I received a note from a parishioner at my home parish back in St. Paul, MN, The Church of St. Agnes.
I have been a parishioner at St. Agnes in St. Paul for 14 months having moved to the Twin Cities for my husbands new job. We absolutely love the parish and the beautiful liturgies there. While initially disappointed at the change in the Extraordinary Form Masses from every other Sunday at the 10 AM Mass to a low Mass every Sunday at 7:30 AM, we have found the low Mass to be beautiful and a good for our family. We have 3 children ages, 1, 3, and 4.5. I thought you might appreciate this piece I wrote on the Low Mass as a regular contributor at Truth and Charity.
That schedule change was a good one. They were alternating the Sunday 10 am Mass between the older and newer forms. Not good. Instead, now the 10 am has gone to the Novus Ordo with all the Roman and traditional stops pulled out. That is what the late Msgr. Schuler built over decades to demonstrate what the Council actually asked for. It is also the Mass that first caught my attention to the point that I would eventually enter the Catholic Church.
In any event, here is an excerpt from the young lady who wrote to me:
It is the silence and the stillness that make the Extraordinary Form Low Mass unique and beautiful. It seems the most appropriate early in the morning, when the world is waking and still. For someone attending the Mass, nothing but one’s presence is required. The servers say the responses and the faithful can be completely receptive to the graces being given through the words and actions of the liturgy. It is a holy hour of prayer, where we are led by the priest, and by him given the very Body and Blood of our Lord. The quiet stillness is a break from the fast paced, loud world. Even when I spend the liturgy pacing in back with a chattering baby, the quiet is still so powerful. I have been to a wide variety of Masses in my short lifetime, and I know that diversity of the universal Church. But I love that the quiet Low Mass is still being said throughout the world, in many different cultures, and that I can go to it and have a taste of Heaven.
In a world with less and less silence, Low Mass in the older, traditional form could be of great spiritual benefit to many of your parishioners… FATHERS.
Dear brethren: Learn the older form if you don’t know it well already. If you are a priest of the Latin Church, it behooves you to know our rite. Let people know about it and make it available.
