ and no effort is underway to correct that misunderstanding.
But there is still hope. Although currently there is no support from the hierarchy and it seems no action is taken by the Holy See to ‘punish’ this soon-to-be-fossils. The Tridentine Mass starts to attract the faithful and there is some optimism that the new archbishop of Jakarta (Mgr. Suharyo) will be more cooperative.