TLM at the NAC in Rome: “Coolest Mass I ever saw!”

Here is a follow up to what I postede the other day via John Sonnen’s fine Orbis Catholicus:

I guess the sixties are ending? And of course there’s always good news coming from Rome!

Today at Rome’s Pontifical North American College, America’s seminary in Rome, there was celebrated in the crypt chapel Holy Mass according to the 1962 Roman Missal.

Over sixty seminarians were present, including the Rector and some staff. After the Mass the seminarians had a lot to say as one student remarked: "A first and it was very nice and hope we can see more of it in the future" while another smiled and noted with emotion: "Coolest Mass I ever saw!" [This is both a very encouraging comment, and sad, in sense. It is sad that a major seminarian had to wait this long to see even the simplest version of his own Rome Rite. It is encouraging because, as I have been saying, this form of Mass is going to have a profound effect on the way young priests say Mass and who they perceive themselves to be. The gravitational pullllllll will be very strong through these young men. Very strong indeed.]

Before Mass there was a nice instructional time held in the chapel for the seminarians to become aquainted with this "new" rite. A Benedictine cleric, a member of the faculty, shared some words about the ordo of the usus antiquior and then read through some parts of it so as to instruct the students on proper proununciation, etc. [You would think that Latin instruction, required in canon law, would already have been a part of formation. But, I am glad that there was this propaedeutical moment.]

At the very end, though, there was an awkward moment when the same cleric then instructed those present that anyone could receive Holy Communion in their hand if "they so wished" as there was never any "written rule" which said one couldn’t. [Well… tehcnically he was right. However, it strikes me as singularly out of place to be saying something like that in such a moment. IMO.]

Feeling embarassed (as the layman in the crowd!) I wanted to raise my hand and say: "Gee, doesn’t everyone know that consuetudo pro lege servatur (custom is held as law) here?"