Jcecil has a post at Liberal Catholic News discussing the fact that The Latin Mass is about to become more widely available, and I must say I'm excited by the prospect, but also dreading the kooky (there really is no other word for it) people who I imagine will be pamphleting outside afterwards:
I've been to approved Latin Masses, and it is a beautiful way of worshiping, though my preference is for the Post-Vatican II Mass. When done well, I like the Novus Ordo better than the Tridentine rie. My main beef with the SSPX, sedevacantists, and/or other rad-trads and is when they say the Novus Ordo is invalid, Vatican II is heresy, and the current Pope is an anti-pope and the Jews are Christ killers conspiring to take over the world. Some of what these people say is mean and evil and even heretical.
Some of my own feelings about the Latin Mass, per se: I would welcome the opportunity to assist at one. Part of it is the "connection with history" thing, but part of it is also because I love the Mass settings written by a 15th century composer named Palestrina.
His Missa de Beata Virgine is just indescribably beautiful, filled with a tenderness (given the title) and suffused with a spirit of deep, sublime longing, together with a hint of that longing's fulfillment, that just floors me whenever I listen to it.
My own parish can't begin to afford a choir that could really do it justice, but I'd travel quite a distance to immerse myself in an offering of this Mass.
My own wish is that the kooks would take a break from the agitprop, and let the Tridentine Rite be spread by word of mouth. They might be surprised (and I imagine not in a happy way) by the cross-section of people who would make a habit of attending a really well-done version of it.
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