 All right. Hey, friends, we're just kicking off our webinar on how to attend the traditional Latin Mass. We're going to go ahead and just jump in because we got a lot of territory to cover. This webinar is, by the way, sponsored by the Avala Institute. I'm Dan Burke. I'll do intros in a minute. Sponsored by the Avala Institute and Sofia Institute Press. And in particular, their new Benedictus Mass Companion, which I am super excited about, and I've got an advanced copy. But go to PrayBenedictus.com, director man. Can you put a picture of that up there? They can see it. For those of you in ordinary form that have used the Magnificat, this is a beautiful application to the traditional Latin Mass. So I think you'll love this. And you can learn more or subscribe at PrayBenedictus.com. I've subscribed and I plan to use it every month to dispose, better dispose my heart to the graces of the traditional Latin Mass. So to set the stage for our conversation, our purpose for this webinar is not to criticize the ordinary form of the Mass. Let me just say that again. Our purpose is not to criticize the ordinary form of the Mass. Instead, it is to support the faithful in what seems to be a widespread fleeing to the extraordinary form because of the challenges of our time, which I've seen anecdotally. My personal concern and motivation was to ensure that the large numbers of those leaving the ordinary form to the traditional Latin Mass don't bounce off. Not too long ago, we took a guy who was discerning religious life with our community, Apostoli Vie. And he had come from, I don't know, 60 days in a Byzantine monastery, which is all very loud and full-throated singing to a low Mass. We had almost said to call an ambulance because of the whiplash. So it's not quite as bad from an ordinary form to TLM, but it's quite a different experience. So I'm going to make sure that those who are struggling in the ordinary form and are going to the traditional Latin Mass really don't bounce off and then just end up not going anywhere because they're so frustrated. So we're trying to serve that group of people and also help those who are fine but who just want to go deeper and get a better sense of how they might orient their hearts and minds to God. So when I introduce two of our experts for this conversation today, the first one is Eric Sammons. He's the editor-in-chief of Crisis Magazine. You can see Eric there on the screen now. He's the author of several books, including Deadly and Difference, How the Church Lost her Mission and How We Can Reclaim It, which is a crisis publication. He holds degrees in systems analysis with a concentration in economics from Miami University in Ohio where he was received into the Catholic Church in 1993. He earned his master's degree from Franciscan University and has worked for decades in Catholic evangelization at the individual parish and diocesan levels. Eric and his wife, Susan, have seven children who live in Ohio. Welcome to the webinar, Eric. Thanks for having me, Dan. I'm real excited about this. Well, you know, Franciscan grad, I think that makes you a Trent Acosta, right? Something like that. All right. Well, we're on the same page then. Father Matthew McDonald is our next guest. He's a good friend. He's a priest from the Archdiocese of New York. He's the eldest of three children, graduated with an undergrad degree in philosophy from Franciscan, another Franciscan grad, in 2006, and he left his phone on, I think, ordained in 2014. He holds a master or a bachelor's degree in psychology, master's in divinity, and a master of arts. He's currently assigned as parochial vicar at St. Mary's in Washingtonville, New York, and has written articles on topics dealing with theology, history, spirituality, and current events for Catholic World Report Crisis Magazine. And of course, recently, spiritualdirection.com. Welcome. Glad to have you with us, Father Matthew. Thank you, Dan. Thank you, Eric, because it's an honor and a blessing to be here with you tonight, and I'm really excited about this webinar. So for those who don't know me, I'm the president. I'm Dan Burke. I'm the president of the Avila Foundation, where we form priests, religious, and lady in more than 70 countries. Our apostles include the Institute for the Avila Institute for Spiritual Formation, which is graduate studies in spiritual theology. We have a high-calling priestly formation program that we serve 28 dioceses, helping men prepare for their priesthood. Spiritualdirection.com is a website with thousands of articles, videos, everything you need to go deeper in your relationship with God, Divine Intimacy Radio. God be praised for EW10 for spreading that all over the known universe, as well as it's in podcast form. I've authored or edited commission more than 16 books that re-propose authentic Catholic mystical tradition, which is at the heart of all we do. Alright, enough of that. So let's get to the topic at hand. A little bit of setup, and then I want to throw it out to you guys and just have a conversation about how we can help folks who are making this change or who have recently made it and really need some support. This webinar is my own response to what I see, and can I let the cat out of the bag of what you're going to do at Crisis Eric or is that secret? I don't care. Okay, so Crisis will be doing a survey soon of TLM parishes to see if it's beyond anecdotal, we can show that what we think we're seeing. Eric and I travel a bit, and what I was sharing with both Eric and Father McDonald before the show is that every TLM I go to is packed. Now I go to both. Here in Birmingham, I can only go to TLM on Sunday, and I go to no sort of ordinary form Monday through Friday. But around the country, you know, obviously I try to go to TLM just because it's more predictable in terms of what's going to happen at the mass. And they're all packed. Pensacola, Florida, packed to the gills, Tyler, Texas, packed to the gills. And I'm not seeing the same thing for at ordinary form parishes. In fact, quite the opposite, with some exception. I was just at a beautiful parish in St. John the Baptist with Father Dan Westerland. I think it's his name in Ypsilanti, Michigan, a very, very reverent mass there. But I think for you two, I'll throw this out for you. I'm going to set it up and get your reaction. But the way I read what's going on is the shift that I think is happening was in some way accelerated after Pope Benedict XVI's resignation within a few years into the pontificate of Pope Francis. Not here to criticize the Pope, but there was hope under Pope Benedict because of his liturgical emphasis for a kind of reform of the reform, right? So a lot of the reform of the reform people are kind of going, okay, you know, we don't sense an emphasis in the area. So they're getting a little bit, how would you say, unmoored from their commitments to the ordinary form thinking it might change. And then we end up with COVID, right? So COVID, I think, you know, not to be overly critical because so many of us didn't really know what was going on when it happened, but essentially the weakness of an understanding of the sacraments and a proper reverence toward the Lord and the Holy Sacrifice and the Mass, all of that really manifested in a pretty ugly way all over, at least in the United States in terms of, you know, I had a friend who went to a women's Bible study. She, another woman, she didn't know shows up there and says, I look, I have a gift for you. And it's Jesus and a bunch of little baggies, you know. And because they had left them out at her mass, you know, sort of like leftovers, right? After mass because people were taking the Lord in there with baggies as they left the mass, right? So this kind of insanity, I mean, my friend, what she did is she went to her knees and she couldn't get up. You know, she's like, I don't, I can't deal with, you know, what's going on here. So all of that craziness was all over the U.S. And I experienced it firsthand. I was denied communion many times. My wife was yelled at in a parish for kneeling to receive on the tongue. So people, good people are just going, OK, I've had enough. I don't have the support or the hope that we're going to see a reform of the form. You know, I'm not, I'm not receiving the sacraments or what I try to go receive in a reverent way. I'm rejected. And so then we have, I think that's precipitating an exodus of, of, you know, faithful Catholics and folks that are confused and folks that are maybe not well formed, but just going, this doesn't feel right to me. So, you know, I know, you know what, so I'll lay that out to you guys. What are your thoughts? I would agree, Dan. I've seen it as well. I think there's a number of things that have accelerated the embrace of the traditional Latin Mass since Pope Benedict in 2007 liberalized the celebration of it in the universal church. And I would say, obviously, COVID is a big factor, but I would also say my experience, I've seen that the McCarrick scandal is actually something that that ended up pushing in God's providence, the traditional Latin Mass, because in the words of one priest, I know he said, I feel like now we need the big guns. And he was referring to the traditional Latin Mass with the prayers and the traditional Latin Mass. He felt like we really need to just hunker down and really go all out because there's such a spiritual attack with the McCarrick scandal, such scandal and corruption. And so that was what I really saw that in my own experience. And I heard from others the same thing that people started going to traditional Latin Mass in response to the McCarrick scandal saying this is something I want to do to grow deeper in my faith and respond to this corruption scandal. And then COVID definitely, you already said it, but I heard that from so many people where the parish they went to, which a lot of times is even considered in their town, the good parish. It just played all these games with the Eucharist, with how you could receive and how you could show up, how you could sit with all this. And they just were like, I just want to receive Jesus in a reverent manner. I want to go to Mass that celebrate reverently. It doesn't play all these games. And on a whole, the traditional Latin Mass parishes did that, I think in a much better way. And it really attracted a lot of people. I know that my own parish tripled in size due to COVID. And I've heard from a lot of people the same type of stories. So Father McDonald, I'm not an expert in matters liturgy. I'm just an enthusiast, if you will, because from my standpoint, it's the most important moment in my life. These moments occur daily, which is where I encounter the Lord, body, blood, soul and divinity in the Eucharist. So there's no better or more important time to be reverent. And so I've studied a bit of the liturgy, but I think in reference to what Eric is saying, the reason that people experience more reverence is essentially, is it true that in canon law, the priests cannot distribute Holy Communion any other way other than on the tongue? And then of course these parishes typically have altar rails and kneeling. Is that the case or am I wrong there? Well, according to the current liturgical norms of the church, the norm of the law for a reception of Holy Communion is on the tongue, in the ordinary form of the Roman right. And that goes back to a constant development of the church's understanding of who the Eucharist is. In the early church there was a gradual awakening and there were different traditions, but then in the West it became codified probably towards the end of the high Middle Ages, even before that, that you would receive on the tongue. The communion in the hand was allowed in some places in the early church. Bishop Athanasius Schneider has also talked about some of the patristic development of the posture of reception of Holy Communion, as well as other scholars as well. But when the church understood who and what the Eucharist was in her life, there was a move away towards that, towards the recipient on the tongue. And that had some Jewish roots with the whole entire understanding of the one who hosted the Passover meal was the father of the family, and there was a tradition of giving a piece of bread that was blessed for the Passover meal directly on the participant's tongue. But then as the church grew in her understanding, like at Latterin IV, of what transubstantiation was, she went back to that. Communion in the hand is a legitimate way to receive Holy Communion in the ordinary form. It is not the norm of the law, but it's allowed by indult as spoken about by Paul VI in the document, Memoriale Domini. So it's an exception to the law protected by the law. But when you look at the standard of the church's law, the norm of the law for receiving Holy Communion is on the tongue, even though Communion on the hand is allowed in the ordinary form. Now in the Old Rite, in the extraordinary form, it's received, our Lord has received kneeling on the tongue, because there is that awareness of the certain role of the priest, what the Eucharist is, and also the role of the faithful. And that every particle of the Eucharist is our Lord. And that's not meant to lead people through scrupulosity, but a reverence. And there's also a childlike disposition to receiving Communion on the tongue as well, that ultimately it's God who's nourishing me. It's Jesus himself who nourishes me. And there is the famous fr angelical painting of our Lord distributing Holy Communion to the disciples on the tongue. What happened, the different stages of the Last Supper, we don't know, but the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is not just Last Supper, it extends to us Calvary, and it extends to us the entire saving event of the Paschal Mystery brought about by the Passion, Death, and Resurrection of our Lord. So when we receive Holy Communion, it's important that we understand a bishop at the Second Vatican Council Archbishop Ferdinando Atenelli once said this, in the liturgy, every word and every gesture conveys a theological idea. Again, this is not to lead to a hyperscrupulosity, but with that line from Atenelli, it almost parallels what St. Therese says in the little way. Holiness is not found in doing great things, but doing little things with great love. So in the liturgy, even the tiniest actions sometimes, there's great theological significance. There's a mystery that's conveyed as important that we're receptive and we're attentive to that. And there is different traditions. And the Lord may speak to me through that in a particular way that he doesn't speak to and other people. Also, in the ordinary form, there is some of that imagery as well, but in the old rite, it's a little bit richer in that regard. Yeah, so you mentioned Memoriale Domini, which was the document promulgated by St. Paul VI. Did I get that right? St. Paul VI. And in that document, it's fascinating to read because it's the one that is allowed for communion on the tongue. He actually argues that, I mean, allowed for communion in the hand, he actually argues that communion on the tongue is to be retained as normative and that it is more reverent. You know, in the very die, because a lot of times when people want to receive on the tongue, they get accused of, well, you're just, you know, think you're holier than now. Well, it's like, well, you should read Memoriale Domini. Pope St. Paul VI said, it's actually, it is more reverent and it should be retained. So anyway, that's not the purpose of this conversation, but you did note, you did reflect very well on a lot of these things, but the one thing you noted, and you answered the question affirmatively, the reason that a lot of ordinary foreign folks were struggling with what happened during COVID and the mishandling of the Eucharist and all of that is that when you walk into a Latin mass parish, or a traditional Latin mass parish, it may be a foreign land, but when it comes time to receiving communion, there's no question. You know, there's no question who the priest is. There's no question who's the one receiving from the priest over the rail out from the sanctuary. I mean, there's so much symbolism that's amazing and it's always done reverently. I mean, I've, you know, I have seen liturgical abuse in the traditional Latin mass and pretty grave, but I would say relatively speaking, 99.99% of my attendance has been just, you know, beautiful and reverent. And the opposite, unfortunately, is not at all the case. So let's go ahead and start walking through. How can someone who's making this transition or thinking about this transition survive it? And let's begin, and I'll just throw that out to either of you who want to take it. Maybe we'll go to Eric because Father gave us a little bit of a good theological and liturgical history. Start with Eric and that is before you even get out of your house heading for mass, what's different? What can you do that really prepares you better for this different experience? I think one thing you have to realize with the traditional Latin mass, especially if you are not a regular tender, you haven't really been very much or at all before, is you have to see it for how counter-cultural it really is that it's very different from our experiences in the modern world. It is completely wholly different than something you might see on the internet, watching television, some event, you might go to a sporting event. And what I mean by that is everything today is about the fast, the easy, the new. The traditional Latin mass is the opposite. It's slow, it's old, it can be complicated, and that's intentional. That's not an accident because what is happening here is you're entering into a mystery and you're entering into the worship of God, which is wholly different than any other experience we might have. And so I would say before you even leave, you need to be thinking like that. I mean one thing I think is a good practice in our modern world is Sunday morning before you go off to mass, don't be checking your devices, don't be scrolling through your social media feeds and things like that, but really try to understand that your whole way of looking at things and acting is going to be different for the next hour, hour and a half, however long the mass is. And prepare yourself for that, that you're entering into this different, whole different world when you go to traditional Latin mass, and it can be very jarring. I mean, it really can be. I know the first few times I went, it was a struggle at times just to be like, what is going on here? And I just, I didn't get it at all. And it took time. And I know most people, I know people who when they first time they go, they're blown away and it's the grace and everything never go back and that's praise God. But I also know people who have gone traditional Latin mass and it's taken them a few months before they really start recognizing what it is that they're participating in and the mystery that's unfolding in front of them. You know, it's fascinating. So you, that was a good, I really liked your, your reflection there. It's the world is loud and noisy and everything's about feelings. And the Latin mass, especially the low mass, right? That provides you nothing by way of that. But what's fascinating is, and I'll turn it to Father Matthew. And the second here is for me, the best preparation is mental prayer. Why? Because mental prayer tends to be more silent, less verbose, you know, reflecting on scripture, whatever. I, and contrary to what is really normal to Latin mass goers, I don't use a missile. For me, I now I'm not saying I don't have one and I don't glance at it occasionally. I really like I mass is, you know, digital setup. Benedictus is awesome. So that's, you know, that's probably going to what I'm going to lean on most. But for me, I go, I do what you said, which is on my rule of life Sunday is no, no phone day. I'm not perfect with that. People in the room could probably, you know, come on the air here and say, yeah, whatever. But it is in my rule of life. And I have, I'm not always perfect, but it is there. And that means I turn it off, I set it aside. And then I'm going to mass and what am I, what am I doing? What is my mind? My mind is worship, but not worship as an experience in a sense of being entertained, not worship as participation in the sense of me getting to say things or me getting to do things. My participation is worship in terms of going and, and giving my heart to the, and it's emotional for me because, you know, I know, I have no doubt I'd be in hell or I would go to hell and my life would be hell without Christ. Right. So it's giving my heart, my all to him in worship. I'm going to the highest form of worship and communion with God possible. And I just want to go and be attentive. And so, you know, part of our community life is, is we have three tenants to our mission, live the contemplative life, light the way to others, and then, and then personally accompany those who are desiring to do the same. No better contemplative experience of the mass than the low mass because you go and you just pray and worship the Lord and just to extend, express your love and your attentiveness and, you know, order, offer yourself up as a sacrifice. And, you know, so for me, it has not been a difficult transition because of that. Father Matthew, I'll throw it to you and give us some insight from your perspective. Okay. Well, I'm a diocesan priest. So I, most days of the week celebrate mass in the ordinary form in English. I was first exposed to the old right. July 9 2002, the summer between my high school year, my senior in high school, and my freshman year at zoomville and I went to St. Agnes church in New York City. I was brought by a former teacher of mine who's who greatly impacted my own journey to the priesthood. And I came up from a parish. I used to sing in a folk group. Okay. You know, so all the glory and praise hymns from the 80s are seared painfully into my memory. Oh, gosh, I heard from this morning. But I remember going to Mesa Contata for the first time and not liking it, but also being strangely drawn to it allured by it at the same time. And what allured me was this. It helped me to understand that when I go to mass, it's not just about me only. Mass, like any relationship is a time for me not only to know things and to do things, but to be with the Lord personally, intimately, deeply. And as you, Eric and Dan said, to unite my life to him. And something that the old mass stresses is the action of God through human agents. Not that that's not in the ordinary form. And why do I go to mass? I go to mass not to just do things, not just to feel things or experience things. But first and foremost, to unite my life to the one true sacrifice of Christ extended to me personally through our Lord's body, blood, soul, divinity, Eucharist, where he is personally present. And then after uniting my life to him, receiving him worthily in a state of grace and holy communion. Okay, so in that divine action, God can speak to me in different ways. There are different languages in each liturgy. And often when we think of language, we immediately think vernacular English Spanish. We immediately think, I got to know everything that's going on. All right. But when you go to an event that is a mystery where God is the primary agent. He's going to act in ways that you least expect. And the way he wants to speak to you may be different from the way that he wants to speak to your husband, your wife, your kids, or the person five rows down to you. So how do I unite my life to the one true sacrifice of Christ by preparing to go to mass? And I know that's difficult sometimes when you have five rambunctious kids that you're trying to quiet down. But when we look at the prayers of the mass, we see prayers of adoration, Thanksgiving, contrition, supplication. So maybe before I enter mass, as Dan alluded to, you know, look at the readings, the proppers of the day. Not only the epistle in the gospel, but also the antiphons of what the collects are saying, what the prefaces are saying beforehand, as well as at mass. But before that, look at, all right, what am I thankful to God for? You know, how can I tell him I love him? What are things I'm struggling with? What are things that not only I need, but other people need around him? People that I know, people that I don't know. Making that kind of preparation. Secondly, when I go to the old mass, I'll say this. I'm kind of a big, I kind of stress the Mesa cantata, Psalm high mass first. And then the low mass is great, but that's an acquired taste. And the reason why I stress personally for individual people Mesa cantata or the Psalm high mass is because of the beauty of the right. Not only is it more ornate, more solemn, but you have Gregorian chant. Okay. And with the Gregorian chant being sung, you have a powerful encounter with God in beauty and music, even though it's in Latin. And you can see by the emotion of the chant, how certain prayers are prayed, you know, whether joyfully, whether, you know, more somberly. And that's an important thing to take note of. Another thing, God speaks to me in the extraordinary form, especially through the language of ornamentation or veiling. And this goes back to sacred scripture to Canaan Abel. You know, they were asked to give the first fruits of their sacrifice to God and what got Canaan trouble. King Lobaldi or Abel gave the Lord the best that he can offer. That is why there's a certain ornamentation that we see in the old mass with vessels, with vestments, with certain actions. It's not to show, oh, we have dough. No, we have money. No. Padre Pio and St. John Marie Viani lived very, very holy lives dedicated to serving their parishioners, serving the poor. But when it came to the worship of God, they made sure that they saved money and they utilized the best resources possible because that gives praise and glory to God. And that shows us that when I go to mass, I'm not called to just Lobaldi. I'm called to give the Lord my entire heart, to give him the pearls of my life, the gems of my life, as well as the sorrows of my life. And this is something that we see particularly in liturgical gesture. And when we read the early church fathers, things like Book of Pastoral Rule by Pope St. Gregory the Great or the Life of Moses, they'll go through things in the book of Leviticus and the Old Testament that when your average person reads, they hit a wall. Because they're like, what's with all these gems and whatnot. And they'll say, these are the virtues and the gifts of the Holy Spirit that I'm called to foster in my own life. And that's why the priests wear these kinds of vestments at certain times. So when I go to mass, it's a relationship. God is equipping me to live out my faith, not only for evangelization, but for divine union, both with me and to help others enter into that union with God. And that's why ornamentation is so important. That's a very powerful language in the Old Right and ritual. Not that it's rigid, but through structure, it enables that relationship. It's kind of like a bridge. We never stop at a bridge unless we go in sightseeing. A bridge is always meant to lead us to connect with people. So it is in the liturgy. So it is with any aspect of faith. We are uniting our life to the mystery of God working in our world through grace and through the mysteries of the life of Christ extended to me to the Eucharist. Beautifully said. I think you need to teach a class at the Evelyn Institute. So back to something you said at the beginning in terms of preparing for mass. This is why I love Benedictus because I think that it really gives you a way, an easy way, though it's not shallow, but easy. It's accessible, of course, way to review what's coming. Where are we at in the liturgical cycle? What are meditations? We might want to consider regarding, you know, a lot of, I mean, what you've, what you just did is give us a little kind of a, a, what might be a retreat on the Latin mass. Well, this Benedictus is a great way. And if you could put up on the screen there, the, the URL so people can pick that up. So beautifully stated. So we're, we're preparing for, we're prepared for mass. We're headed to mass. Now, mostly the most common experience, and you guys tell me if I'm wrong, but I think the most common experience of the person who's going to go to his first Latin mass, Sunday or no, is not going to be the Mesa Cantata or, you know, the, the more, I don't know, how would you say ornate forms of the Latin mass, but it's going to be the low mass, which I, I love the ornate. Don't get me wrong, but I love the silence and the prayer, but most people are going to come to the low mass. So maybe Eric, if you could describe a little bit about, we already talked about this radical contrast between the idea and the ordinary form of participation is the priest says something. I say something. I go up and read. We sing out loud, you know. The, the low mass isn't like that at all. Is it? No, it's not the first time I ever attended a traditional mass. It was a low mass. And I guess 15 years ago is before the month, uh, motor proprio and it's like 2005, maybe something like that. And I remember distinctly that it had started and I didn't even know it. It had been going on for like five or 10 minutes and I didn't even know it had started. I just thought the priest was out there doing something. I really didn't understand anything. And I will say, I remember I'd worked myself up for going to this, my, my wife and kids right at town. I'm like, I'm going to go drive downtown. This is Washington, D.C. I'm going to go to a Latin mass because I'd heard about it. And I remember coming back like, and that was my first reaction. And, and I think it's because the low mass because then about a year or two later, I went to a pontifical mass with a bishop and it was just, oh my gosh, it was the greatest thing I've ever experienced. It was this beautiful music, everything about it. I was like, oh my gosh, I am in heaven right now. Yet like you, Dan, I've come to love the low mass because it really is. It was about, it was, it was my problem that I didn't, that I went to the low mass is not the low masses problem. That's my problem. And it's because I went there demanding something that the mass isn't intended to give me. I was demanding an experience and an external experience more than anything. And I was demanding certain things because of my, my own background, growing up Protestant, but also as a Catholic, frankly, for about 10 years at that point. And with the low mass, it really, once you understand it, you see this is an intimate prayer and worship of God led by the priest that we do participate in. But we don't participate in our modern way of we have to say things. We have to sing things. We have to do things. We participate in it in our hearts and spiritually by uniting ourselves to the prayers of the priest. And that he is in everything about the orientation, literally and figuratively of the low mass. It's just this intimate prayer and this intimate worship of God. And for my orientation, I mean that literally in the sense that the priest faces towards God, he leads us. We are following him. And we enter into these mysteries. And so when you go there, if you're going to the low mass for the first time, we haven't been very often. My biggest recommendation is don't go there with expectations at all, frankly, because it's not going to be what you expect because it's not like anything else on earth. What you should do is go there and say, Lord, allow me to enter into this worship, allow me to participate. Now, the word participate does not mean again, saying and doing things necessarily. It means that we're uniting our hearts and our minds and our whole bodies to what the Lord is doing through the ministry of the priest. And so I really would say you go there more as a blank slate, so to speaking, you allow the Lord and to speak to you through that. And allow then your heart to worship God. Now, the details of how you do that as a layperson, you could follow along carefully through the missile. I wouldn't recommend that to start, but definitely at some point, that's a good idea. It could be a good idea. You could be just praying certain prayers to yourself. I know it's always denigrated the idea of praying the rosary during mass, but that is something you could do. But you could just watch what's happening. You could watch the priest, what he's doing, how he's moving from one to another, his actions, things like that. There's a lot of different things you can do. But the idea mostly is that you are participating through your own mental prayer, through your heart being united to Christ in the celebration of the mass. Amen. Very well said. In a minute, I'm going to throw it to you, Father, and I want to want you to talk about Versus Populum versus Adoreantum and that very distinctive experience. But I want to go back to something that Eric said. By the way, don't forget to check out Eric's great work. The orchestra that he conducts is called Crisis Magazine, and it's great stuff. So as you're heading into the mass, you said, change your expectations. That's good. I think don't expect to be able to figure it out really vital. Don't expect to be able to figure it out. I don't care how smart you are. Don't. Because what's going to happen is if you do that, you're going to get really frustrated. Because especially if it's a low mass, you're not going to hear the priest. You're going to hear some things. He's going to turn at times and say, the Lord be with you in Latin. And then there's a response that's about most what occurs in a low mass in terms of response. So just as Eric said, be an observant and just be at peace. And you're going to receive the Lord. You're going to figure that out. Another thing is, I would say, sit in the back. Don't sit up front. Sit back where you can watch everybody and what they do. Father Matthew is smiling. So I imagine he's probably seen people confused, but sit in the back and then watch how they do what they do. So you can just relax. The key is, you know, you don't want to be all stressed out about this. There are no Latin mass participant police. I don't know either, neither of you, I'm sure, you know, speak up. If you've seen Latin mass participation, police booting people on mass for looking confused or not participating properly. But don't worry about it, right? Just go and be at peace. You know, it's a funny thing, right? Pope Pius X, I think he's the one that coined the phrase, full and active participation. Well, that was in 1903. Is that right, Father Matthew 1903? Yes, and his most appropriate on sacred music, Trella Saludutini. He meant actual participation, you know. And I think with active participation, again, as you touched upon it, Dan and as Eric has touched upon it. The important thing is that I unite my heart to the Lord. I unite my heart to what he is doing, you know. I think of beautiful true things with the silence, the silence that the old mass can be jarring, especially at the low mass. There is more silence also at the Mesa cantatas as well in Samae, but especially at the low mass, but in silence, that's where God can speak to us, you know, and something that focuses in on that divine action in the mass and the old mass is the praying of Psalm 42 or Psalm 43 in the modern English translations. Judge me, oh God, discern my cause. So it's, all right, I'm separating myself from the hustle and bustle. I'm separating myself from the war outside, my worries inside. I'm going to the altar of God, the God who brings joy to my youth, which is often repeated, you know, at the prayer of the altar, youth referring to my soul, the inner life of my very being, you know, and again, there's a danger sometimes when we approach prayer, particularly liturgical prayer, we can be like Thomas the Apostle before he saw the risen Lord. Just as Thomas the Apostle said, unless I touch the wounds his hands feet inside, I can't believe so we could say, unless I know everything that's going on and doing something, I'm feeling something, I'm not at mass, I'm not praying, nothing's happening. And we can forget, these people honors me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me as the prophet Isaiah chastised Israel and also our Lord chastised the people of his time in the gospel. And the important thing is to just unite my life to what God is doing and let him act. And that's what the silence of the low mass and the silence of the old mass and its other forms helps me to do. Also with Adoreantum, you'll notice when you go to low mass, you can tell us how I'm high mass, all the prayers are said by the priest towards the tabernacle and the cross. Okay. And that position is Adoreantum towards the east. So the east represented Christ, the rising sun, also represents the way our Lord will return at the end of time to judge living the dead. It also represents in the ancient temple, the Holy of Holies was to the east. So that's the position where God is, where he will come again, where he is before us. So we're directing our prayers not just in ourselves according to our emotions, but we're guiding our hearts, every aspect of our being in a particular way as the baptized faithful led by the priest offering the mass to the Father in Christ through the Spirit. And that's what Adoreantum emphasizes, that the mass is not just about the local community. The mass unites me to the communion of saints around the world and heaven and earth. And that's why when we go to mass, every mass is timeless. It unites the present moment to the past and to the future. St. Thomas Aquinas summarized the mass. And when I teach and preach about the mass, I often use the Osaka Gravivium, O sacred banquet in which Christ becomes our food, the memory of his passion is recalled. So it's a sacrifice, sacrificial meal, wedding feast, souls filled with grace and pledge of future glory, pointing to the consummation of all history with the wedding feast of the Lamb of God, Jesus Christ and his bride, the church. Our Lord. And that's what Adoreantum especially emphasizes in that posture, that it's not just me connecting to you only. It's about us united with all heaven and earth, worshiping the one true God, Father, Son, Holy Spirit with every aspect of our being. Okay, better review. That's beautiful. I'm thinking, Lord, please, if you could approve cloning and let's make Father Matthew the first. A lot of times, you know, you can think, you know, this could be a stereotype. To be Catholic is not to solely live in the past, nor solely live in our age, but to always see that a Catholic as disciples of Jesus were never divorced from him in every age of history. Christ speaks to us in every age and that's what Adoreantum and the old mass stress that every age of the Church's history has value for us today, not just our own age only and not just the past. And that's what's so important and central to our identity as disciples of Christ in our worship and in our live faith and in our prayer. Amen. Couldn't say it more heartily. So, I want to just make sure we're reiterating things that are really at a practical level as we're walking through these very beautiful reflections on the theology and why things exist and all of that. So, prepare for mass. Become a subscriber to Benedictus. We'll throw that up on the screen again. Pick that up. Begin to use it Sunday morning. Review what you're going to participate in in mass. And begin to prepare your heart and mind. You could even have, you know, if you're driving to mass in your white van with 13 kids, you can, if you can get them to quiet down, you cannot. We have a bunch of white bands and my parents is awesome. Best way for the new evangelization is to create new beings and teach them about Jesus, right? But the, you can read that out loud. You can even share, you know, if you have kids that can read and they can read different portions of it to one another. Prepare by a daily practice of mental prayer. Learn to begin to sit in silence. As Father mentioned, when you're in silence, there's, there's a lot going on that you don't experience in the noise of the world that Eric also talked about. And it's a, it's a place where we meet God in a way that we can't otherwise do so. And Jesus constantly went off into the silence, into the intimate conversation with God the Father and the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is preeminently that call into that, into that beautiful silence of worship where I'm not getting anything done. I'm not multitasking. I'm not doing it. So prepare beforehand, do that. Manage your expectations. This is going to be very different. Sit in the back. Relax. Don't try to learn it. I would say probably three months every Sunday without working it. And then maybe pick up a missile and start reading that. It's good to read it before mass or, you know, again, you can use Benedictus. And then you can, you can begin to try to follow it. I want to recommend an amazing book. And it is the only book I'll recommend here that's not published by Sophia. Sophia, I just ripped my earphones out by the book falling on them. Is a book called The Treasure and Tradition, The Ultimate Guide to the Latin Mass. It's published by St. Augustine Academy Press. And they are not lying when they say The Ultimate Guide to Latin Mass because it goes through every single movement of the Mass. It has beautiful old pictures of illustrations of what's really happening at the Mass, descriptions of what the priest is doing at various stages, the differences between a solemn high mass, a high mass, and a low mass. The music and where it comes from, the seasons of the church, the festivals, the vestments, the, you know, the accoutrements, the altar. And you can really pick up this book. It's absolutely stunning in its visual representation of what's going on. And begin to study that yourself. And then also, you know, there's no better way to learn than to teach. So begin sharing that with your family, maybe page by page on a Sunday or even a Saturday night sitting down with them and talking through, you know, this is what we're going to see tomorrow. This is what's going on. So relax, low expectations, sit in the back. Don't try to figure it out at first. What other recommendations do you all have for, you know what? Actually, let me ask you a more specific question. Both of you said this over and over. Unite yourself to the sacrifice of the Mass. So a lot of ordinary form Catholics are confused regarding what is the high point of the Mass? Theologically, the church is taught in a very specific way. I think it's in Mestigi corporeis. I may have that wrong, but I know Father will correct me. But it was an encyclical right before the Second Vatican Council where it speaks very clearly. The highest form of the Mass is the joining of our sacrifice with the sacrifice of the priest, with the sacrifice of Christ. In the Mass, not reception of communion, which is why our Sunday obligation is fulfilled whether we receive communion or not. I mean, it's one of the reasons why. But what I want to get to is maybe each of you can say, from your own perspective, what is it? Like, Eric, what do you do specifically in your heart and mind? What do you say? What do you pray as you walk into that Mass to unite yourself with the holy sacrifice of the Mass? What does that mean? So it's been a development in my own life in that when I first started going to the Latin Mass, traditional Latin Mass, I was just observing almost. I was just kind of seeing what's going on. But then what I did was after doing that for a little bit of time, I did start to study and I have the same book, the one that you just showed. And I studied the Mass. I read some books about it. I really studied the missile for what's happening. And so then what happened was is that I knew generally, and by the way, I just want to make sure it's very clear to everybody, I personally am terrible at Latin. I do not, I'm terrible at languages. I barely can do my own. And so don't feel like you have to be a Latin scholar to appreciate Mass. But the point is, is that I would then start to understand what's happening at each part of the Mass. So for example, at the beginning, the prayers at the foot of the altar, in which the priest prays Psalm 42, and it essentially is saying, I'm not worthy to walk up these steps and I'm not worthy to say this Mass, but I give my heart to you. I give my life to you. So I try to do that then. I know that's what the priest is praying, essentially. I'm trying to pray the same thing. And then I know that, for example, the one thing, the big difference is also the readings. The epistle in the old Mass is traditionally more of a moral exhortation, whereas in the ordinary form, it's much more a story of salvation history. And so I will read that passage before Mass, actually what we do is with the kids on Saturday night, we get together and we read the scripture passages and we talk about them some. And so I know what's being, even though, like at our parish, they don't read them in English, after reading them in Latin, they only read them in Latin, but I know what the reading is because I've already read it. And I think about what's the moral exhortation there? Same with the Gospel, what is the Lord trying to say in the Gospel on that Sunday? And then also, and then the prayers of the Eucharistic prayers, the Canon of the Mass, I know those enough now over time by reading them outside of Mass and following them along at times at Mass to understand generally what the church is trying to pray for. And I then try to unite myself to those prayers of the priest. And I offer myself up as a sacrifice. And I try to say to the Lord, okay, we're offering up obviously our Lord Himself in the sacrifice of the Mass, but I want to unite myself to that. And so then even at the end, just to skip ahead to the end, at the end of every church in Latin Mass is the last Gospel, which is the first chapter of St. John and St. John's Gospel. And that's always very powerful to me because it talks about the Word becoming flesh. And the Word just became, came to us under the appearance of bread and wine. I received Him, and so the Word has become flesh in me. And so you see how I kind of gear my own mental prayer towards the Mass. Not that I know exactly, every word is being said by the priest in Latin. I don't, and of course a lot of them I don't even hear. But I do know what's being generally prayed for at each moment without even having to follow a missile. And that takes a little bit of time. I get it. So for me, that's what I do. And in fact, with the missile, I only use the missile at the first part of the Mass. And I don't use it all during the Canon or after the Creed essentially because I know generally what's being prayed. And so that's how I do it. And I think that's, I think it can be beneficial for people to know generally the structure of the Mass so that then they can gear their mental prayer during Mass towards what's going on at Mass. Awesome. Very good. Father, before I throw it to you, I want to recommend two apps. And I don't know, you know, I don't know a priest worry about apps when they're presiding over the Mass. But iMass is great if you want while you're at Mass and it's the letter I and then M-A-S-S. And you'll end up, you know, you'll download that. You'll end up on a screen, Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. And then you can find the under liturgical books and then Missale. You'll find then for the day, it'll automatically pull up the Mass in Latin on the left and in English on the right. So, but I wouldn't do this for a while. I mean, as we've said, you know, give yourself some time if you try to start following along because it'll just be frustrating because you'll bring in ordinary form, behavior to extraordinary form, and then it'll just, it won't work for you. But over time, that's a great tool. Another one I love for using for Daily Mass and it's very cool on an I on a tablet. And that is I-P-A-T-I-P-I-E-T-A. I think that's how you spell it. I-P-A-T-I-E-T-A. And I-P-A-T-A actually, because I go to ordinary and extraordinary both and because I write and reflect on both, you know, with our community, I regularly look at them and I do it side by side, which is kind of cool. You can do a lot of things like that with I-P-A-T-A. So those are a few apps that you can pick up. Let me throw it to you, Father, for one last bit of advice maybe that you have for folks and then we'll bring it to a close. What can those who are struggling and maybe, I don't know, maybe, so you're a scholar and that's a lot of the way that you look and think, but I know you've got a deep prayer life and you have a real heart for the people of God. Maybe speak at a pastoral level to the people of God here listening about, you know, the struggle and how they can find their way and find peace in the midst of this really great storm we're in in terms of the church and really be blessed in their attending of the traditional Latin Mass and any thoughts maybe on how they, as we've discussed, can unite their prayers with the prayers of the priest and in the sacrifice of Christ. Okay. Well, thank you very much. I don't, even though I do have some expertise, I don't pretend to be this big scholar. I am just, I try to be a humble, diocesan priest faithful to the Lord. But anyway, with the old Mass, I think, the important thing is that you show up. And like Dan and Eric said, just observe what's happening. Observe what's happening. See the truth of what's happening in the gestures of the priest. See the truth in what's happening and the prayers, the way that the prayers are being said or chanted, you know, yes, look at the prayers and the readings before Mass. Don't obsess so much about the missile. Just be at Mass. St. Thomas Aquinas has a metaphysical line that has a lot of spiritual meaning from his work on being an essence. Action must follow being. And it's so rich in that, before I do anything in my life, especially my relationship with God, who am I? Who am I? How does God the Father in Christ and the Spirit see me? And that's the important thing to start off with, first and foremost, when I go to Mass. Who am I as I approach the Holy Sacrifice in the Mass? What do I bring to the Lord? What do I bring not only for myself, but for those around me? Those who maybe don't have faith or distorting faith, you know, distorting the Gospel. How can I stand the breach for them, for most of all, by uniting my life to the one true sacrifice of Christ? And praise, thanksgiving, adoration, and confession. Something that shows us how to do that is Our Lady. And one of my favorite readings, which is the Gospel reading for a votive Mass of Our Lady on Saturday during the time of Pentecost in the Old Right is from Luke. And Our Lord describes as both the mother as one who hears the Word of God and observes it, or the one who hears the Word of God and acts upon it. And the way we hear the Word of God isn't just through an audible language, but we hear the Word, we receive a person into our life. And that person in receiving him in our life receives us into his life. So Our Lady shows us how to be receptive to the action of God in liturgical prayer, in personal prayer, and also in the day-to-day living of our life. Realizing that it's not me, and even though I may feel like garbage when I go to Mass, I may have all these rambunctious kids that I'm trying to keep quiet in the middle of low Mass. The fact that I'm there and the fact I'm uniting my life through the sacrifice of Christ sent to me at the moment of consecration through the words of the priest and through the hands of the priest by God, that pleases him. And also, even though that my kids may be rambunctious in the middle of low Mass, the fact that they're there being rambunctious, even though I may have to take them out a little bit and then come down, then come back in, that pleases God. And by being in the Eucharistic presence of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ, at Mass at the moment of consecration, they receive the graces that they need just as I receive the graces that I need. So being present, uniting my life, not just in the ways that I'm cold, that I find easy, but completely, even the ways that challenge me, that is how I primarily am called to pray by the Lord whenever I go to Mass. And that's what the Old Mass challenges me to do before the Lord. Beautifully said. I loved one thing you said and, you know, I repeat it often. If you asked me what is one secret to growing in prayer and intimacy with God, my answer is show up. And one secret, honestly, it's it. Just keep coming back and keep making yourself present to him to the best of your degree in your brokenness, in your weakness, in your frustration, in your elation, in your joys, in your sorrows. And he will meet you there in ways that the world can never, it's not in any way ever an emulation of the way the world tries to entertain us or to draw us into altered states of consciousness and, you know, and sort of psychic elation or any of that. It's actually an authentic encounter with the King of Kings and the Lord of Lords where we buy being present and buy our intention to honor him due thereby unite ourselves with his sacrifice and what is his response to pour out his grace and love upon us through the hands of the priest, through the, through the liturgy, through the reception of Holy Communion so that we might know him, we might come to love him as he is worthy of our love and love others and live a life of peace, you know, which he calls us all to. So I want to give just a final shout out to Eric, thanks for being with us and you're doing a great job of our Crisis Magazine producer man, if you could pop up the URL for Crisis, you ought to go out there and subscribe, they're doing a lot of good work in helping us understand the challenge funny for a while, I thought, what's the crisis? You know? You certainly are blessed with enough to talk about in our time. Unfortunately. And then also want to give a shout out and a big thanks to Sophia and Stupress. I, you know, there's good publishers out there no doubt my friends, you know, run them but I tell you, Sophia and Stupress are really just killing it and if they're doing such a great work in publishing new authors who are giving us new insights into the faith but also bringing back one book I'm really excited about you can put up Sophia and Stupress's URL if you have that, if not no big deal, Sophia and Stupress but there's a book coming out I want you guys to keep an eye out for that will rock your world and it's, we're bringing back something out of print by St. Alphons's Liguria called Prayer, Great Means of Salvation which is a subset of a much larger work that would require you to have a forklift to move around it's much easier to bite off but it will also help you participate in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass because to the degree that your prayer life that you daily meet him and give your heart and mind to Jesus a lot of traditionalists and I'll, you know, Father Chad Ripper, who is one of the most well-known traditionalists on the planet he has said that we're real good at devotional prayers and vocal prayer not very good at mental prayer which is very much a part of the historic tradition of the church and frankly extraordinarily powerful in terms of drawing us near to him helping us to know and come to love him and then thereby be motivated to give our life for him and for the world and that comes through proximity to Jesus and other than the Mass there's no more powerful way to draw near to Jesus as in reflecting on him through Lectio Divina in the Gospels so do that that's going to help you prepare as well and the last thing is Benedictus I want to throw that up on the screen again and really strongly recommend that you subscribe to Benedictus and if you could put the URL up there as well and that will in a big way help you to prepare for Mass it'll help you to once you're ready to follow the Mass and really enrich your experience and I can't recommend it more I really think every single person here listening should go out and subscribe to pray Benedictus and you will not write me an email saying I can't believe you recommended that you will not be upset with me you will be happy and even if things get tight I doubt you would ever discontinue the subscription it's just that beautiful and that good so once again thank you Eric and Father Matthew for the goodness that you men exemplify in your roles in the church your desire to love God and give your hearts to God and to advance the kingdom of God this broadcast or this webinar has not been about criticizing anyone or anything it's really been about holding up the great beauty that we have in the tradition of the Catholic Church and I can't thank you all both enough for spending the time with me and everybody and this evening to talk it through thank you very much for having us thank you Dan it's been an honor and a blessing alright Father would you close this out by giving us your blessing sure the name of the Father and the Son of the Holy Spirit Amen through the intercession the Blessed Mary of the Virgin St. Joseph her spouse St. Michael the Archangel St. John the Baptist the Blessed Apostle St. Peter and St. Paul St. William the Abbot St. Patrice the Believer St. Peter the Holy Spirit Amen Amen Father and Son of the Holy Spirit Awesome thank you again God bless you guys God bless you