The Life Teen Phenomenon: A Guide to Resources

In this article, “Life Teen” should be understood not only as the program known by this name, but also as representative of a certain mentality that can be found in many programs—some officially named, others nameless, local, and spontaneous.

A friend of mine wrote to me as follows.

Dear Dr. Kwasniewski,

What are your thoughts on the Life Teen phenomenon? Often priests will bring in this program because they say they’ve had success with this outreach to youth, who are “energized” through a youth Mass. They might even admit that the Catholicism preached in Life Teen and the youth Masses is dumbed down, but they say, if the young people are going more often to Confession and Adoration, it must be somewhat a good thing.

One wonders if what’s going on is that most young people have experienced very poor liturgy, so anything different seems like an improvement to them. Plus, if they are required to go to Mass for Confirmation prep (as is the case in many places), their attendance cannot be chalked up as a sign of approval.

Nevertheless, is there long-term fruit from Life Teen? Do these young people stay in the Church after high school? Life Teen has been around for a while, but the huge number of young people leaving the Church seems to keep climbing. If this program was so successful, shouldn’t that exodus at least be leveling off? So maybe young people are involved, but then fall away.

At a meeting with the parish team, we got into a conversation about “externals” that can be changed and adapted with the times, so I brought up the issue of communion in the hand vs. kneeling to receive on the tongue to make the case that form and content cannot be separated so easily—that, when certain forms or externals are removed, the truth of the faith can be obscured. The priest, however, insisted that it’s only a matter of the heart and said he couldn’t imagine anything more reverent than receiving Jesus in the hand (!). At this point, I realized that we see Catholicism in a fundamentally different way, though I was already sensing that.

The difficulty that I’m having is that he supports things like Adoration (he wants to try to establish perpetual Adoration), he talks about helping people know Jesus, and about teaching the lost. I certainly can’t be opposed to those things! It’d be one thing if he just didn’t care. But he’s passionate about restoring the faith in our area. Also, I can’t discount the success he’s had at other places. 

However, traditional liturgy is not a priority for him. He speaks a lot about the liturgy, but he’s more focused on it being “meaningful and uplifting.” He prefers the contemporary church music. To my mind, this is fundamentally misguided, but in parishes he’s been at, numbers have improved. What do you make of all of this?

Sincerely,
A Youth Minister
 

Here was my reply.

All of what you describe is familiar to me, and not least because I went to many retreats in high school that anticipated the Life Teen phenomenon. It is the “new paradigm” of liturgy: somewhat informal, upbeat, very contemporary, like the evangelical Protestants, but with some Catholic flavoring added: devotion to the Virgin Mary, Adoration, Stations. Of course, such Catholic elements are good, but they have been ripped from their proper theological and liturgical context and are now free-floating constellations of devotion. We should not be quick to think that a priest has the right idea about what he’s doing just because he follows the Catechism and wants to encourage “good things.”

Let me begin with Adoration. I am passionately devoted to Adoration. But... it has a proper context and can in fact be abused. On this topic, the best thing to read is a pair of articles by Joseph Shaw (here and here).

As for Life Teen, where to begin? First, the history of its founder cannot inspire confidence. Beyond that, I think one needs to question the general assumption that “youth want contemporary things and it’s the Church’s job to give it to them.” An old article at NLM does a great job dismantling that, but it’s a theme many, many authors have returned to (see John Mac Ghlionn’s “Traditional Catholicism, the new ‘cool’ for young Americans”).

Fr Christopher Smith does a thorough job refuting the “praise & worship” musical genre typical of this movement (here and here; cf. this too). I have addressed this topic at some length in my book Good Music, Sacred Music, and Silence: Three Gifts of God for Liturgy and for Life.

Samuel Gregg offers keen insights in “A Church drowning in sentimentalism.” The assumption at work is that the reality of an encounter can be measured by its emotional impact. The stronger your emotions, the more real your experience was. There is some truth to this. A great musical or dramatic performance will produce strong emotions. Falling in love (eros) is the most perfect example.

But placing an equal sign between reality and feeling, experience and emotion, is part of the legacy of Romanticism, not a self-evident proposition or a truth that can be demonstrated. In fact, it flies in the face of most of humanity’s assumptions through the ages. The romantics were understandably reacting against rationalism, which had made the opposite error by equating reality with idea, or experience with rational consciousness. Rationalism’s account of the human person was too cerebral, too “thin”; it viewed man as if he were a disembodied mind gazing out indifferently on a world of truth. Romanticism’s reactionary account was too corporeal and sensual, too “thick”; it viewed man as if he were a bundle of emotions ready to catch fire. I wrote about this codependency between rationalism and romanticism here.

In spite of the external glitz, Life Teen and most of these rock-it-up adolescent movements, including the charismatics, have a fairly poor track record. Those who get involved mostly either mature into something else or wander away. I don’t have stats to back it up but I hear it so often from clergy and music ministers and people around the country that I consider it to have at least anecdotal value. Many of the criticisms made about charismatics apply exactly to Life Teen and similar programs: see “Confusion about Graces: A Catholic Critique of the Charismatic Movement” and “Why Charismatic Catholics Should Love the Traditional Latin Mass.”

Perhaps not surprisingly, there’s a lot of Life Teen-critical material out there by now, if you search the internet; and there is an equal amount bearing witness to the unexpected attraction of tradition for youths.

Lastly, you brought up communion in the hand. This is truly one of the most wicked abuses that has ever been introduced into the Church’s worship. The practice had gone away for 1,000 years due to an increased sense of reverence; suddenly bringing it back, and in a Calvinist form, sent the contrary message. The best short article on the topic would be this one: “Debunking the myth that today’s Communion in the hand revives an ancient custom.”

Keep on learning. Your instincts and intuitions are right on.

Dr. Kwasniewski

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s Substack “Tradition & Sanity”; personal site; composer site; publishing house Os Justi Press and YouTube, SoundCloud, and Spotify pages.

Revisiting a Dominican Theologian’s Appeal for Mutual Understanding in the Era of Summorum Pontificum

I am grateful to my colleague Gregory for pointing out to me this interesting article by a French Dominican, published by E.S.M. on December 16, 2007—thus, reacting to the initial fallout from the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum—and yet, as far as I can tell, never published online in English, a regrettable lacuna we have now sought to fill. While naturally one may not agree with all his points, the good father’s reflections indicate an amicable ‘catholic’ mentality that might have prevailed, had not Benedict’s peace given way to Francis’s war. —PAK

Benedict XVI’s Motu Proprio Is Significant: Planets Suddenly Meet

Thierry-Dominique Humbrecht, OP

The debates surrounding the Motu Proprio seem to be symptomatic: planets that haven’t met for a long time are suddenly facing each other, astonished by each other’s existence, since the galaxy of the Church in France seems to be so full of empty spaces.

These planets are those of the “traddies” and those who are not—the majority of the French clergy and a large proportion of the parishioners. There are other planets which only partly overlap the previous configuration: young Catholics versus the so-called “Council generation” (the over-60s), or charismatics and other new communities versus Catholic Action, etc. It’s a beautiful diversity, demonstrating Christian plurality and everyone’s right to exist. How does this encounter take place?

Culture shock

We could discuss the theological differences that seem to separate these currents, usually crystallized around the reception or rejection of the Second Vatican Council. All of this is true, or rather should be, because unfortunately this formulation gives too much weight to theology. More than theologies, cultures and social milieus are suddenly colliding. For example, the mass of the clergy corresponding to the above-mentioned sexagenarian generation is rather left-wing, social and popular (or wants to be), including some of the higher clergy. The younger generations of Catholics, on the other hand, seem to belong to a more right-wing culture (albeit a pluralistic one), a more bourgeois and urban culture, not only because of the pendulum swinging back and forth, as our lazy intelligence too often lets us believe, but because of the numerical collapse of the middle classes, which should occupy the center and diversify the whole.

While remaining a minority, the traditionalist world is proving to be proportionally important for the present and, above all, for the future of the French Catholic community. In fact, it is the whole of the younger generation—from the right of the “traddies” to the left of the charismatics, including the new communities and certain dioceses—which at this time takes on a certain relief perceived as unitary, beyond their mutual yet considerable differences.

This is not without concern for the older generations. They don’t find in their younger siblings the ideals that thrilled them forty years ago. They realize the numerical and dynamic importance of these new currents, which they have nevertheless worked so hard to minimize for years. Young people want spiritual and liturgical life, fidelity to Rome, intellectual training, new reference-points, and explicit apostolic figures. It is not rare for the older generation to feel judged by the young. The latter most often aren’t giving it any thought, but the way they live [their faith] is perceived as an indictment.

The “traddy” crisis was therefore one of the occasions (like the World Youth Days, in fact) to reveal the non-marginal existence of several Catholic currents that the collective conscience had been willing to overlook.

Symptoms of cracks

The risk for all would be to defend themselves by excluding others. The Church is broad and maternal enough to contain them all. On the contrary, a propensity towards communitarianism would be a sign of the Christian community’s ill health.

The cracks in French Catholic culture have been caused by a number of ideologies, and sometimes make it difficult to amalgamate different ages and affiliations. The parish should play this role, but it is only succeeding in certain places that have taken the measure of the relevant phenomena in time. It’s the leaders of Catholic Action who are cracking—too late, unfortunately. Drifts have taken place and it will take time to reconcile generations, sensitivities, and, even more, ideas. All the more so, as we have left Christendom behind. Unity should focus more on theological substance than on pastoral options, which paradoxically combine pedagogical rigidity and doctrinal fragmentation.

The liturgical pluralism of the two states of the Roman rite may be damaging, but it is the consequence of a violent liturgical splintering [éclatement liturgique sauvage], even more damaging, on which official light is still too timidly shed.

Moving forward together

Only a spiritual, liturgical, and catechetical renewal of the whole French ecclesial community will enable the harmonious integration of the “traddies.” The latter, for their part, need to exert an effort to make themselves presentable. They also need to brush up on their theology, their pastoral care, and even their sense of liturgical dress.

A mutual effort of understanding is needed if these planets are to revolve in the same galaxy. Each is called to seek the truth rather than to be right. We need to find a common language, based on the Church’s present and perennial teaching, which is the point of reference for all debates.

A minimum of dialogue needs to be cultivated, through friendly encounters and an attempt to understand other people’s value systems, far from any jealously cultivated paranoia. No single Christian current holds the ideal cultural determinations of the Gospel message. Mutual approaches are gradually taking shape, and we must not delay in establishing them.

In the final analysis, the necessities of dogma, morality, liturgy, and the spiritual life of the Christian people, on the one hand, and the cultural conditioning of groups and individuals, on the other, are intertwined, sometimes in a disturbing way. Not everything is equally important.

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s Substack “Tradition & Sanity”; personal site; composer site; publishing house Os Justi Press and YouTube, SoundCloud, and Spotify pages.

Introducing the Newest Jubilee Mascot: Tenebro

I am sure that by now, all of our readers have met Luce, the official mascot of the upcoming Jubilee, who was introduced to the world on Monday as an expression of the Church’s desire “to live even within the pop culture so beloved by our youth.” However, as many have noted, the style of the new mascot seems geared to appeal to those who are so young that they are just as likely to fall asleep under a pew as to sit in one, leaving the unfortunate impression that the Faith is something to be grown out of. Rightly might one suspect that she holds little interest for groups within the Church whose numbers are growing, such as young men, and those who love traditional forms of worship. 

To meet this problem, the wise men of the Sacred Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith have decided that the Jubilee of 2025 will have a whole range of mascots, designed to appeal to a variety of demographics. New Liturgical Movement is very proud to have been chosen as the outlet for introducing the world to the first new character in the Luce expanded universe, her putative (n.b.!) nemesis Tenebro.

The official backstory of Tenebro is that he is one of the Rigidicons, a group who are reputed to have the dark power to gradually extinguish all the lights of progress that have been lit within the Church over the last 60 years. (This power is suggested by the fact that they dress primarily in black.) In early episodes of the upcoming animated series, it will appear to many that Tenebro is trying to hinder Luce from completing her pilgrimage to Rome.

But, as is so often the case, the real story is a lot more complicated. (Spoiler alert!) It will be gradually revealed that another character, the Pontiff Supreme Benedicto, transformed the power of the Rigidicons, such that the lights which they extinguish come blazing back to life and illuminate the whole Church. Tenebro is one of a growing faction among the Rigidicons who have embraced this transformation of their power for good, which is conveyed through the diadem on his chest. (It will also be Tenebro who teaches the young Luce that a rosary is not a necklace...)

New Liturgical Movement will be the first to let you know as each of a whole spate of new Jubilee mascot characters is brought out to an eagerly waiting Church and world.

“The Latin Mass and Youth: Young Catholics Speak About the Mass of the Ages” - A New Collection of Essays

Back in April, we published notice of a book project about young people and their love for the traditional Latin Mass, put together by Mr Phillip Campbell, the author of the blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam, and of a lot of books. We are pleased to announce that the result of this project, a book titled “The Latin Mass and Youth: Young Catholics Speak About the Mass of the Ages”, is now available for pre-order from Cruachan Hill Press, and expected to ship in the first or second week of November. A pre-order discounted price of $16.95 is offered through the end of the month.

The book contains 42 essays written by young people ages 12-25 from all over the world, including the USA and Europe, Philippines and Nigeria, Southeast Asia and Central America. The authors come from all backgrounds and walks of life; some are diocesan Latin Mass goers, others Institute/Fraternity, and some SSPX. I make bold to suggest that this collection might make a useful Christmas gift to priests and bishops who are curious to know why the traditional rite is so attractive to so many young people. These essays will certainly open their eyes to an important pastoral reality in the Church today, one which is not going to become any less real, or less fruitful, for recent acts of official disapproval.

“The venerable Roman liturgy as well as the desire of the people to worship God through it are both from the Holy Spirit. In that sense, traditionalism is the new ‘charismatic movement’ in the Church. Our shepherds will gain or lose much from how they react to this unexpected renewal, which, as this book potently demonstrates, is especially prevalent among Catholic youth.” – Dr. Peter A. Kwasniewski, author of Reclaiming Our Roman Catholic Birthright

“This book shatters the stereotype—sadly still common among some—of cold, harsh, ‘rigid’ traditionalists. On the contrary, the warmth, vitality and joy of the Catholic faith shine brightly through the eloquent testimonies of these young people from across the world. Each, in their own way, bear witness to the priceless treasure of beauty, reverence and truth that, by the grace of God, they have discovered in the traditional Latin Mass, the ‘strong meat’ (Hebrews 5, 14) that gives them peace and strength to withstand the pressures of the modern world. The Latin Mass and the Youth offers a deeply hopeful and encouraging glimpse into the future of the Church, especially for those who may be curious about why more and more young Catholics are drawn to and fall in love with the Mass of the Ages.” – Matthew P. Hazell, author of Index Lectionum: A Comparative Table of Readings for the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms of the Roman Rite

“In his Confessions, the great St. Augustine exclaims, ‘Late have I loved Thee, o Beauty ever ancient, ever new!’ The famous convert was addressing God Himself, of course, but his words can be applied in an analogous way to the Church’s liturgy and faith, both of which are ‘ever ancient’ in their sources (Scripture and Tradition) and ‘ever new’ in their ability to convey the truth, beauty, goodness, and majesty of God to all men of all time. The essays in this book are a testimony to the power of the Traditional Latin Mass to attract and transform souls in our time by immersing them in divine truth, beauty, goodness, and majesty – all of which have been obscured in recent decades by various ‘profane novelties’ (1 Tim. 6, 20). Thanks be to God for raising up a multitude of ‘little ones’ (Matt. 11, 25) in our time and revealing to them the precious treasures hidden in the Traditional Latin Mass. – Matt Gaspers, Inside the Vatican

A Teen’s Testimony of the Impact of the Latin Mass in Her Life

The following account was a homeschool assignment given to a 15-year-old from California. We are grateful to this remarkable young lady for having shared it with NLM. To me, it speaks more (and more profound) truths than we will ever hear from any Synod. – PAK

I have been going to the Traditional Latin Mass for several years now, and with good reason. It has enriched me spiritually in many ways, and I have felt a stronger love for Jesus Christ in my soul than ever before.

When I was younger, only about five years old, I went to the Novus Ordo Mass every Sunday. My older brother, especially, instilled in me a love for God and for Holy Mass. He told me to meditate on the Mass, and the sacrifice that was taking place, and to spend lots of time contemplating the decades of the rosary.

But to be honest, I never understood how the Mass was a “sacrifice.” At my Novus Ordo church, the priests said it was a celebration. To my younger and smaller self, I had trouble figuring out whether the Mass was a sacrifice or a celebration. Because to me, it certainly could not have been both. A celebration reminded me of parties and happiness, and a sacrifice reminded me of sorrow and pain. A small child does not understand the meaning of true sorrow and deep pain, and so the concept of a “sacrifice” seemed very mysterious to me. I wondered a lot about it, but after not figuring out what a sacrifice really was, I decided to cast those thoughts aside. If I didn’t understand it, then surely it wasn’t important, right?

I lived in a similar way for years, trying to love God but not knowing what loving God really was; trying to pay attention to Mass, but not understanding what was taking place. I knew God was present, but I didn’t know the prayers. When did the bread become the Holy Eucharist? I used to think it was when the band started singing the Holy, Holy, Holy Lord God of Hosts and we all knelt. I even thought that I was already a saint, and that everyone around me was too. Hell was a place reserved for very, very few people, I thought.

As I got older, I started disliking Mass. Why did we have to go every week, sometimes even more frequently than that? I especially disliked when Christmas Day fell on a Saturday, because then we would have to go to Mass two days in a row. I noticed no difference in my spiritual life. I didn’t even know what a spiritual life was. I was told by my brother and mother that it was something very special. But I never knew what it was exactly. How can someone tell if they are advancing in their spiritual life? Since I had felt no change my entire life, I assumed I had reached that point of spiritual perfection long ago. But the saints loved the Mass very much, so if I was a saint, then how come I didn’t like Mass?

One day, though, everything changed. My father announced that we were not going to our regular parish that Sunday, but to a different one. A different parish with a different Mass.

When we arrived, I noticed how quiet it was. How sacred it felt. When the Traditional Latin Mass began to be offered in front of me, I was confused. I didn’t understand a thing, and I didn’t give anyone the sign of peace. It felt very different. I remember particularly disliking kneeling a lot and not being able to talk to people in the pews behind me. It was like something very serious was going on. But I had never thought the Mass to be very serious, so why was everyone so prayerful and reverent? And everyone dressed nice too. It wasn’t like a get-together for everyone to join hands and sing happy songs and chat. It was a beautiful, sacred prayer.

For about the first six months, I disliked both Masses. I didn’t like kneeling for so long. The Novus Ordo Mass was boring enough. Why did we have to go to a different Mass that felt twice as long?

Changes in my soul were slow, but definitely there. Over the years, I learned more and more. I learned that the Mass was a prayer, something I had never known before. I followed along to the prayers in the 1962 Missal and saw people reverently beating their chest at the Agnus Dei, and it seemed so interesting to do that, so I started doing that too. I wore a veil, which obscured some of my sight, making me almost see in tunnel-vision forward to the altar. The Gregorian chants were breathtaking, and I would just kneel there, listening to the beautiful music and watch the incense float up to heaven, and I felt peace.

I went from being a child continuously asking her mother when we could leave, to a child who somehow just knew that she had to be silent. I learned, from the grace of God, that Mass is for praying. Mass is for adoring Christ. When I genuflected in front of the Altar, I really meant it. If I didn’t walk slowly and reverently through the church, I felt like I was disrespecting God’s holy place. Because God was there, and I knew it very well.

I started looking forward to Mass, and to the rosary, like never before. I would take every moment to deeply meditate and pray. I would impatiently wait in the car on the drive to Mass, thinking about kneeling before the altar and pouring out my entire heart to God. He became my confidante, and so easily, with God’s grace aiding me, I would feel infinitely better after praying. It was like a breath of fresh air. When I was a child, I thought God was just this important god that made the world then took a step back. After going to the Latin Mass, I realized how much of a father He is. He did not take a step back from the world, and He listens to our prayers every day. I can put total trust in Him because I know He loves me.

Sometimes I would envision the altar as a throne, and when the priest was consecrating the Eucharist, a king would come and sit on the throne. And at communion, the people were coming to the foot of the throne to beg their king for help, to adore their king and his mightiness, to thank their king for all he has done for them. It was truly special. But, in my mind, people could not go visit their king without a gift! Therefore, it would make sense that people had to give something to God when they went to receive, because God was giving Himself to them. The person receiving needed to have a desire for God and had to be as pure and sinless as possible. A person had to become like an angel from heaven before they could dare receive God. 

As I grew older, I grew alongside a Mass that was never-changing. One that reflected the never-changing nature of God. It became like a home to me. I grew spiritually in ways I cannot even describe.

When I turned fourteen, I traveled to Spain for three months. Spain is an incredible place, really, and I had an amazing time there. But of course, everyone experiences the regular feelings of homesickness for the first week or so. I had never been in Europe before, so it was a very new experience to me.

One of the first things I noticed was my homesickness, and the desire for something familiar. On Sunday I went with my family to the Latin Mass in Madrid, and it patched up my homesick heart. When I knelt there, I poured my heart out to God in contemplative prayer, and I was more than glad that I was not at a Novus Ordo Mass—I didn’t have to respond to prayers aloud or greet people. I could just pray and feel God’s presence. The Traditional Latin Mass was a piece of home, but not like if I were to go to an American restaurant in Spain or see American tourists. What made it feel like home was God. That sacred presence in my church at home was there. That infinite peace, and the feeling of God’s grace coaxing you into deep prayer so delicately. It was all there.

I’m sorry to say, but when I later went to a Novus Ordo Mass in Spain, it wasn’t the same. I tried very, very hard to feel the same, but it was so hard, even though I can speak Spanish. The Mass was too distracting! I could not pray, or prepare myself for communion, or make thanksgiving afterward. I kept telling myself I would save my prayers and my devotions for after Mass, in the period of silence before the candles are blown out and the altar is disassembled. But that defeats the entire purpose of Mass! How can you go to a Mass and tell yourself that you will pray afterward? Mass is a prayer itself. How can you pray Mass after Mass is done?

I went to the Novus Ordo Mass every day in Spain except on Sundays (when we went to the Latin Mass), and I became confused again and again. I didn’t feel at peace or at home. I had been going to the Novus Ordo for half of my life and yet it didn’t feel at all like home. There wasn’t a hint of nostalgia. All I could think was how I wished I could just be in the Latin Mass at that moment.

I’ve even gotten to the point where, when I stand in the pew at a Novus Ordo Mass, a particular thought runs through my mind. I don’t try to think about anything but the Mass, yet, unbidden, this thought keeps returning: Why does this feel so fake? Why am I even here? What am I getting from this?

The only thing that consoles me at a Novus Ordo Mass is receiving the Holy Eucharist. But otherwise, I feel the childhood boredom I had felt for many years in the past, that wishing for it to be over soon.

I cannot fully explain why the Latin Mass has helped me so much. When someone asks me to explain my experience, I’m usually at a loss for words at first. How can you describe the deep movements of your soul in words? It truly is a very beautiful experience, and one that a person can only understand after they have been to the Latin Mass themselves. I proudly say that I will try my very best to attend the Latin Mass as long as it remains available, for the rest of my life if God wills it. I believe that the Latin Mass is the Mass that will truly aid me on the journey to spiritual perfection. And I believe that it will change your life too, just as it did mine.

Seeking Essayists for Latin Mass and Youth Project

Phillip Campbell, author of the blog Unam Sanctam Catholicam, and of a lot of books, is putting together a book project about young people and their love for the traditional Latin Mass. We are glad to share his post about it, and encourage our readers to consider participating.

Photo by Allison Girone

“I am working on compiling a series of essays from young people on the subject of what the Latin Mass means to them, which will ultimately be published in book form. The goal of this book is to explore the question of why the traditional liturgy is so appealing to the youth.

I am therefore asking for your help to identify young people who would be interested in contributing essays to the project. This post contains all the information about the project for those who might be interested in participating or having their children participate. If you are interested in supporting this endeavor, please read on.

1. Who Can Participate?

Contributors should be:

    (a) Between the ages of 12 and 24

    (b) Regular or semi-regular attendees of the TLM

    (c) Willing and able to cogently write an essay on the subject of the Mass

Participants certainly do not need to be advanced writers, but they should at least be competent writers.

2. What Should Participants Write On?

The general subject of the essay is "What does the Traditional Latin Mass mean to me?" There are a variety of ways to answer the question. For example, participants may write about:

• A narrative of how they discovered the TLM.
• How the TLM has benefited their spiritual lives.
• How the TLM has helped them enter into liturgical worship more fully.
• What they learned about the Catholic faith through the TLM.
• Any personal stories or anecdotes relating to love of the traditional Mass. ~ Anything relating to the place the traditional liturgy plays in their lives

Keep the tone of the essay positive, focused on the beauty, attraction, and transformative power of the traditional liturgy. The narrative should be personal, written in first person voice.

3. How Long Should the Essays Be?

Essays should be 2+ pages single spaced, or 4+ pages double spaced. A little shorter or a little longer is fine, but in general this is the average desired length.

4. When Should Essays Be Completed By?

I am hoping to have all the essays collected by the beginning of July.

5. How Should Essays Be Submitted?

Essays should be submitted as Microsoft Word documents, Google Docs, or Open Office, and emailed to me at uscatholicam@gmail.com. Please do not send PDFs or scans of hand-written essays. I need something in an editable format.

6. Should I Forward This to Others? How Many Essays Do You Need?

I am hoping to collect at least 50 essays. Please feel free to share this post with anyone you think may be interested (although please be selective with whom you send this to; do not simply spam it to huge mailing lists—give some thought to specific individuals of interest and send it to them).

7. Will Essays Be Edited?

Essays will be edited for typos and basic grammar, but the specific narrative and voice of each participant will be preserved.

8. Will Participants Be Identified?

Only by first name, age, and general region (U.S. state, province, or country).

9. How Do Participants Sign Up?

Simply send an email to uscatholicam@gmail.com, let me know the name and age of who will be participating (whether yourself or one of your children) and I will put your name on the list. Please do not sign up unless you or your child are able to meet the criteria listed above, including the deadline. Please include first and last name of the participant and their location. This information will not be made public; it's just for me to keep track internally of who is submitting what.

10. When Will the Book Be Published?

Lord willing, by the end of the summer this year.

Blessed Rolando Rivi

On this day in the year 1945, a 14-year old Italian seminarian named Rolando Rivi died as a martyr in a little town called Monchio, in the province of Modena. Rolando was born in 1931, and began serving Mass at the age of five; he made his first Communion on the feast of Corpus Christi, June 16, 1938. In 1942, at the age of 11, he entered the minor seminary at Marola, and was admired by his teachers as an exemplary student, and a boy of sincere and serious devotion. As was the custom in those days, he was clothed in the cassock, and wore the saturno as part of the regular clerical dress; already at that tender age, he expressed the desire to become a missionary. He was noted as both an excellent singer and musician, and participated enthusiastically in the seminary choir.

The young Rolando was the kind of fellow who shows himself to be a leader in every activity, and his grandmother is reported to have said, with the special wisdom of Italian grandmothers, that he would end up as “a saint or a scoundrel.” Many stories are told of him encouraging his friends to come to church for Mass or devotions after a soccer game. During his summer vacation, he continued to dress and live as a seminarian, with no remission from his devotional life of daily Mass, rosary, meditation and prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Many times he said that the cassock was a sign “that I belong to Jesus.”

In the summer of 1944, the seminary at Marola was occupied by German troops, and Rolando was forced to return home; he was able, however, to continue his studies with the local parish priest. He continued to wear the cassock in public, despite his parents’ concerns that this would make him a target of the anticlerical violence then rampant in north-central Italy. And indeed, by the time Rolando returned home from the seminary, his former parish priest had been moved out of the area for safety’s sake. In the years immediately after the collapse of Italian fascism in July 1943, nearly 100 priests were murdered by Communist partisans in the part of the Emilia-Romagna known as the “red triangle.”

On April 10, 1945, a group of these partisans kidnapped Rolando as he was studying in a little grove near his home; his parents discovered both his books and a note from the partisans warning them not to look for him. He was taken to a farmhouse, beaten and tortured for three days, under the absurd accusation that he had been a spy for the Germans; he was then dragged into a woods, stripped of his cassock, and shot twice in the head. The partisans rolled his cassock up into a ball and used it to play soccer.

His father and parish priest discovered his body the following day. He was buried temporarily in the cemetery of the town where he was killed, but translated a month later to his native place, San Valentino. Since the day of his death often falls in Holy Week or Easter week, his liturgical feast is kept on the day of this translation, May 29th. The decree recognizing that his violent death was inflicted “in odium fidei” was signed by the Pope on March 28, 2013, and his beatification as a martyr was celebrated on October 5th of that year. His relics now repose in the church of San Valentino di Castellarano; on his tomb is written “Io sono di Gesù”, Italian for “I belong to Jesus.”

I make bold to suggest that Bl. Rolando is a good person to appeal to if you know any seminarians who need prayers, and especially those who are persecuted for their love of the Church’s traditions; and further, that it would not be a bad idea to consider what it was about the Church that Rolando Rivi lived in that enabled him to face martyrdom so bravely at the age of only 14. Beate Rolande, ora pro nobis!

“If Synodality Can’t Get Young People Interested in the Church, Then What Can?”

It would be perfectly reasonable for you to assume that that questioning headline comes from Eccles or the Babylon Bee, and yet, somehow, you would be wrong in that assumption. It actually comes from an article on Commonweal (which is still, somehow, a thing), and was, somehow, chosen as a good way to highlight the article by whoever manages their Twitter account.

It turns out, to the author’s disconcert (and the surprise of no one who has ever actually met a young person) that students at Catholic universities are more interested in, um, studying and enjoying life, rather than having meetings about meetings about meetings, preparatory to having meetings about meetings, so that their bishops can get together and have a meeting. Shocking, I know...

So, you ask, what DOES keep young people interested in the practice of the Faith? No idea...

Irish Musings on the Rebirth of the Traditional Mass

Several people have brought this to my attention in the last couple of days, a beautiful reminiscence posted on Reddit about the collapse of religious practice in Ireland, and the writer’s reversion at a very young age through the discovery of the traditional Mass. (The New Pentecost™ has been especially harsh in Ireland; I recently read that in this past year, more bishops were ordained there than priests.) In accordance with the standards of fair use, here are a few excerpts. If the author should chance to read this: I would be very glad to repost your lovely piece in full, with your permission. If you are amenable to this, please contact me at gdipippo@newliturgicalmovement.org.

“I can only describe the Ireland I was born into with the cliché that the past is a different country. As a baby of the nineties, I caught the last breaths of ‘Catholic Ireland’. I remember the dread and spite at being awakened each Sunday for Mass. You had to arrive half an hour before Mass to hope to get a seat and then endure the boredom of ‘Shine Jesus Shine’ and corny jokes from Father Trendy in the pulpit. ...

When I was nine, something strange happened. ... one Sunday I appeared in the kitchen dressed for Mass only to be told to change and go outside and play. I cannot express the joy I had at that moment. It was like a snow day off school and I quickly joined about half my friends whose families had also stopped going to church. I would have sang halleluias to God for getting out of that despised rite if I had believed in him.

On the Feast of the Immaculate Conception 2002, we went to Dublin, as we always did, to do our Christmas Shopping. ... I hated, and continue to hate, shopping with such zealotry that my Mother would allow me to wander the city’s museums and churches unattended knowing me to be wary and sensible, while she got to shopping in nearby shops. Whilst she browsed the stalls, I popped into an old, run-down, church. I always lit a candle on Immaculate Conception for my grandmother since it was her birthday and, as an 11 year old boy, playing with fire was really only acceptable if you were lighting candles for your granny.

I walked in and there I saw my first traditional Mass.

I had no idea what was going on, I had no inkling that it was even a Mass but I was in complete enchantment. Somehow, in the midst of the dust and the damp, and the spattering of grannies with headscarves and lace doilies, and the elderly man who croaked Latin chant alone in the loft above me, I knew God existed and was there in that spotless host that the old priest touched with such awe, such respect and love.”

From a post in December of 2016, an Irish priest of the Institute of Christ the King offering his first Mass at the church of St Kevin in Dublin.

A Look Back on the Festival of Saint Louis 2021 (Guest Article and Photos)

NLM thanks Anna Kalinowski for her detailed commentary on the second annual Festival of St. Louis, once again a great success (as the stirring photos help convey).

The Apotheosis of St. Louis in Forest Park, where Catholics of St. Louis, Missouri, meet weekly year-round to pray the Holy Rosary

A few weeks ago, Catholics in Saint Louis, Missouri, outdid themselves once again in celebrating the feast of their city’s beloved patron. Faithful from all over the archdiocese and many out-of-state visitors came together to participate in an impressive series of liturgical and paraliturgical events known as The Festival of St. Louis.

The celebrations, which were organized primarily by the Oratory of SS. Gregory and Augustine, began officially in the Archdiocese’s mother church, the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, with Solemn First Vespers on the evening of Tuesday, August 24^th. Solemn seven-cope vespers may very well have been a first in the basilica’s history of a hundred-plus years.

The proper chants for Vespers were taken from a manuscript of an Office composed just after St. Louis’s canonization in 1297 for use at the Sainte-Chapelle in Paris. It was for many years the most widely celebrated Office for Louis, King of France.

Procession into the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis for Solemn First Vespers

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A Traditional Faith Camp in Hungary

We are grateful to the members of a Premonstratensian abbey in Hungary for sending us this account of a summer camp which they held in July, introducing young people to the richness of the Catholic Faith via the traditional liturgy.

For a week in the middle of July 2021, the pupils of Hungary’s St Norbert High School, aged 9-16, visited the community of the Abbey’s dependent house and the Norbertine Sisters in the village of Zsámbék to spend time learning about traditional liturgy with their friends in a lovely natural environment. We are proud to share a few snapshots of our camp here.

Vespers

We began with the Mass of the second day within the octave of St Norbert. No better week could have been chosen for the pupils of the Praemonstratensian Abbey School, and, by the end, everybody knew the Gloria and Credo really well, since they were sung at every Mass by reason of the octave. There is a growing appreciation even among the youngest of the riches and additional possibilities of the Norbertine Rite.

Incensation of the high altar.

Since there were so many young men present for the daily morning Masses, we were able to bring in a few lesser-appreciated traditional practices that we do not normally have the ability to include in our ceremonies. The youngest server was our boat-bearer, aged 9, the eldest, the master of ceremonies, 15, with the rest in between. A Norbertine candidate organized the ceremonies and led the rehearsals.

Ascendat in conspectu tuo, Domine...

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Tradition is for the Young - A Recent Pontifical Mass in Louisiana

Here’s something very nice which slipped through the cracks of my mailbox, and should have been posted earlier (apologies!): on the first Wednesday of this month, June 2, H.E. Glen Provost, Bishop of Lake Charles, Louisiana, celebrated a Pontifical Mass in the traditional rite at the Cathedral of the Immaculate Conception, to mark the ongoing Year of St Joseph. Wednesday of course is the traditional day to commemorate patron Saints, and since St Joseph is Patron of the Universal Church, his votive Mass is assigned to that day in the Missal of the Extraordinary Form.

Anyone who has ever served this rite of Mass knows that it requires a fair amount of organizing and rehearsal to do properly; the reward is, of course, a ceremony which truly impresses upon one, forcibly and unmistakably, the power and majesty of what the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass really is. We can all take encouragement once again from the fact that almost none of the people who are making the effort and commitment to put this together are old enough to be doing so from any sense of “nostalgia”; what we see here is a true and sincere love for the richness of our Catholic liturgical tradition. Feliciter! (Photos by Kim and Jason Rhorer; click here to see the full album.)

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Tradition is for the Young - Photos by Allison Girone

It has been a busy month for Allison Girone, one of our favorite photographers, who has graciously shared with us her work from some recent events at a couple of different churches: two first Communion ceremonies, a Confirmation, a priest’s first Mass, and a May crowning. I never tire of saying that we should all take encouragement from seeing how many young people are not just participating in the Sacraments and ceremonies of the Church, but also working to make sure that they continue to be celebrated in the traditional rites. Feliciter!

First Communions at the Church of St Patrick in Wilmington, Delaware

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Blessed Rolando Rivi

On this day in the year 1945, a 14-year old Italian seminarian named Rolando Rivi died as a martyr in a little town called Monchio, in the province of Modena. Rolando was born in 1931, and began serving Mass at the age of five; he made his first Communion on the feast of Corpus Christi, June 16, 1938. In 1942, at the age of 11, he entered the minor seminary at Marola, and was admired by his teachers as an exemplary student, and a boy of sincere and serious devotion. As was the custom in those days, he was clothed in the cassock, and wore the saturno as part of the regular clerical dress; already at that tender age, he expressed the desire to become a missionary. He was noted as both an excellent singer and musician, and participated enthusiastically in the seminary choir.

The young Rolando was the kind of fellow who shows himself to be a leader in every activity, and his grandmother is reported to have said, with the special wisdom of Italian grandmothers, that he would end up as “a saint or a scoundrel.” Many stories are told of him encouraging his friends to come to church for Mass or devotions after a soccer game. During his summer vacation, he continued to dress and live as a seminarian, with no remission from his devotional life of daily Mass, rosary, meditation and prayer before the Blessed Sacrament. Many times he said that the cassock was a sign “that I belong to Jesus.”

In the summer of 1944, the seminary at Marola was occupied by German troops, and Rolando was forced to return home; he was able, however, to continue his studies with the local parish priest. He continued to wear the cassock in public, despite his parents’ concerns that this would make him a target of the anticlerical violence then rampant in north-central Italy. And indeed, by the time Rolando returned home from the seminary, his former parish priest had been moved out of the area for safety’s sake. In the years immediately after the collapse of Italian fascism in July 1943, nearly 100 priests were murdered by Communist partisans in the part of the Emilia-Romagna known as the “red triangle.”

On April 10, 1945, a group of these partisans kidnapped Rolando as he was studying in a little grove near his home; his parents discovered both his books and a note from the partisans warning them not to look for him. He was taken to a farmhouse, beaten and tortured for three days, under the absurd accusation that he had been a spy for the Germans; he was then dragged into a woods, stripped of his cassock, and shot twice in the head. The partisans rolled his cassock up into a ball and used it to play soccer.

His father and parish priest discovered his body the following day. He was buried temporarily in the cemetery of the town where he was killed, but translated a month later to his native place, San Valentino. Since the day of his death often falls in Holy Week or Easter week, his liturgical feast is kept on the day of this translation, May 29th. The decree recognizing that his violent death was inflicted “in odium fidei” was signed by the Pope on March 28, 2013, and his beatification as a martyr was celebrated on October 5th of that year. His relics now repose in the church of San Valentino di Castellarano; on his tomb is written “Io sono di Gesù”, Italian for “I belong to Jesus.”

I make bold to suggest that Bl. Rolando is a good person to appeal to if you know any seminarians who need prayers, and especially those who are persecuted for their love of the Church’s traditions; and further, in preparation for next year’s symposium on the priesthood, that it would not be a bad idea to consider what it was about the Church that Rolando Rivi lived in that enabled him to face martyrdom so bravely at the age of only 14. Beate Rolande, ora pro nobis!

“Why The Youth Want Tradition” : Another Excellent Commentary from Brian Holdsworth

Brian Holdsworth has just posted another superb video on why traditional forms of worship are so appealing to the young, and why attempts to “relate” to young people by aping the forms of popular culture in the liturgy inevitably fail. Any further commentary on this from me would be quite superfluous, apart from urging all of our readers to share this around as much as they can.

Education and Devotion: A School of the Lord’s Service - Guest Article by Ferdi McDermott

We wish to thank Mr Ferdi McDermott, the headmaster of Chavagnes International College, for sharing with us this essay on the place of the liturgy and the Extraordinary Form in a Catholic education. Mr McDermott is a graduate of the universities of Edinburgh and Buckingham, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, the Chartered College of Teaching, and the Society of Antiquaries of Scotland. When not busy teaching and administering Chavagnes, he is currently completing a doctorate in Education at the University of Buckingham.

At Chavagnes International College, our English Catholic boarding school for boys, situated in the west of France, near Nantes, Mass is celebrated daily in the main College Chapel, Monday to Friday according to the 1962 missal, for all boys and Masters. On Sundays, Mass and Vespers in the Extraordinary form attract parents of pupils and a growing local following of friends and supporters. In addition, there are confessions, adoration, Benediction and other devotions held regularly in our chapel. The strains of Gregorian chant can be heard every day. Why, might you ask, do we place the Church’s liturgy at the heart of our life as a school? Perhaps I may answer this by an attempt at telling the story of Catholic education from an English standpoint, and with a very long view.

Solemn Mass in the chapel at Chavagnes

At Chavagnes, we take as our blueprint the checklist for Catholic schools from Vatican II’s Gravissimum Educationis: a broad education not just confined to religious teaching, a deep education which creates a habit of intellectual discipline, a moral formation and, lastly, a formation in prayer, especially in the context of the Sacred Liturgy. That document is nearly sixty years old now. But its philosophy is much older, as I will try to show.

When, about twenty years ago, I was setting up Chavagnes International College, I studied the handbooks of several leading English public schools for inspiration. Browsing through the correct and crisp prose on the arcana of uniform, haircuts and sports gear, I noticed a common feature of several leading boarding schools that surprised me. Boys were not only expected to attend daily chapel services, but especially obliged to be present in chapel on a Sunday, to keep the Sabbath day holy. In cases where parents took their sons home for the weekend, they were asked to provide the name and telephone number of the incumbent of the parish their son would be attending, to enable the school authorities to check that he had been to church. I even heard anecdotes of rich step-fathers waiting outside English country churches in their comfortable convertibles while their sleepy stepsons who had been hauled out of bed after a night of partying, dozed through Prayer Book Mattins and a dreary sermon in a discreet pew near the back door.

Nowadays such happenings are rare. Priorities have sadly changed. And with covid and its lockdown, many things will never be the same again. But within living memory, our nation’s leading places of education recognised strongly the centrality of worship to education. Moreover, the only mandatory elements of State education until the 1980s were Christian Religious Instruction and a daily act of worship. No other country in Europe had a similar law. The roots of this tradition are very deep. In England today we still have hundreds of schools founded during the first millennium of English pre-Reformation Christianity. That is unique. And despite the trauma of the Reformation, many had, until perhaps the last decade, held on to the idea that the best education is one which has the worship of God at its heart. As I approach 50 next year, I remember with fondness the country primary school where we read the Bible, prayed several times a day and sang traditional hymns. It all seemed completely normal then.

Later on, at senior school, there were perhaps fewer prayers, but there was much more study of Scripture, and as a chorister I got to sing plenty of Palestrina, Bach and Mozart. I was a Catholic boy in an Anglican school. But I could tell it was a good one. And a positive experience of both primary and secondary school got me interested in education at an early age.

Let me tell you about the first ever Catholic boarding school for boys … in the late 2nd century, in the shadow of the great library of Alexandria, where, three centuries before, the chief librarian Eratosthenes had first calculated the circumference of the globe, St Clement of Alexandria ran a school for boys where the mathematics of Pythagoras, the oratory of Cicero and the epic poetry of Homer were taught alongside not only Sacred Scripture and Christian doctrine, but also Greek athletics and dance. And every day, the pupils would recite the psalms and attend the liturgy. In fact they spent an incredible amount of time singing, and here is a hymn that Clement composed for them to sing, probably outside of the liturgy, and perhaps as they danced! I give it in an English translation which, although it omits many of the beautiful metaphors (the boys are untamed foals; Christ is the bit in their mouths; they later go out with him to haul in the fishes, etc) it is at least rhyming, metrical and easy to sing (to the melody of “Thou whose almighty Word” Translation by H. M. Dexter, 1909-14, in Hymns of the Christian Church, The Harvard Classics.).

SHEPHERD of tender youth
Guiding in love and truth
Through devious ways;
Christ our triumphant king,
We come Thy name to sing;
Hither our children bring
Tributes of praise.

So now, and till we die,
Sound we Thy praises high,
And joyful sing.
Let all the holy throng
Who to Thy Church belong,
Unite and swell the song
To Christ our King!

We need to move on three hundred years to the Rule of St Benedict in the sixth century to understand how this great tradition came to spread throughout Europe and strike very deep roots in distant England. In his Rule, Benedict calls the monks to practise each day a specific kind of prayer called ‘meditation’ in which the Christian repeats in a low voice the words of a sacred text, over and over, to draw out the meaning. But he can only do that if he can read the words. So Benedict orders that during 'meditation time' the boys, together with any men under 50 who cannot yet read, must be taught their letters. And then in addition the whole psalter should be recited each week, as well as the celebration of Masses. But monasteries, even before St Benedict, were not only places of prayer; they were also the repositories of secular knowledge going back to the Greeks. And schools qua schools, such as there were, were always very much communities of prayer.

These were the places that kept the light of civilisation burning while everything seemed to be collapsing in Europe. And it was the new rule of St Benedict which gave a new impetus to monasticism and to education, thus coming to the rescue of cultural continuity and also of the spreading of the Gospel . But this important role which the Rule of St Benedict played in the promotion of Christian education and culture is really all down to one man, St Gregory the Great.

In the 6th century, Gregory was a rich young man who had set up a community following St Benedict's Rule in his family villa. When he became Pope, he famously sent Augustine all the way to Canterbury with a group of Anglo-Saxon boys discovered in the slave market of Rome. He had seen these fair-haired youths and wondered at their strange appearance. When he enquired as to their identity he was told ‘Angli sunt’, meaning “they are Angles”. ‘Non angli sed angeli’ … “Not Angles, but angels … if only they were Christians” he is said to have answered.

And so the boys were bought out of slavery, then no doubt offered a few hot dinners and fresh clothes, before accepting baptism and the monastic tonsure. Thus was English Catholicism born. They accompanied Augustine across the channel as his translators. And out of this community grew the first English Catholic boarding school, with the worship of God at its heart. First there was Canterbury, then Rochester. Other monastic schools began to spring up everywhere in England, under the influence of St Gregory’s Regula Pastoralis. Several of them still exist today, 1,400 years later. It ought to be mentioned that in the Celtic fringes of the north and west, and in Ireland, the Catholic faith had been present since Roman times. In Ireland, monastic schools, and even whole monastic villages, had existed since the 5th century.

We know all about the adventures of St Augustine of Canterbury from the writings of St Bede, who himself benefited from a 7th century monastic education in the monastery of Jarrow, near Durham, in the north of England. Bede wrote mighty pedagogical treatises too, proof that only a generation or two after the mission to the Anglo-Saxons, the school system was well and truly up and running all over England.

In the 9th century, King Alfred the Great, who himself translated Pope Gregory’s Regula into Anglo-Saxon, trenewed the call across the land, during a substantial 15-year period of truce with the Danes: "education for all." And that meant girls as well as boys. The main thing was to learn to read, so that the knowledge of books and the words of prayer could enter the soul through the window of the eye. And not just Latin, but also Old English. Thus, when the Normans conquered England two centuries later in 1066, they subdued a pragmatic, more egalitarian and more learned race which already had a flourishing written literature in their native tongue, while written French was only in its infancy.

And so in what we came to call the Dark Ages, with the Roman Empire in collapse and the threat of the Norsemen ever present, the English (with the Welsh, the Irish and the Scots) busied themselves with the creation of centres of prayer, culture and learning. In a climate of uncertainty, but in a spirit of faith, the whole of England had taken, as it were, “the Benedict Option.” The teaching of Greek suffered a decline, but the Latin flourished and many Greek stories were retold in Latin, while the mathematical writings of Euclid, translated into Latin, were widely studied. There was no imperial system to keep all this going, but the Church made a surprisingly good job of it, especially in England, Wales, Scotland and Ireland, despite their considerable distance from Rome. Continental Europe was in turmoil, but in faraway Britain even the girls went to school, while in Ireland, the penitential monks were busy reciting all 150 psalms, not weekly, but daily. They were praying like mad … for Europe. While Alfred started his chain of Saxon schools, Charlemagne did the same in France. But he needed an Irishman (St Clement of Ireland) to run his cathedral school for boys in Paris, while an Englishman (Alcuin of York) ran the Palace School in Aachen (Aix la Chapelle).

When at the end of the 13th century, Innocent III asked every religious house in Christendom to open a school, England already had a massive head start. By the time of the Reformation there were Catholic schools in every English town: monastic schools, chantry schools, colleges, grammar schools, all founded with the gifts of the faithful and built on daily prayer and worship. Hundreds of them still exist, although they have sadly departed from the faith that prompted their creation.

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Tradition is for the Young: First Sunday TLM of the Year at Steubenville

This past Sunday, the first Sunday TLM of the new academic year was celebrated at the Finnegan Fieldhouse on the campus of the Franciscan Univ. of Steubenville. The celebrant, Fr Nicholas Ward, is a Steubenville alumnus; about 400 people were in attendance. Once again, it is very encouraging to see such young people embracing our Catholic liturgical heritage, and putting in the hard work necessary to keep it going. These photographs are kindly provided by one of our regular photographic contributors, Mrs Allisone Girone, together with two FUS students, Karissa Meyers and Patrick Barry, with our thanks!

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