My family and I made it to the celebration of the Extraordinary Form of the Latin Mass at St. Patrick's in Nashua, and it definitely was extraordinary.
I was a little concerned at first that the church wouldn't fill up, but by the time Mass started all of the pews were filled.
Father Kelly offered the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass with great devotion, and reverence. It was a High Mass unlike any I had participated in before. Other High Masses have been exercises in liturgical multi-tasking. In those speedy High Masses, the priest would clearly move along with Mass while the Choir sang. Consequently it was a pleasant surprise to realize that Father Kelly was waiting for the beautiful Gregorian Chants to finish before continuing with the Mass. It was very easy to follow along, and the 2 hours didn't feel like 2 hours at all! The only thing that would have made it easier to follow would have been a wireless microphone on Father.
Some people have estimated that there were 600 in attendance, others were claiming 800, while others were thinking 1000. I took a pic at the end of Mass, but you must note that this won't include those that left right after communion (yes, it happens at any Mass).
The Latin Mass in the Extraordinary Form will likely be celebrated every other week at St. Patrick's, but that has not been decided yet.
Next week let's go worship our Lord in Portsmouth!
3 comments:
Thanks for the nice report. St. Patrick's also has confessions available "in the box" like 340 days of the year! Whether we attend the ordinary or the extra-ordinary form of the Latin Rite (or another Catholic Rite), our encounter with Christ is what is important. This has always been Fr. Kelly's theme. He alluded to this when he said in response to the question posed to him "What makes the 'Latin Mass' so special?": His answer: "Jesus".
Next 1962 Extra-ordinary rite Mass will be Sunday September 30, 2007 2 PM at St. Patrick's in Nashua.
Fr. Kelly said he would like to have the 2nd Sunday of the month reserved for the 'High Mass" at 4pm and the 4th Sunday of the Mass reserved for "Low Mass" at 2pm. He will continue to publish times in bulletin, but is hoping for this schedule. Low Mass would most likely not have music. Fr. Kelly said that schedule depends on Baptisms, availability of servers, singers and musicians. He said to keep in mind that extraordinary celebrations might at times require extraordinary effort from everyone.
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