At 2 pm today, low Mass according to the Missal of 1962 was offered at the Co-Cathedral of St. Thomas More in Tallahassee. Although I did not get an exact head count, a regular parishioner told me that it appeared that there were nearly 500 in attendance.
For young Catholics, it was a chance to experience the richness of our liturgical tradition, a Mass with reverence, silence and the focus taken off the "community" and placed wholly upon Jesus Christ.
And young Catholics there were! Perhaps 20 percent of the congregation consisted of seniors. The rest were college age students, young families and even some apparent seminarians wearing CASSOCKS!
The Mass was offered by Fr. Joe Fowler from St. Paul parish in Pensacola. He delivered a fascinating, brief and focused homily on the priesthood--it was no surprise to learn that he was educated in Rome.
Like the recent Tridentine test-run in Waycross Georgia, Communion caused a bit of a problem. The Mass ran a bit long at an hour and a half, which probably could have gone more quickly had Communion been distributed more efficiently. St. Thomas More was built in the era of Communion rails, but somewhere along the line, some "enlightened" liturgical consultant had the rails removed during a "renovation". So, communicants were forced to kneel at two kneelers at the front of the altar.
This could probably be solved by having communicants kneel at the first of the steps leading to the altar. At San Diego's weekly Tridentine Mass at Holy Cross Mausoleum, communicants kneel in a circle on the first step of the circular platform around the altar, giving the priests room to distribute Holy Communion quickly and reverently.
I was almost ashamed standing in my short-sleeved shirt as I saw the many fathers in wool suits braving the 98 degree temperatures outside to show their reverence for Holy Mass.
I wrote the diocese of Pensacola-Tallahassee two years ago, requesting an indult Mass before Summorum Pontificum. I received a very polite reply that insisted that there was no point in having this Mass in Tallahassee, because there was just no demand for it. I have attended Mass at St. Thomas More on Sundays and Saturday evenings before and none of those Masses had a packed house like this one. Hopefully, those in charge will open their hearts and minds and see the where the future lies.
3 comments:
Just look at the history of St. Joseph's in Richmond and St. Francis de Sales in Atlanta, among others, to see how much demand there really is for the TLM.
Here in SC, in the few years since Bishop Baker gave the indult, a monthly TLM in Charleston has become weekly. The one here in Columbia *would* be weekly, but they're trying to find a priest to do it(the one who was gonna do it was transferred). I know a lot of people who are interested in the TLM, but the parish where it's held is too small (and not family-friendly), and the other priests say, "We already have that in town."
*Plus*, Bishop Baker established 2 Eastern missions: Melkites in Charleston and Maronites in Greenville.
Hello Robert! Thank you very much for your review. This is Stephen Mozier, who organized the TLM in Tallahassee. You are correct in saying how many attended. The church was about ninety-percent full, and as you know the building is quite large. We were hoping for a quarter-full and agreed that we'd be estatic if we were half full. But almost full? I am still trying to comprehend it!
As well, we ran out of missalettes, something I wasn't expecting. We had ordered 150 English-Latin and 25 Spanish-Latin missalettes, and we ended up runnig out with more people streaming in! It was incredible.
The hardest part, though, was indeed the communion distribution. We did try to do it on the lower steps during a rehearsal, but the steps are very narrow and the reach of the priest to the communicant is a stretch. The priest could lose his footing or an older parishioner may have difficulty in getting up from that hard, narrow step! So we went with prie-dieus instead, but then saw how it was slow because of our blessedly large congregation! Afterwards, during our dicussion, that was the one thing we focused on and will deal with it at our next (God willing) TLM mass.
Overall, though, it was a great success! May God bless Monsignor and our Bishop (who both supported the mass completely)and allow us to have another TLM, perhaps even have it as a High Mass!
I graduated from Florida State. Thank you for notifying me of this. It makes me miss attending Mass at this Cathedral.
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