Fr. Z's Blog

To restore continuity to the Latin Church’s liturgical worship, and by doing so supporting and accelerating his "Marshall Plan" to revitalize our Catholic identity after decades of enervation, Pope Benedict gave us Summorum Pontificum. 

It is a great gift to priests, especially younger priests, who will alter their ars celebrandi for the newer form as Mass as well.

Seminarians and priests of the Latin Church must learn to celebrate the sacred mysteries in their own Rite.  Ambrosian Rite priests should know the older and newer forms of that distinguished rite of Mass.  Romans must know their forms, traditional and post-Conciliar.  Training and resources must be provided so that they can reclaim what is rightfully theirs and yours.

Not only do Roman priests need these tools for the older Mass.  So do the lay people who serve for Holy Mass with the older, traditional Roman Rite.

To that end Romanitas Press has put out a booklet called:

The General Principles of Ceremonies of the Roman Rite: For Inferior Ministers by Louis J. Tofari.  (Abridged Edition)

Hopefully by studying this book, inferior ministers (in the sense that they are not the priest, deacon or subdeacon), can become superior in serving Holy Mass.

This booklet, an advance of a forthcoming comprehensive edition, is geared for a "typical parish situation".  Therefore, the booklet doesn’t teach about how to use the biretta properly (what I call "birettiquette"), etc.. 

On p. 9 there is a good paragraph about "Roman balance".

The author delves into deportment, uniformity, walking, sitting, turning, kneeling, genuflecting, bowing, sitting, standing still, gestures such as striking the breast, how to hold things, and one of the greatest challenges for servers and their training what to do with your hands.

The text is salted with Latin phrases, (with typos here and there).  I am not sure how many ten year olds will be planning their next move depending on the ratio accomodationis or adapt themselves ex actu functionis.  But certainly kids are smart, and if taught also these distinctions they can learn them with surprising speed.  Ceratinly thost who train servers should be aware of these divisions and categories of circumstances which can change how people do things during Mass.  No matter what, everyone should know terms such as in plano, and per longiorem.

There is a section on lighting (and extinguishing) candles and what the priviledges of the sacred ministers are, as well as a glossary.

There are some photos and diagrams.

I was amused to find a little apologia (p. 7 ff.) about "rubricians". I have jokingly spoken of the need for a new group or order of priests called "The Rubricians", whose apostolate it would be to ferret out and correct liturgical abuses and teach the rubrics far and wide, aided of course by the faithful "Sacristines", a solemn yet joyful foundation of women who would get sacristies properly organized, stocked and teach the arts associated with care for the altar.  So, I was happy to read in the booklet about "misconceptions about rubricians" who are identified as those who have "made a special study of liturgical law".  For example, a common misconception about rubricians is "1. There are too many rubricians."  I agree.

The booklet came with a card to be used by servers. Thhis contains the texts to be spoken when serving Mass, with interlinear pronunciation guide.  This might be useful to North American servers, since the pronunciation guide is colloquial rather than standard (the symbols for which might not be in common use by ten year olds… though… well … see above). 

The well organized card unfolds to reveal within, inter alia, more correction of errors.  There are lists of common errors together with a pronunciation key.

This is a good first edition of this booklet.  Those who train servers would find it useful.  So would priests!  Priests, and seminarians, need to know all these things even if they are not doing the training or serving Mass. 

As a matter of fact, I think it is a good idea for priests to serve Mass from time to time.

And when they do, they should be at least as prepared as the ten year old who, using this book, can easily toss out terms like per longiorem.