Chant Café

I was having a delightful meal recently with a bishop whom I love and respect as a father, and who has been extraordinarily kind to me. My personal policy never to even mention the extraordinary form of the Mass at the dinner table was circumvented by one of my brother priests whom I also esteem as a friend and colleague. “So what do you think of the Tridentine Mass, Bishop?” Sweat began to form on my brow as my stomach churned and the previously delectable filet mignon on my plate suddenly revolted me. “Not again,” I said to myself as I began to drown out what I knew would be an deluge of verbiage against the Missal of Pius V/John XXIII by reciting the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar from memory.

It is a scene which has happened to me many a time, and which is very familiar to young priests all over the world. All of a sudden, I was no longer just one priest among others. I was a marked man. I had committed the not very original sin of being one of “those priests,” the kind who celebrated the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. I was an enigma to the many friends I had made in the communities who enjoy exclusive use of the pre-conciliar liturgical books, who could not fathom how I could wake up every morning and say the detestable Novus Ordo, aka Nervous Disorder. And I was a mystery to my brother priests and even some of my parishioners who couldn’t square the man they knew as their friend, who seemed so jovial, fun-loving and open-minded, with a liturgy which was caricatured by many as the hobbyhorse of the Chosen Frozen, the Walking Wounded, the Integristes, and the Rigid Frigid.

Why? is the question that so many Catholics in pews and rectories all over the world have on their lips after Summorum pontificum unshackled a particular historical form of the Roman rite to work its magic (or wreak havoc, depending on your point of view) on the Church. And it is not an unimportant question.

The fact that Benedict XVI has given me the freedom to celebrate this form of the Mass caused me to sing a quiet private Te Deum in my room, but it does not provide me with answers to that question.

A cogent answer to that question can be given. Priests and laity all over the world are capable of drafting an apologia of historical, theological, and spiritual reasons for why the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite is a good thing, why its continued celebration is a good thing, and why it has a place in the Church of today and tomorrow. Maybe one day the Magisterium of the Church will propose such an apologia so that those of us who enjoy the privilege of Summorum pontificum can point to all of those reasons.

But the reasons why people are still scratching their heads about why Pope Benedict XVI would “resurrect” a supposedly dead liturgy in a supposedly dead language for what is supposedly a miniscule minority of devotees have little to do with history, theology, and spirituality. They have to do with people’s experience of the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite and those who are attached to it. At dinner, my dear father in God, the successor to the apostles, shared with us, “I remember the Tridentine Mass when I was a boy. I served that Mass. I still remember the responses: Introibo ad altare Dei; ad Deum qui laetificat juventutem meam. But it was not beautiful. We had priests who said Low Mass in fifteen minutes and had no idea what they were saying. I lived through all of that. I am done with that. I like the English Mass, and I don’t want to go back.” One can hardly argue with another man’s experience: it is what it is, it is his experience, and you can’t discount that.

Then the priest who launched the cannonball turned the discussion to the contemporary adherents of the extraordinary Mass, “They’re all crazy. They’re just nostalgic for a past they have never known. And most of them are just the walking wounded. The Pope celebrates the current form of the Mass, so that’s good enough for me.”

My dinner companions’ opinions had been formed by their experience, and that experience had left a bad taste in their mouths. No matter what papal legislation, theological study or heartfelt testimonial would be put before them, it was unlikely that their minds would ever be changed. None of that would change the fact that they would always be my friends and mentors, and the fact that they would always see my penchant for the “Trad” thing as a character flaw, a foible, an inexplicable eccentricity. They would love the sinner even if they hated the sin!

I am a simple parish priest. I cannot provide the air-tight argumentation for the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite which would bedazzle the world into whipping out their dusty hand missals and singing the Graduale Romanum. I celebrate the “Trad” Mass because I have parishioners who want it, and because I want to celebrate it. All I can do is share why my experiences of life have given me this love for something that so many of my fellow Catholics do not love. I am sure that there are many others who will find echoes of their own faith journey towards Trent!

As a child, I was raised as a Baptist. About as non-liturgical as you can get. One day I came across a copy of the Book of Common Prayer in a bookstore. I was hooked. All of these prayers and ceremonies, what were they? I saved my allowance and bought a copy. There are boys who drool over complicated football plays, who imagine themselves in military parades with a snazzy uniform and polished rifle, who rattle off baseball stats and have an encyclopedic knowledge of Beckett’s. And then there are boys who come across Adrian Fortescue’s Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described and fall in love.

At first glance, boy rubrical wizards may seem to have nothing to do with sports and army buffs. But many boys want to be in a place where they can be men with other men, where they can master something which others do not know so they compete with those who know some, where they can be on a team. Catholic liturgy traditionally has been a place where that boyhood dream can be fulfilled; the sanctuary, the sports field, the military academy all have provided that. I was introduced to the world of liturgy with its playbook, its rules, its teams, and its camaraderie. I was hooked.

Soon enough I read my way into the Catholic Church, and went dutifully to the ordinary form of the Mass in English. I became an altar server, a cantor and a lector. I sang in the choir. I had seen a Liber usualis in the choir loft, but didn’t know what the squiggles and the Latin words meant. I stole a little red book with parallel columns of Latin and Englishfrom something called the Commission in Support of Ecclesia Dei that someone had left in the church.

I came across Latin Mass Magazine in a bookstore which had articles about courageous priests and laity throughout history and today who performed heroic acts of sacrifice for what some priest called Fr Faber called “the most beautiful thing this side of heaven.”

All of a sudden my world opened up. There was more to my faith and the Mass than just what I had come to know as the Catholic Mass, which was what was celebrated in my parish every Sunday. I learned about young people from all over the world who walked from Paris to Chartres every Pentecost to pray for a return to the sacred. I was not sure what that meant, but I saw these pictures of thousands of young people like me who loved Jesus, the Catholic Church, and the Mass. There was something different about this Mass, this movement.

With the all-critical, all-knowing and all-judging eye of a sixteen year old, I began to see everything else around me in Holden Caufield terms, as “phony.” I never felt quite right about the Life Teen Mass. It just seemed like a bunch of old people desperately trying to relate to me, and we all know that old people, like 33 or so (like I am now!) just can’t understand the young. I had friends who went to Life Teen, and then just stopped going to Mass entirely. I was bored with Mass. It seemed all about the priest’s personality. It was all about jokes, felt banners, and bad music.

I stayed in the choir, and I was never happier than we sang Mozart, Gounod, and Bach. And then came the Glory and Praise and I was just, underwhelmed. And then my priest was exiled for an accusation of child molestation.

For a sixteen year old, this was a lot to take in. I felt betrayed, confused, and most of all, bored. Where was this other enchanted world of High Masses, processions and Holy Hours? Luckily, my senior year, I came across two things which changed my life. I started going to the Orthodox Churches, one Greek and one Russian, in the area, out of curiosity, which instilled in me a sense of the sacred and of liturgical worship. And I went to a conference on Gregorian chant at a Trappist abbey.

During the conference, where I came to actually understand what those squiggles and Latin words in the book I had seen years before in the choir loft were all about, I sneaked into the crypt in the middle of the night to explore and pray. In the dimly lit corridor, I heard the words, Dominus vobiscum. I turned the corner to see an ancient monk face an altar set into the wall, with a couple of people kneeling behind him. “What are they doing at four o’clock in the morning?”

I stayed for the rest of whatever it was that I was seeing, enraptured. Afterwards, I bounced up to the monk and said, “Was that the Tridentine Mass?” And he said, matter of factly, “Yes.” I asked him, “Are you going to do it again?” “Every morning, same time, same place. Can you come tomorrow and serve the Mass for me?” “But, I don’t know how.” “Here’s a little red book you can study for tomorrow. You have to start somewhere.” “Cool!” I said. All of a sudden, that little red book and a ninety-year old monk became my link to a wider world of the faith, and I was included. I was part of something new and exciting.

When I went home, I set about to learn everything I could about this Mass. And so I came across the books of Michael Davies, the figures of Archbishop Lefebvre, and the history of what happened after Vatican II. I also came across The Ratzinger Report and started to read everything I could get my hands on by this Joseph Ratzinger, who became my new hero!

By the time I went off to college, I was well-versed in the history of the crisis in the Church after Vatican II. But I had never studied philosophy or theology, never had a spiritual director, and never had a community of young Catholics where I felt I belonged. In college, I finally had access to all of those things. I had students and professors who painstakingly helped me to evaluate what I had been reading and to develop an authentically Catholic mindset and spirituality.
At college, I was able to see the Novus ordo celebrated well and beautifully and was able to participate in the “Old Mass” as well.

There was still something “edgy” about being a self-described “Traddie.” It was eccentric, it was different, it was cool. I built a huge liturgical library and began to meet other young people like me, and networks began to develop from all over the world. I was no longer bound to polemics and bitterness. As I studied the Roman liturgy, it came alive for me, and I grew to love the prayers, the ceremonies, the music of it all.

My freshman year, I concocted the bright idea that I wanted to see Holy Week in the Old Rite. So six like-minded buddies of mine and I got in a car and drove to Scranton, Pennsylvania to crash the Fraternity of St Peter’s seminary. All three Tenebrae services, the black vestments on Good Friday, the Easter Vigil and the fine party afterwards, the singing of the Haec festa dies: all of them are grafted onto my memory as beautiful and precious for me and for the whole Church. Who would not want to have all of this as part of the patrimony of the Church? I went back every year, and as word of mouth spread, by the last year, we brought 70 others with us.

The day after I graduated, I went on the famous pilgrimage to Chartres. On the middle day of the pilgrimage, we stopped in the middle of the forest for Solemn High Mass of Pentecost. The sumptuous procession of clergy, the active participation of thousands of young people singing with one voice the Latin chants of all ages, it was all a great respite from our grueling walk. And then, after the Offertory, it started to rain. I expected the stampede to find cover, the complaining, a total abandonment of what we were seeing. Nobody moved from the place, except the Scouts, who unfurled linen cloths in neat rows and held them like soldiers holding the flag over a casket.

Priests came with the Blessed Sacrament accompanied by scouts with gold and white umbrellas for the color of the Pope and the Sacred Host. And, as the rain drove down hard upon our faces and drowned out the singing, everyone knelt in the mud, clutching the linen cloths, and received their LORD and God on the tongue with great devotion and love.

This was the faith that I had been looking for my whole life. This was that beauty, ever ancient and ever new, which ravished my heart and gave me strength. There in the mud in the middle of a forest in France far from home, I knew that my vocation was to be a priest, to bring the LORD of faith and beauty to others like those priests who came to the adoring throngs covered in dirt and grime in body, but in grace and charity in soul. And that experience was during the extraordinary form of the Mass. Could I have had a similar or even the same experience in another form of the Mass, or even at some other time? Of course. But God chose that time to reveal Himself and His plan to me in a special way, and for that reason I will always be linked to the liturgy and the people who have sacrificed to encourage its celebration.

I am now a priest of God and the Catholic Church, faithful to the Pope and to the Tradition. Every time I see a young man with a missal in hand and that look of wonder and awe that comes to those who find the faith through its dignified liturgical celebration, I smile and remember. Now I even have to consult some of my spiritual daughters, whose knowledge of Fortescue and the liturgical calendars of various rites far outstrips my own. While I do not celebrate the extraordinary form of the Mass as much as I would like, as I follow the vocation God is laying out for me, I am thankful to Pope Benedict that I, and others like me, are no longer outcasts or orphans. We are Catholics, and as such, we rejoice to be such, with a beautiful liturgical heritage and a Pope to show us the way. My predilection for the “Old Mass” is not an indictment of those who do not have such a predilection, or of the Church’s power to reform the liturgy; it is an expression of something positive and wonderful I have found in the Church’s worship, and for that I am grateful to God!

If you’re wondering how the dinner ended, I kept silence because I was too busy thinking of all the things I am writing down here, of how I could respond to the Why? of my tablemates. As it happened, my steak had been whisked away and a lovely crème brulee had taken its place out of nowhere as the rest of the table were on to other topics of ecclesiastical politics. The milk and honey of the Promised Land after so much wandering was around the corner after all.

Except for a few ethnic enclaves in the big cities, English-speaking Catholics are not used to public manifestations of their faith. The history of Catholicism in the Anglo world, persecuted and controversial, led many Catholics to be uncomfortable with what are often derided as “Latin” customs such as processions through the streets of statues, relics and images. Many Catholics of English and Irish heritage saw their faith in terms of the Mass, which was what was most virulently attacked by the Protestants. All of that other “stuff” was window dressing or frippery and foppery of various forms.

One thinks of the contrast between those two great figures of English Catholicism, John Henry Newman, whose faith was marked by intellectual orthodoxy and English understatement, and Frederick Faber, whose enthusiasm for Italian Baroque devotions led him to call the Virgin Mary Mamma from the pulpit in such a way that surely raised the frissance of his compatriots. Newman, like many English-speaking Catholics today, preferred sound preaching, rubrically correct liturgy, and orthodox teaching to what seemed like an overwrought emotionalism innate in Romance-speaking Catholic cultures.

This anti-devotional and anti-processional mentality has been aggravated in the last century by several factors.
The Liturgical Movement, in seeking to favour the liturgical processions of the rite books, looked askance at many traditions that were not “liturgically correct.” After Vatican II, the incessant drive for modernization drove not a few clerics to abandon, condemn and proscribe any kind of extraliturgical manifestation of the faith that has existed previously. As the theology of secularization marched onward, people even questioned the sense of having such popular exhibitions of piety as not in line with religiously tolerant democracies, ecumenism and secular culture. If the existentialists in France were right, then did the annual Pentecost pilgrimage of Catholics from Paris to Chartres not seem at best a relic of the past and at worst a provocation? In the quest to purify the Church of “triumphalism” the externals of the Church, from buckles on the shoes of cardinals to grand funeral corteges of public persons were all excised in the name of “noble simplicity.”

At the same time, there has been a growing feeling in the Church that we are lacking something of community in our parish life. American Catholics no longer live in urban ghettoes where people define themselves by the name of their parishes. Some lament that their church feels “cold” to them, not warm and welcoming, and there are many Catholics who are desperate for some sense of belonging, of community, of family in a world where there is increasingly less a sense of all three.

So some parishes have formed welcoming committees; others have eager greeters at the door who repeat “Good morning, welcome to our faith community!” with a smile and then give you songbook, bulletin, worship aid, missalette, pastoral letter, survey and parish financial handbook all in one bundle; others have people shake hands and introduce each other at the beginning of Mass. The desire to respond to a real human need is genuine, and parishes must be centers of Christian charity and welcome. But so often these initiatives, as sincere as they may be, do not always build community in the way they are hoped to do.

But look at what it takes to pull off a procession! What a tremendous opportunity not only to involve all the different levels of parish life as well as incarnate the reality of the Christian witness in the midst of the secular city, or suburbia, or farmtown.

I will only give you a few examples of processions I have participated in and what I have learned from them.

Vieste, on the Adriatic Coast of Italy, is one of a number of towns that Saint Paul is supposed to have visited. Saint George is the patron of the city, and the city takes it seriously. I knew I was not in American anymore when I lined up with the throngs of clergy in cassock and surplice behind all manner of confraternities, sodalities, and parish groups and walked for two hours behind the Archbishop who held the relic of Saint George. Those who were not part of the procession or on the streets unfolded bedsheets out of the windows, or carpets, anything to decorate the space of their houses as the relic passed. Rose petals rained down from on high as we made our way through the streets. The Archbishop then celebrated Mass in one of the large parishes, and while the faithful prayed, the clergy prepared omelettes for the faithful on hot plates scattered all over the sacristy so the faithful had something to eat after Mass. Never have I seen the dictum ubi Missa, ibi mensa taken so literally! What a delight it was to see the clergy serving these home-made omelettes to their parishioners on paper plates, but there was no time to waste, for Saint George had to go back home, and so the procession started up again.

At a certain point, the procession stopped, in the middle of the hot blazing sun, for fireworks that would be invisible to anyone save the onorato of the feast. The gentlemen carrying the enormous statue of Saint George began to turn the statue in the direction of the fireworks. The Archbishop, in accord with the newly Vatican-issued Directory of Popular Piety, protested this act of superstition, and a melee insued. Finally, Saint George got to see his fireworks as the Archbishop, smiling, pastorally allowed this rubrical deviation to the delight of all present.
What did I learn from this spectacular event? I learned that a procession could involve everyone in the parish, bring everyone together, and by its nature, it has to involve civic authorities. There is a lot of work to be had in granting permissions, security, and all of the organization of such an event. I meditated on the fact that the sound system was blaring the words of the Gospel and prayers into shops, apartments and office buildings. The Word was being preached and community was being formed all over town. It was a work of evangelisation. Think of the fact that those few words of Sacred Scripture, those words of comfort and consolation, may have reached people who needed to hear them at that moment, something that never would have happened if the faithful were just in church at Mass for the feast.

I also noted that while the clergy were present and hierarchy was respected (there was a place for everyone and everyone was in his place) this was a lay-driven event. The sensus fidelium was expressed, not by dissenting theologians who like to deem their own opinions as such, but by the devotees of Saint George all over the city who gave their time, talent and treasure to God in an admirable sacrifice of themselves. In doing so, friendships were formed, the communion of the Church strengthened, and God was glorified. And note that it was the laity who made sure that Saint George got to see his fireworks, in a magnificent display of the power of simple piety over boring rationalism perpetrated by the clergy!

I have seen many a grand procession in my time: the princely Abbot of Monte Cassino receiving the keys of the city from the Mayor in medieval dress for the Feast of Saint Benedict, men throwing lira at the Madonna del Carmine in Trastevere with wild abandon knowing the money was going to the poor beloved by their Mother Mary, the stately procession down the Via Merulana of a sickly John Paul II at Corpus Christi the year before he died. There are too many to count. But I have to tell you some more!

The parish behind the Vatican is dedicated to Santa Maria, Madre delle Grazie. The Blessed Mother’s feast is considered so important in this parish that, under the shadow of the cupola of Saint Peter’s, the year that I experienced it, it trumped Pentecost (I can see the liturgists frothing at the mouth already, but I also rejoice in the fact that not a few Vatican Masters of Ceremonies have also participated in the life of this wonderful parish without blinking an eye at such a preposterous notion as such a minor feast having precedence over Pentecost!). The procession through the streets of the neighborhood was like any other Roman parish procession, but with one touching exception.

Every time the large icon passed by the apartment of someone in the parish who was sick, the pastor stopped the procession, the band ceased to play music and the clergy carried the icon up the elevator to whatever floor the homebound Christian was living on, and we brought the icon of the Mother of Grace to visit her Son in the sick and the dying while the faithful prayed the Rosary outside. Invariably, we were asked to stay for coffee or a shot of grappa, and finally Don Romano once had to say, “Honey, we are in the middle of a procession. We gotta go, but the Blessed Mother had to come see you,” and we were off to start the procession again.
This was not an orderly procession like that of choirboys in Westminster Abbey. It was total chaos. But all of those people, alone and suffering in tiny apartments, were able to know in a real way that the Church cared for them, that they were valued and that their prayers were just as important as those who were part of the event itself.

The connection between Church and the civic arena, liturgy and life, devotion and the sacraments (a quick Anointing of the Sick could be administered here and there, too!), came alive by means of this procession. In towns all over Italy, the ordination of a priest and its accompanying processions, showed the same connections. I saw not a few times the traditions surrounding the First Mass of a newly ordained priest in Italy.

The morning of the First Mass, the seminarians of the diocese would wake up the newly anointed alter Christus at his parents’ house by serenading him and accompanying him to the start of – guess what – a procession! The (invariably Communist) Mayor of the town would pronounce a discourse on how proud the town was to have a new priest, one of their own, and the newly minted Father’s parents walked with him (a police escort and a band by his side) with everyone else to his home parish, where his pastor, presumably the one who saw him off to the seminary in the first place, would place a stole around his neck and lead him to the altar to prepare for Mass. After Mass, everyone would come up to kiss the palms that had been chrismated the day before and then go off to a buffet dinner for the whole town where everyone was invited and no one excluded.

These processions don’t have to be just manifestations of regional eccentricities or provincial folklore. They can be a powerful means of linking the local Church with the Church of Rome and the Pope. There is a reason why the Cross of World Youth Day, perhaps taking a cue from the Olympic Torch, is making its way through Spain right now. Last night I gathered together with hundreds of people I have never met in my life to “welcome” this Cross on the Avenida Carlos III in Pamplona, Spain.

The youth of all of the parishes in the city served as volunteers in the procession, bringing along some of their non-practicing friends to help out as well, which was a Via Crucis down the principal streets of the historical center.
The Archbishop was there, the clergy were there, but it was the youth of the city who made this happen. And they did an excellent job. The Cross arrived at the Chapel of San Fermin, the patron of the city, underlining the connection between the Pope and the Roman Church and the local church. And the youth spent the whole night in adoration and prayer before the Archbishop said Mass this morning and the Cross traveled elsewhere to inspire others to take up their Cross and follow Jesus.
These public manifestations of faith are a lot of work, make no doubt about it. But they also encourage leadership, teamwork, and communion.

Can they be sources of tension at times? Sure! But in a world where the streets are filled with the noise of rap music and debauchery, images of sex and consumerism, and sights of human misery and contempt, is this not the time to offer an alternative? Maybe it’s the lilting chant of litanies or World Youth Day ditties, maybe it’s fireworks in the middle of the day to honor saints or icons being brought to the sick to kiss, or the contentment at the end of a day well spent of people whose faith has been renewed, but whatever it is, it is a beautiful thing to behold when Christians bring their faith to the city, when Jesus passes through the streets of today just as he did 2000 years ago in Jerusalem.