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Spreading the Good News in an old way
Latin Mass draws faithful to beauty, mystery
By J.D. Long-García, The Catholic Sun
December 20, 2007
TUCSON — For the first time in nearly 40 years, Catholics celebrated the Latin-language Tridentine Mass at the historic San Xavier del Bac Mission.
Members of Mater Misericordiae Mission, which offers the extraordinary form of the Roman rite, traveled to the Franciscan mission Dec. 8 to celebrate the Feast of the Immaculate Conception.
“The Blessed Mother, conceived without sin, that’s the feast day we celebrate today,” said Fr. Kenneth Fryar, FSSP, the mission’s pastor, during his brief homily. It’s one of the few parts of the Mass that isn’t in Latin.
He said Pius IX declared the Immaculate Conception an article of faith, which “is to be firmly and constantly believed.” The pope made the declaration in 1854 in the constitution Ineffabilis Deus.
Mater Misericordiae (“Mother of Mercy”) offers every sacrament according to the Roman Missal of 1962. Bishop Thomas J. Olmsted established the mission in 2005.
“Some people think that the Latin Mass is a step backwards. But it really isn’t,” said Monica Smith, a member of the mission. “It’s a celebration of our faith.”
She said Mater Misericordiae seeks to expose Catholics to the Latin-language Mass, which had not been celebrated in the Phoenix Diocese before the mission began.
In addition to the Latin language, another major difference between the old and new Masses is the direction the priest faces. In the older form, the priest mostly faces the tabernacle, looking away from the congregation.
While some believe seeing the priest’s back disconnects him from the congregation, Latin Mass regulars recognize that this gesture calls attention to the Blessed Sacrament.
Throughout the Dec. 8 Mass, Fr. Fryar bowed in the direction of the tabernacle, the focal point in the Tridentine Mass.
“My face is not important,” he said after the Mass, calling to mind the true presence of Christ in the Eucharist.
At Tridentine Masses, the priest administers the Blessed Sacrament on the tongue while the faithful kneel. Many women in the congregation wear veils.
Reclaiming Latin
Smith, who has fond memories of attending the Mass as a child, began attending the Tridentine Mass because she felt it would help her connect to the mystery of the Eucharist.
“It’s so beautiful because it’s taken right from Scripture,” she said. Pope Pius V promulgated the Latin Tridentine Mass in 1570 after the Council of Trent.
Joe Bright, who sits on the mission’s pastoral council, began attending the Tridentine Mass out of state before it was celebrated in Phoenix.
“The prayers are just so beautiful — the gestures, the rubrics,” he said. Bright said the 1962 Missal, which provides an English translation adjacent to the Latin, is easy to follow.
“It helps you expand as a person,” he said.
Bright’s family is one of 150 that attend the mission’s Masses, which are celebrated daily at St. Thomas the Apostle Parish.
Fr. Fryar also offers a Sunday Mass at St. Thomas, as well as at St. Cecilia Mission in Clarkdale and the first Sunday of the month at All Saints Parish in Mesa.
Fr. Fryar is a priest with the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, a society that forms priests to celebrate the extraordinary form of the Roman rite.
At Mater Misericordiae Masses, young children attend the Tridentine Mass with their parents and young adults attend with their peers.
While the mission’s numbers are steady, the Latin language is becoming more widespread in the Church. Many parishes are incorporating Latin into the liturgy and this summer Pope Benedict liberalized the celebration of the Tridentine Mass.
“In some regions not a small number of the faithful have been and remain attached with such great love and affection to the previous liturgical forms,” the pope explained in Summorum Pontificum. “The Latin liturgy in its various forms has stimulated the spiritual life of very many saints.”
Many members of Mater Misericordiae welcomed this apostolic letter, issued “motu proprio” (on his own initiative), and see it as reaffirming their mission.
“It’s really good news,” Smith said. “I think it helps people to realize that we’re just reclaiming something that’s always been ours, has always been the Church’s."
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