Last week, I was reading through Dr Taylor Marshall’s Twitter feed.

He featured in my Easter Monday post about the Dallas woman who was forbidden from entering her own parish church for not wearing a mask.

Over the 20th century, before my lifetime, the Catholic Church began reforms prior to Vatican II. This post will explore some of them.

The more reforms there are, the more questions the faithful have.

Chrism Mass — Maundy Thursday

In the old days of the Catholic Church, the chrism (oil) used in Baptism and, as it was then known, Extreme Unction (Anointing of the Sick and Dying) was blessed on Maundy Thursday at a daytime Mass attended by clergy and ordinands.

Now anything goes:

Holy Saturday – Easter Vigil Mass

I was too young to attend Easter Vigil Mass in Latin and wasn’t even around for pre-1955 Masses.

As such, this tweet piqued my interest at the weekend:

To know that this older rite is being celebrated around the world is heartening, indeed.

It took me a while to delve into the background and find out where the church is as well as the identity of the celebrant. Fortunately, the Easter Sunday Mass (below) has the Live Chat operating, which gave me a good start.

The YouTube channel, What Catholics Believe, is run by the priests belonging to the Society of Saint Pius V (SSPV).

The priest celebrating the Mass in the videos below is the Revd William Jenkins, pastor of Immaculate Conception Church, in Norwood, Ohio, near Cleveland.

The SSPV is a group of priests whose founding members broke away from Bishop Lefebvre’s Society of St Pius X (SSPX) in 1983.

The SSPV did not think that the SSPX had returned to the traditional Latin Mass and Catholic teachings sufficiently. They formed their own group, named after the pope who developed the Tridentine Mass in the 16th century: Saint Pius V.

The SSPV is based on Long Island, in Oyster Bay Cove, New York. The Society has its own bishop, five permanent priories, and a network of chapels and churches in 14 American states. The SSPV does not have canonical standing with Rome. The SSPV considers the possibility that the Holy See is currently unoccupied, meaning that they have not fully recognised the past few popes, including the present incumbent.

Below is the video of the pre-1955 Latin Mass celebrated on Holy Saturday by the Revd William Jenkins at Immaculate Conception Church. I watched all of it. It took me back to my post-1955 Tridentine Mass childhood, which preceded the reforms of Vatican II:

Look at the number of people attending. Women were traditionally required to wear lace mantillas, although there are a few young women with no head covering. Best of all, during our era of coronavirus: no masks!

As Mass begins, the statues on the altar are covered. That is because the Triduum — period of mourning — ends with the Easter Vigil Mass. After the introductory prayers, two of the altar boys carefully remove the purple fabric from the covered statues.

There is no Paschal candle, so it must have been a later development.

This Mass has more altar attendants than usual because of its ceremonial and celebratory nature. Incense is used to great effect, borrowing early worship traditions from the Old Testament. The fragrance from the incense in the thurifer ascends heavenward in the desire to make all the aspects of worship pleasing to God.

There are only two readings: the Epistle and the Gospel. The sermon follows. The sermon was not as scriptural as I would have liked, but it was good. The only thing I disagreed with was the priest’s saying that Mary anointed her son’s body. There is no mention of that in the New Testament. Other women named Mary did the anointing and visiting the tomb on the day of the Resurrection.

The next part that is worth watching and listening to is the consecration of the bread and wine. The priest prays quietly, therefore, as was true centuries ago, the congregation needs to know when the important parts of the prayer are being read, so that they, too, may bow their heads and pray. Hence the frequent ringing of bells by one or more of the altar boys.

Everyone approaches the altar for Holy Communion. They kneel at the altar rail. The priest blesses each communicant with the Sign of the Cross and places a consecrated host on each person’s tongue. (The cup is a much more recent development.)

It is wonderfully solemn. I was struck by the presence of people of all ages, from small children, to adolescents, to university-age students as well as adults, older and younger. If there were more Latin Masses, there would be more Catholics in the pews, that’s for sure!

Easter Sunday Masses

This video has back-to-back Easter Sunday Masses with the same celebrant at the same church:

All are well attended.

Some viewers might notice red and green lights early on in the lower left-hand corner of the screen. That is a shot of the confessional: red when occupied, green when the next penitent can enter.

Again, many people attended these Masses over Easter. What does that tell us? Traditional liturgy attracts a wide cross-section of worshippers, more that a modern service. Even my fellow Protestants can figure out from this what works and what doesn’t.

Those interested in more pre-1955 Latin Masses from the SSPV can view them here. These are viewed by people all over the world.

Dominus vobiscum.

(This ends my posts on Holy Week and Easter 2021.)