Latin Advent IV

Yesterday morning, I took Laurent to the Catholic cathedral for his first Mass there. It surprised me that after four years of living in the same town and within walking distance of St. Matthew's, he'd never gotten over for a service or at least a visit, but we remedied that.

We went to the 10 o'clock service, one that is always fun and a bit different, since it's in Latin. No, they don't do the Tridentine liturgy, but they do the Novus Ordo service, a contemporary, post-Vatican II translation. The homily, readings, and prayers of the people remain in English. The Mass setting is all assorted Gregorian chant, and the celebrant chanted much (though not nearly all he could) of the service.

The cathedral has a very nice, professional Schola Cantorum, supplemented with their Gregorian Scholars, that provides the musical leadership for the Mass. They sang "Ave Maria 5vv" by Palestrina for the offertory anthem, did a choral Agnus Dei from Missa super dixit Maria by Hassler, and for a communion motet, they did "Ecce concipies" by Gallus, in addition to introit, offertory, and communion antiphons.

There was one little sore thumb during the service. After the communion motet, they scheduled a congregational hymn "Within Our Hearts Be Born," a contemporary thing from the Gather hymnal. Now, the cathedral does seven Masses every Sunday, and this is the only Latin Mass. Now, I may be wrong, but don't you think that the people who come to the Latin Mass aren't exactly the Gather hymnal crowd?

(FYI, for you non-Catholics, the "traditional" hymnal these days is the Worship hymnal, a book filled with a few Catholic hymns, but mainly composed of solid Anglican and Lutheran hymns with revised "Catholic" words; the Gather hymnal is the reviled repository of bad contemporary Catholic music for the Haugen and Haas crowd and those who enjoy the "St. Louis Jesuits" genre.)

Other hymns for the day were Truro for the processional and Veni Veni Emmanuel for the recessional.

There was a very young priest I didn't know who was celebrant and homilist. I find it interesting how so many of the younger generation in the Church are attracted to the traditional ritual and ceremony of the old ways, and make fun of the folk Mass/hippie style of "contemporary" worship.

On our way into the cathedral, the cathedral rector was standing back in the narthex. I introduced Laurent to the good monsignor so Laurent wouldn't think he was another seminarian like he did with the rector of the National Shrine. LOL Laurent liked the service. Gregorian chant sounds so nice in marble, reverberant spaces.