At Mass

Sometimes when I go to the later morning Mass these 3 boys, looking for all the world like they are throwbacks to my 1964 3rd grade class, show up looking bright as pennies to sit in the front row next to me.

And "they" tell me kids won't put up with the latin Mass.

I don't know if they had fun playing "Spot the error" the other morning. I did also note that 5 mothers had brought their infants in arms...which will make in future for an expanding and sustainable parish.

Gregorian "Shaboom"

Busy last 24 hours...I went along to a lesson in Chant that St. Anne's parish has been holding. [I hadn't had a chance to go before, but there are a few classes left. It's open to anyone in the county wanting to learn. Most of the people there were in various church choirs, about 12-14 in all I forgot to count. The instructor is the parish choir director, very nice.

30 some years ago, I'd had exposure to nume reading - (and I already know how to read standard musical notation, so it wasn't a big stretch.) I was surprised at how quickly what I had been told about it frosh year in college came back - having taken a "General distribution" course in the history of music, the foundations of western music being built on the Gregorian Chant of the monks. Biggest difference is a 4 line staff instead of 5. I rather like the idea of a non-fixed "do." I was delighted to learn that each choirmaster, as a rule of thumb, prefers to fix the "do" to match the tessitura (sweet spot) of the mix of voices that individual choir has. Thank goodness, I was never one of those with perfect pitch, to whom looking at a standard notation "mi" would be hard pressed to sing "re." Don't know if I'll join the choir yet, I'll have a lot of work to do, but some of the tunes were familiar, and having enough latin helps.

I just need to scour you tube for a lot of the common parts of the Mass (8 different possible tones too -- depending on the character of the celebration.) The notation will take some getting use to but personally, in a lot of ways it's easier than standard notation. Hope I got all that right -- there were some nice hand outs too. The church also has a children's choral group.

Also, finally got an eye exam (I'd lost a contact, and my perscription was long out of date.) I went to Mass this a.m., and work, and also swam 3/4 of a mile tonight down at the Kroc center.

Busy girl, so sorry for all the relative radio silence.

It Makes for an interesting Mass

I haven't seen too many Masses of the Dead in the EF form yet. But the delightful Fr. Freddy did one this AM, it was a feria with "nothing on" and it had been requested in memory of a parishioners relative. It's pretty cool to hear a "DIES IRAE" in real life, other than a University classroom.

I can't vividly remember going to one of these when I was little grades 1-2, other than I do have a vague memory of one. An All Soul's day Mass, perhaps? I'm sure there must have been the odd school Mass or two when we were present at someone's funeral if the Mass time coincided with the school Mass time (as it sometimes did.)

I think if a person has ever been to a funeral service for someone they didn't know, you can almost count on that person being Catholic. I can remember in the mid 60s, after the Mass went to mostly English, but with the old form largely retained, before the 69 missal, we went to quite a few funeral Masses. From middle of 3rd grade through 7th, I'd attended two different schools, and we'd normally all go at least once or twice a week to Mass as a matter of routine. Both churches were cavernous -- so the family of the deceased was usually no where near where we sat, even with the whole school going.....which was just as well, given the propensity for the younger kids to stiffle not tears over the casket scene before us, but generally over "Drama queen" soloists. I can well remember a classmate or two being taken to task for getting the giggles. No, it was never me. I'd already been too scared to even so much as turn around during Mass, because our primary school nuns grades 1-3 would have killed us. That sort of nun can help you develop Vicky Lawrence type immunity from breaking out a laugh. Or as George Carlin would say "if you were good, you could whip a face on Rodger, and HE'D get in trouble for laugning, but NOT you. 'Rodger, outside, there's nothing funny here.' IF you were GOOD, you could clear the whole room."

Many of my protestant friends, when Iwas growing up thought it must have been gloomy for us to have to attend these masses. Far from it!! These usually took longer, so we enjoyed the extra time out of the classroom!

[In grade school, 4-5 in Roanoke, Virginia, I had a friend, Teri Jo Myers, who was a genius at getting a nosebleed, which conveniently lasted from the gospel reading to just before the consecration. Guess who would get to go with her to make sure she was okay and didn't pass out? A few years back one of our servers was telling us that in grammar school they LOVED to serve Mass for Fr. Tom P. because "he always told us we didn't have to be in any rush to hurry back to class." I daresay as a boy in Ireland he had a clandestine few extra minutes of bliss away from the nuns with the priest's permission.

What goes around, comes around!

Spot the Error in Today's Mass

....you don't even need to be conversant with the EF form of the Mass, particularly.

....win a kewpie doll.

[Hint: Aug 25 is the Feast of St. Louis]

Assumption - and Change can be Good!

Here is about a 10 minute clip of this morning's Mass for the Assumption at St. Anne's Church, San Diego. St. Anne's is a personal parish which is solely dedicated to offering the Mass in the Extraordinary Form.



The video covers from the incensation just before the Lavabo (washing of the hands) to just before the "Nobis quoque peccatoribus..." in the canon. If you're new to the EF I highly recommend sitting in the same approximate seat I was, because you can see the priest's motions quite well with his blessings over the chalice etc. I have no idea how the people way the heck at the back left are in more than "ballpark." It was a missa Cantata. Half way between a low Mass and a High Mass. No subdeacon or deacon. But singing, and a fairly full completement of servers, incense and singing. The have a very good choir, it was nice to hear O Sanctissima towards the end of Mass.

I did notice one thing in particular, the Propers for the Mass, i.e. changeable parts, were completely different from the 1920s & 1940s to the ones given in the '62 Missal. For instance, the gospel reading in the 1920s was the story of Martha and Mary, and today's Mass had the gospel reading for the Visitation. [Every other proper, save the preface, was different too.] So sometimes these tweaks were for the better.

And WHAT IS WITH THE US Bishops saying today was NOT a Holy Day of Obligation? Either these bozos are serious about holy days, or they're not. Which is it? Then they act surprised when people don't show up for Holy Days. Is it any wonder people don't show up if the bishops take the attitude "oh, deary me, we'd be expecting them to show up for Mass two whole days in a ROW." It was my understanding that they would NOT muck around with Dec. 8th and Aug. 15th. Sucks to them.

The "Amazing Fr. G." [aka Fr. Carl Gismondi], also gave a very nice sermon, saying that the Assumption was the completion of her Conception. From her first moment of existence she was saved in a special way by God from the stain of sin, and her body did not become corrupt in death. She challenges us to keep to our own baptismal purity from stain of sin.

Cheap Giggle With Latin

Early this morning, as is my wont before attending a UA / TLM /Extraordinary / Whatever-you-want-to-call-it Mass, I checked the propers for the day. I'm having fun brushing up my Latin, so I try to read and follow along as much as I can in that language. When I flipped open the propers for the vigil of the Birth of John the Baptist (I was reading the little Latin only missal I have to see how much I could get on my own first without "cheating") my eye fell on the latin (and English!) word "vulva."

"Well, this should be fun today" I thought. The word was in the epistle which was from Jeremias 1: 1-10.

The St. Jerome's Latin version didn't mince words: "In diebus illis: Factum est verbum Domini ad me, dicens: Priusquam te formarem in utero, novi te: et antequam exires de vulva, sanctificavi te, et prophetam in gentibus dedite."

The English given for that same passage: "In those days the word of the Lord came to me, saying: Before I formed thee in the bowels[! not exactly accurate, is it?] of thy mother, I knew thee: and before thou camest forth out of the womb [true enough, but that's not EXACTLY what it said!] I sanctified thee, and made thee a prophet unto the nations."

I guess they didn't want Victorian [and later!] folks fainting had an "exact" translation been given! Hand missals frequently didn't have all the Latin. Who said it didn't pay to study the classics?

Flippin' a coin with the Latin Mass

I must say I've been having an enjoyable time learning the finer points of the Latin Mass Ordo. Especially when I come to find that my own generation (those of us born mid 50s) was not the only "jacked around generation." I'd known the low Mass a bit as a child (they literally switched to the NO within two week of my 1st Communion.) But I'd never known the ins and outs of the more arcane things like ember/rogation days, etc.

The powers that be had gradually been tweaking things around all through the 20th century. The three missals I have are all pre-1962 - the year the last changes were made to TLM. [Although I gather there's a tweak here and there now with those saints we "got rid of" an a quibble here and there.]

Friday's Mass was "interesting" - being both the feast of some saint I'd never heard of AND the anniversary of the coronation of the pope. The priest did the saint, and added on bits from the propers for a pope's anniversary. [In former times prior to '62 the Mass of the Chair of St. Peter would have been said.] I guess they changed that bit, because with a pope with a long reign, if it had been a feast day, that particular saint would be you-know-what-outta-luck for potentially decades. My speculation as to the reasoning. Regardless, they simplified everything.

It was one ladies first time at a latin Mass in years (she's older vintage than me, but was probably late grammar school or high school in 62 - so she wasn't completely clueless) but a few of us after the Mass said "well, this wasn't an easy one, the changeable parts were all over creation in the Daily Missal."

Saturday, I get there and think "no sweat" as it was slated for St. Mark. BUT upon inspection, my older missal also had something about being a potential rogation day. Purple. A litany and procession added in, and different propers.

But my 50s missal seemed to do some sort of combo of procession, and litanies and St. Mark's mass. So I didn't know what was up - some hybrid no doubt - but what? Then when the sacristan put out the Red tabernacle veil I knew Mark was ON. So I marked on missal with an eye out for Mark, and kept an eye out for rogation stuff too (given what had happened the day before), because I knew Father G. (pastor of St. Anne's) must have seen the "bear pit" a little later, because the sacristan had to bring the missal back from the altar where it had already been set up. [Father confirmed I was right after Mass on that point!]

We did the mass for St. Mark, with bits like the prayer, and postcommunion etc from the rogation Mass tacked on to the propers for Mark. No procession or litany though. And I wondered if this had been one of the those '62 changes. I had a quick conversation with Fr. after Mass and asked about that procession business. He said his ordo didn't mention it, but did mention the rogation business. [And I KNOW he did those as add ons, 'cuz I listened for them specially and he did them in addition to the rest.]

So I chalked it up to "well, they must have simplified that bit." Then this morning I looked at the post done by mulier-fortis and it turns out in her parish they did the Rogation day but no St. Mark. Which means they are doing it when in England? [Bueller? Bueller?]

So I pulled out my '25 missal and half understood the rubric mentioned (my latin isn't good enough for the fine points) so I called up the Sainted Fr. Shipley who was only too happy to translate for me as I read off the latin. He had no idea what the 62 changes were re: this....but the 1925 instruction basically said "If you people [wherever the heck your diocese is] depending if you're persecuted and used to doing this go ahead and do the rogation day and transfer St. Mark to the 3rd day after Easter .. but if it's Easter and there's a pink Cadillac on Mainstreet you can do what Fr. G. is going to do years from now and watch out for whatever things are coming down the pike in '62....]"

So they were both right. Maybe England is especially persecuted with all those people dying in the Tower and all that jazz but here in the US it's like ... "What, Me Worry?" Which is why I have the picture I do to accompany this post.

[Okay for the nerds out there the '25 missal said... for St. Mark (April 25) -

"Ad processianem dicitur Missa de Rogationibus, ut habetur suo loco in Proprio de Tempore, 287 [the rogation Mass] et, si contingat tranferri Festum S. Marci, non tamen, transfertur Processio, nisi quando praedictum Festum occurrat in die Paschae: tunc enim in Feriam III sequentem transferatur."]

For Latin Mass Priests, Especially Fr. Sean

This photo was taken this past Monday, on George Washington's Birthday. I went to Mass at St. Anne's in San Diego, which was given over to the Fraternity of St. Peter as personal parish. I thought Fr. Sean would like to see how they re-ordered it, since the half-way-there re-order he saw last July when he was out here. They still have a ways to go with the altar rail, you see a sort of intact rail, but the other side consisted hap hazard "stuff." [Cuz I can't spell prie-dieu right now for diddly.]

Is there some sort of Latin Mass Priest pact that the rest of us chumps are unaware of? When Fr. Sean was out here, I couldn't hear the canon. The most glorious canon written and I couldn't hear him for squat. Bah-humbug!!! I had my missal, but Father DUDES, if you're going to do this PLEASE SAY IT SO WE CAN HEAR IT. This priest -SAME THING. Otherwise you may as well say it in Sanskrit, or slaughter a pig. Can't tell the difference. I was discussing TLM with a friend of mine, and unprovoked she had similar thoughts. [She's in her early 60s. She said "it's too hard to try and figure out where Father is, even when you have a missal. I have to try and see his gestures, and try to find the right place in the missal, too hard without aural cues."]

I did bag one of the two seats acceptable for viewing purposes, so that was okay. And I have to say I enjoyed how well the servers executed their tasks. So easy to do it WELL with a bit of effort. Thoroughly unlike the two boys to served the NO rite Mass I attended Sat. Like chalk and cheese. I have seen many well excuted NO Masses - St. John's the Evangelist's servers, San Diego, are uniformly excellent from what I've seen - they PERFECTLY have the "symmetry thing" down - so I don't want to hear "well, the EF servers are better, blah, blah." But it irritates when servers aren't held to a high standard.

Also, you know it would REALLY help if in the bulletin for an EF parish, they'd be print out in advance WHAT readings are done. If you insist on not doing them in English, there is NO WAY you can convince me the Mass goer staring into space at that time has a freakin' clue. One thing to know the unchangeable parts of the Mass - quite another to be able to get the Latin on the fly with no advance warning. [Also this particular priest did largely SILENT offertory prayers too. GRRRRR!!!!]

They have Mass with benediction Fri nights, so maybe I'll go down there - but the "silent" thing is a real barrier for me. Darn good thing the FIRST canon done wasn't a silent one, otherwise none of us would have ever had a clue.

Thank You, Military Chaplains!

Now:

(Mass aboard the USS Ronald Reagan - photo in public domain taken by by Photographer's Mate 3rd Class Dominique M. Lasco - Feb/2006)

And then:

(NY 69th Regiment, taken some time during the US Civil War)

It strikes me how even 140 some odd years apart, the composure on the faces of the congregants is about the same. There seem to be some Confederate soldiers (prisoners I expect) in the foreground. There are also some ladies present, I expect wives of the commanding officers. But if anyone knows more about this latter photo, please tell me. I expect it might be a Matthew Brady.

Okay...this Latin Mass Jazz....Caveat Emptor

San Diego, Easter, 2007.

First let me say that I am 51 and just old enough to remember the Latin Mass myself. My 2nd grade class was the very first to have our 1st Communion in the vernacular. I've written elsewhere regards the dangers of thinking the old Rite [1962 or earlier] was a panacea of sweetness and light and everything right. It's certainly a mistake and a trap to believe correlation to be causation: i.e. "this pink umbrella keeps the elephants away, it's obvious, because when I carry it, there aren't any elephants around." [Well, gee, unless you go to the zoo, or a circus, where you live there's precious little chance of you running into one.]

People sometimes forget that it's hard to isolate just ONE event that changed everything. It is right to ask:

Why did more people attend Mass pre-Vatican II than post? But it's wrong to assume: "Aha---they lost respect because it's in English, and not "mysterious" enough...and they can receive in the hand. All EXTERNAL aesthetic things. Now one may LIKE the ceremonies one way as opposed to another. That's fine. But one doesn't stop eating all cake because they got one with crooked wrting on the frosting. The theology of the the Eucharist remains the same.

But it's a GRAVE error to think OTHER THINGS didn't also affect people going off and falling away from Mass attendance. First we have to thank the Mass media for the coarsening of the culture....things that would Have NEVER gotten anywhere NEAR the public airwaves are now served up prime time. Sex sells anything, and everything. There is a culture of death as regards the easy abortions being pushed. Ask yourself....if mere "entertainment" doesn't affect anyone's beliefs then the advertsers are being ripped off big time. How is it advertising can get people to buy things if the people "aren't affected by what they see on TV." So big media, in particular TV says: "For 44 minutes out of 16....there's no way we could possible affect your values" but then they turn around and get the advertisers to pay big bucks/pounds/euros/yen/whatever....and they peddle to the advertisers that they CAN change opinions. Media has EXPLODED since the 60s. Ditto the pill and it's affect on the public mores: "Hey, if it feels good, do it...there's no consequences to sex" -- so what you end up getting are more abortions, because people can just "get rid if it" if it's incovenient. Ask yourself: How many retarded kids are there in your parish? How many do you see on a weekly basis? Then you realize, they're mostly being aborted. Why? "Easy." What about all the pornography available and pushed at the drop of a finger on the keyboard? Much more accessible than it ever was. And suppose you raised your kid on the "right path" -- well, he's in the real world too, and frankly, a lot of parents just take the easy way out...your kids have to fight an uphill stream.

What am I saying? The change over from Latin to English didn't occur in a time warp where nothing else affected church goers. My mother had a saying, and I think she was right... "people who don't understand the "new church" didn't understand the "old church" and vice versa." I.E. It's The INTERNALS that count...and frankly the INTERNALS haven't changed.

I wish the Latin Mass fans well...but I would caution not to get their hopes up too much that it will ever be:the "old way again" -- it won't be -- surely not until we solve the CULTURE AT LARGE problems.

I'll end of a "funny but true"story. I attend Mass every week in San Diego, and always attend a Mass given by a priest who is almost 79. He hadn't heard much about the Motu Proprio, and when I mentioned the subject, his first comments were "They didn't understand the Latin back THEN" and "all that back to the people stuff -- I HATED that....and the high Masses, all that hand and cruet kissing...the deacon and subdeacon banging into each other...the kids mumbling through the responses. The last Gospel, people staring at you like sheep!"

Mind, this priest said the Latin Mass for almost 10 years.

So then I asked him regards my impression that not many people used the Latin/English missal as they should, and I particularly thought I remembered the armies of people who would say the rosary DURING the Mass. Not before, not after, but DURING. Well, after all I was only 7 -- so I asked the priest if my recollections were correct. He told me that they were pretty much on the money. And then he said that HE had gotten into trouble with the bishop over the issue.

Here is the story he related:

"Back in the 50s San Diego used to have Bishop Buddy in charge. Back then, priests did not often concelebrate Mass as they do now. One day after Mass I mentioned to one of the women who always said the rosary during the Mass that she (and her friends) should really get missals and concentrate on the Mass while at Mass...and NOT say the rosary at that time. Well, she took exception, and went to the bishop about it. When the bishop was at Mass he had an AWFUL practice of saying the rosary HIMSELF and not concentrating on the Mass. NOT ONLY THAT...but he'd LEAD THE PEOPLE IN SAYING THE ROSARY...OUT LOUD...DURING THE MASS. -- a first rate abuse. Well, she told the bishop what I told her. About a week later I get a call from the bishop's right hand man...who told me the bishop told me to 'cut it out' telling the people things like that."

I was non-plussed....and I could tell he was STILL at a remove of almost 50 years later still non-plussed himself.

Well, there ya go. I wish all the Latin Mass folks well, but PLEASE ...just because most of us like to see what the priest is doing, and maybe receive Communion in the hand and participate in the Mass without having to resort to constant translations...doesn't mean that by default we aren't as good Catholics as you. And as long as YOU take the time to study Latin, AND not wander off in your own little world of private devotions DURING the Mass...then more power to you. Just watch it, okay?

(Now you hippy dippy dance your way to heaven folks are another matter on the opposite end of the spectrum! But, that's for another time, perhaps.)

(this post originally posted on My Telegraph, July 8, 2007)