A Prodigal Daughter in Praise of Tradition

Thus says the LORD: "Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. - Jeremiah 6:16 (RSV)

So quotes Catholic revert blogger Mary Rose, in a posting entitled In Praise of Tradition, where she explains her love for the Latin Mass.

Now that I have returned to Catholicism, I can see the value of "the ancient paths." Some Catholics have been trying to mimic some of these non-denominational approaches toward church and have been busily filling up their Mass with all types of activities. But do these activities bring peace? Or insecurity?

This is one of the reasons I love the Traditional Latin Mass. It is a Mass that has been around for quite some time. It has withstood the trends and fads and keeps to the basics. To me, it is a rich treasure trove of "ancient paths." But the "New Mass" still has those paths, too. It depends upon the leadership of the pastor and if he has the backbone to buck controlling personalities in a liturgical committee. It depends on if the people view the Mass as a time to focus on God instead of "expressing" themselves. It depends on many things, but it can be found.

I'm beginning to wonder if this is our Holy Father's intent - to return the Church to her ancient paths and bring stability. In a way, it is almost like setting broken bones. The cast at first seems too rigid, but it is there to protect the healing. Perhaps our Church, in all her brokenness, is in the midst of this healing. And after the healing, we will be able to walk with strength. That, most certainly, should be cause for rejoicing.

Read the full posting and see things from Mary Rose’s perspective…away from Mother Church for 25 years searching for answers in non-denominational “churches.”

He Is Risen! Alleluia!

BELLINI, Giovanni: Resurrection of Christ 1475-79
[image source]

Father Raymond J. De Souza on Composers and the Mass

Father Raymond J. De Souza writes a piece for the National post today entitled Conscience and the Mass. The statement that struck me strongest was this one:

Why did the great composers lavish such attention on the Mass? For much of the period in question the great patrons of music were the ecclesiastical and the royal courts, and so Masses were commissioned for coronations and anniversaries and such. More fundamentally, there are the universal and profound themes of the Mass itself. For believing Christians, the Mass is nothing less than the story of salvation and redemption, incarnation and resurrection, made liturgically present for us now. There simply is no greater material, no greater story, to inspire the composer.

For those devoted to the ancient rite of Mass, the Extraordinary Form, the “story of salvation and redemption, incarnation and resurrection, made liturgically present for us now” deserves nothing less than a compendium of the whole heart and history of Mother Church, i.e. the Mass of the Ages.

Here’s the full text of Father De Souza’s article:

Conscience and the Mass

It’s unusual for a performance to be held in Kingston on its way to Lincoln Center, but last week we had that honour. It helped that the composer is one of our own, John Burge, director of the Queen’s School of Music. Professor Burge, fresh off winning a Juno award for his musical setting of the poem In Flanders Fields, was getting set for the American premiere of his Mass for Prisoners of Conscience, which occurred this past Sunday in New York. A few days before, with choirs from Queen’s and the University of Toronto, we had what I suppose was something of a final dress rehearsal on campus before the entire ensemble headed south.

The Latin texts for the Mass are simple: The Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei only take about three minutes to recite. Yet the greatest composers have provided the most extraordinary settings, so much so that the history of music could not be properly told without the great Masses. Friends far more expert in music than I suggest that Bach’s Mass in B Minor is the greatest musical composition ever — equivalent to what Shakespeare did for the English language or Dante for Italian.

Why did the great composers lavish such attention on the Mass? For much of the period in question the great patrons of music were the ecclesiastical and the royal courts, and so Masses were commissioned for coronations and anniversaries and such. More fundamentally, there are the universal and profound themes of the Mass itself. For believing Christians, the Mass is nothing less than the story of salvation and redemption, incarnation and resurrection, made liturgically present for us now. There simply is no greater material, no greater story, to inspire the composer. For many composers, a Mass setting is itself an audacious venture, a way of touching the divine not dissimilar to an act of worship. Soli Deo gloria — to God alone be the glory — is how Bach would annotate his scores.

I don’t know if Professor Burge had any of that in mind, but listening to his Mass for Prisoners of Conscience in Holy Week is something like a liturgical act. The Mass sets the texts of the Kyrie, Sanctus and Agnus Dei – there is no Gloria. But in addition to the liturgical texts, Burge’s Mass includes musical settings of letters gathered by Amnesty International — the testimony of those unjustly deprived of liberty, those tortured and their families. Their suffering echoes the suffering servant of in the Book of Isaiah, of the innocent Lamb of God, of the crucified messiah.

The texts to bring to mind the Stations of the Cross, which Pope Benedict will preside over tomorrow night at the Colosseum in Rome, another site where martyrs of conscience were made. The hidden drama of the Stations of the Cross is that it is the prisoner, the condemned, the suffering, the crucified one who renders the true judgment. In the trial of Jesus, it is his accusers and judges who are actually on trial. His suffering and death is his testimony, the final confirmation that truth and love are stronger than the mere assertion of power. The contest between power and love, domination and sacrifice, is the drama of Holy Week — and the drama of the Mass.

“It is not an easy thing to torture people,” we hear during the Agnus Dei in Burge’s Mass. “For torturing requires inner participation. In this situation, I turned out to be the lucky one. For although I was humiliated, at least I did not humiliate others. I was simply bearing a profoundly unhappy humanity on my aching back. Whereas the men who humiliate you must first humiliate the notion of humanity within themselves.”

Today is Holy Thursday, the day of the Last Supper. For Catholics it is the day of the Eucharist, of the priesthood, of the Mass. In the Mass is made present the cross and on the cross is lifted up all the suffering, all the injustice, all the iniquity of all time — from the dawn of creation to the torture chambers of our own day. Every Mass setting ends with the same words of hope: dona nobis pacem. Grant us peace. So it was then; so let it be now.

Youth Survey: Teens Lose Faith in Droves

In an article entitled Youth Survey: Teens lose faith in droves, Macleans magazine reports on a survey by Reginald Bibby, University of Lethbridge sociologist.

According to new data from Project Teen Canada, more teens now identify as Muslim than Anglican, United Church of Canada and Baptist combined. As a group, the percentage who adhere to so-called “other faiths”—including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Sikhism—has grown fivefold since Project Teen began its surveys in 1984, while the percentage of teens who identify as Roman Catholic has declined by one third, and the percentage who identify as Protestant is down by almost two-thirds.

There is some very sobering data in this report, most of which points to the fact that many teens—from nominally Christian homes—are “rejecting religion entirely.”

For Canada’s Christian teens, meanwhile, the community is shrinking like never before. Since 1984, the percentage of teens who call themselves Christian has almost been cut in half while the number who call themselves atheist has grown to 16 per cent, up from just six per cent in the mid-1980s. Just as the boomers shifted toward agnosticism, teens are now going a step further and rejecting religion entirely. “Belief is learned, pretty much like the multiplication table,” Bibby writes. “So is non-belief.”

Bibby is concerned that since religion is a “source of stability” and “moral compass of sorts” this trend could begin to adversely affect our society’s ethics and behaviour.

I’ll come out and say this very clearly: In my opinion, all that’s keeping our civilization safe and manageable—as opposed to disintegrating into chaos and barbarism—is the Christian religion. But we’re fast approaching the tipping point and since the heartbeat of the Christian religion is the Catholic faith, unless there is a sweeping move of repentance and revival within the Catholic Church we’ll likely all be plunged into a worldwide cataclysm of the magnitude warned of by Our Lady of Fatima. How right it appears she was!

Again, in my opinion, the spearhead of any such revival is the Mass of the Ages, accompanied by a strict and faithful adherence to the Tradition of Mother Church and to the message of the Virgin of Fatima.

[cross posted to Contra|Diction blog]

French Priest Moves to Ireland to Meet Demand for Latin Mass

The Irish blog Clerical Whispers is reporting that:

A French priest who travels to Limerick once a month to celebrate Mass in the Extraordinary Form has decided to move to Ireland because of the increase in demand for the service.

Canon Wulfran Lebocq, of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest, has been travelling to Limerick from his seminary in Italy to celebrate Mass every third Sunday in St Patrick's Church.

The Institute has been working in the area for the last three years, with the consent of Bishop Donal Murray. It is believed that about 100 people now attend the traditional Mass.

Once he settles in Limerick next year Canon Lebocq hopes to celebrate a weekly Mass.

Weekly Mass

''It depends on the number of ordinations we have this year. Whether we increase our number of services is also entirely at the will of the bishop, but we would like to get to a point where we have weekly Masses.''

Upcoming masses

The Institute of Christ the King will be holding Mass in the Extraordinary Form at St Patrick's Church, Dublin Road, Limerick on April 19, May 17 and June 21 at 11.15am.

Founded in 1990, the Institute works to promote the use of the traditional Latin Rite Mass.

The Institute of Christ the King was obviously delighted with this development and is eagerly promoting their New Apostolate in Ireland...and rightly so.

In a recent post, I noted the hard work that had been done on the Emerald Isle to re-establish the Latin Mass. This is more exciting evidence of a shift that will bring health and healing to the Irish culture.

Nice to see Mother Church giving back to Ireland, after all the contributions made by Ireland throughout the ages.

Douglas McManaman on "Reading the Word Sotto Voce"

Deacon Douglas McManaman is a Religion and Philosophy teacher at Father Michael McGivney Catholic Academy in Markham, Ontario, Canada. He is currently the President of the Canadian Fellowship of Catholic Scholars. He maintains the following web site for his students: A Catholic Philosophy and Theology Resource Page, in support of his students.

His latest article, short but powerful, "Reading the Word Sotto Voce" appeared in the Catholic Education Resource Center this week.

Subtitled "Reading the word of God in the context of a Mass is radically different from public speaking," allow me to whet your appetite for the full article:

Seminarians of a previous era were often instructed to say Mass sotto voce (Italian: 'under voice'), that is, in low voice (not low in volume, but 'low in profile'), because there was a real appreciation for the opus operatum of the entire liturgy, and a corresponding appreciation for the minister's duty to become less and less ostentatious, after the manner of John the Baptist's "He must increase; I must decrease" (Jn 3, 30). To stress engaging eye contact, intonation, inflection, and to seek to move and emote are all rooted in a basic theological error that regards the written word of God as a dead letter that stands in need of a grandiloquent orator to bring it life. But it is the word that brings life to man, not vice versa: "Man does not live on bread alone, but on every word that comes from the mouth of God" (Mt 4, 3).

I doubt that Deacon Doug had the ancient liturgy in mind when he wrote this article and I'm really not sure whether he has "traditionalist" sympathies. I suspect so. In any case I see in his brief instruction an extremely strong case for the power of the Latin Mass.

I'll leave it to someone else much more qualified than myself to explore this article along those lines. Perhaps Fr. John Zuhlsdorf might be interested in doing just that. But suffice it to say that Mass in the Extraordinary Form does not easily accommodate dramatization, ostentation, or a "stealing of the show."

I think, without intending to do so, Deacon Doug strikes to the heart of why the Latin Mass is not given over easily to such things:

Finally, when readers look up periodically, they must address the congregation as a single entity, not making eye contact with individuals within the congregation; for eye contact only makes the reader unfittingly self-conscious, and causes a degree of self-consciousness unbecoming of the faithful, who do not need to be engaged as if they were unmotivated adolescents passively waiting to be animated. They engage themselves through an active readiness to lose themselves in the proclamation of the word.

Isn't that exactly the case? I have found that devotees of the Mass in the EF predominantly "engage themselves through an active readiness to lose themselves in the proclamation of the word," indeed in the entire liturgy.

And think about the following statement for a moment in light of the variety of outrageous displays one often finds in the ordinary form of the Mass.

The more a reader puts himself and his own personality into the word he proclaims -- that is, the more he increases -- , the more he stifles the Holy Spirit of God (cf. 1 Thess 5, 19) by distracting the listener, turning him from a prayerful attention to God's word towards the talent and idiosyncrasies of the reader.

But the reader must forget himself. He must read sotto voce, albeit slowly, clearly, and with sufficient volume. Indeed, poor reading in its turn can distract the listener, making it difficult for him to concentrate, but poor reading does much less harm than even a slightly theatrical reading; the former merely hampers concentration, the latter "steals the show", which is what the liturgy often becomes for those with a flare for the dramatic.

Thanks for this, Deacon Doug!

Breakfast With Cherie

Image: Cherie Blair enjoyed an impromptu audience with Benedict XVI in 2006 [image source]

The Times of Malta yesterday published a television interview with Cherie Blair, wife of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in which she once again flouted Church teaching on condoms and contraception.

Here’s a clip of the highlight of the interview. Go here for the full video.

Ms. Blair’s is a high profile history of dissent and collaboration with the culture of death. Yet many in the Catholic hierarchy, as far away as Rome, are quite comfy with her presence and offer her platforms with which to bewitch and poison the minds of listeners. Nevertheless, Cherie Blair is not the enemy.

What then can account for such scandal? In a word, modernism.

It’s the elephant in the closet. And it’s an elephant which, despite its enormous size, goes virtually unnoticed or ignored. A host of other secondary evils are blamed for the current sickness in the Body.

What is the solution for this pervasive evil which a hundred times daily pierces the heart of the serious minded, faithful Catholic? In my opinion, the only solution is a return to orthodoxy and tradition by means of a New Offensive.

Pope Benedict XVI is leading us in the New Offensive, I believe. And the spearhead of the New Offensive is the restoration of the ancient liturgy, the “Mass of the Ages,” to its rightful place in the life and practice of Mother Church.

Lex orandi, lex credendi, lex vivendi.

Cherie, do you know Latin?

____________________

UPDATE: Damian Thompson of Holy Smoke blog reports that Tony Blair, husband of Cherie Blair, has also been busy despoiling Catholic teaching:

Tony Blair has given an interview to the gay magazine Attitude in which he calls for Pope Benedict to rethink the Church's "entrenched" attitude on homosexuality. Well, the Pope would rather like Mr Blair to rethink his entrenched support for abortion, but he hasn't done so, has he?

Tony and Cherie Blair are two Catholics who are representative in their thinking of multiple millions of today's Catholics.

Your glorying is not good. Know you not that a little leaven corrupteth the whole lump ? I Cor. 5:6

[cross posted to Contra|Diction blog]

Traditional Latin Mass in Patton, PA

Latin Mass leaders in Patton PA report that their local paper published an article today about their Traditional Latin Mass (actual photo above) at Queen of Peace Church in Patton PA. They were reasonably happy with the reporting, although they did cite some inaccuracies.

The Tribune-Democrat of Johnstown PA had a fairly extensive write up on the Mass of the Ages.

________________________________

Patton church brings back all-Latin Mass

BY TOM LAVIS

The extraordinary Mass, also known as the traditional liturgy of the Roman rite, is being reintroduced in the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese.

For the first time in more than 30 years, Queen of Peace Roman Catholic Church in Patton is providing the all-Latin Mass, the only church in the diocese to do so.

Many supporters of the traditional Tridentine Mass are convinced that it is a priceless gift that must never be forgotten.

Brian Kopp of Johnstown is proud of the love he has for the old Mass because it offers him and his family many spiritual benefits.

“After the Second Vatican Council, in the mid-1960s, the traditional Latin Mass only was permitted to be celebrated privately by priests,” Kopp said.

But in July 2007, Pope Benedict XVI set in motion an initiative allowing the traditional Latin Mass to be offered publicly. Diocesan Bishop Joseph V. Adamec gave permission to the Rev. Ananias Buccicone, OSB, to celebrate the extraordinary Mass at Queen of Peace on Sunday afternoons.

“We are the only parish between Harrisburg and Pittsburgh to offer the all-Latin Mass,” Kopp said.

“We have had people come from as far away as State College, Indiana, Johnstown, Somerset and even people from the Greensburg Diocese.”

Buccicone, who was ordained in 1993, is required to understand and speak Latin, as well as perform the precise hand movements.

“Not being born before Vatican II, I took it upon myself to learn, because I had a desire to learn the old way,” Buccicone said.

Since Pope Benedict offered the opportunity to celebrate the extraordinary Mass, many seminaries have reintroduced Latin into their curriculums.

Unlike the new or ordinary Mass, in the extraordinary Mass, priests face the altar, not the people. It appears as if the priest is turning his back to the congregation. But Buccicone said the purpose is for the priest to face God.

“The priest is facing liturgical east, facing toward God, and he is acting as the mediator between God and man,” Buccicone said. “It’s like a general leading his troops into battle.

“I don’t view it as turning my back on the people. I view it as leading the people to God and heaven.”

People are invited to attend the extraordinary Mass at 1 p.m. Sundays. On the first Sunday of the month, a high Mass is celebrated with Schola, or choir, singing and Gregorian chant.

On the other Sundays of the month, a low Mass is said, which is the more solemn Mass.

“Anyone desiring to experience the rich liturgical traditions of pre-Vatican II, this is an opportunity to do so,” Buccicone said.

He said priests must be qualified in both the Latin language and the rubrical (text) requirements to properly celebrate the extraordinary form of the Roman rite.

During the high Mass, Gregorian chant and other ancient sacred music and clouds of incense fill the church during the liturgy.

The extraordinary Mass is much different than the ordinary Mass in its silence and lack of response from the congregation.

There is no singing and the congregation does not respond to the priest vocally.

“The silence is overwhelming,” Buccicone said.

“There is much more time for mediation, and it offers an opportunity for contemplation.”

About 150 people attend the extraordinary Mass. The sanctuary has a capacity of nearly 400.

The solemn Mass, which is said completely in Latin, attracts different types of people. Older Catholics enjoy it because it is the Mass of their youth; younger people, including some with families, appreciate the silence and mystery of the Mass.

“Ironically, older people started coming out of a spirit of nostalgia, but they discovered a reverence for the deep and sacred character of the old Mass,” Kopp said.

And younger families have found that the old Mass teaches the centrality of Christ in the Catholic faith.

The focus of the old Mass is God, not man.

“The new Mass is so busy with active participation that no one has time to pray,” Kopp said.

“The old Mass has a sense of mystery and awe that gives participants a time to pray silently and understand the reality of the Mass.”

Buccicone said the majority of people attending the extraordinary Masses are young and middle-aged people.

“They enjoy the solemnity of the Mass and the mysteries that are inherent in the old rite,” he said.

During Holy Communion, communicants must kneel at the rail and take Communion on their tongue.

No one is permitted to touch the host with their hands other than the priest.

The communicant also does not say “amen” after receiving the host, as is now done in the post-Vatican II era.

Instead, the priest says, “May the body and blood of our Lord, Jesus Christ, bring your soul unto everlasting life. Amen.”

Some women in the congregation have returned to the practice of wearing chapel veils, a head covering that displays reverence to the Lord and modesty.

Even the priest’s vestments and acolytes’ cassocks are in the old style.

“I have received calls from priests and convents who have offered me the old vestments that have been stored in closets,” he said. “They are beautiful with some being over 100 years old.”

Upon entering the church, the congregation has access to Latin-English missals, which display both versions.

“The Latin is on the left and English on the right, and people can follow along easily,” Kopp said.

He said the missals help people keep pace with the celebrant as he recites the Latin words. There is no need to actually learn Latin because the translation is already made for the participant.

But learning Latin pronunciation is key to the acolytes who serve the Mass.

Kopp’s 16-year-old son, Michael, said it took about three months to learn the proper Latin pronunciations verbatim.

“There are cards that we can read, but once you do it for a while it becomes natural,” Michael said.

“I would like to see a lot more churches do this because I think a lot of young people would find it gratifying. It takes people to a higher level in realizing that they are in the presence of God, and we are with him at the Mass.”

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.

Latin Mass Society of Ireland

About a week ago as I was doing an internet search for Latin audio I found a link to the Latin Mass Society of Ireland. They've done a very nice job on their website... it's quite simple and straightforward and includes helpful articles and some great audio.

If you visit the website you’ll see an impressive schedule of Latin Masses taking place on the Emerald Isle and the folks involved are to be congratulated for their efforts and perseverance. I discovered today that one of our Latin Mass devotees receives email updates from this group and credits much of their success to a man named Peadar Laighleis who is currently listed as the President of the Society.

On the homepage of the website three really interesting, practical and in depth articles on the basics of Latin Mass are offered. Take a look at each title below:

What is the Tridentine Mass?
Why Latin?
Text of the Mass

Finally, here's an useful summary by Peadar Laighleis on the state of the Latin Mass in Ireland which I found on the Derry Latin Mass website forum.

The Derry Latin Mass initiative is to be commended.

There are only a handful of dioceses that can be said to be anyway generous: Tuam, Dublin, Raphoe (notwithstanding the Raphoe thread), Cork & Ross and Limerick. That leaves a further twenty-one, though things are happing in Kilala, Down & Connor and Galway - and at a slower pace in some of the more rural dioceses.

But let's face it - the LMSI is about getting the Extraordinary Form in every diocese on at least a Sunday and Holy Day basis. In some dioceses, the work is well underway (though offers of help will be gratefully accepted, thank you). In others, we could do with volunteers on the ground - which is why I think this initiative is so good.

In any event, we begin from an American rather than a European perspective - not 'when are they going to give us the Latin Mass', but 'what are we going to do about getting a Latin Mass'. Just remember, the liberals have been telling us that 'we' are the Church.

Peadar Laighleis

[image credit]

The Latin Mass Is Not A Cause For Contention

Here's a very well written news article on the resurgence of the Latin Mass under the leadership of Pope Benedict XVI. It appeared in The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on 07/21/07.
__________________________

The Latin Mass is not a cause for contention
By Lorraine V. Murray

In the sixties, hippies shunned their elders' traditions, including their approach to paying bills, which involved jobs. With time, however, many hippies traded love beads for suits and realized that working beat living on the streets.

Hippies are long gone, but the anti-tradition crowd lives on and reared its head recently when Pope Benedict XVI announced that the Latin Mass would be more widely offered to Catholics.

Some folks protested that the Church was moving backward instead of forward, but what's wrong with that?

First, a little background: The liturgy of the Tridentine Mass, usually celebrated in Latin, dates back to the sixth century.

And it was the only option for Catholics until the Second Vatican Council rolled out an updated Mass in the vernacular in the 1960s.

Although the Latin Mass was still celebrated after that, it became rarer than the proverbial hen's tooth and today might exist in one parish among hundreds of others.

That one parish for Atlanta's Catholics is in Mableton, where the pews at St. Francis de Sales are filled with parishioners from all over the city, as well as adjacent states.

Clearly, there are people who love this reverent and ancient liturgy and will travel far to find it.

Which may baffle advocates of the newer Mass.

After all, isn't a Latin liturgy confusing and unintelligible? And doesn't the priest show disrespect to the congregation by turning his back toward them during these Masses?

No on both scores: Catholics who cherish tradition find beauty in Latin, which is an unchanging language. And even children follow along at Latin Masses without confusion, since the missals post the vernacular side by side with Latin.

Another wonderful thing about the Latin liturgy is that Catholics can attend Mass anywhere in the world and worship God just like at home, since Latin remains fixed in Nigeria, Paris or Idaho.

As for those critics who claim the priest is disrespecting the people in the pews: He and the entire congregation traditionally faced East, which symbolizes the risen Christ.

I grew up with the Latin liturgy, and when I stepped into the sanctuary, I entered another dimension entirely.

One that was serene and dignified, fragrant with incense and echoing with Gregorian chant.

Before long, I knew all the prayers in Latin by heart, so when the priest said, "Dominus vobiscum," I knew he meant, "The Lord be with you."

Unfortunately, the post-Vatican II Mass has led to some egregious problems.

Traditional Gregorian chant gave way in some parishes to awful, folksy, feel-good music. Organs gathered dust, while guitars and drum machines took center stage.

Obviously, I favor the traditional Mass, but I see no reason to turn Benedict's proclamation into a war between conservatives and liberals. Instead of girding for battle, let's look at the larger picture.

For one, the pope is not doing anything radical. He is merely giving Roman Catholics greater access to something that is their birthright, since the Latin liturgy was standard for many centuries.

After Vatican II, it took a bishop's permission for such a Mass to be offered, but, thanks to Benedict, all that's needed now is a willing pastor in one's local parish.

People who favor Mass in their local language are not being asked to give it up. But those who have sat longingly in the pews, missing the powerful liturgy their ancestors enjoyed, now can have their day. In a church that prides itself on being universal, this is definitely a step in the right direction.

Lorraine V. Murray is the author of "Grace Notes. Embracing the Joy of Christ in a Broken World" and "Why Me? Why Now? Finding Hope When You Have Breast Cancer." She works in the Pitts Theology Library at Emory University. Web site: www.lorrainevmurray.com

PBS Airs Segment on the Latin Mass

Msgr. Charles Pope is the pastor of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian, a vibrant parish community in Washington, DC. He shares blogging duties with his associates at the Archdiocese of Washington. Last week he posted an entry Praying in Latin? and included the July 2007 video which appears below.

Nicely done video, but Msgr. rightly noted the following correction to the video:

You can learn more of the Old Latin Mass in this 5 minute video filmed here in the Archdiocese of Washington at Old St. Mary’s. One correction: At the beginning of the video someone has included a text that says the old Latin Mass and the new Mass are different rites. The Pope in 2007 chose to emphasize that this is NOT the case. Rather they are two different forms of the same Roman Rite. Enjoy this video featuring yours truly.

Traditional Latin Mass at the Oratory of the Sacred Heart

In St. John's NL Mass in the Extraordinary Form takes place at the Oratory of the Sacred Heart at the Sisters of Mercy Convent, 170 Military Rd., adjacent to the Basilica of St. John the Baptist. For more information on times and the activities of the Latin Mass community in St. John's, please call (709) 753-2681 or email