How To Bring Back The Tridentine Mass In Your Parish

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It’s nice having a choice. We have at least 2 parishes near us that offer TLM. The hours are reasonable for attendance.
 
I’m in the US too. My parish has a considerable amount of Hispanic people and they mostly go to the Spanish Mass, just like the English-speaking people go to Mass said in English. In the most important aspect of the Church, we hardly worship with each other. I bring it up because we stress community so much but all other forms of fellowship should be secondary to the work of worship with our neighbors—in which the common work of worshiping God brings people together who otherwise would hardly see each other outside of Mass.
 
I disagree with you, @Loud-living-dogma. @Peeps post isn’t offensive at all. I grew up with the Latin Mass. And I found her view of it very interesting and enlightening.

For many today, the Latin Mass is quite boring. For those old enough to remember, it is a cherished memory of tradition that should be revived and offered in every parish. For still others, it is confusing, a balancing act, choreographed or something that should remain in the past.

Regardless of where one stands, each view is important and worthy of expression. @Peeps was expressing her view. There was no offense intended to anyone.

Sadly, many of the priests who were taught and trained in the Latin Mass are retired. I don’t know if today’s young or newly ordained priests are trained in it at all. They should be. It is a vital part of the Church’s history. It would be a shame to see it lost forever.
 
On the other hand, the more strict way in which the Mass is celebrated in the EF leaves no room for the improvisation sometimes seen when a priest takes a more liberal interpretation of the rubrics for the OF.

That’s why a lot of people are drawn to the EF. Not necessarily because it’s in Latin, but because it is more ceremonial (that’s the only word I can think of). Everything in our world is just so informal. The Mass should retain the sense of sacred especially in our modern world, which seems to recoil from the transcendent sense of religion. A lot of us were drawn to the EF because we knew there is nothing informal about it.
 
Languages changed, and Latin became Italian which became the local language
 
It is not a dance. It is not choreography. It is rubrics and it is filled with tradition. The same with the OF. The OF Mass comes from the EF. Each part means something. I highly recommend a book called Treasures and Traditions by Lisa Bergman. It explains very well the parts of the TLM, what they mean and where they came from and helps one understand what the parts of the OF represent. Both are very much part of our Catholic faith.

God bless
 
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How To Bring Back The Tridentine Mass In Your Parish.
But I don’t want to bring back the Tridentine Mass to my parish.
God bless those who do, but I am not in that group. 🙏🙏🙏
 
One of the few good things about living in one of the largest metropolitan areas in the US is that there are a few parishes that celebrate TLM…of course with the traffic in this town, I’ll be lucky to get there in 45 minutes!

I keep saying that I’m going to go but never do. Thank you for your post; it’s giving me more motivation. 🙂
 
This topic will close in 7 hours. Hopefully sooner, since the level of discourse has deteriorated to mocking the Traditional Latin Mass.
Muting.
 
FYI - There is a seminary for FSSP priests, where they learn the EF Mass.
Here’s a wonderful news story from PBS that highlights their chant education:

www.pbs.org

Gregorian chants are a hit at this Nebraska seminary

Spending 13 weeks at the top of the classical music charts, a group of priests are reinvigorating an early musical genre. Special correspondent Dennis Kellogg of NET reports from eastern Nebraska.
www.pbs.org www.pbs.org
 
No one is mocking anything.

Not everyone is enthralled with the EF. Some of us really like the OF, even though, and sometimes especially because we have experienced the EF.

My perceptions and experiences, negative as they may seem, are just as valid as those who appreciate or prefer the EF.
 
MaryC7 said:
I can understand the use for surveys but giving people the opportunity to attend a TLM Mass is a different thing altogether. The TLM Mass is so beautiful and many Catholics don’t even know anything about it, which is truly sad.

I personally didn’t even know what a “Tridentine Mass” was until a few months ago and I tell you I truly felt cheated. I have the utmost respect for the “Novus Ordo” but after attending a TLM I will never go back.

I just want people to be informed about the differences between the two masses and then make an educated decision. The laity should be able to choose the mass that gave us most of our saints.
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I can appreciate your love of the Extraordinary Form. I will say, though, that (while we don’t formally make these distinctions anymore between the Low Mass, Missa Cantata, and Solemn Mass in the Ordinary Form), that most OF masses I attend are relatively low form. But I have seen a regular OF mass fully sung, celebrated ad orientem, with a schola and set antiphons, with Latin mass settings (excepting the Kyrie in greek), lots of incense, and with receiving communion under both species at the altar rail, at a parish very close to me.

It’s not usual, but it’s also a beautiful thing. And keep in mind, most Latin masses pre-Vatican II were low masses, and often didn’t incorporate much of the… overt beauty that I think many people who enjoy the EF today like. To much of the laity they often felt rushed and unengaging.

All that said, I’m not telling you to stop what you’re doing. I’m a young person myself, and I like seeing the renewal and interest in our ancient traditional forms, and the more opportunities, the better. But I wouldn’t go and withhold my money from the Church over it.
 
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"I’m guessing that a lot of priests would struggle to learn that unless they are natural dancers or actors! And heaven help them if they mess it up–someone would be sure to tell them!
If they do it all the time, it would eventually become ingrained, but offering the EF Mass just once a week would make it hard for the required choreography to “stick.” (Could they use cue cards or have a headset where a stage manger would constantly feed them the steps, gestures, etc.?)"
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The implication that Mass needs a "stage manager" to constantly feed them "steps" is the offensive part. When Peeps gets to heaven, would she ask someone like St. Thomas Aquinas, or St. John Vianney "gee, how did you remember the steps without "cue cards" or a headset and someone feeding you the steps?"
Also that part about “unless priests are natural dancers or actors”. Public religious ritual is not a dance, a play, a theatrical show or a Hollywood production. It is offensive to suggest that.
 
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I don’t see how you see that as offensive.

The altar boys who celebrate the EF in my diocese go through rigorous training, and the MC is there to make sure all the people know what/when they are supposed to be doing what.

I think you are just trying to be offended, as it was only an analogy.
There is nothing at all offensive about it.

When the EF was the only Mass, it was learned by repetition, just as the OF is now.
When you don’t do something regularly, it is very easy to overlook small things.

And, based on many of the experiences I have had with the EF, God help the poor priest who does something wrong, there is usually no mercy for him by the some of the EF attendees.
 
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I would love to see the TLM offered at more parishes. As a child I recall attending the local Catholic Church in the small town where my grandparents lived and I used to always wonder why that church had this beautiful high altar that just sat in the background and was virtually unused or even given any attention. Instead the Priest did everything on this rather bland and unimpressive table. It wasn’t until decades later, that I even realized there was such a thing as a Traditional Latin Mass and those high altars served a very distinct purpose.

It was only after I began studying the history and meaning behind the TLM, that I realized everything within these “old” churches served a meaning and had a very biblical and heavenly purpose to it. The paintings, statues, altars, rails; everything just seemed to be soaked in biblical imagery and had a sacredness to it. There was such a reverence to everything that was done during mass, that I for one, don’t find anymore at many of the OF masses I’ve attended.

From my own view, studying the TLM was probably similar to what many non-Catholics experience when they start studying Church history. You began to see things in the history of the Church that are unapologetically Catholic. So when I walk into a parish that was probably built in the 70’s or 80’s and it is devoid of any semblance of Catholicism, it speaks to the heart of all that we’ve lost over the last 40 plus years. I also find similar absences in the liturgy today and I don’t know how to reconcile what I’ve discovered in the beauty and sacredness of the TLM to what I’ve seen in some OF masses.
 
Some of the posts are mocking. I would say it might not be the intent but rather comes from a lack of knowledge of the Mass and especially, a lack of knowledge of Church history and where the OF came from and how it came about.
 
I know plenty about the EF and the OF. I find your post very insulting to my intelligence.

Just because I don’t agree that the EF is the greatest thing in the world does not mean that I do not understand it, Church history or the reasons behind the OF.

Sadly, this thread illustrates in perfect detail why I do not attend the EF and am very suspicious of anyone who prefers it who tries to exert their intellectual and spiritual superiority over anyone who does not agree with them. 😡
 
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