I am preaching at all Masses this weekend to talk about the special mission of St. Mary’s church. To be sure St. Mary’s shares in the mission of every parish church: to worship God reverently in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, to hear the word of God preached authentically, never based on the preacher’s personal opinions but always based on Scripture and on the teaching of the Catholic Church, to teach our parishioners how to live authentically Christian lives and to assist in the evangelization of a world that has either forgotten Christ or has never heard of Christ. That certainly is what we try to do here at St. Mary’s.
Now because this is what we intend to do and do it, does not mean that we are successful. We are faced with lower Mass attendance at most Sunday Masses although daily Mass shows growth in numbers. In this we are experiencing what the great majority of parishes are facing in this country. The precipitous decline in Mass attendance and those willing to profess the Catholic faith and lives their lives accordingly that we have seen in Europe for the past fifteen years is now happening in this country and especially in the Northeast, which has up to now been a bastion of Catholicism. Baby boomers who are now in the forties and fifties have often drifted away from the Church. Their children, even if they went through sacramental preparation, do not see the Church as an important part of their lives. They have adopted a moral standard that is reflective of a secularist and individualistic world view. They are part of the precipitous decline in practicing Catholics in the past fifty years. All too many of your children and grandchildren fit into this sad situation.
And yet in this parish there is the light of hope in the midst of the increasing darkness of the practical disappearance of Christianity as a real force in the world. And that hope comes from what has evolved over the past ten years or so in this parish: the return of authentic Catholic Tradition in the worship of the Church and in preaching. It is only some nine years ago that Fr. Markey began the celebration of the Solemn Mass in the Traditional Roman rite. But that act, which took courage and foresight, has borne much fruit in this parish and that fruit is real and nourishing albeit our participation in the general malaise of the Church today. And there is a direct line from that first Solemn Mass to making the morning Mass in this parish the Extraordinary Form. So the Traditional Roman Mass is now celebrated every day in this parish. And this is and will be a blessing for us. The reformers who produced the Novus Ordo Mass that has been a factor in emptying our churches openly said that what was needed was two full generations who had never seen the Traditional Mass to accomplish the goal of the total forgetting of the Traditional Mass of nearly two millennia and the normalization of the Novus Ordo Mass. They did not get what they hoped for. The Traditional Mass has not been lobotomized from the Church’s memory. But how could it ever be, since the Traditional Mass is an integral part of the memory of the Church that is the Sacred Tradition.
But that Mass is only a part of the carrying out of our mission. That is why I would never think of eliminating the Novus Ordo Masses in this parish, whether in English or in Spanish. You can be assured that as long as I am pastor--unless I live for fifty more years to see the real changes that will happen--as long as I am pastor we will celebrate the Mass of Paul VI. But we celebrate that Mass in the light of the Traditional Mass. At every Novus Ordo Mass there is some Latin, as a reminder of the universality of the Mass in both time and space. Where the rubric of the Mass is silent, we use the traditional customs and rubrics. For example, I always wear the maniple at every Mass. This vestment is not mentioned in the new rubrics, so we can assume it was never abolished. This vestment comes from the scarf handkerchief that Roman men wore to wipe the sweat off their brow. It is associated with hard work and tears. More priests should wear the maniple.
Every Mass in this parish is said at the high altar oriented, that is, facing liturgical East, which is the unbroken custom of Tradition. The priest and the people face God, so to speak, together, not opposite each other across a table. At every Mass the Roman Canon is used, the ancient Eucharistic prayer. The innovation in the Novus Ordo of multiple Eucharistic prayers, some of which are for special occasions, has no basis in the liturgical tradition of the Catholic Church. Their inclusion betrays a deep misunderstanding of what the Mass is and further drives a wedge between the Catholic and Orthodox Churches.
This is an important part of the mission of the parish: to inject the serum of the Tradition into the Novus Ordo under the rubric of what Pope Benedict called mutual enrichment of the two form. The result of this injection can have two possible results: the serum will act as a poison to the Novus Ordo or it will allow it to flourish in a way that will allow for a transition in the whole Church to the Traditional Mass. I am always struck by the reaction of many Catholics who come to a Novus Ordo funeral or wedding at St. Mary’s. The reaction, at least those expressed to me and others, is: that Mass was so beautiful. I have never seen anything like it. Or: I haven’t seen the Latin Mass in so long. It brought me back to my youth. I carefully explain that this is not the Latin Mass but rather the normal, Paul VI Mass, done in the light of Tradition.
There are so many good signs that our mission will be successful. The great majority of the seminarians at St John Fisher love what we do at St. Mary’s. They are the future. And their new Rector, Fr. Paul Check, certainly understands and supports the Tradition of the Church. Many of the young priests in the diocese also show great sympathy for what we do here, and at least three have learned how to celebrate the Traditional Mass. But the opposition of the liturgical establishment and the older priests is still great. Even so, I believe that time is on our side.
What so many of our parishioners do not know is that this parish is so well-known on the internet. Just type St. Mary’s Norwalk in a search and you will be amazed at what comes up. We are on important church blogs, on music blogs, videos on YouTube with quite a few hits. When I go to conferences or on a visit somewhere, I meet so many people who know St. Mary’s from the internet. Our music program is the envy of so many parishes in this country. Our Holy Week services the past two years have been posted so many places as an example of what can be done and what is being done for that most important week of the year. Once again we have been invited to celebrate a Solemn Mass at Precious Blood in Little Italy as part of the San Gennaro festival. All of this points to the rightness of what we do here and the success of our mission for the future of the Church.
The mission is clear. It is also clear how that mission is being implemented in this parish. There are more ways to implement the mission. One is better publicity, or I should say, any publicity, on services and events we sponsor as a parish. Bishop Athanasius Schneider is coming to St. Mary’s mid October to give a talk and to celebrate Pontifical High Mass. He is a real hero of the faith. If we do not have a packed church for that Mass, shame on us.
But the success of the mission will ultimately depend on two spiritual factors: holiness and sacrifice. The mission will not succeed without the personal holiness of every member of St. Mary’s. Frequent Confession immediately comes to mind as one of the means of becoming holy. Bible Study, retreats, Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament: all can be used for an increase in personal holiness. But holiness cannot be achieved--still understanding of course that it is achieved only by grace--nevertheless there is no holiness without self-sacrifice. Jesus's words: whoever wishes to follow me must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. That self-sacrifice, that self-denial that is always present in relationships that are based on love like marriage and friendship, will always involve the Cross because self-denial is contrary to our fallen instincts. But the support of this parish church is also a way to holiness, but only if it involves self-denial. We are blessed with many volunteers who sacrifice their time and talent to make this parish what it is. But that self-denial must extend as well to the financial support of the parish. The facts are as follows: only one third of those registered in the parish give any financial support to the parish. And for some of those what they give to the church is what they have left over. It is not sacrificial giving. Another fact: two weekend Masses, the 8 and the 9:30 provide over half of the offertory income to the parish. There are 4 other weekend Masses. Fact: we send the diocese each month for taxes and other mandatory contributions the equal of almost two Sunday collections. The bottom line here is that our offertory income is not enough to sustain our expenses, especially when we get another priest to minister to the spiritual needs of the parish. And that priest will come. I know this.
If you believe in the special mission of this parish, I am asking you to consider asking yourself how can you increase your contribution to the life of this parish by self-sacrifice in time, in effort, and in financial contributions. Self-sacrifice is at the very center of my priesthood among you here. But I do not hold myself as a model for anything. That is not the point. The point is you and the mission of this great parish church dedicated to the Mother of God, Mary most holy.
Fr. Richard G. Cipolla
Pastor
14th Sunday after Pentecost/23rd Sunday in Ordinary Time
