Saturday, December 15, 2007

The Rorate Mass

I was only able to catch the live broadcast of this morning's Rorate Mass on EWTN starting from the homily, but from what I was able to see, another excellent job done by the priests of the Fraternity, as well as the Franciscan Sisters and the Friars at EWTN. Public thanks again go out to EWTN for airing these Masses, and I would encourage people to write EWTN to that effect as I am certain it would be appreciated and demonstrate a continued interest in seeing these Masses aired.

For those who didn't see the Mass, it will be re-aired at 6pm EST. Further, it appears that it will also be made available for "on-demand" viewing online here: Resources for the Tradiitional Latin Mass.

On that site, they have established an "Archive for EWTN Televised Extraordinary Form Masses" and they further note that "New multimedia will be posted after the airing of the Rorate Mass."

I have no word yet on whether the Rorate Mass will be made available on DVD.

The beautiful thing about EWTN airing these Masses in this way is that it introduces millions of people who may have had no exposure to this ancient form of the Roman liturgy to it. One can be certain that this will help spread interest in local celebrations of the usus antiquior as well -- and of course, from there the domino effect continues as regards celebrations of the modern Roman form in a hermeneutic of continuity.

Between the Pope's motu proprio, his "re-arrangement of the altar" for his own Masses and how we are beginning to see the slow but steady spread of that arrangement, let alone the other changes in the Papal Masses, it puts me to mind again about how different the liturgical climate is now even as compared to 5 years ago.

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