At the request of students on the School’s Spiritual Life Committee, the monastery will offer the School community an optional Latin Mass this Saturday evening, April 17. The committee, under the supervision of Prior Michael Brunner, meets weekly and has fostered greater participation among the student body in the various campus liturgies, particularly in the church. Viewers of the Abbey’s live-streamed Masses and anyone who is able to attend in-person will have taken note of the high standards set by the student lectors who represent not only the committee, but also their residential houses. At a recent meeting, the students put forth the request to Fr. Michael to experience a Latin Mass on campus, and the planning for it has already taken shape, with Fr. Edward Mazuski acting as celebrant.

Fr. Ambrose Bennett, OSB, celebrating Latin Mass at St. Louis Abbey

Some readers of The Current who are of a certain age might recall a time when every Mass was in Latin, in the pre-Vatican II or "pre-Conciliar" period, referring to the Second Vatican Council. That is not an era in which our present high school students lived, nor perhaps even their parents. And yet there remains a draw, a fascination for them with the "Latin Mass," also called the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, or the Tridentine Mass. The Extraordinary Form remains a valid form of the Mass, as promulgated by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in his 2007 motu proprio (Latin for “on his own impulse”), "Summorum Pontificium" (“Of the Supreme Pontiffs”). Pope Benedict also released then a letter of explanation, expressing his appreciation for those faithful, not only older generations but young men and women, much like our students, who have “felt its attraction and found in it a form of encounter with the mystery of the Eucharist particularly suited to them.” The Extraordinary Form is not only about the language of the Mass, as the students will soon discover. When the Portsmouth Abbey's present church was consecrated in 1960, the configuration of its floor plan allowed for a number of “side” altars besides the raised central main altar. At one time there were four active altars in the upstairs gallery and seven on the ground level. The practice of a daily "conventual Mass" had yet to be introduced, but each monk/priest in the community celebrated his own daily "private" Mass in one of the side chapels. The number of monks at the time was high enough to have at times a very active church, with several Masses being celebrated simultaneously next to each other. Alumni of that generation speak of vivid memories of witnessing the panorama.

For several years after the motu proprio of 2007, St. Louis Abbey offered regular Latin Masses in a worship space called the Oratory of Ss. Gregory and Augustine. It was “erected” canonically on December 2, 2007, the First Sunday of Advent, by then-Archbishop (now Cardinal) Raymond L. Burke. Many students of the St. Louis Priory School attended Mass there and it offered young monks, like Fr. Edward, the opportunity to participate in other liturgies as well. Although the oratory has since been transferred to a parish in St. Louis city, some monks of St. Louis Abbey continue to celebrate the Latin Mass in their chapel. At Portsmouth, Fr. Edward is very pleased to be able to offer this prayerful opportunity to the School. Br. Sixtus also has experience with the Latin Mass, having served his first Latin Mass in 1959 at age 7 in his home parish in Pennsylvania, continuing as an altar server for 10 years until his graduation from high school in 1970. He notes that these years of service at the altar “spanned the transition from what is now called the Extraordinary Form in Latin to the Ordinary Form in English,” and he feels “quite comfortable praying in either form.” He assisted at a number of traditional Masses while living in Rome. Students cannot at present take up the ministry of altar server due to various guidelines and restrictions. Br. Sixtus, who also now serves as liturgical director, says that once those have been lifted, the monks will be eager to welcome back students desiring to serve at the altar. If sufficient interest is shown in maintaining a Latin Mass on the schedule, servers would be trained for those special positions.