Fr. Z's Blog

From a priest…

QUAERITUR:

Is it okay to learn how to say the Traditional Latin Mass?

Where are we at with the whole overblown, skewed notion of obedience and authority today that it would enter into a priest’s mind that it might to wrong to learn to say the TLM.  Not to say the TLM publicly in defiance of authority, though that will come to pass, I predict.  But just to learn how to say it?    This points to a whole other problem in the Church today, but I digress.  Back to the topic…

Not only is it okay to learn to say the TLM, it is NOT okay NOT to learn to say the TLM. 

I would, had I power, oblige every priest of the Latin Church, the Roman Rite, at least to learn it.

Why?  Not just because by learning it you learn more about your priesthood.

Why?  Not just because by learning it you will change the way you say the Novus Ordo.

Why?  Not just because by learning it you will spark a positive knock on effect among the people you serve.

Why? Not just because by learning it you will be better positioned when the lunacy of Taurina cacata has come to an end.

I am convinced that one of the reasons certain bishops and priests seem determined to suppress the TLM and isolate, marginalize the people who want it is because the TLM unsettles, disturbs, annoys, irritates, needles, vexes clerics involved in one of the sins that cries to heaven.

Even if these bishops and priests have never seen or been to a TLM in their lives, they know that the TLM would remind them of what the Novus Ordo does not: sin, guilt and judgment.

The TLM reminds priests in a sobering way about their failings as men and as priests, that they are unworthy sinners who, by the grace of God alone, can stand at the altar to renew the sacred mysteries.  This is one of the Church’s precious and encouraging gifts to priests.

Contrary to the claims of those who hate the Traditional Mass, it is the best antidote to clericalism that there is.

We are our rites.  A priest gains inestimable riches and insights into who he is at altar through a knowledge of and use of the Vetus Ordo.

Liturgy is doctrine.  This is part of the reason why certain powers that be and the wormtongues behind them want to suppress the Vetus Ordo.

Say you want to change certain doctrines, not evolve organically and consistently, but just change.   With me?

The first thing you would have to do is change the way people worship.  Change how they pray, and over time over time you change what they believe.    In the Vetus Ordo the changers perceive an obstacle to changing the Church’s doctrines, especially in the sphere of sexual morality.   Therefore, they must restrict access to public celebrations of the TLM and keep as many priests as possible from learning it.   Make sure the liturgy in churches and seminaries emphasizes – on a good day – the Resurrection aspect of the Paschal Mystery and eschatological joy for everyone.  Make sure people don’t hear too much about propitiation, sin, guilt and judgment (concepts consistently stripped out of the orations of the Novus Ordo).

Cut them off from their roots in what their forebears believed and built.

Atomize them into smaller and smaller communities, each with its own liturgical expression, each with a language that keeps them from praying together as one.

Dumb it all down.

Isolate and bully.

You’ll get your way eventually.

Or so you think.

This, from men who don’t know how to say the TLM.

They would be slightly less hypocritical if they actually knew what they were trying to suppress.  They just know what they’ve been told about it.

And there is always that which whispers in their ears that they should get rid of because of… you know.

QUAERITUR: Is the rise of energy to suppress the TLM and the acceleration even at high levels of trying uncouple, so to speak, the Church’s teaching about sexuality from procreation just a coincidence?

They won’t get their way.  They can always hurt us more, but it won’t, in the end, work.

I don’t believe that the Vetus Ordo can, over time, be suppressed.  That toothpaste is out of the tube now and no amount of oppression will get it back in.

This is a battle over Catholic identity.  Catholic identity, not globalist NGO identity, will win.

Am I wrong?

Think about it this way, Fathers.  The Lord said that the “gates” (Greek “pylai“) of Hell will not “prevail against” (katisxusousin) the Church He would found.   “Gates” don’t attack.  “Gates” are defensive structures that are attacked.  It is the Church that is on the attack against Hell’s gates.  Hell cannot defend itself forever.  Hell defends itself with a powerful hellish onslaught.  A strong offence is a good defense.  But Hell cannot win this one even though it seems that, by attacking constantly, the demons are the attackers.

Even with the Novus Ordo only, properly celebrated, by priests who are devout, brave, focused, with laypeople – though fewer and fewer – trying live their vocations in the state of grace, the Church will, in the end win.

Through no fault of their own, priests and lay people are being sent into battle with only part of the armor and weapons available and they’ve never been fully trained to use them.

Still,  we will, in the end, win the day.  As Samwise said, “But in the end, it’s only a passing thing, this shadow. Even darkness must pass. A new day will come. And when the sun shines it will shine out the clearer.”

If God be for us, who can be against us?

That said, we also want God’s glory to be multiplied.  The loss of a soul to Hell means that much less joy in Heaven.  If we can win the day, eventually, with Novus Ordo, imagine what we might do together also with the Vetus Ordo.   This was Benedict XVI’s vision, not just a Marshall Plan against Hell’s defense-offensives , but a way to even greater glory in Heaven.

I’ll drag my fingers off the keyboard now and let you chew on that.

Fathers, learn the Vetus Ordo.  I’ll help.  And remember another thing Sam said, “It’s the job that’s never started as takes longest to finish!”

Lay people, encourage your priests.  Do everything you can to help them, by prayer and by material support.

And GO TO CONFESSION!