Here’s some good news. A reader alerted me to a great East and West “both lungs” development.
From The Sudbury Star in Ontario:
Church revives Latin mass
For a group of worshippers who gather at St. Michael’s Church in Coniston, moving forward also means knowing where they’ve come from.
Father Vince Fiore of the Diocese of Sault Ste. Marie has begun to lead a traditional Latin mass, also known as the Tridentine Rite or the Extraordinary Form, rather than the New Rite, used in the Catholic Church since the 1969.
“There was a group of faithful in Sudbury who had requested that this mass be made available to them and had approached the bishop about making it available to them,” Fiore said. “The bishop turned to his priests and myself, having the Italian background, it may have been a little more convenient for me to transition into the Latin, so I was asked to learn it and make it available to this group of people.”
The Mater Dei Traditional Latin Mass Community is now about one year old. St. Michael’s Ukrainian Catholic Church offered them the building in Coniston as a place to conduct their services.
“We don’t have parochial status yet,” Fiore said. “We are a community and we offer mass in the traditional Latin Rite or the Tridentine Rite and we’re a community that’s growing.”
Between 40 and 60 people have been turning out for mass, including a low, or read mass [I love it!] on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 11 a.m. and a high mass, complete with singing, a musician, [!] servers, incense and Gregorian chanting, on Sunday at 11 a.m.
For Fiore, the task of learning and offering the traditional mass was quite an undertaking.
“It was a bit, as a matter of fact, because I’m a priest ordained for nine years now and my experience has been in what’s called the Mass of Paul VI, the New Rite.” Fiore said. “It wasn’t just a matter of learning the mass and how to execute the rites, but learning the theology, as well. [Indeed.] The traditional mass is the ancient form of the mass and had not changed until (1969), when they made some changes – of course, no longer using Latin and being spoken in the vernacular, and all kinds of different changes that were made that you would not find in the traditional mass.” [The Novus Ordo should be in Latin too, but I digress.]
He has since developed “a great love” for the Latin mass.
“I really fell in love with the theology and it gives me great joy to know that some of the great saints, like St. John Vianney, St. Augustine or St. Maximilian Kolbe, this is the mass they would have offered. I love speaking the Latin and being able to offer it, it has been a great joy for me to do so.”
Not only numbers, but enthusiasm is growing for the mass, he said, among those who already had an affinity for the ancient traditions of the church, and even those who first came out of curiosity.
[…]
Read the rest there.
Fr. Z kudos especially to our Ukrainian brethren who are so hospitable.
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There is a close relationship between many Eastern Christians (including Orthodox groups) and Roman Catholics in this area. There is a group of people from both the Ukrainian Catholic Church and several Roman Catholic Churches in this area who work together to strengthen each other in their respective worship while fully maintaining the integrity of both rites – no mixing or blending – just mutual assistance and mutual enrichment.
And more kudos to his bishop for generously attending to the spiritual needs of that “stable group” of the faithful.
This is so frustrating. Why are the faithful still going to the bishops? No bishop approval is needed for the TLM. Go to the pastors. All you need is the parish pastors to get the Tridentine Mass scheduled and celebrated.
Great news!
” some of the great saints, like St. John Vianney, St. Augustine or St. Maximilian Kolbe, this is the mass they would have offered ”
Some? ALL! At least, the ones who were priests or bishops…
It can be very difficult in some areas to find priests who are willing or interested in doing the TLM. Even if a priest is not opposed to the TLM himself, he very often has reason to fear the many ways that, not only his bishop, but also his confreres can make life difficult for him. A supportive Bishop may not be necessary but there is no doubt that he would be a genuine benefit to any priest who finds himself in this position.
BTW the establishment of this community (not yet a parish) was recognized and give support by the previous Bishop, Bishop Jean-Louis Plouffe when he was on his way out. That support has been continued and even increased by the current Bishop, Bishop Marcel Damphousse. The Mater Dei community is prominently featured on the Diocesan website.
https://dioceseofsaultstemarie.org/latin-mass-community
A Byzantinized version of the Roman Mass complete with the Roman Canon lasted in the East for centuries after the Great Schism. Maybe the Ukrainian Catholics will sanction it.
http://archive.is/VNMz2
This Liturgy of St. Peter was supposedly uncovered by a ROCOR Priest who had obtained an Old Believer Liturgikon from an Old Rite community in turkey. It specifically is the Aachen mass attributed to St. Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome, but its earliest forms follow him by 200 years, ie the Gelasian Sacramentary. As a frankish rite, it is as suspect as most of the work which came out of their schools, qv these theological schools introduced azymes, deleted large tracts of existing liturgies, destroyed some, and created hybrids which were theretofore nonexistent, stood for iconoclasm and filioque, and went so far as to call the Orthodox “heretics” for not using azymes, their rites, for not reciting filioque and for venerating icons. These rites were used pre-schism but not with Orthodox oversight or input. As such, they should be reviewed and edited by Orthodox liturgists.
Rome, during the lifetime of St. Gregory, was a predominantly Greek speaking city due to large influxes of Hellenic refugees fleeing upheavals in the East. During his period, it is believed the Liturgy was even celebrated in Greek. Rome and N Africa shared a common bond in theology and liturgics. Their rites reflected this and were principally part of the Alexandrian school of liturgy. Hence to look at a variant of the Old Roman mass in toto, one could get a good idea of its true form by reviewing the Liturgy of St. Mark. The Roman Canon defaced by the franks even alludes to it.
Mind you, the rite of Rome WAS NOT the main rite or even a MAJOR rite of the West: it was shared by Rome and her satellite cities which one could count on ones hands. By far the most common liturgical expressions in the West were Antiochian in origin, Milanese, Gallican, Mozarabic. These rites were similar to the Liturgy of the Apostles/Liturgy of St. James (non-Coptic). At the Western imperial capitol of Ravenna, the Liturgy of Milan (Ambrosian) was used.
After the founding of the frankish empire, their reforms stamped Europe with an iron fist. Thus, this liturgical form. There was a Slavonic school of this Western liturgy centered in Dubrovnik. It was descended from the missionary work of SS Cyril & Methodius whose missions were driven by the germans to use a Western rite. Dubrovnik is where this mass was preserved in Slavonic for centuries, but whose range had once reached as far as NE Poland.
Since there were interchanges between Muscovy and the Western Slavs, qv Jerome of Prague, it is possible that this mass may have been presented to the pre-Nikonian Russian church. More likely is the circumstance that Old Rite refugees fleeing to turkey had obtained a copy of the Dubrovnik missal old enough to satisfy their standards of “authenticity.”
During the Kievan period, the prevalent liturgy in use in Rus’ was that of St. Basil, as it was amongst all Orthodox Slavs, Balts, Finns, and Romanians. The western form, frankish mass, was identified with the germans, hungarians, and the crusaders. It was not viewed as Orthodox. One must remember that to the Slav, Romanian, etc. the title “Pravoslavnyi” was chiefly driven by the notion of “lex orendi, lex credendi.” Thus, the heretical latins and their rites were rejected.
Later the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom gained more frequency, driven by Athonite enthusiasm and authentication of liturgical books (late XIII – XIV centuries). This liturgical emphasis indeed spread to Russia at first under the auspices of St. Maxim the Greek et al and the Stoglav Council and later in an almost authoritarian way under nikon in the North (and by Greek prelates and missionaries in Litovskaja Rus’ before and after florence).
An interesting parish I stumbled into for confession last month is St John Paul II Maronite Catholic Parish in Sleepy Hollow, NY. They celebrate Roman Catholic Mass every Saturday @ 5:00 pm and Sunday @ 10:00 am, Maronite Divine Liturgy every Sunday @ 11:30 am Followed by Coffee Hour @ 12:45 pm and Traditional Latin Mass every Sunday @ 3:00 pm!
The Archdiocese of NY, rather than closing the church (which is/was Immaculate Conception Church), they turned it over to the Eparchy of Saint Maron of Brooklyn.
See about them here: http://www.johnpaul2parish.org/
On “The Beauty of Catholicism” Facebook page, there are photos and a video of a Mass in the Extraordinary Form celebrated at a Ukrainian Greek Catholic parish in Poland.
Photos: https://www.facebook.com/pg/TheBeautyofCatholicism/photos/?tab=album&album_id=1056438631128349
Video: https://www.facebook.com/TheBeautyofCatholicism/videos/1031935470245332/?hc_ref=SEARCH
Beautiful unity. I enjoy the way that the unity between the two lungs of the Church is considered in The Banished Heart.
I wonder if you do digress regarding the Latin, though, Father Z. I mean, the only appropriate anger is anger for God (properly directed, of course (cf. Eph 4:26). Anger over abortion, for example. It was anger for God the Father that Jesus expressed in Mt 21:12-13). When the change in theology and availability of the sacraments became impoverished, the faith of the people suffered greatly . . . you get the idea . . . I believe that “what is” an appropriate expression of anger regarding this deserves consideration. It certainly deserves the occasional digression. The only way that I know as fact to properly express anger over such problems is to go out of your way as a Catholic to attend appropriate Masses. But this blog is what I consider to be your “home”, and so I will leave the subject open for you to speak further on: If, how, and when you see fit.
No iconostasis?
… Build the wall.!
@BenjaminiPeregrinus,
Agreed. If one were not told that it was a Ukrainian Byzantine Catholic parish, one could mistake it easily– based on the interior– for a traditional Roman Catholic parish.
This reminds me of a Byzantine Catholic priest who would say jokingly, “Some of the most beautiful Roman Catholic churches are found among the Eastern rites.”
There are other Byzantine Catholic parishes here in the USA that are still lack an iconostasis.
I was at a funeral in the Ukrainian Catholic Rite yesterday, and it was very beautiful. We have many things to learn from the Eastern rites. I think it will be hard to reconcile with the Orthodox Churches until we restore reverence in our Liturgy…
Mathieu: Your point is the very same that Geoffrey Hull brings up in his book, The Banished Heart. He notes the interesting fact that while the Western Church felt a need to change its liturgy in order to speak to modern man, the Eastern Churches maintained traditional worship and continued to speak to modern man. A great lesson for us indeed: Indeed!
It would be very interesting to see a missal that St. Augustine used. To a certain extent the liturgy he celebrated has connections to the TLM, but there could very likely have existed an iconostasis for instance in the churches he served in, and also other liturgical practices that changed or dissapeared during the time until Trent.
I also fully agree with Methieu’s comment.
Trying to understand your affinity for the terms “read mass” or “to hear mass,” Father. Do you like it because it angers liberals or because you think those terms are liturgically-sound and good terms? Just curious. I go between Byzantine and Solemn TLM liturgies and Low Masses are pretty jarring for me. I think those terms don’t encompass half of what a priest or congregant is supposed to be doing at Mass. the priest is doing more than reading and the congregant more than hearing, no?