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giuseppeTO
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Trent … I hadn’t seen this testimony before. It left me speechless. I join this priest in blessing both Holy Fathers John Paul II and Benedict for their increasing generosity in making the EF more available.
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xixxvmcm85
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I’ll make this as short as possible.
I started attending Catholic Mass about a year after leaving the Mormonism of my youth. I was living in Berkeley as a college student and only had recourse to the Ordinary Form. Knowing very little about Catholicism at the time I just assumed that what I saw was tradition. As I started to grow in the faith (though still not yet properly initiated) I became troubled with the modernism I heard taught in the parish.
I graduated college and moved to Oakland and found a new parish two blocks from my new flat. Little did I know that this parish was under the care of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. I went to the 12:30 PM Sunday Mass expecting what I had become used to in Berkeley. I had no idea what was going on or what was being said, but even as an outsider I just instinctively knew from the smells and bells that what was occurring was holy. While the novel experience was a pleasant trip through history I wasn’t sure that I would be coming back next Sunday until I heard the priest’s homily. Never before did I hear from a Catholic pulpit sin or Hell mentioned. I never heard a priest speak about the exclusivity of perfect truth existing in the Catholic Church. I decided to come back subsequent Sundays and in the mean time read anything I could find about the EF. As I learned about tradition I became more familiar with the Mass and my appreciation of it skyrocketed. I enrolled in the RCIA of that parish, began attending their Latin OF (at the request of the priest, which was nonetheless orders of magnitude more reverent than the OF liturgies I experienced in Berkeley), and after formally entering the Church went back to assisting at the EF.
I’ve since moved back to San Francisco and no longer have a car so getting to Oakland every Sunday isn’t possible. My regular parish is a very reverently celebrated OF at a Dominican parish, where the priest at times will celebrate ad orientem, pepper in some Latin in the liturgy, and there’s a schola reciting Gregorian Chant and Sacred Polyphony. I try to travel across the bay to Oakland on Holy Days for the EF, or on regular Sundays when I don’t have to work and if there were a regular EF here in San Francisco I’d much rather assist there. I miss much of the symbolism I had grown accustomed to in the EF, the extra psalms chanted, the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, the Last Gospel, among other things (like the increased emphasis on the sacrificial aspect of the Mass), but I guess I have to make do with my exceptionally reverent OF here.
To sum it up: while my initial exposure to the EF only satisfied my desire for aesthetic beauty and reverence in the Mass (and a near certainty for orthodoxy in teaching), my learning the reasons for the traditions of the Roman Rite began to inform my understanding of the faith as a whole. As time went on the differences between the OF and EF became more apparent and I began to see the wholesale scrapping of tradition as a travesty rather than a “necessity of the times”.
I started attending Catholic Mass about a year after leaving the Mormonism of my youth. I was living in Berkeley as a college student and only had recourse to the Ordinary Form. Knowing very little about Catholicism at the time I just assumed that what I saw was tradition. As I started to grow in the faith (though still not yet properly initiated) I became troubled with the modernism I heard taught in the parish.
I graduated college and moved to Oakland and found a new parish two blocks from my new flat. Little did I know that this parish was under the care of the Institute of Christ the King Sovereign Priest. I went to the 12:30 PM Sunday Mass expecting what I had become used to in Berkeley. I had no idea what was going on or what was being said, but even as an outsider I just instinctively knew from the smells and bells that what was occurring was holy. While the novel experience was a pleasant trip through history I wasn’t sure that I would be coming back next Sunday until I heard the priest’s homily. Never before did I hear from a Catholic pulpit sin or Hell mentioned. I never heard a priest speak about the exclusivity of perfect truth existing in the Catholic Church. I decided to come back subsequent Sundays and in the mean time read anything I could find about the EF. As I learned about tradition I became more familiar with the Mass and my appreciation of it skyrocketed. I enrolled in the RCIA of that parish, began attending their Latin OF (at the request of the priest, which was nonetheless orders of magnitude more reverent than the OF liturgies I experienced in Berkeley), and after formally entering the Church went back to assisting at the EF.
I’ve since moved back to San Francisco and no longer have a car so getting to Oakland every Sunday isn’t possible. My regular parish is a very reverently celebrated OF at a Dominican parish, where the priest at times will celebrate ad orientem, pepper in some Latin in the liturgy, and there’s a schola reciting Gregorian Chant and Sacred Polyphony. I try to travel across the bay to Oakland on Holy Days for the EF, or on regular Sundays when I don’t have to work and if there were a regular EF here in San Francisco I’d much rather assist there. I miss much of the symbolism I had grown accustomed to in the EF, the extra psalms chanted, the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar, the Last Gospel, among other things (like the increased emphasis on the sacrificial aspect of the Mass), but I guess I have to make do with my exceptionally reverent OF here.
To sum it up: while my initial exposure to the EF only satisfied my desire for aesthetic beauty and reverence in the Mass (and a near certainty for orthodoxy in teaching), my learning the reasons for the traditions of the Roman Rite began to inform my understanding of the faith as a whole. As time went on the differences between the OF and EF became more apparent and I began to see the wholesale scrapping of tradition as a travesty rather than a “necessity of the times”.
P
Paxvobis
Guest
In May, after having been back in the Church for about 7 months, I went to my first EF Mass at my Diocesan Cathedral downtown. I had read about the TLM on the forum and had always wanted to go and when I heard that the FSSP Parish in town was doing a Solemn High Mass at our Cathedral I just had to go. I studied it ad infitum on Youtube so I knew everything that was going on. It was a very beautiful service and I loved it. I had always liked it when Latin/Incense was incorporated into the OF Mass. Since then I’ve been to the EF three times - only Sung or Solemn High Masses though. Although I only get to go about once a month, the OF I go too is very reverent and has some sung Latin Ordinary, a deacon, and sometimes incense. The priest pretty much says the black and does the red.
Even before I went to the EF, I already was not eating meat on Friday, fasting for 3 hours before communion, et cetera. Since, I’ve decided to take on the 40 day Lenten fast.
Even before I went to the EF, I already was not eating meat on Friday, fasting for 3 hours before communion, et cetera. Since, I’ve decided to take on the 40 day Lenten fast.
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