I recall attending the Tridentine Mass until I was five. My memories of it would have vanished had it not been for the day I discovered a dramatic change in the Mass format. The altar now faced the congregation and the Mass was held in the local language. Much later, I understood that the Second Vatican Council (1962-67) had mandated a change to accommodate the ‘Novus Ordo’ or the New Rite. This was meant to bring the Mass closer to the people in a more literal sense.
There was a change in the liturgy. Pope Paul VI promulgated liturgical books in 1969, and their adoption into the Roman rite began in 1970. In Goa, it changed entirely to Konkani, English, or Portuguese. I still have Goa’s first edition of the rite booklet in Portuguese, which my father gave me. I worried about my reading being out of pace with the celebrant’s and felt reassured when my father said that it would not be so for too long.
However, distrusting my own emotions, I kept it to myself that the Mass did not feel as calm and quiet as before. By the time of my First Holy Communion in 1972, there were plenty of new hymns in English and Konkani, the former of which were quite peppy. The priest-led choir seemed far happier than the congregation, at least in my parish.
Again, the older priests here delivered sermons while the younger ones seemed trained for homilies. The people took to these, yet some men continued the old practice of stepping out of the church for a smoke or a chat. Men’s smoking and women’s wearing of veils possibly ended in the late 1970s. Gender segregation also disappeared: men no longer sat exclusively in the rear pews and women in the front ones.
Therefore, after all these years, I jumped at the opportunity to attend a Vetus Ordo (Old Order) Mass with a good measure of saudade (nostalgia). It was to be held at a historic chapel dedicated to St Francis Xavier in Old Goa. Just the thought of it brought back memories of my parents, who had lovingly introduced me to the Mass, and my grandmothers, who had passed down piety through example. Above all, it was the richness of the liturgy in Latin and the solemnity of the Gregorian chant that made me truly want to attend.
In the run-up to that day, I ruminated on why the old form of the Mass was discontinued in the first place. Curiously, it was never officially stopped, but it was made to look obsolete by not being promoted or even spoken about. Some blamed it on Latin, which they dubbed difficult and strange. since Pope Pius V standardized the Roman Rite through the Roman Missal?
Come to think of it, can one ever feel out of place when visiting one’s paternal home, even if it is after half a century? Likewise, can a language ever feel foreign if it is our very own mother tongue—the official language of the Mother Church? The Tridentine Mass is the same Mass that St Francis Xavier said as he went about Christianizing Goa and India. Latin is the same language that our ancestors heard, sang in, read, and loved down the centuries.
Hence, on the occasion of the solemn Exposition of the Sacred Remains of St Francis Xavier last year, I decided to attend a Traditional Latin Mass, and I gratefully recall the day.
(to be continued tomorrow)