[The NLM reported a few weeks back a training session occurring in a small Lithuanian town with Prof. Laszlo Dobszay and Fr. Scott Haynes of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius. I am please to present their report, and some photos they have provided of this training session, no doubt finding itself replicated in many other regions of the world as well.]
Kraziai is a small town in Lithuania. Since 2002, Kraziai has become the center for many young people to rediscover their Catholic faith and experience the beauty of the Sacred Liturgy. During the study week “Ad Fontes,” famous teachers, such as Prof. Godehard Jopich, Prof. Laszlo Dobszay, and Father Uwe Michael Lang have come and shared their faith and knowledge with the young people.
The Motu Proprio “Summorum Pontificum” represents a turning point in the history of both Kraziai and the Catholic Church in Lithuania. It has become the place where the classical Roman rite is being reintroduced in Lithuania. Just a week before the sixth “Ad Fontes” study week, several Lithuanian priests have come to Kraziai to learn to pray the Mass according to the Missale Romanum of 1962. They are being taught by Father Scott Haynes, S.J.C., of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius (Chicago) and by Father Ervin Kovac (Hungary). Two brothers from the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius have accompanied Father Scott Haynes to teach the seminarians present how to serve the Tridentine Mass. During the “Ad Fontes” study week, the participants will daily chant for the Tridentine Latin High Mass, as well as for the hours of the Divinum Officium (1962).
Father Scott Haynes, S.J.C.:
“Having arrived on July 31st in Vilnius, Fr. Alionidas Budrius and I met with the Papal Nuncio in his residence to inform him of the training sessions planned for this week. Grateful for Our Holy Father’s recent Motu Proprio, Archbishop Peter St. Zurbriggen encouraged us in our work and gladly gave us his blessing. The priests and seminarians who are attending classes to learn to pray the Missale Romanum 1962 are eager to learn to offer the Mass of the Ages. They bring a good knowledge of Latin, a desire to serve the Catholic faithful and strong fidelity to the Holy Father. They are thankful that the Holy Father has further opened this great treasure of the Church, replete with spiritual riches.”
Father Oskaras Volskis, the director of Catholic radio station in Lithuania:
"With reverence and attention I have accepted the Motu Proprio and the explanatory letter to the bishops of our Church. As a priest and a journalist I am trying to get to know the Roman liturgy as well as the theology in depth, so that I can transmit it to the faithful correctly. I would like to transmit it as a value which is not to be despised or doubted. The Pope is acting as the man in the Gospel who brings out the treasures, old and new, for the common good of the Church. I have participated in the Tridentine Mass already several times. And now I am very glad for this opportunity to learn the old Roman rite myself . I am grateful to our teachers as well as to the old professors of my seminary who taught me Latin and conveyed the norms of the Traditional liturgy.“
