Getting Better Acquainted with the Traditional Latin Mass
Many twenty-first-century Catholics, including a significant number of students and young adults, are drawn to the Traditional Latin Mass by the awesome majesty of its silent ceremonies and the reverence with which it is celebrated. On the Feast of Corpus Christi in the year 1976, Archbishop Lefebvre preached in Écône: “How beautiful Sunday Mass is! All these faithful people gathered around Our Lord Jesus Christ, participating in His Passion, receiving His Body and Blood, going back home with peace in their souls, joy in their hearts, strengthened and ready to suffer, if necessary, with Our Lord Jesus Christ, to endure their trials better!”1
How often, though, the same people who were so glad to discover a chapel staffed by the Society of Saint Pius X find themselves distracted during Mass, awkwardly trying to find their place in the missal, or anxiously wondering what they are supposed to be doing. The basic problem of unfamiliarity with the rituals is compounded by the language barrier, and maybe also by an attention span that has been shortened by extensive use of electronic social media.
This article offers observations and suggestions to make attendance at the Latin Mass more meaningful and beneficial.
Preparation
St. Charles Borromeo was a great Italian bishop in the decades after the Council of Trent. Whenever priests of his diocese complained that they became distracted while celebrating Mass, he would advise them to collect their thoughts more carefully in the sacristy. Mass does not start with the opening bell. It involves preparation, both spiritual and practical, remote and immediate.
There are no vesting prayers for Catholic lay people, but on Sunday morning they should remember that they are going to the house of the Lord and dress accordingly. The first rule is modesty. The guidelines at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome are:
The second rule is formality. T-shirts with images or printed messages are an unnecessary distraction. The standard attire for men in North America is coat and tie. Women and girls after a certain age are expected to wear a veil, a shawl, or a hat. A man or a boy should keep his head uncovered when in church. Saint Paul is our authority for these ancient customs (1 Corinthians 11:2-16). A woman’s hair is her glory, and she should not display it while praying. A man removes his hat as a sign of respect for someone greater. Finally, adults and children should dress soberly for Mass, avoiding garish colors, flamboyant styles, or gaudy jewelry and accessories. It may take some thought, effort, and self-denial at first to follow these rules for attire, but it is a step in developing habits of reverence at Mass and courtesy to one’s fellow parishioners. Another practical way to prepare for Mass is to set the ribbons or bookmarks in your missal before you leave home.
Prepare spiritually for Mass well in advance by making a thorough examination of conscience, on Saturday morning at the latest, planning to receive the Sacrament of Penance if necessary. Read and reflect on the Epistle and Gospel for that Sunday. Allow plenty of time to travel so that you can spend a few minutes in quiet, personal prayer before Mass starts.
Postures and Gestures
Most people realize that having a psychological “attitude” affects the way a person perceives and interprets what happens around him. The same is true about a physical “attitude” or posture, and so various postures are prescribed for those in the congregation at specific times in the Mass.
Standing is a sign of special attention or respect. The people stand when the priest processes to the altar and recesses at the end of Mass; when they listen to the Gospel (both in Latin and when it is repeated in English); and when they recite the Nicene Creed.
Sitting expresses relaxation or receptivity. At Low Mass the people sit only during the sermon and the offertory. During a Missa cantata they also sit for the Epistle, Gradual, and Alleluia/Tract, and when the celebrant sits down during the Gloria and the Credo, since all these prayers are considerably longer when sung.
Kneeling is a sign of humility, reverence, and prayer of petition. The people kneel from the prayers at the foot of the altar until the Gospel at Low Mass, and at all Masses from the Sanctus until the Lord’s Prayer, and then again from the Agnus Dei until the Last Gospel.
A layperson’s first gesture at Sunday Mass is the Sign of the Cross: we bless ourselves with holy water as we enter the church. This recalls our Baptism in an act of faith. We come into God’s house as His children. The second is genuflecting to the Blessed Sacrament in the tabernacle before taking a place in the pew. We show reverence to Our Lord in an act of love.
The Sign of the Cross is made many times during Mass, for example: when the prayers at the foot of the altar start, as the priest begins to recite the Introit, at the conclusion of the Gloria and the Credo at the name of the Holy Ghost, recalling the Holy Trinity.
As an expression of heartfelt sorrow, we strike our breast three times while saying “mea culpa” during the Confiteor. Small signs of the cross are made with the thumb on the forehead, lips, and chest before the Gospel at the response “Gloria Tibi, Domine,” asking God to bless our thoughts, words, and hearts. All present bow their heads whenever the name of Jesus is pronounced, in readings, the sermon, or the Gloria and the Creed (see Phil. 2:10).
Use of the Hand Missal
Many chapels have a supply of booklets with the prayers of Low Mass in Latin and English on facing pages. They should be regarded as “training wheels” for those who are unfamiliar with the structure of the Latin Mass. Anyone who attends the TLM regularly should invest in a hand missal so as to be able to read the proper prayers for each Sunday and feast day.
In a hand missal the unchanging parts of the Mass are usually printed in the middle of the book in both languages. Use one ribbon or prayer card to mark the “Ordinary,” and advance it whenever you turn a page. A cross-reference in small print, e.g. “Turn to the Introit,” will indicate when it is time for one of the Proper prayers. The Propers for each Sunday are found at the front of the missal, starting with the Sundays in Advent and continuing through the liturgical seasons. Mark the Propers for the liturgical day with another ribbon, because you will need to flip back and forth several times between them and the unchanging parts of the Mass. A third ribbon can be used when the liturgical season has a special Preface (the prayer introducing the Canon of the Mass). To save space, a seasonal Preface is not reprinted week after week; often all the Prefaces are grouped separately near the Ordinary. These ancient prayers offer much material for meditation.
Some Holy Days of Obligation are not part of a liturgical season, e.g. the Assumption of the B.V.M. (August 15) and the Immaculate Conception (December 8). The Propers for these feasts are found in the cycle of saints’ days toward the back of the missal.
A beautiful tradition is to buy a simplified, illustrated missal for a child as a First Communion present, and then a “grown-up” missal when the child receives the Sacrament of Confirmation.
Sacred Space and Sacred Time
A Catholic church building is always consecrated in an elaborate liturgy before it is used. This makes the entire church a holy place. The traditional altar rail, though, clearly separates the area for the congregation (the “nave,” from the Latin navis, “ship”) from the sanctuary, which contains the pulpit, the altar, and the tabernacle. The sanctuary is a step higher than the nave, and within the sanctuary, steps lead up to the altar. This partitioning and the different levels symbolize the meeting of earth and heaven in the Mass.
The sacred space is symbolic in a second way: it is Oriented. Even if the altar is not located near the eastern wall of the building geographically, the people in the pews and the priest at the altar all face liturgical “East,” from which the Light of Christ rises.
The artworks in this sacred space—ceiling or wall paintings, stained glass windows, statues—are not arbitrary decorations. Several mini-litanies in the Latin Mass show that the angels and saints in heaven worship with the people attending Mass on earth.
“Sacred time” refers primarily to the seasons of the liturgical year. These are reflected in the colors of the vestments, just as the earth’s vegetation changes color from winter to autumn. The liturgical seasons depend on the sun (Christmas is on average three days after the winter solstice), and on the moon (Easter falls on the Sunday after the first full moon after the spring equinox). Thus the orientation of the church building and the liturgical calendar situate the Mass within the cosmos that God created and personally visits.
Sacred time also includes the important symbolism of before and after. The celebrant always starts the prayers that he and the people recite alternately. He prays the Confiteor alone (like the prior in the ancient monastic custom), and then the people pray theirs together. He receives Holy Communion first, distributes it to the servers, and then to the people.
The more dignified person or thing has “precedence” over others. The Epistle and Gospel are read first in Latin, and then repeated in English. At the end of the offertory, the celebrant says, “Pray, brethren, that my sacrifice and yours may be acceptable.” The people offer a spiritual sacrifice with the celebrant, but only an ordained priest can pronounce the words of the consecration and offer the Sacrifice of the Mass.
The more elaborate the ceremonies (Missa cantata, Solemn High Mass), the more examples you can find of this rule of precedence, which structures sacred time meaningfully.
Conclusion
The prayers at the foot of the altar begin with the recitation of Psalm 42[43], after the antiphon: Introibo ad altare Dei, “I will go in to the altar of God.” These words label the Mass as a journey, an ascent to draw closer to Christ. They also suggest that divine worship is an ongoing action, and that we on earth enter into it. “How beautiful Sunday Mass is!”
Endnotes
1 Msgr. Marcel Lefebvre, “Fête-Dieu,” in Écône, Chaire de Vérité: Sermons (Éditions IRIS, 2015), 181-185 at 183.
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