by blancatherese<\/p>\n
Joshua Hernandez is a former Protestant who credits the traditional Latin Mass for his conversion to Catholicism.
\nRaised to be anti-Catholic, Hernandez began to look for a Christian denomination with historical relevance and formal liturgical practice. Though he thought Catholicism seemed too ritualistic, his first stop in his search for a church was attending a Mass to \u00e2\u20ac\u0153get it out of the way.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It all clicked,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d he said, when he saw the Latin Mass \u00e2\u20ac\u0153in all its glory.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Now he is a regular attendee at the Extraordinary Form Latin Mass celebrated each Sunday at 9 a.m. at Sts. Francis and Clare Mission in Edgewater.<\/p>\n
Likewise, his girlfriend, Vida Tavakoli, knew she had found her home in the Catholic Church when she first attended Latin Mass in England.<\/p>\n
Formerly an atheist, her aversion toward religion changed at the end of her college career, when she became a Protestant. During her post-collegiate travels she became resolute in converting to Catholicism after attending a Missa Cantata, or sung Mass, in the parish of her favorite author, J.R.R. Tolkien, a devout Catholic who penned the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Lord of the Rings\u00e2\u20ac\u009d series.<\/p>\n
Though the homilies, the first reading and a translation of the Gospel are said in the vernacular, the prayers at the Extraordinary Form of the Mass are chanted in Latin, in the Church\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s traditional Gregorian form.<\/p>\n
When she heard Latin hymns coming from the choir loft, Tavakoli said, it felt like \u00e2\u20ac\u0153hearing angels on high.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
She was mesmerized.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153It truly is extraordinary,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153There is something beautiful and sacred about this form of the Mass.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Many of those in attendance each Sunday at Sts. Francis and Clare are, in fact, young adults like Hernandez and Tavakoli, younger Catholics who did not grow up attending Mass in Latin. Their attendance is part of a national trend, as the number of Masses offered in the Extraordinary Form in the U.S. rose from approximately 60 in 1991 to just over 400 in 2010.<\/p>\n
Miami\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s traditional Latin Mass community has been served by Father Joseph Fishwick for 600 consecutive Sundays over the past 17 years. Father Fishwick, who grew up in South Florida and attended the University of Miami, remembers attending Mass as a child when the Tridentine Rite was the norm.<\/p>\n
After the Second Vatican Council, the Mass was translated into the vernacular and seminarians were no longer required to learn the older form. Father Fishwick began to learn how to officiate the Latin Mass by reading books and watching videotapes, long before the advent of YouTube and the Internet. He has been saying the traditional Latin Mass for 28 years.<\/p>\n
Today, priests interested in celebrating the Latin Mass often learn the Extraordinary Form on their own. Though most seminaries focus on teaching the novus ordo, many are beginning to host workshops for those interested in the Extraordinary Form.<\/p>\n
Last year, Archbishop Thomas Wenski invited the Priestly Fraternity of Saint Peter (FSSP), whose charism focuses on preserving and imparting the spiritual heritage of the traditional liturgy, to teach archdiocesan priests about the Mass of Blessed John XXIII.<\/p>\n
After 38 years of priesthood, Father Fishwick is retiring this August, and will be succeeded as the community\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s chaplain by Msgr. Oscar F. Casta\u00c3\u00b1eda, spiritual director at St. John Vianney College Seminary in Miami. He will be assisted by Father Rafael Cap\u00c3\u00b3, director of the Southeast Pastoral Institute (SEPI) in Miami. The schola, or choir, at Sts. Francis and Clare is directed by Jennifer Donelson, a young adult and assistant professor at Nova Southeastern University, where she directs the Nova Bossa Chorale and teaches various subjects in music.<\/p>\n
Donelson, who has led the schola since 2008, describes the dedication of those involved as heroic, because all come from different parts of Miami-Dade and Broward counties.<\/p>\n
The schola has significantly flourished since Donnelson, together with a colleague, began the annual Musica Sacra Gregorian Chant Conference, which is now in its sixth year.<\/p>\n
The schola \u00e2\u20ac\u0153enjoys the privilege of glorifying God and sanctifying the faithful through our dedication to singing the Mass in truly sacred music, music from the heart of the Church,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Donelson said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Gregorian chant \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcgrew up\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 with the Roman rite, and it is an integral part of the structure and mystagogy of the Mass.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Paulina Pecic, a student at the University of Miami who attends St. Augustine parish in Coral Gables, recently attended her first Latin Mass while visiting Ave Maria University on Florida\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s southwest coast. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was beautiful,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said, hoping for another \u00e2\u20ac\u0153chance to embrace the extra beauty that the chanting might offer.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Fellow UM student and Archbishop Coleman Carroll High alumnus Ryan Stacey, who attended Latin Mass for this first time this summer, noted that it was unique experience, especially since he did not learn or attend Latin Mass while in high school. Like Stacey, most Catholic school students in the Archdiocese are not taught about the Extraordinary Form in their religion classes.<\/p>\n
For that reason, the young adults of the forthcoming Juventutem Miami chapter seek to propagate their love and enthusiasm for the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, so that others can come to know and appreciate it.<\/p>\n
Pecic said she appreciated the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153reverential aspect that can sometimes be watered down, or, in a worst-case scenario, completely disregarded by the congregation during the Ordinary Form.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I especially enjoyed Communion (at traditional Latin Mass), where instead of going up to the priest, the priest comes to you at the kneeler,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d she said. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It was a visible reminder for me that receiving Christ in the Eucharist is a gift given out of love and not a right to claim for granted.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
As to which form of the Mass she likes better, she said, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s like comparing apples and oranges. I think both the Ordinary and the Extraordinary are beautiful in their own ways. The Ordinary Form makes the Mass accessible to every person in the Body of Christ by means of comprehensive, yet still profound language, whereas the more mysterious Extraordinary Form inspires awe by drawing us into contemplation of the very mysteries of the Word Himself.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
by blancatherese Joshua Hernandez is a former Protestant who credits the traditional Latin Mass for his conversion to Catholicism. Raised to be anti-Catholic, Hernandez began to look for a Christian denomination with historical relevance and formal liturgical practice. Though he thought Catholicism seemed too ritualistic, his first stop in his search for a church was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-473","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=473"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/473\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=473"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=473"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.latinliturgy.org\/phila\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=473"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}