Faith and Tradition series on New Liturgical Movement website

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*newliturgicalmovement.org/2013/08/faith-and-tradition-new-series-on-nlm.html#.UiOqIZK1EXQ

It is with joy that today I bring you the first installment in a new series on the NLM called “Faith and Tradition.”

This series will present the stories of people who have had their lives profoundly marked by the riches of the Church’s liturgy, sacred art, and the beauty of tradition.

The stories will be given in the form of personal narratives. Some of the narratives, like that of today’s first installment, will present a story of a long-suffering labor of love for the Church’s traditions, often marked by profound trials. Others will be stories of how one’s Catholic faith was profoundly deepened by contact with the Church’s traditions and treasures. Still others will be of conversions to the faith as a result of contact with the splendor of the Church’s liturgy. And still others will chronicle a return to the practice of the faith through contact with the traditions of the Church. Some stories will simply share what the traditions of the Church have meant to the faith of the narrator. Some will relate the experience of incorporating more beautiful, sacred, and traditional elements into the Ordinary Form. Finally, the series will also include stories of the profound ability of the Church’s traditions to catechize and evangelize, and the essential role that the Church’s traditions play in the ability of the Church to evangelize and proclaim the Gospel of Christ.

Some stories will herald from older souls who have endured much. Others will be from younger spirits who were born well after the Second Vatican Council…

…It is my hope that this series will inspire you.

It is my hope that this series will motivate you to work with ever greater diligence to bring people to Christ and His Holy Church through efforts to renew the Church’s liturgy.

It is my hope that this series will evidence the vital role that the Church’s tradition has in any renewed efforts to evangelize an increasingly secular world which bears hostility to the Gospel.

It is my hope that this series will invite those far from the life of the Church to take a second look at Christ’s bride and the profound joy to be had in communion with Christ in His Church.

It is my hope that this series will touch the hearts of clergy and future clergy.

It is my hope that this series will help renew your faith in God and His providence for you, especially during times of great suffering.

**If you are interested in contributing your own story to this series, please contact me at jdonelson@newliturgicalmovement.org. Please include “NLM SERIES” in the subject line.

Finally, it is with filial gratitude that I dedicate this series to the patronage of St. Peter, who has played a profound role in my own faith and discovery of the beauties of the Church’s traditions, as well as Our Lady of Perpetual Help and St. Joseph, patron of the universal Church. Orate pro nobis!*

This looks great! Enjoy.
 
Here is part 1: A Priest’s Heroic Dedication

newliturgicalmovement.org/2013/08/faith-and-tradition-part-1-priests.html#.UiOspZK1EXQ

*I have been celebrating the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite for over 30 years now… Ordained in the mid-1970s in the reformed ceremonies of the Roman Rite following Vatican Council II, out of frustration with the New Form I began to celebrate the old liturgy privately sometime in 1981. It was a moving experience, one that brought me back to my childhood. It was an awkward experience at first, since I had been trained in a liturgical style completely opposite to the Old Rite.

But it was compelling. It involved me in praying the Mass in an intense and concentrated way. I celebrated this Mass mostly over a period of 15 years or so from that point, without a congregation since my Bishop had forbidden that, and it was only in the mid-1990s that I was asked to pastorally care for a congregation of Catholics who had achieved permission to celebrate this liturgy in our diocese…

…But most memorable for me, though, were the times when someone would sort of stumble into our little chapel by accident, when Mass was going on, and I would hear weeping behind me. Oft-times, I would have no server, and sometimes no congregation when I started the Mass, so I would simply be unaware that anyone had come in to the chapel. Until I turned around for the “Ecce Agnus Dei” at the people’s Communion, I did not know whose sobs I had been hearing. After Mass, the explanation of these impromptu visitors was almost always the same: “Father, I haven’t seen this Mass in thirty (or forty) years. I have forgotten how beautiful it is.” This was a Low Mass, without any of the grandeur of the Sung Mass or the Solemn High Mass. But people remembered how intensely God-centered it was, how awesome it presented the Mercy of God and the call to holiness—how it invited one to such humility before the omnipotence of God.

I heard the same thing from visitors to our Sunday liturgies, but over the years something dramatic has begun to happen.

One now hears these things from people who have no experience of the old liturgy at all from their earlier years.

The same thing is at work: The beauty of the chant, the lingering odor of incense, which permeates one’s clothing and reminds one that they’ve been to Mass, the dignity and beauty and the color of vestments and altar furnishings, the “littleness” of kneeling to receive the Lord on one’s knees at Communion time—all these things tell of something great.

The Old Mass changes hearts…*

There is quite a bit more in the article (see the link) but, per forum rules, I did not wish to copy the full text here in the thread.

Enjoy!
 
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