This photo below is our Martha-Mary Chapel of St. Anne Church and is the Ordinary Mass of the Church prior to Vatican II. This building was built by Henry Ford in the 1930's as a Congregationalist Church, which he attended here. He gave it the name Martha-Mary Chapel, named after his mother and mother-in-law (but I am sure they were named after the saints!). The Diocese of Savannah acquired it in 1955 to become a Mission Parish, named St. Anne. This photo is from the late 1950's or early 60's.
On June 23, 2017 at the very same church, for the first time since the Ordinary Form of the Mass prior to Vatican II was last celebrated here, it will be freshly celebrated again as a High Mass for the Feast of the Most Sacred Heart of Jesus with the Cathedral's EF Schola, MC, altar boys and me, your most humble celebrant.
And
Catholic News Agency, which
Crux picked up, has a wonderful, open-minded article on the 10th anniversary of Summorum Pontificum. To love and appreciate both forms of the Mass celebrated by saying the black and doing the red is an act of open-minded magnanimity. If all the clergy and laity could be so!
Looking forward to 10 years of Summorum Pontificum
- Elise Harris
June 2, 2017
CATHOLIC NEWS AGENCY
A Mass said for the Summorum Pontificum pilgrimage in Rome held Oct. 25, 2014. (Credit: Daniel Ibanez/CNA.)
A
pilgrimage is being organized to mark the 10th anniversary of Summorum
Pontificum, the document by Benedict XVI aimed at broadening access to
the celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass. According to one of the
organizers the document “was not an instrument to divide” but to unite.
ROME
— Ten years after Benedict XVI broadened access to the celebration of
the Traditional Latin Mass, the document by which he did so is being
hailed as a means of closing the rift of division following liturgical
changes made after the Second Vatican Council.
“Sometimes there are these polemics, but I think Benedict tried to
overcome these polemics, saying that even in the liturgy there is a
certain progress … but clearly in full continuity with the tradition of
the Church,” Father Vincenzo Nuara, OP, told
Catholic News Agency May 31.
Tensions were heightened after the Second Vatican Council’s reforms,
and “unfortunately these situations of contrast, of opposition are
created” even today, Nuara said.
In light of this situation, Benedict XVI’s 2007 motu proprio
Summorum Pontificum,
which widened access to the pre-Vatican II liturgy, “was not an
instrument to divide” or throw further fuel on the flames, he said.
Rather, “it was an instrument to unite. To unite, and to bring again that ecclesial peace that’s needed in this time.
“I see it as a positive instrument, not negative,” Nuara said. “It’s
not an instrument for going backwards. It’s an instrument to reconnect
ourselves in continuity” with different ecclesial styles.
Nuara is president of the association “Priestly Friends of
Summorum Pontificum” and founder and spiritual assistant of the “
Youth and Tradition” association.
He is also one of the organizers of an upcoming
Sept. 14-17 pilgrimage marking the 10th anniversary of
Summorum Pontificum, and spoke to journalists at a working breakfast on the event.
The motu proprio was issued July 7, 2007, and went into effect
September 14 of that year, the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross.
The document established that the post-Vatican II Roman Missal, first
issued by Blessed Paul VI, is the ordinary form of the Roman rite, and
that the prior version, last issued by St. John XXIII in 1962 and known
as the Traditional Latin Mass or the Tridentine Mass, is the Roman
rite’s extraordinary form.
In the motu proprio, Benedict noted that the Traditional Latin Mass
was never abrogated. He awknowledged clearly the right of all priests of
the Roman rite to say Mass using the Roman Missal of 1962, and
established that parish priests should be willing to say the
extraordinary form for groups of the faithful who request it.
Benedict also established that the faithful could have recourse to
their bishop or even the Vatican if their requests for celebration of
the extraordinary form were not satisfied.
The provisions of
Summorum Pontificum for the use of the extraordinary form replaced those of St. John Paul II laid down in
Quattuor abhinc annos and
Ecclesia Dei.
According to that indult, priests and faithful who wished to
celebrate the Traditional Latin Mass had to get permission from their
bishop to do so. It could only be for those who requested it, could not
normally be said at parish churches, and the bishop could set days and
conditions for its celebration.
After the Second Vatican Council, the Missal issued by Bl. Paul VI, also known as the
Novus Ordo,
was widely adopted. It was widely translated into vernacular languages,
and is often celebrated with the priest facing toward the congregation.
However, not a few faithful continued to be attached to the earlier
form of the liturgy, and Benedict’s motu proprio was considered a
generous response to these faithful.
Benedict wrote in the motu proprio that the two forms “will in no way
lead to a division” in the Church’s belief “for they are two usages of
the one Roman rite.”
In his
letter to bishops accompanying Summorum Pontificum, Benedict also noted that “the two Forms of the usage of the Roman Rite can be mutually enriching.”
Nuara reflected that since
Summorum Pontificum, “those who
have permission to use the ancient form of the liturgy have also at the
same time rediscovered the sanctity of the new.”
This mutual enrichment is a discovery Nuara said he himself has made
in his 25 years as a priest, during which he has celebrated both the new
and ancient liturgical formulas.
But it is also a discovery “that many (other) priests have made.
“Benedict is a positive man. Benedict, who reflects as a theologian
and a pastor, realized that the ancient form that has grown in the
history of the Church for years, can give new impetus to the new form,”
he said.
The Mass “is the bridge where they meet, because the Eucharist is the
point of encounter … the sacrament of unity,” Nuara said, adding that
what “must be avoided” is that people “take advantage of their
particular trend or attention to one or the other liturgy, to create
fences of division and separation.”
Benedict himself celebrated the new form of the liturgy “with great
dignity,” but before his election as Bishop of Rome was also known to
celebrate the ancient liturgy with the same esteem.
What
Summorum Pontificum seeks to do then, is to work for
this unity, he said, adding that at 10 years since its publication, his
hope is that people from both sides will work toward this goal.
“We want to send, to communicate this message,” he said. “Because the Church is a family, the family of God.”
When the
Summorum Pontificum Pilgrimage takes place in September, it will be a privileged time to show this unity, he said.
The event’s first day, held at the Pontifical University of St.
Thomas Aquinas, will feature keynote addresses from Archbishop Guido
Pozzo, secretary of the Pontifical Commission Ecclesia Dei; Cardinal
Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the
Faith and president of the PCED; and Cardinal Robert Sarah, prefect of
the Congregation for Divine Worship.
Pilgrims who come will participate in various other activities
throughout the rest of the three days, including adoration and a
Eucharistic procession presided over by Archbishop Pozzo on September
16, followed by a Pontifical High Mass said by Cardinal Carlo Caffarra,
Archbishop Emeritus of Bologna.
Titled “
Summorum Pontificum: A renewed youth for the Church,” the pilgrimage is being organized by the “Priestly Friends of
Summorum Pontificum” and “Youth and Tradition” associations in partnership with the Coetus Internationalis Summorum Pontificum.
Speaking of the title in comments to journalists, Nuara noted that a
“truly surprising” phenomenon is that the “true protagonists” of this
new “season of the Church … are the youth.”
In his letter accompanying the motu proprio, Benedict had noted that
while “it has clearly been demonstrated that young persons too have
discovered this liturgical form, felt its attraction and found in it a
form of encounter with the Mystery of the Most Holy Eucharist,
particularly suited to them.”
“Benedict XVI already in 2007 was aware that the new recipients of
this liturgy, loved, desired and also sought, were the youth,” Nuara
said.
Pope Francis has also commented on the fact that many of the
enthusiasts for the Traditional Latin Mass are young people who never
knew it growing up, but encountered it later.
“Youth can’t be nostalgic for something they didn’t know,” Nuara
said, adding that “this is very nice, because by experience I can say
that the youth who draw near to the ancient liturgy of the Church love
it” for the reverence and silence of the celebration.
In celebrating the ancient form, “you really understand who is at the
center, who the protagonist is,” the priest said, noting that “youth
understand very well that this liturgy speaks of … the essential truth
of the faith.”
