Two All Saints Masses

I went to Mass in my Parish Church earlier. As I've often mentioned, St Wenceslaus is a small, rural Parish in the Diocese of Lincoln. It's one of four St Wenceslaus Parishes in the Diocese, indicative of the number of Bohemians who settled in this area.

For a Holy Day Mass at 19.30 it was fairly well attended. Counting the four men in the Sanctuary and the two women in the choir loft (organist and cantor), there were 28 people in the Church. The Feast Day Mass at 17.30 on Thursday will undoubtedly be much better attended.

As I noted in my post Have I Fallen Through a Time Warp?, our Parish bulletin has, for the past three weeks contained the announcement, 'PLEASE NOTE THAT ALL SAINTS DAY is Thursday, November 1, and a Holy Day of Obligation under the pain of deadly sin for purposely missing Mass.' We take that sort of thing quite seriously in this Diocese.

It was beautiful. As always, reverently done, strictly according to the rubrics. I was a bit disappointed that Father didn't use the Roman Canon with all the names of the Roman Martyrs, but he went with EP II, I suppose because it was a late evening Mass.

We sang some good, old hymns honouring the Saints. Unfortunately, since the Gospel was the Beatitudes, the Communion Hymn was an unsingable 1970s musical setting of them. However, as I start my Thanksgiving during the Communion Hymn, I never sing it, good or bad. All in all, it was a wonderful experience.

So what is the other All Saints Mass? Well, 27 years ago tonight, I was in Chicago. I was an invited speaker at the Catholic Voice International conference that was being held there. After an adventurous first flight in an airliner, I had arrived several hours after my scheduled arrival. In fact, the Cuter and Shorter Half, who was waiting for me to call and let her know I'd arrived, was glued to the TV watching WGN-TV (a Chicago cable 'super station' at that time) assuming there'd been a plane crash at O'Hare and she was a widow with four small children!

Whilst the plane had not crashed, I arrived at the conference hotel just in time to catch the bus to Mass and dinner (at which I was privileged to be at Michael Davies table!). I had been so late that I had no idea what the evening's schedule was, and I'd basically been herded on to the bus.

When I discovered we were on our way to Mass, I mentioned to my seat mate that I wasn't in a state of grace and wouldn't be able to receive Holy Communion. He told me not to worry, that there would be plenty of opportunity for me to confess. I wondered how, until we reached the Church.

We were attending the Mass of All Saints in what is now called the Extraordinary Form at St John Cantius. This was, of course, before Fr Phillips founded the Canons Regular, but it was already an oasis of Tradition in Chicago. There were enough Priests available that confessions were heard during Mass, so, problem solved!

The Mass was a Solemn High Mass, one of only two or three such that I've been privileged to hear (another was this past Sunday as I posted in, Monseigneur Lefebvre, the SSPX, and I). It was the first Solemn High Mass I'd ever experienced, my previous attendance at the TLM being in small, country Parishes prior to and during the Council, and one grudgingly granted Mass at the St Lawrence Student Centre at the University of Kansas.

It was glorious! And because it was All Saints Day, the side Altars were covered with all of the precious relics of the Saints that the Parish possessed, for the veneration of the Faithful. It was a beautiful experience, and one which I will never forget. And, needless to say, it was much better attended than the one in St Wenceslaus Church tonight!

(Now that I'm reminded of the experience, a post in the near future will be my tale of that wonderful weekend!)