What do I “do” at a Latin Mass?

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The Baltimore Catechism is still valid and can be used to learn the Faith…

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Is the Baltimore Catechism Still Valid?

Yes, the Baltimore Catechism is still valid. Obviously it is missing anything from the Second Vatican Council but it still contains all the essentials of the fa...
www.catholic.com www.catholic.com
Yes, the Baltimore Catechism is still valid. Obviously it is missing anything from the Second Vatican Council but it still contains all the essentials of the faith. It can be used to learn the basics of the faith and can be supplemented with some more up to dates materials. Some of the wordings may no longer be in use and the Church may have elaborated further on some points over the past century but there is no error contained in it.

In fact, when I’ve taught in my parishes’ schools I’ve always used it as my base text.
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Great quick and fun to watch youtube video on preparing for the Mass. Worth reading the description below the video where it speaks of this being the Mass of the Ages, and Mass of the Angels… how beautiful.

 
MarthaSo said:
I checked previous threads before asking but aside from following the lead to kneel and stand is there anything I should be aware of such as responses to learn, songs or printouts to follow. Is there a pamphlet that explains what the lay person can expect. Should I bring a rosary? Should I buy a veil? I
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There are no responses for the Faithful at a traditional Latin Mass, traditionally the altar servers make the response for the people. Dress as you normally would for any other Mass, no special requirements.

What’s going on at a Latin Mass can be read about on the internet, there are youtube videos available online for different kinds of Latin Masses, low or high.
 
I like that there are no responses, I don’t want to talk when I worship, I’m tired of talking. I just want to be entranced by the chants and incense and in the prayers of the holy priests. I want to feel the connection with St Therese and my brothers and sisters in the Church Triumphant, feel their presence there. I want my soul to be captivated without a word by this Heaven on earth. That one hour will refresh me for the whole week I’ll be on cloud nine, I know because I remember. And I’ve been a daily communicant at the new Mass and it’s not the same for me. I still tear up when receiving my Lord, but for me it’s not the same. And that’s just going by a one time visit memory.
 
Welcome to the Latin Mass.

My recommendations:
  1. Veiling is a personal preference, though there are holier-than-thou people who will insist on it. Someone might judge you, but whatever. It’s not mandated by the current code of Canon Law. Going to the Latin Mass doesn’t change that. If you want to get a veil though, I recommend https://www.veilsbylily.com/
  2. The Latin Mass is more like Eucharistic adoration than the Novos Ordo. There is no prescribed part of the laity. The laity are supposed to be praying, meditating, and seeking to enter into contemplation. Everything about the Mass, the architecture and the art was designed to assist the laity in prayer.
  3. It is not inappropriate to be out of sync with the priest. The only time you really need to pay close attention is at the time of consecration. Much of what he says is intentionally quiet. Some priests who’ve taught themselves the Mass do not realize this and pray it too loudly. But if you do follow along, you will notice that the schola will not be in sync with him.
  4. Some priests will read the readings in English quickly before giving their homily. I find this irrelevant but helpful. At my wedding Mass, my priest read the readings in English but kept all the other prayers in Latin. It was nice, but I don’t like the Douay Rheims translation. It’s very harsh. It was translated from St. Jerome’s Latin Vulgate. So that’s a translation from Greek and Hebrew to Latin and then to English. Vulgate is where we get words like “venacular” and “vulgar.” It means the tongue of common/uneducated people. Indeed, it was a translation into the venacular. Especially for the uneducated, vernacular language tends to be simple. This simplicity makes the English translation a very harsh translation. I recommend paying attention to the readings, and then looking them up in the NABRE.
  5. I often used to bring my grandmother’s prayer book published in the 1940s. It had guided meditations for each section of the Mass. I used the Saint John Cantius website to learn the Mass better and figure out what part we were at by the priest’s posture. But again, you’re not required to be in unison with him. There’s actually a section of the Mass where the priest turns toward the people, to gesture toward the laity’s prayers. So personalized prayer IS your role. This is what I LOVE about the Latin Mass.
  6. Since it’s really more personal prayer and reflection time, the purpose of the bells before and during consecration become clearer. They are to grab your attention.
 
Also, you can visit http://www.extraordinaryform.org/

here you can print out your own hand missal if the church doesn’t have the red ones. But the red ones are so much better than the one you can print here.

But one good thing about the one on this website, they have highlighted in yellow parts that some Latin Mass communities pray out loud, together with the servers.

You can also find some training on this site too.

God Bless
 
Roseeurekacross said:
And that is one reason the Mass in the vernacular is so beneficial to us. People put down their Rosaries and started participating in the Mass.

Mass is about participation in what’s happening, not about praying a private devotion, which is what the Rosary is. Pray the Rosary outside Mass.
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There’s a section of the Latin Mass where the priest turns to the laity and their prayers, offering their prayers up. It is NOT inappropriate to pray private devotions during the Latin Mass. In fact, the Mass is not a sequential Mass like the NO is. Active participation IS offering your petitions, coming to God weekly in Mass. It’s like adoration. The bells are rung to draw our attention back to the the consecration as that is the center part of Mass.

We NEED a reemphesis on the role of the laity in the Mass. Losing that actually causes an unhealthy clericalism where the laity ends up feeling like they’re not really participating unless they’re in the choir, distributing communion or saying the prayers of the altar servers. This highlights that the one role that they haven’t been given is the role of the priest.

Liturgy means work of the people. The liturgy is the spiritual work of the people. It is personal. That is why any priest celebrating the NO needs to be mindful that while the NO forces people to pray, they need to do more than just sing songs and robotically recite words. They need time to meditate and enter into contemplation. Thus the best that can be done are brief periods of silence between some prayers. It’s okay, but a lot of laity won’t know what to do with this time BECAUSE THEY DON’T KNOW HOW TO PRAY.

As much as I’m sure there was a problem of participation in the Mass (there are plenty of old books where people gossip in the pews during the liturgy), the problem was NOT the rosary. Now, I do think the meditation of the rosary is overly complex. It encourages you to think words that are separate from your meditation. And this encourages you to not pay attention to the words of your vocal prayers which is why we’ve got lay robots in the Mass.

I’d start with praying the rosary mindful of the words of the prayers. Only once they become overly familiar should a person than say them as background and expand their meditation beyond that. The same is with the Latin Mass. At first, it’s best to just be emmersed in the beauty of the Latin Mass. Eventually it becomes familiar and then you need prayer aids. But DON’T demean the work of the laity as not participating!
 
MarthaSo said:
Thank you. Does the United States Catholic Catechism for Adults contain the same information as the CCC?
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Yes and no.

It used the CCC as it’s primary source, but it is very different layout wise.
 
Thank you so much for this! One thing that stood out was you mentioned the priest said a homily? Did I misunderstand? The one Latin Mass I attended did not have a homily or could I have missed it.
 
Most did the rosary because they couldn’t understand or hear the priest, . you will find in Latin Mass, it can be very difficult to hear what the priest is saying. The latin mass I attend has no incense etc. We do have some latin singing now.

The Church has stated we are to participate in the Mass, be it in Latin, Spanish, English, Indigenous Aboriginal. It is the highest form of prayer.
In the quietness of the latin mass, we sit and follow the priest, we are not to do our own thing. We are still to follow the liturgy.
 
Read my link. There is a response on it from a clergy member who celebrated both masses, before during and after VatII. He gives the reasons why.

We celebrate the liturgy of the word and the liturgy of the eucharist at both masses. when you go to latin mass you will see the Book changes from the right side to the left side of the altar when the liturgy changes. And if you are lucky, you will have a Priest or Bishop that explains whats going on to you. The latin mass I attend is celebrated by the Bishop Emeritus or a Dominican priest. They both explain whats going on.

We intentionally have the rosary before Mass as confessions are happening, so we put them down and focus on the liturgy. The liturgy of the Word and the Liturgy of the Eucharist are not the Rosary.

It is entirely inappropriate to pray private devotion during the Mass. Either Mass.

When I was in pre vatII and during masses, and after, no one dared gossip or talk during the pews , and they don’t now , at either mass.

The work of the laity is participating in the liturgy of the Word and of the Eucharist, regardless of form. Its not to privately pray separate devotions that cut you off from whats going on at mass.
 
Roseeurekacross said:
It is entirely inappropriate to pray private devotion during the Mass. Either Mass.
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That was not the case when Latin Mass was the only Mass.

From the Mediator Dei papal encyclical of 1947.

“Many of the faithful are unable to use the Roman missal even though it is written in the vernacular; nor are all capable of understanding correctly the liturgical rites and formulas. So varied and diverse are men’s talents and characters that it is impossible for all to be moved and attracted to the same extent by community prayers, hymns and liturgical services. Moreover, the needs and inclinations of all are not the same, nor are they always constant in the same individual. Who, then, would say, on account of such a prejudice, that all these Christians cannot participate in the Mass nor share its fruits? On the contrary, they can adopt some other method which proves easier for certain people; for instance, they can lovingly meditate on the mysteries of Jesus Christ or perform other exercises of piety or recite prayers which, though they differ from the sacred rites, are still essentially in harmony with them.”
 
Its the case now. If we want the latin mass, want it properly. Don’t use it to sit and pray the Rosary. Engage correctly in it.

And this is something those attending latin mass should be catechised in by the clergy celebrating the Mass.

otherwise its just going to go the same way in a couple of decades.
 
There is a response on it from a clergy member who celebrated both masses, before during and after VatII.
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Priests have personal opinions on things as everyone else does. None of these opinions are new to me. I grew up in a parish that had permission to offer the Latin Mass since the 70s. The priest who celebrated it knew both forms and preferred the newer form. Likewise, when I was at Franciscan University, they offered the “Latin Mass” once (it was a Novos Ordo done in Latin. I felt rather insulted that they pretended they were celebrating the Trinitine Mass), and the priest gave a homily explaining the reasons for the reform. “People weren’t participating. They were praying the rosary and going to confession.”
We celebrate the liturgy of the word and the liturgy of the Eucharist at both masses.
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The Trinitine Mass is divided into the Mass of the Catechumens and the Mass of the Faithful. The NO resembles a Lutheran service more than it does the Trinitine Mass.
And if you are lucky, you will have a Priest or Bishop that explains what’s going on to you.
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I studied the Mass on the St John Cantius website in order to use my great grandmother’s prayer book. It had devotions based upon the parts of the Mass, but I never knew where to pray them because I didn’t understand the parts of the Mass.

If you’re going to pray in unison with the Latin Mass, you have to study it outside of the Mass. A priest interrupting the Mass to explain what He is doing is entering outside of prayer into instruction/teaching.

The issue is clericalism. It’s a problem among liberal and conservative priests alike. Whether they’re preaching a fire and brimstone homily for 20 minutes like some Protestant preacher or whether they’re pulling the altar out so that all the attention is on them rather than God, they fall into the problem of considering themselves as above the laity.

And this crosses into an air of superiority among those members of the laity who lector, distribute communion, or join the choir. The laity’s role is not remotely respected or honored. Liberal Catholics complain about clericalism but their solution is to clericalize the laity rather than reinvigorate the common priesthood of the laity.

The prayer of the faithful should not be reduced to “Lord, hear our pray.”
Its not to privately pray separate devotions that cut you off from whats going on at mass.
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The devotions of the laity are an essential part of the mass. Heck, they’re more essential than the choirs role. Some of the best NOs I’ve been to were great because they didn’t add bells and whistles. I used to attend daily Mass (NO) at a hospital chapel. There was no music except for a cassette tape the priest would turn on during communion. Often it’d be mid-song, and he’d turn it off mid-song. THAT was better than most Sunday NO Masses I’ve gone to.

The Trinitine Mass taught me HOW to participate and thus to make the most out of the NO. It also made me sensitive to how liturgical decisions on the parish level interfere with participation under the name of encouraging it.
 
In the rubrics of the Trinitine Mass, the homily is optional. In the NO, I think it’s only mandatory on Sundays.
 
Don Ruggero has recently posted on CAF, if we are fortunate, he will come onto this thread and explain the church’s position before and after VatII,

He is a priest who celebrated both masses , so I do take the words of Don Ruggero over those of the laity on this issue. He is also a professor and has an expertise in Marian theology, so if anyone knows , he will know.
My Bishop Emeritus, who celebrates the latin Mass, would back up this stance also, another clergy member who celebrated both pre and post VatII masses.
He is great in explaining whats going on in the latin mass too. For those who were not born in that era and believe its so very different to the vernacular mass.

These priests do not have personal opinions, they have official church stances.

Again, Latin Masses also have Liturgy of the Word and Liturgy of the Eucharist. The Post VatII Mass resembles the Catholic Mass that it is. Please don’t drag this down to those kind of arguments.

Your opinion is one your are entitled too, however, its not the stance of the church. And No, the issue is not clericalism. The issue is about why we sit in mass, to worship God. And to do that we must be fully engaged.

If you feel there is an air of superiority, it is your issue, not the issue of those celebrating the mass. Its also uncharitable to judge and declare these people as having an ‘air of superiority’

It is not an issue of ‘liberal catholics’ either. As in my country, we don’t label according to politics. We are just Catholics attending Mass.

The Laity do not pray private devotions at Mass. The laity worship God and engage in the Mass.
 
I have heard, and with research found on ebay, little prayer books from pre Vatican 2 that people would use during the Latin Mass. One of the books I saw had pictures instructing what to pray while the priest was doing something in the Latin. These are all from the 40’s until late 50’s. As they follow the Latin Mass would these be ok? Or is that considered private devotion. I think Catholicwife mentioned she had one and I saw a video of a woman who used one “in addition” to the red booklets provided. I suppose my question is would it be ok to use these as I like the idea and how would it differ from the red booklet they give you at the Latin Mass to follow? Thank you.
 
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