I am hearing about this sort of thing all over the place.
The first Traditional Latin Mass by this priest at this parish drew
120 people!
This text is from the bulletin of St. Francis Church in Purceville, VA:
About 120 came to celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass (sometimes referred to as the Extraordinary Form of the Mass) in the midst of the 40-Hour Eucharistic devotion.
Father Mullaney spent several days getting his crash-course training to celebrate his first Traditional Mass because the priest who originally was scheduled couldn’t make it due to a scheduling conflict. Father Mullaney did an amazing job with just a few days of practice to celebrate the Latin Mass. Our Director of Religious Education, James Blankenship, served as master of ceremony and trained Father for the Mass. Several who attended their first Latin Mass enjoyed the solemn experience and remarked how different it is from the Ordinary Form that we normally celebrate.
A few were brought to tears as they reminisced last attending this Mass way back in their youth (likely from the AARP eligible crowd).
There were also several who came from other parishes who were grateful that we offered the Mass.
Brick by brick, my readers, brick by brick.
This mentions the AARP crowd. However, I’ll bet most of the congregation was much younger.
Those people must now get hyper-involved with all the activities of the parish and not just disappear.
And if you go to their website, be sure to click on the “Gregorian Mass” link on the upper menu. Amusing… AND TRUE! I hope that some of you will do the same for me!
UPDATE:
I had an interesting email after posting this.
Apparently, based on stats from a few years ago, the Diocese of Arlington was one of very few dioceses in these USA that was not bleeding red… and I don’t mean rubrical ink.
Another factoid is that of their 70 parishes, some 17 have the TLM, which would probably be the highest percentage of any diocese … anywhere.
Now… I don’t want to stray into post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacious reasoning. Nor do I want to stray anywhere near a “prosperity” gospel view. However, I do believe that reverent liturgical worship has its own mighty ripple effects.
I’m just sayin’.
