First Ever - Tridentine Mass in Phoenix, AZ -- Packed Standing Room Only

[deogratias]

" Still, I wonder how much real (expressed) demand there was for it. I understand the crowd for it on Sunday has fallen off dramatically"

There are several factors here, Melman.

Probably 1/3 of the folks at the first Mass were just curious and it was a high Mass with beautiful music - but it was long, parking was impossible, there was standing room only and people had to be turned away, communion took almost an hour and all this may have served as a deterent rather than a come back

Second as someone else noted there are about 1500 people who attend SSPX and two other illicit Parishes here in the valley that celebrate the TLM - many of them turned out the first Sunday to show the Bishop support for permitting the TLM.

Some of these may come back later, some may not, depends on several factors. (The priest who celebrated the TLM last week used his homily time to berate the SSPX - not what the Bishop had in mind or the way to win them over to the legitimate TLM - sigh)

I am not sure about your parish but in the past - Mass attendance seems to be less in the summer for several reasons - snowbirds and people away on vacation.

Which brings me to anothe reason. Who wants to go anywhere at 1 p.m. on a hot Phoenix summer afternoon - only the diehards. I won’t go anywhere else at that time of day if I can help it but I do drive 30 minutes for this.

Another reason - there was a lot of pre-publicity from the paper and the Diocese prior to this but the Diocese never has even issued a report on the success or attendance of the first Mass and so there is still some caution.

I think 400 people regularly attending though is still a very good representation. In most other communities I have attended, some of which have established FFSP (this is the legal society to celebrate the TLM and not to be confused with SSPX) parishes, Denver and Colorado Springs for instance - the regular attendance is between 100 and 200 so I am not discouraged.

Come join us some Sunday and see what it is all about - you can go to your own parish and still come to the TLM - double grace

 

[system]

deogratias:

Come join us some Sunday and see what it is all about - you can go to your own parish and still come to the TLM - double grace

Indeed I do plan to check it out some day. I was told that recent attendance was down to 100 or 200, thus my asking about it. JNB, there’s no reason to perceive questions as “attacks”.

 

[deogratias]

Hi Melman-

If the attendance were only 100 and some of those souls were souls that might otherwise leave the Church - I’d think it was worth it. That I think is the Bishop’s intention - to save souls and lead them back to the church so I am not too concerned about the numbers.

Glad to hear you may check it out. I think sometime in August there will be another pontifical high Mass - I always think a high Mass is a better introduction to the TLM than the low Mass is. The “quiet” experienced at a low Mass is often actually distracting to those who are used to the NOM with more audible interaction.

 

[RNRobert]

Melman:

I don’t think it’s fair to compare the tiny number of Indult Masses with the New Mass that 99.999% of us attend. In that light, of course the New Mass is going to seem less uniform, less reverent, etc. - just from the variation that comes with the larger numbers. I’m quite sure that if the Tridentine was still the standard mass today, it would have many of the abuses blamed on the New Mass… as well as all the old abuses it had pre-Vatican-II (low masses being mumbled through in 10 minutes, people showing up only for communion, etc.).

You can have “precision” and “reverence” in the New Mass too, as well as “music that truly pushes the soul near eternity” and all those other flowery things ascribed to the Tridentine.

The New Mass IS the Mass of the Roman Rite.

Hello, I’m new to this forum. I’ve been a Catholic since 1996, and I’'ve read literature by some Catholics who believe that the Novus Ordo is a mistake and that we should return to the Tridentine Mass. I have a book with some interesting quotes about the lukewarmness displayed by some Catholics toward the Mass:

“It requires great patience to endure the language of careless livers, breathing atheism itself, and ruinous to devotion; as for instance, ‘A Mass more or less counts for little.’ ‘The Mass of this priest or that priest is for length like one in Holy Week; when he appears at the altar, I generally get out of church forthwith.’”

“Now, tell me whether, when you enter church to hear Mass, you thoroughly well consider that you are going as it were to Calvary, to be present at the death of the Redeemer? If so, would you go with behavior so unsubdued with dress so flaunting?” But what shall be said if you profane those functions of dread sanctity with nods and becks, with tattle, with laughter, with the petty attentions of courtship, or with graver sacrileges of deed, word, or thought?":tsktsk:

“What say you then? Will you ever dare, this time forward, to be at Mass, sitting, prating, looking here and there, perhaps even sleeping, or content yourselves with some vocal prayers, without at all taking to heart the tremendous office of priest which you are exercising?”

The above quotes were from “Hidden Treasure” by St Leonard of Port Maurice, who died in 1751. It seems the lack of reverence towards the Mass is not confined to attendees of the Novus Ordo.
I think even if the Novus Ordo were done away with and replaced by the Tridentine Mass, In doubt that those who were irreverent towards the Novus Ordo would be any more reverent towards the Latin Mass