Beauty Attracts: Patrick Simons on the Ordinariate Mass

An excerpt from an article at: https://practicalponderings.wordpress.com/

Getting More Out of Mass (Part I of II)

Or Why I Fell in Love with the Ordinariate Form of the Mass

—by Patrick Simons

https://practicalponderings.wordpress.com/2018/01/28/getting-more-out-of-mass-part-i-of-ii/

(I)n 2014, on a whim, we visited a newly formed Parish of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter whose pastor was the high school history teacher of one of our sons.  This was my first experience with the “Anglican Use” or “Ordinariate Form” Mass.

Although the gathering space was a nondescript classroom (in fact, quite ugly), I was immediately struck by the beauty of the liturgy.  Having read the Vatican II document Sacrosanctum Concilium years before, I had for years felt that the reforms intended by the Council had not been implemented well.  I had, in fact, had multiple discussions (er, debates?) with various priests over the years in which I contended that the most faithful implementation of the reforms would have been to essentially translate the Tridentine liturgy into the local vernacular (English in our case) while retaining the reverence and the various liturgical sacramentals (incense, bells, etc. – the “smells and bells”).  This is exactly what we found in the Ordinariate Form.

and ends...

Saint John Vianney confirms this in his Sermon for the Last Sunday after Pentecost:

“As a rule, one dies as one has lived. This is one of the great truths which has been confirmed many times by Scripture and the holy fathers. If you have lived like good Christians, you will be sure to die like good Christians; but, when you live un-Christian-like, your death will be of the same kind.”

Understanding this, shouldn’t we do all that we can to seek out, participate in, and support the most reverent and transcendent Catholic liturgy we can find? This is why I fell in love with the Ordinariate Form of the Mass.