MY EXPERIENCE OF SUMMORUM PONTIFICUM AS A PASTOR

When Pope Benedict XVI through his liturgical and pastoral solicitude and genius, allowed for the freer celebration of the 1962 Roman Missal, my bishop at the time, asked priests who were inclined to take up that permission to first poll the parish about their interest in having the 1962 Missal Mass.

I did so at St. Joseph Church in Macon, Georgia. I received 300 positive responses and no negative. 

My bishop then said to move forward and I did. First. I held an educational session on a Wednesday evening on the differences between the two Masses, differences in participation and spirituality. Over 100 attended that catechesis. 

We scheduled the first EF Mass, as a Low Mass, on the first day that SP went into effect, which was the Solemnity of the Exaltation of the Cross on September 14, 2007. It was a stormy night in Macon, with tornado watches, thunder, lightening and heavy rain. The church was almost filled to capacity.

I was a nervous wreck as I had only vague memories of the older Mass, had not attended a pure 1962 Missal Mass since about 1966 as a 12 year old. But it made an impression on me. I felt more “priestly” in the function of what I was doing during the whole Mass compared to the Modern Mass, which I love and love to have it celebrated properly. 

After that, we began a monthly Sunday EF Mass at 2 PM. And one weekly Low Mass on Tuesdays at 5 PM. We formed a schola to chant the Mass and that grew and developed over the years.

There were no problems with division in the parish and the EF people easily floated between the two forms and were fully engaged in the parish.

By 2015, we began celebrating one of our five weekend Masses in the Ordinary Form ad orientem for the Liturgy of the Eucharist. We restored the historic altar railing and Communion was offered to the faithful either standing or kneeling. But the altar railing at its full length was used at the Sunday ad orientem Mass.

During that year, we shifted the monthly EF Mass to the 12:10 PM Sunday ad orientem Mass, but once a month. No one complained to me but it was well known that the last Sunday of the Month Mass would be the 1962 Missal and thus in Latin not English. Most people thought the only difference was that the Mass was in Latin and with major moments of ritual silence. 

We offered a vigil Mass for Holy Days of Obligation in the 1962 form. 

Let us pray that Pope Leo XIV will return sanity to the Church and integrate the 1962 Roman Missal back into normal parish life and ask bishops to be more engaged with their priests about how to do it and priests to be more engaged with their laity about their hopes and concerns about how the Mass is celebrated.