Fr. Z has a very interesting discussion going. Actually, it’s not a discussion, it’s more of a “What Did You Hear” type thread in which he has invted people who did not experience the Extraordinary Rite/Classical/Tridentine/ Mass growing up to talk about their introduction to that particular rite and their reactions. It is one of the more enlightening blog threads going these days, because people are being honest, saying what they love, what puts them off, how they grew to like it, how they still don’t care for it much…whatever.
I think it’s a good thread to read for someone who is laboring under various delusions about what the typical “Latin Mass Goer” is like and what they are looking for. One of the things that comes through again and again is, contrary to the conventional wisdom, what those who are sharing on that thread were seeking was a deeper and more profound sense of participation in the Mass, not an excuse to check out of things and think about something else. Which of course, makes sense if you think about it for more than two seconds. Why would you go to the trouble of traveling a good distance, entering into something quite unfashionable and even somewhat forbidden in contemporary Catholic culture, if you were interested in distancing yourself from what was going on? You wouldn’t.
I think it would be a good thread for bishops and priests to read – not only for those who are into the TLM, but to hear the voices of those who say, “Yes, I went, it was okay, but not my thing. But for those that want it…so what?” So that perhaps they can slowly but surely recover from the vapors, widespread due to this “problem.”
I participated in the thread. I used to be a NO Mass lover- totally and eternally. I didn’t like the TLM at all the first time I went. Then I went a second time and couldn’t stop thinking about it. Now I’ve gone a third time and I’m hooked. I may not go very often because my wife isn’t hooked yet (she’s only gone the once.) But, in my mind now, the TLM far surpasses the NOM in majesty, richness, seriousness, and sacrificial character. The NOM seems pale by comparison.
I understand now that the NO Mass as we have it was not the intent of the majority of the fathers at Vatican II when they decided to reform the Mass. What I still don’t understand is what Pope Paul VI was thinking when he went forward with the Mass put together by Bugnini and the committee that worked on it. (Ugh- reform of the mass by committee- what a thought.)
What struck me was the large number of young converts who entered the Church, were disappointed in the banality of the NO as celebrated in their parish, found a TLM–often far away, were not hooked at first, kept at it, and now are devotees.
One thing, here: I didn’t comment on Father Z’s thread, because I’m, like, kind of old, and I didn’t want to fit into the old-ladies-who-feel-nostalgia stereotype. I’m a cradle Catholic out of college for five years when Vatican II ended in 1965. I was a member of the liturgical choir at my alma mater and, as I recall, the congregation (whole student body, actually) sang the responses in Latin as well as the “common” of the high mass every Sunday morning. I believe that the John XXIII mass a couple of years later encouraged that–one of the Liturgical Movement developments that brought a beautiful continuity/newness to the Tridentine mass. That, of course, ended BAM a few years later. I was married in 1966 (TLM in Mpls.), and moved to Ann Arbor MI, where, after several years of ’60s-’70s Newman Club weirdness, my husband stopped going to mass and began to talk about one religion being as good as another. A number of years later, now a widow, I was introduced to St. Agnes by my soon-to-be son-in-law. I was bowled over–and only much later discovered that the St. Agnes mass was NO done in Latin ad orientum. Pretty embarrassed about that! Right now, in Eau Claire WI, mass is NO in English, devoutly celebrated, with a wonderful priest and mediocre music. I’m not sure I want to bother the priest who has been commissioned to spend each summer at Catholic U learning canon law. I know, after this last summer, that he now knows some Latin, but he’s just been back a couple of weeks and he hasn’t mentioned anything. Don’t believe our bishop has either. Actually, more Latin in the NO and the TLM a couple of Sundays a month and holy days would be ideal (my parish still has the high altar and the altar rails), but poor Father has so much on his plate (one parish, two churches, canon law studies, a building fund underway, a lot of Haugen-Haas/Schutte lovers). I just hate to bother him. Pray for priestly vocations to carry some of the load!!