The Baptists have a custom, I believe, when the Sunday service has been particularly uplifting, of exclaiming to one another: "We really had church!" I see no reason Catholics can't use that fine expression and so I do, to describe the High Solemn Mass on the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, Usus Antiquior (Latin), at the Church of Our Saviour in New York yesterday evening.
The celebrant was Fr. Rutler, assisted by Fr. Richard Cipolla, Deacon Stephen Genovese and, by my count, fourteen other servers, including seven seminarians from St. Joseph's Seminary in Yonkers. It was a feast for the eyes, and the ears as well for also assisting was David Hughes, organist-choir director, who led two expert choirs in chants and a mass setting by Palestrina. Hughes's prelude was Messiaen's, "Jésus Accepte La Souffrance" from "La Nativite du Seigneur" and his postlude was Bach's Passacaglia & Fugue in C Minor, which a surprising number people remained in the pews to hear in its entirety.
Go to the excellent website of the Society of St. Hugh of Cluny to see and learn more about last evening's and other traditional celebrations of the mass. Catholics are blessed to have this glorious heritage, especially now that the Holy Father is working on restoring this heritage to its proper place in worship. The Society reminds us on its website
We should rejoice at these developments, but let us not fool ourselves. It will take years - generations, even - to rebuild the temple of the Western liturgy. Pope Benedict's recent interview on Summorum Pontificum illustrates all too clearly the magnitude of the problems and perils before us.
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