Latin mass to highlight Mandurriao fiesta, Jan. 23
Ilonggo Catholic faithful will hear Latin Mass for the first time in decades at the parish of Mandurriao District here.
The Latin Mass, also known as Tridentine, will be held at 4 p.m. on January 23, the patronal Feast of the Espousal of Our Lady, said Fr. Espiridion Celis, Mandurriao parish priest.
Celis said the Latin Mass will be the first held on Panay Island since the 1960s after the Second Vatican Council ushered in Masses in the local vernacular.
The High Mass will be celebrated by three priests: Msgr. Juanito Ma. Tuvilla (celebrant), Fr. Oscar Andrada (deacon) and Fr. Winifredo Losaria (subdeacon). Fr. Renato Cuadras will be the master of ceremonies, according to the Celis.
The priests will speak in Latin except in delivering the Homily which will be in English.
Celis, who will lead the choir, said the Mass will use hymns from Gregorian plainchant and polyphonic parts of the Mass from Gounod's Messe Solennette in honor of St. Cecilia, Mozart's Ave Verum and Franck's Panis Angelicus.
"This Holy Mass serves as a window to the past that will allow many of the young people to experience the Latin Mass and the elder generation to bring back the worship they have attended before," said Celis in a statement. "It will also be a catechetical event."
Celis said the holding of the Latin Mass was in response to a directive of Pope Benedict XVI that provided for the wider use of the Tridentine as was the practice before the reforms instituted by the Second Vatican Council in 1970.
In July 2007, Pope Benedict XVI issued his Summorum Pontificum (Of the Supreme Pontiffs) which designated the Latin Mass as "an extraordinary form" of the Roman Rite. The form introduced in 1969-1970 after the Second Vatican Council was designated the "ordinary form."
The document grants greater freedom to use the Tridentine liturgy. It replaces the Ecclesia Dei of 1988, which allowed individual bishops to establish places where Mass could be said using the 1962 Roman Missal.
Before the Second Vatican Council, Masses were celebrated in Latin by a priest who faced the altar with his back to the congregation. The Second Vatican Council instituted the celebration of Masses in the vernacular with priests facing their flocks.
Many of the post-council reforms were meant to encourage the congregation to feel more involved with the ceremony.
After the reforms took hold, the Latin Mass virtually disappeared until 1984, when Pope John Paul II allowed some churches to again offer the Tridentine Mass, as long as the local bishop approved.
Under the Pope Benedict's Summorum Pontificum, permission to celebrate Mass in Latin for "stable groups" can now be given by the local pastor or rector of the church.
Some Catholics have expressed concern over Summorum Pontificum, as they view it as reversal of progressive changes made during Vatican Council II especially on bringing the liturgy closer to the faithful with the use of the vernacular.
Celis said the Latin Mass will be held just during the commemoration of the religious fiesta and main form of celebrating Mass will still be in English or the vernacular.
He said the Latin Mass is difficult to celebrate and it took three months for the priests to prepare.
The priests also informed Jaro Archbishop Angel Lagdameo, president of the Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines, and Pope Benedict XVI that they will be celebrating the Tridentine.
Celis said they expect the faithful, especially those who have not attended a Latin Mass to flock to the parish church.
"The Latin Mass is meant to allow the young people to experience it in all its grandeur and for the older generation a chance to relieve a portion of their lives," said Celis in a telephone interview.