In contrast to the pure stupid coming up in COVID-1984 time, there are bright spots.
I was directed to a blog post by a priest, Fr. Joseph Faulkner of St. Wenceslaus in (I love this name) Wahoo, Nebraska. I have written about him before.
Father has used COVID-1984 time, as many people have, to learn something new: The Traditional Latin Mass. He already has Latin and actually teaches it.
He made his way from celebrating the Novus Ordo reverently, but – as he admits – belittling the Traditional forms, to moving to ad orientem worship (which is when I wrote about him HERE), to learning and saying the Extraordinary Form.
He describes his evolution in quite personal terms, even explaining with sincere humility where he put his foot wrong in charity.
I suspect that Father’s evolution is not finished. Over time, he will find things in the TLM that will change his view of priesthood and himself as a priest at the altar that simply aren’t available in the Novus Ordo.
I look forward to more from him.
You might take a few minutes, especially you priests out there who are thinking about ad orientem worship for the Novus Ordo and thinking about learning the TLM, and reading Fr. Faulkner’s offering.
Loading ...
Lovely. I will pray for Fr. Faulkner.
re: “find things in the TLM that will change his view of priesthood and himself as a priest at the altar that simply aren’t available in the Novus Ordo,” our rector has been posting short videos to ease people into the fact that our more Traditional NO Mass time will now be a TLM on Sundays. He shared this very short video, which goes along the same lines as you said, above:
https://www.facebook.com/137399903019092/posts/3013081102117610/
One of the things I have learned in a similar evolution can be summed up in the phrase in the middle of the Te Deum of the two forms:
“Sequens versus dicitur flexis genibus.”
vs
“Haec ultima pars hymni ad libitum omitti potest.”
God bless Fr. Faulkner! I have heard that a good number of priests took this opportunity to learn the old mass during this time. :)
I posted a few pictures from Fr. Faulkner’s first TLM last night. It was a low private mass. My son is serving for him. Keep Father in your prayers. God is truly doing amazing things in this priest’s life. https://www.facebook.com/1070919013/posts/10219841440561037/?d=n
” …he will find things in the TLM that will change his view of priesthood and himself as a priest at the altar that simply aren’t available in the Novus Ordo.”
Similarly, his parishioners may find things in the TLM that change their view of the mass and of themselves that simply aren’t available in the Novus Ordo. Personally, I’ve always enjoyed mass, but the TLM has given me greater joy and an appreciation of the mass that I never experienced in the Ordinary Form.
Priests like Father Faulkner put a lie to that modern canard of rigidity. I sincerely pray that there is a stampede of like minded priests, and a corresponding amount of church goers who appreciate our heritage.
One other note of doubtful interest, there was a time when baseball consumed my idle hours, and the lore of the old timers was of high interest. When you mentioned Wahoo, Nebraska I immediately thought of a center fielder for the Detroit Tigers named Wahoo Sam Crawford. He played during the Ty Cobb era, and I think he is in the Hall of Fame, but I am too lazy to look it up.
I am happy to see this. Fr. Faulkner and I were together for a year while in college seminary. He went off to the then-newly built college seminary in Nebraska and I remained in Philadelphia. He’s a good priest and I am happy to see this.
While my priestly formation underwent a long caesura, I found that on reentering seminary in 2014, some attitudes towards the older rite had shifted. It was now offered in the seminary regularly and I was trained in how to celebrate it.
Sadly, though, I never have celebrated it. No parish I’ve ever been assigned to has had the required implements (linen altar cloths, an altar stone, the necessary vestments). There is also the real fear that if I start offering the old Mass regularly, I may find it more difficult to go back to the new. I am already aware from study and from the practice of being a priest in a parish of the very real deficiencies of the Ordinary Form. But it is perhaps a fear that needs to be faced.
I need a quarantine to learn the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, but I need nine quarantines to learn how to use the Roman Breviary.
I find it very difficult to be able to know how to pray it. Even if I use a website to guide me, often I cannot find all the prayers in the book, or why an option is used instead of another one. I do not know if it is just my experience or it is a common thing.