Helpful hints for the newcomer to the old Mass

A Catholic woman who returned to the Church some 18 years ago to embrace a "fairly traditional" Catholic outlook has written "The Laywoman's Guide To The Usus Antiquior..." (Mulier Fortis, June 14, 2009), which, despite (or because of?) the fact, as she says, that she has no "special knowledge" or "training" to offer, is in fact quite helpful. She writes from her own experience and, I think, offers some instructive "toggling" between the perspectives of the Novus Ordo (NO) and Traditional Latin Mass (TLM).

For example, she notes that one of the first things that confuses the newcomer to the TLM is that it is not "linear," like the NO. In the NO, she says, "one thing happens at a time, and events follow on one after another... and participation has come to be interpreted as 'following and understanding everything that's said and done.'" By contrast, in the TLM, particularly in the High Mass, there are lots of things happening at once:

Trying to follow what is happening is extremely confusing, because the choir will be singing Mass propers ... while the priest is reading the texts at the altar, and the deacon and subdeacon may be moving around the sanctuary, while the servers are preparing something else... everything is following a precise pattern, everything has its proper place, but, unless you know what you're looking at, it's easy to get totally lost.

For this reason, she recommends starting with the Low Mass, although offering as a caveat that even then there are "a lot of preconceptions and hang-ups which need to be overcome." To many the silence and stillness will be disconcerting at first. Yet the Low Mass offers the fewest distractions, and she suggests:

The first time one attends a Low Mass, I would recommend sitting or kneeling near the back and just watching, while offering a prayer from the heart. The readings and prayers can be looked at before or after Mass. After a few times, once the general structure of the Mass is familiar, then one can start to follow the prayers in a missal ....

There are other reasons one might prefer to suggest a High Mass to the newcomer, such as that, despite the complexity and confusion, the music and ritual can sometimes be unspeakably beautiful. Yet, she has a point.

She also notes some interesting things about "active participation" in the liturgy from both perspectives of the TLM and NO. For the former, of course, the meaning of that phrase primarily has to do with interior recollectedness concerning what is happening in the Mass, or, as Pope Pius X said, praying the Mass. Yet this meaning has undergone a transformation in the NO, as she observes:

If you're not making the responses, there's a suspicion that you're not "taking part" - a key example of this is the sign of peace: this is the point in the Mass where one is supposed to meet and greet as many people in the congregation as possible. Trying to remain recollected in prayer is seen as "being unfriendly." One time, I found myself being profoundly moved by the Mass, and tears were streaming down my face. I didn't want this to be noticed, however, and attempted to bow my head and not look round at the sign of peace... I thought this would be ok, as there wasn't anyone standing anywhere near me. Imagine my discomfort when someone actually walked across the church to my pew, and poked me in the arm to attract my attention and offer me the sign of peace.

There is some excellent food for thought in this thoughtful post.