Can I pray TLM privately?

[sklenko]

In my current resort I have no possibility to attend Traditional Mass. As I love this older form of Mass a lot,I pray this Mass privately,just for myself using a missalette.
Would it be a sin if I tried to imitate praying the Mass doing the prescribed gestures as those of a priest? I mean somehow the way for instance small boys imitate saying the Mass but EXPLICITLY without using forma or materia.So I do not intend to use wine/water,vessels.Would this be a sacrilege?
I am a young Catholic adult layman,who just loves TLM and wants to pray it as I cannot attend it privately.
Any advise?

 

[AJV]

In my current resort I have no possibility to attend Traditional Mass. As I love this older form of Mass a lot,I pray this Mass privately,just for myself using a missalette.
Would it be a sin if I tried to imitate praying the Mass doing the prescribed gestures as those of a priest? I mean somehow the way for instance small boys imitate saying the Mass but EXPLICITLY without using forma or materia.So I do not intend to use wine/water,vessels.Would this be a sacrilege?
I am a young Catholic adult layman,who just loves TLM and wants to pray it as I cannot attend it privately.
Any advise?

To be honest, and not trying to be offensive, but I don’t really see the point of the stimulus. The Mass is not just about the prayers - it is also about the Mystical Body united together in offering to the Father in union with the Son, and consequently the prayer find their expression in the communion of believers physically present at the Mass.

As prayers themselves, there is nothing wrong I suppose, with praying/reading everything upto the Creed, inclusive. The rest, since most of it pertains directly to what is taking place at the altar, makes no sense to repeat. What you could do is for those bits is use similar prayers of your own e.g. make an act of offering in union with Masses celebrated throughout the world, and if you so wish, for the various categories enumerated in the Canon; invoke the intercession of the saints; say the Our Father; make an Act of Spiritual Communion, etc.

 

[Trad_Julia]

As someone else who’s currently unable to attend TLM but who also loves it, I tend to listen to it daily on:

www.traditionalcatholicradio.org

If you have access to the internet and a media player, (I use Winamp) you’ll be able to hear it twice daily, and, I believe, once on Sundays, though the readings and gospel have been excised.

 

[bpbasilphx]

What’s the matter with praying the traditional (that is, pre Vatican II) Divine Office, of which several issues and sites are available?

 

[keepitreal]

To be honest, and not trying to be offensive, but I don’t really see the point of the stimulus. The Mass is not just about the prayers - it is also about the Mystical Body united together in offering to the Father in union with the Son, and consequently the prayer find their expression in the communion of believers physically present at the Mass.

As prayers themselves, there is nothing wrong I suppose, with praying/reading everything upto the Creed, inclusive. The rest, since most of it pertains directly to what is taking place at the altar, makes no sense to repeat. What you could do is for those bits is use similar prayers of your own e.g. make an act of offering in union with Masses celebrated throughout the world, and if you so wish, for the various categories enumerated in the Canon; invoke the intercession of the saints; say the Our Father; make an Act of Spiritual Communion, etc.

The “community of believers” has nothing to do with the validity and efficacy of the Mass. This seems like “new” post V2 stuff. Tridentine masses were often said without “the community of believers” and are still said that way in traditional seminaries.

 

[Trad_Julia]

Actually, there is another site to hear TLM daily, and I believe it’s prayed without the community of believers in the room in this case is:

www.wftsradio.com

 

[AJV]

The “community of believers” has nothing to do with the validity and efficacy of the Mass.

I never said it did.

This seems like “new” post V2 stuff. Tridentine masses were often said without “the community of believers” and are still said that way in traditional seminaries.

But nonetheless, the prayers find their expression in the community of believers, even if there if there is only one server, qui gerit personam totius populi Catholici ex cuius persona sacerdoti pluraliter respondet. Or, even with the priest himself.

 

[Sr_Sally]

Actually, there is another site to hear TLM daily, and I believe it’s prayed without the community of believers in the room in this case is:

www.wftsradio.com

And in all these cases it is an actual priest saying the Mass and he is actually consecrating our Lord in the bread and wine.

For the OP I beleive it would be best for him to say other prayers–the Liturgy of the Hours is an excellent suggestion–rather than playing at saying Mass.

 

[pickguard1]

I personally think that this form of prayer is fine, so long as the intent is to meditate on Christ’s passion and death, and not to use it as a substitute for actually going to Mass. To say that other prayers are better is silly. The Mass is the highest prayer there is.

As a side note, is your interest in the rubrics just that, or is it deeper? Perhaps you have a calling to the priesthood.

 

[Ridgerunner]

In my current resort I have no possibility to attend Traditional Mass. As I love this older form of Mass a lot,I pray this Mass privately,just for myself using a missalette.
Would it be a sin if I tried to imitate praying the Mass doing the prescribed gestures as those of a priest? I mean somehow the way for instance small boys imitate saying the Mass but EXPLICITLY without using forma or materia.So I do not intend to use wine/water,vessels.Would this be a sacrilege?
I am a young Catholic adult layman,who just loves TLM and wants to pray it as I cannot attend it privately.
Any advise?

As a non-theologian, perhaps I shouldn’t say. But to be frank, going through the motions through which the priest goes leaves me a bit cold.

Way back when I was in college, I took French and really liked it. I obtained a French missal and made myself go through the whole Mass thinking it in French. Strange to tell, I found that it actually focused my attention on the Mass more, and I marveled at some of the French words and how they expressed some things better than did the English. From time to time I attend a Hispanic Mass here, and do the very same thing to the best of my ability. I actually try to “think the Spanish”, and think about the words and what they express and how they express it. I don’t know if others have that experience, but it is that way for me.

Frankly, though the 1962 TLM missal varies from the N.O., it squares with it in many ways. What would be so terrible if you took your latin missal to Mass with you and “thought it through” in Latin? The person to the right and to the left might think you odd, but that wouldn’t be the end of the world.

I think I would want to be doing that before I would be wanting to make the priest’s gestures in my home.

Having said all that, I will add, as did someone else, that you might consider the possibility that you might be having inklings of a vocation to the priesthood. If you’re an unmarried male, that is.

 

[Ridgerunner]

What would be so terrible if you took your latin missal to Mass with you and “thought it through” in Latin? The person to the right and to the left might think you odd, but that wouldn’t be the end of the world.

I should have mentioned that I have done exactly that. Not a whole lot, but I have done it. For some reason, I find it inspiring, as I try to “think it” in Latin. Again, the translated words are not quite the same, and it really does seem to enrich meanings.

 

[keepitreal]

I personally think that this form of prayer is fine, so long as the intent is to meditate on Christ’s passion and death, and not to use it as a substitute for actually going to Mass. To say that other prayers are better is silly. The Mass is the highest prayer there is.

As a side note, is your interest in the rubrics just that, or is it deeper? Perhaps you have a calling to the priesthood.

Everyone is forgetting here (including myself in a prior post) that you wanting to say the prayers and gestures of the Traditional Mass is a clear indictaion (at least to me) that God may be calling you to the priesthood. Loving the Mass is where it all began for thousands of priests.

 

[sparkielee]

In my current resort I have no possibility to attend Traditional Mass. As I love this older form of Mass a lot,I pray this Mass privately,just for myself using a missalette.
Would it be a sin if I tried to imitate praying the Mass doing the prescribed gestures as those of a priest? I mean somehow the way for instance small boys imitate saying the Mass but EXPLICITLY without using forma or materia.So I do not intend to use wine/water,vessels.Would this be a sacrilege?
I am a young Catholic adult layman,who just loves TLM and wants to pray it as I cannot attend it privately.
Any advise?

Sklenko, your post reminds me of something someone from the TLM I go to said about reading the Missal at home-that you can pray the Mass at home several times per day. But I would still go to Mass on Sunday or Holy Days of Obligation even if the Mass is in English.

You can certainly pray for discernment on what the Lord wants you to do with your life. Even though I read the Missal at home that doesn’t mean that I’m called to be a priest-I’m a woman who has a disability and is on Social Security. I’m sure I have no calling to the priesthood-except for the “priesthood of believers”-which is all baptised Catholics.

Of course, I’m not going through all the motions the priest does at the Mass and I’m not looking for any altar boys to help me pray-lol!

 

[keepitreal]

Sklenko, your post reminds me of something someone from the TLM I go to said about reading the Missal at home-that you can pray the Mass at home several times per day. But I would still go to Mass on Sunday or Holy Days of Obligation even if the Mass is in English.

You can certainly pray for discernment on what the Lord wants you to do with your life. Even though I read the Missal at home that doesn’t mean that I’m called to be a priest-I’m a woman who has a disability and is on Social Security. I’m sure I have no calling to the priesthood-except for the “priesthood of believers”-which is all baptised Catholics.

Of course, I’m not going through all the motions the priest does at the Mass and I’m not looking for any altar boys to help me pray-lol!

Loving the Mass like you do may mean a calling to serve God, in a way suitable to our created being. Possibly a calling to be a Sister?

 

[sparkielee]

Loving the Mass like you do may mean a calling to serve God, in a way suitable to our created being. Possibly a calling to be a Sister?

I thought I had a calling to be a Sister when I was a lot younger. But I had a condition that didn’t quite heal and I ended up on disability.

But I haven’t been praying like I should and trying to control as if there’s just me, people “who don’t want to listen”, and no God nearby to assist. So despite the fact I’ve been going to Mass for over 35 years, I’ve been saying that I have “the faith of an atheist.”

Lately I’ve been feeling guilty for doing the selfish things I have to others through the years and not just giving it to God to deal with. (In fact I’ve been struggling with this during the last 3 days.)

The Latin Mass seems to be helping me spiritually and now I think Satan is trying to pull me back into my old ways. The FSSP priest at my church said that his attendance at the TLM inspired him to be a priest. His seminary seems to be attracting a lot of vocations.

I don’t want to get my hopes up too high about becoming a religious at my age with my problems, but I can certainly pray for my healing and try to live like a holy Sister instead of a heathen madwoman. And I can also pray for others as well as myself. Even the priests have asked for my prayers-including our FSSP.

And anyone who reads this post may pray for me too. I really need it.!

-sparkie

 

[sklenko]

Thanks for your replies.
I certainly got to the Mass in nearby church.That is not the issue and see no problem with going to Novus Ordo.
I just want to have richer prayer life and long for intimacy in prayer which is peculiar for TLM,so having my 1952 Latin/Slovak missalette (done the additions with a pencil so as to be 1962 Missal) I pray the Mass prayers.
As for TLM that is not the topic in my country as Slovakia is traditional,similar to Poland.But only 2 priests celebrate TLM regularly.So you can see that people like me who want TLM are often misunderstood at the best like going backwards before V2.
As for my vocation I have been seriously contemplating it some 5-6 years now,but that is the whole different issue.

 

[pickguard1]

I should have mentioned that I have done exactly that. Not a whole lot, but I have done it. For some reason, I find it inspiring, as I try to “think it” in Latin. Again, the translated words are not quite the same, and it really does seem to enrich meanings.

I’ve done this before, too. I think what is more weird is that so few people assisting the Novus Ordo (Ordinary Form) have any missal at all. As a child who grew up after Vatican II, I remember receiving a St. Joseph’s missal for my First Holy Communion - I brought it to Mass with me every time.

While this isn’t really the thread for this topic I think it might be relevant:

Is it possible that so much of the liturgical abuse that has occurred in the Ordinary Form partly the result of practically nobody having the text of what should actually be happening in front of them? Having only a simple leaflet with the day’s opening/closing hymns and responsorial psalm seems to lend itself to the laity forgetting that there is a strict (although somewhat more flexible in the NO) set of rubrics that are to be followed at Mass? This is not to say that having a missal is necessary, but just a passing thought that came into my head just now. Sorry for straying off topic.

 

[pickguard1]

Thanks for your replies.
I certainly got to the Mass in nearby church.That is not the issue and see no problem with going to Novus Ordo.
I just want to have richer prayer life and long for intimacy in prayer which is peculiar for TLM,so having my 1952 Latin/Slovak missalette (done the additions with a pencil so as to be 1962 Missal) I pray the Mass prayers.
As for TLM that is not the topic in my country as Slovakia is traditional,similar to Poland.But only 2 priests celebrate TLM regularly.So you can see that people like me who want TLM are often misunderstood at the best like going backwards before V2.
As for my vocation I have been seriously contemplating it some 5-6 years now,but that is the whole different issue.

Then I see nothing wrong with your choice of prayer so long as it increases your devotion to God and the Mass and reverence for the clergy. If there was a restriction on how we should pray, I would think that the only prayer we would be allowed to say would be the Pater Noster. As there is no such restriction, you shouldn’t second guess your method of praying so long as you aren’t praying for anything heterodox. The fact that you pray at all is a wonderful thing indeed.