Tridentine Latin Mass returns to St. Mary’s by the Sea

Even if you’re not Catholic, this is significant. Imagine what would happen if, tomorrow, all the rock radio stations in America started playing Beethoven’s Missa Solemnis, Mozart’s Requiem, Palestrina’s Missa Papae Marcelli, and Bach’s B Minor Mass for six hours a day (the previous links are to YouTube videos, if you want to listen to some samples). Or, for that matter, if they started playing old-style Protestant hymns.

Culture always trumps politics, and in fact politics comes from culture. That’s why the most important event this year was not anything in politics, but Pope Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio (decree) restoring the Tridentine Latin Rite throughout the Catholic Church; the Pope even noted that, contrary to widespread belief, the Tridentine Mass never had been banned.

At St. Mary’s by the Sea’s High Mass today at noon, the Mass truly was “the most beautiful thing this side of heaven,” as someone observed years ago about the Tridentine Mass. Said by Fr. Xavier, a Norbertine priest, and accompanied by a competent choir, the Mass was sublime and inspiring. About 120 people were in the pews, significantly more than have attended the noon Mass, said in Latin but in the Novus Ordo rite, in recent weeks.

I snapped the picture above on my cell’s camera. Note the six candles on each side of the altar, indicating High Mass, and the the priest facing toward the altar, not the people.

The Tridentine Mass long was at St. Mary’s until its pastor, Fr. Daniel Johnson, retired 3-1/2 years ago; he died earlier this year. A lot of parishoners then fled the church, some to chapels that still featured the Tridentine Mass but were not affiliated with the the local bishop, Tod Brown. As I’ve mentioned before, I never would attend an unapproved Mass (except as a journalistic observer). But there’s no doubt that these chapels around the world were one reason, among many, the Pope issued his order, as he indicates in the text of the Motu Proprio.

The Motu Proprio was supposed to be implemented in September, but Bishop Brown delayed that until today, Dec. 2. Well, even though I haven’t exactly been a fan of Bishop Brown’s administration of the diocese, I’m not going to grouse about the delay, as some have done. 2-1/2 months isn’t too long to wait. The Bishop was busy with the controversy over Msgr. Urell‘s testimony and departure for Canada. And Fr. Martin Tran, the pastor, just spent a month in his native Vietnam.

I talked briefly with Fr. Tran after the Mass and he was happy. I don’t know if he recognized me as the author, along with my former colleague Steven Greenhut, of the Register blogs in spring 2006 that sparked the infamous kneeling controversy, which became an international cause celebre.

But for Fr. Tran, the controversy is over. He followed the Bishop’s wishes during the kneeling controversy, even though it sparked the controversy. But now he has also followed the Bishop’s wishes in smoothly bringing the Tridentine Mass — which is filled with kneeling — back to St. Mary’s. It make take some time, but I suspect that most of those who left St. Mary’s because of the controversies will come back.

And Bishop Brown did what he’s supposed to do: advance what the Pope called, in the Motu Proprio, “an interior reconciliation in the heart of the church” by accommodating the needs of tradition-minded Catholics. Until now, the Tridentine Mass has been offered officially in Orange County only early in the morning in out-of-the-way parishes.

Although the vernacular Mass, the Novus Ordo, can be said beautifully, usually it’s said to the accompaniment of insipid guitars and drums imitating the sound of  Peter, Paul, and Mary (the 1960s folk-rock group, not the saints). I always wonder why they don’t go all the way and play adaptations of the kind of shock rock I listened to as a teenager, with the volume turned up to 11 to annoy my parents: The Who, Hendrix, Zeppelin, the MC5, the Stooges. If I’m gonna have to listen to rock music at Mass, instead of “Kumbaya,” make it “Purple Haze” turned up loud enough to make me need a hearing aid.

But I don’t need to worry about that now because I can just attend the Tridentine Mass at St. Mary’s.

It’s a blessed day and all Orange County will receive many graces.

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