We are all very little at the foot of the Cross, and yet what the world judges to be a "barrier" to participation is in fact precisely what we need nowadays to draw close to the throne of saving grace.

The Timeless Draw Of The Traditional Latin Mass.

By Fr. Calvin Goodwin, FSSP.

I recently read an article on the influence that current media has on young people. The import of the article was that most young people today have their eyes (and attention) divided at any given moment among their Playstation, their cell phone, and the Internet. Hence the phenomenon amongst young people today - which any longtime teacher can testify to - of the "shrinking span of attention". So what has common perception to do with the Traditional Rite of holy Mass?

Well, when Pope Benedict XVI, in Summorum Pontificum, informed the Catholic world that the Traditional Latin Mass had not in fact been banned after the last ecumenical council and that he wanted that form of Mass to become a common experience in ALL catholic churches, he also mentioned that his was not an exercise in religious nostalgia, but a sign of living growth in the Church - precisely because the "Latin Mass movement" had become a movement of the young. The question, then is: Why are young people drawn in such numbers to the Traditional Latin Mass?

One would have imagined that, with the attested shorter attention span, a Mass that is (a) in Latin, (b) celebrated with "the priest's back to the people," and (c) largely celebrated amidst long periods of silent prayer, would have been exactly what young people would NOT want. But to conclude thus would only be repeating a common error of out time - to think that the Mass must "appeal" to us, and if it doesn't, then we must reshape it so that it will do so.

But what IS the Mass? It is the re-presentation upon the altar, in an unbloody manner, of the Sacrifice of Calvary. This sacrifice of Christ does not need to be made "relevant" to us - we need to conform ourselves to it! And it is a testimony to the truth of this principle that God is leading young people, in large numbers, to the Mass that makes Sacrifice clearly and specifically present.

The Mass, as celebrated since ancient times in the Catholic Church, draws us out of our everyday experience. The Fathers of the Church used to say that it is not even so much that at the Consecration Our Lord comes down upon the altar as that he draws us upwards to the realm where He dwells in everlasting glory. There, at Mass, we all - young and old - are the ones about whom Our Lord said, "Let the little ones come to me and do not hinder them." (Mk 10:14) We are all very little at the foot of the Cross, and yet what the world judges to be a "barrier" to participation is in fact precisely what we need nowadays to draw close to the throne of saving grace.