FIRST MASS
ISSUE 189 - AUTUMN 2016
‘Dona eis Requiem’ First Mass in the Extraordinary Form Edward Kendall
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first attended Mass in the Extraordinary Form at the church of Our Lady of the Assumption and St Gregory, Warwick Street, London on 8 June this year. As I walked up to the church I did not know what to expect. A recent convert, I had never before attended a Mass in Latin in the Ordinary Form, let alone in the Extraordinary Form. Indeed, my Latin leaves much to be desired. To give you a bit of my background. I was baptised as an infant at the hands of an Anglican cleric and confirmed by the then Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr Rowan Williams, at the age of 14, so my upbringing was Anglican. However, as I discovered more about Catholicism, I was increasingly attracted by the integrity of the Catholic faith and the Church’s reverence for the Eucharist, and so eventually, after a few years of discernment, made the decision to become a Catholic and was received into the Church in April this year at my university’s Catholic chaplaincy. The Mass was the initiative of a group who organise a weekly High Mass and felt that they ought to do something to help Mother Angelica, who did, and, we pray, continues to do so much to help Holy Mother Church. This High Mass, therefore, was a Requiem, offered for the eternal repose of her soul. I have always been curious about the past and I was about to experience the Mass as it was celebrated before Vatican II and the aggiornamento. Indeed, the Mass with its plainsong chanting and clouds of incense, combined with my romantic historical imagination, was evocative of the medieval era. As I entered the church I took note of my surroundings and the people around me. Some were kneeling in silent prayer or praying their rosaries, whilst others sat in quiet reflection. There were plenty of mantillas. The silence was only broken when a bell was chimed and everyone rose as the priest and servers proceeded to the foot of the altar. Meanwhile, the choir burst into chanting the beautiful words of the introit: “Requiem aeternam dona eis, Domine, et lux perpetua luceat eis...” This was shortly followed by the Kyrie. We then had a reading from the first letter of St Paul to the Thessalonians followed by the sequence hymn: “Dies irae, dies illa solvet saeclum in favilla, teste David cum Sibylla...” The opening words sound gloomy, but remember that the hymn ends with this beautiful line, “Pie Jesu Domine, dona eis requiem.” This was followed by an appropriate reading from the Gospel according to St John concerning Jesus’ dialogue with Martha about resurrection.
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The readings were followed by the offertory chant and the Sanctus, the preface separating the two. After the Sanctus we all knelt as the priest recited the beautiful words that are the Roman Canon. Whilst most of the Canon is recited inaudibly by the celebrant, when he spreads his hands over the oblation the sacring bell is rung. At the consecration I bowed down my body in solemn adoration – an act of faith in the Real Presence of our Saviour’s Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity, under the sacramental veil. At the elevation of the host and then at the elevation of the chalice the bell was rung thrice. The chiming of the bell contrased with the silence in a way that really brought out the solemnity of the sacred mystery that happened before our very eyes. We received Communion kneeling and on the tongue – a humble posture that better suggests the reverence appropriate when receiving the Body of Christ than standing. Furthermore, the words of administration were a beautiful expression of our faith, “Corpus Domini nostri Iesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam.” Because this was a Requiem Mass, instead of having the sermon after the Gospel (which is the usual practice), we had it at the end of the Mass. After the homily, or panegyric, had ended, the celebrant censed the catafalque and sprinkled it with holy water to recall Mother Angelica’s baptism. Before going I had heard complaints of the Traditional Latin Mass being non-participative and in some ways this is true – there are very few responses to be made by the congregation as most of them are made by the altar servers. But we still participate in the Mass through our presence and through the postures we adopt throughout the Mass. What particularly stood out for me was the fact that there were no laypersons giving the readings or in the sanctuary before communion, and there was no communal ‘giving’ of the ‘sign of peace.’ The latter seems to me a socially motivated distraction from the Mass – there’s usually plenty of time for shaking hands and socialising once the Mass has ended. What I also came to appreciate was that having the Mass celebrated in Latin gives the faithful a chance to share the Faith in a common language, wherever they might be. It occurred to me that were I to find myself in a non-English speaking country on a Sunday I would probably seek out a Latin Mass, and feel less alienated there than were I to go to a Mass celebrated in the local vernacular. It is also striking to consider those elements which have been left out of the Ordinary Form, for example: the prayers at the foot of the altar and the beautiful Gospel reading from the Prologue of St John’s Gospel at the end of the Mass. As the Church says, the Sacrifice of the Mass is the ‘source and summit’ of our lives as Catholics, and after my experience in Warwick Street I hope that in the event of my death my Requiem Mass be celebrated strictly according to the Extraordinary Form.
Edward Kendall is reading Philosophy and Religion at Bangor.