Friday, September 28, 2007

Tradition: Georgian teen finds spiritual fulfillment in the TLM

A letter to the editor in the September 20, 2007 issue of the newspaper of Atlanta's Archdiocese, "The Bulletin", records a 16-year-old's joy at finding the Traditional Latin Mass. Here's an excerpt:
Mr. Sterne in his letter gives voice to the opinion of many of today’s liturgists when he says that no one from a younger generation would be drawn to the Latin Mass (many take this even further and assume that we would not like a reverent Novus Ordo Mass either). This opinion causes many of those who plan modern liturgies to do veritable back flips in an attempt to draw teenagers and young adults in. Sometimes this works, but it has a side effect: by doing these things, liturgists show that they have absolutely no faith in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass to change the lives of those in my generation. My generation knows about this lack of faith, we are able to see it every time we go to a “teen Mass” and experience priests ad-libbing prayers in an attempt to make them more relevant to us.

...

After experiencing this for months, I attended a Traditional Latin Mass and experienced something that I’d never seen before: Here was a priest who expected my life to be changed without adding anything to the Mass in an attempt to bring this change about. This priest had perfect faith in the power of the liturgy, and it showed. It was beautiful. The traditional Mass did more to change my life then any “relevant” teen Mass ever did.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I doubt this would ever get printed in our diocesan paper.

preacherman said...

Jasphy,
Do you think it is tradition that the attracts the younger generation to the catholic church? Or the traditional Latin Mass?

Jeffrey Pinyan said...

I don't think it's just some anomalous sense of "tradition" which draws them... they could find tradition anywhere. They recognize this tradition as an important one, a real one, a historical one.

The Traditional Latin Mass has a long history behind it; it is just part of the Tradition that younger Catholics are recognizing.

I find the TLM amazing, and I've only been to it once. I am eager to go to more TLMs, but right now, it is not being offered nearby, and I don't know of any others who have voiced interest in requesting it of a parish in my area.