The “Perfect!” Missal and the Future of the TLM

She now lives here in the Diocese of Lincoln. Unless the FSSP is suppressed by Francis and his Modernist Minions™, she should be safe.

From One Peter Five

By Jennifer S. Bryson, PhD

I would like to share a happy, hopeful story with you about the future of the Traditional Latin Mass. You read that right: “happy,” “hopeful,” “future,” and “TLM” all in the same sentence at the very moment rumors swirl about Pope Francis being poised to drop another hatchet on the TLM any day now.

This story starts exactly three years ago today on July 15, 2021, when I moved to Austria. For the first week after my arrival, I was alone in Covid-quarantine with no wifi. To pass the time, I had only my dog, the novel The Cypresses Believe in God, and a surprisingly fascinating view of a busy construction site just a few feet (don’t worry, more than six!) below the terrace of my quarantine.

It was a peaceful week, even with the brewing Spanish Civil War in the novel and the hammers of the builders nextdoor. I soon discovered it had not been such a peaceful week in the Church.

The first thing I did at the end of that week was to walk to the location where I would take a Covid test to finalize my liberation from quarantine. It was a sunny, seemingly cheerful summer day. Life looked up. Then, as I passed through a beautiful courtyard with roses in bloom and a fountain flowing, I saw the face of an acquaintance and knew something was wrong.

“Did you hear?” he said to me. I said, “No” and reminded him I had been in a information-free bubble while quarantined. He told me about Traditionis custodes. Uh-oh.

The news left me with sadness and concern. The sadness and concern were because, in recent years, in my second attempt to explore the TLM (the first had been thirty years earlier), the roots of my soul had found rich nourishment. After many years, attending the Novus Ordo  felt like being on a spiritual starvation diet that included Masses leaving me terribly depressed as well as feeling alienated due to the anemic and woke or woke-leaning parish life wherever I went.

By contrast, in the months before moving to Austria, through the TLM and the vibrant, spiritually rich TLM community I had found in Washington, DC (in one of the thriving TLM communities sadly obliterated in 2022 by Cardinal Gregory), logs in my spiritual log-jam were being removed, the waters of Life were flowing again, adjusting my orientation little by little toward God. Yet now, in the in the wake of Traditionis custodes, I faced uncertainty.

My desire to assist at and learn more about the TLM did not wane in any way. I was eager. I researched Latin-German missals and selected one from the FSSP’s excellent German-language publisher. Planning to use it frequently and for a long time, I also ordered a nice leather case for it. It was an investment in my soul and the future.

It arrived. It was lovely to behold, and it was packed with great content. Where I lived in Austria, we had, at the time, a TLM on Saturday mornings. I was delighted to use my new missal at one of these.

Then, just a few days later, as part of the implementation of Traditionis custodes, this weekly TLM was banned. And there I sat with this wonderful new missal. I lived in a village and had no car; another TLM was not accessible. I had used this new missal a total of one time and then, wham!, overnight, it seemed useless. I knew my new missal would be valuable for private devotions and study of the TLM, but this wonderful text is meant to guide us at the sacrifice of the Holy Mass, not be just another prayer book.

Months went by. Sporadically, through travel, I got to attend a TLM here or there. My lovely missal, however, mostly sat waiting to be used.

Over a year later, while talking to the priest of that banned Saturday TLM, I told him about my missal and how after investing time, energy, and money into finding just the right missal, I got to use it at only one Mass before that ban came down. He could tell I felt both astonished and sad that it arrived at the very point in time when our local TLM was about to be canceled. His response? Jubilantly, with a huge smile on his face and his arms sweeping out with animation, he said, “That’s perfect!!”

“Perfect”?!? Of all the possible responses, this one was not what I saw coming.

He kept smiling. He was really happy. And he could tell I was perplexed yet also curious about his joy. He said, “Yes, perfect! Because it means there will be a future.” I smiled. I said, “Yes, you are right; there will be a future.”

This is how I realized that this nice missal that arrived just as it had no use, was “perfect!”—the time for it to be used was yet to come. After that, as reports from around the region and the world kept coming about crackdowns on the TLM, I derived a certain joy and comfort from that missal. “There will be a future.”

And the more I learned about the pioneers of the post-Novus Ordo TLM, who kept it alive in the face of what seemed like the sky itself falling, the more I understood what an amazing foundation we trads inherit today to build on and pass on, even if we have to maneuver through harrowing mountain passes or underground catacombs to get to that future. “There will be a future.”

In 2023, it was time for me to leave Austria after nearly 2.5 years there. I did not move back to Washington, DC, with its urban political mismanagement, culture fueled by the sexual revolution , and, by this time, greatly reduced access to the TLM. I chose, instead, to move to a part of the country with a (relatively) stable TLM. I looked forward to my new home and, not least of all, to using my “perfect!” missal.

However, the morning I left Austria, in the final moments, there was no room for this missal. And I was completely out of time to rearrange anything in my bags. My luggage and carry-on were packed beyond full. Plus, I would be carrying my dog in her own carrier onto the flight, so my hands would be full. I was racing the clock; I absolutely had to leave immediately to get to the airport to catch my flight.

In a split-second decision, I turned to a young TLM-loving seminarian who had come with some others to say good-bye. He was at a seminary where the TLM had been banned, even though  interest in the TLM among some of the younger seminarians was growing. I handed him the “perfect!” missal.

He saw that there was no way it would fit in any of my bags. And he knew it was a particularly nice missal. I asked him to give it to a seminarian with an interest in the TLM, who did not yet have a missal. This felt like the perfect home for the “perfect!” missal—since, after all, come what may, “There will be a future.”