Two Masses
My wife and I were in New Orleans recently, a Thursday to Monday trip that included two parties in celebration of the wedding of two friends. We ate too much.
But on Sunday I went to Mass.
St. Patrick’s Church on Camp Street is not the prettiest church in NOLA on the outside, although it’s very imposing. Inside, it’s stunning. I was there for the 9:15 Tridentine Mass. I became a Roman Catholic in 1973, and this was just the third Latin Mass I’ve attended in those nearly fifty years. The first was a friend’s funeral in 1998. The second was a decade later in the church I now attend, and I don’t think Latin has been heard there since – not in the liturgy anyway. There’s been some in the occasional homily (we have learned priests).
I’m linking to a video of the Traditional Latin Mass celebrated at St. Patrick’s in May by our friend, Cardinal Raymond Leo Burke. [Note: It’s long.] It will give you an idea of how beautifully Fr. William Farge, S.J. and the St. Patrick’s staff do the TLM.
And what I saw and heard on October 9th was truly stunning: Three priests in birettas; I counted sixteen altar servers; the choir was superb; many of the women and girls wore mantillas, and most of the men were well-dressed; the large church was nearly at capacity. This is clearly a thriving parish community committed to the TLM.
