Mary Immaculate of Lourdes
The
Tridentine Latin Mass
and a 2000 year tradition alive
and well in Boston
Mary Immaculate of Lourdes,
Newton, MA
Father Charles J.
Higgins, Pastor
The Catholic Latin
Mass of 2000 years is alive and well in Boston and flourishing!
(see the photo gallery)
15 minutes from down town Boston
and just a couple of miles from route 95 (route 128) lies a spiritual
treasure for Catholics of greater Boston Mary Immaculate of Lourdes
where the Mass is celebrated in the ancient language of the Catholic
Church, Latin, according to the Roman Missal of 1962 ... in other words,
as the Mass had been celebrated for the better part of 2000 years before
the devastating liturgical changes following the Second Vatican Council.
After Vatican II, the Church had,
"flung open the doors", allowing the world to rush in ... as the
Faithful rushed out. The "ever ancient, ever new" had completely discarded
the former and left the latter as the only iteration of an identity
bereft of its history. Since the notion of identity implies history
(my own identity necessarily incorporates a history of who and what
I have been in any attempt to understand who I presently am,
and this is what I understand as a sense of my own "identity"),
the vast and sweeping changes in the liturgy and life of the Church
following the Second Vatican Council left Catholics reeling and uncertain
about the one remaining and most vital certainty they once possessed:
the Church ... as "ever ancient and ever new" and which had become,
with breathtaking celerity, "ever new and ever newer."
Holy Ground
The Church was always the one
copula to every generation past, regardless of any other changes around
them. It was the rite, the ritual, the language that had baptised their
living and buried their dead for 2000 years. It was a single, unbroken
continuity with a past by which they understood the present; indeed,
for many, by which they deeply understood themselves. More than any
given building, it was a soil, a single and sacred soil that subtended
every Church in every city of every nation, binding each through an
absolutely common and holy ground.
And suddenly ... it was swept
from under their feet. Practices, devotions, and rituals, even beliefs,
that in many ways had defined the Church as a singular and unique institution
apart from all others, became ... irrelevant, "incorrect" or simply
"wrong". In so many ways, "The Faith of Our Fathers" was no longer our
own. We practiced, prayed, lived, worshipped, and in some significant
ways, believed, what was vastly different from our forbears. Many had
lost a "sense of identity" largely through the absence of something
cogent to "identify with". Indeed, what had historically been cherished
as uniquely Catholic had been the very things first jettisoned by the
flurry of changes following Vatican II. We need not catalog them, although
we could (language, liturgy, devotions, theology, architecture, statuary,
art, catechesis, etc.)
Summorum Pontificum
Then came Summorum Pontificum. Finally,
a vinculum to all that had been lost, discarded, jettisoned, and disdained
or ridiculed by the more "progressive" and "enlightened" Catholics who
cherished a pseudo-clerical power invested in them through endless "Ministries"
of this and that, and quarrelsome "Parish Councils". The progressive
laity hijacked the Sanctuary even as the priests ventured farther and
farther out into the pews. Summorum Pontificum did not put the
brakes on this ... but it offered a more than viable alternative to
much of the liturgical experimentation, innovation and nonsense that
has plagued and divided the Church for over 50 years. It brought back
to us, incorrupt, "The Faith of Our Fathers" as our fathers had known
and practiced it. The patrimony that had been lost had been reacquired.
The Catholic longing for the beauty and solemnity of the Tridentine
Mass had the stigma removed of being a Latin-Rite Leper a pariah among
his own people even to the episcopacy which grudgingly acceded to
what it could no longer forbid. Pope Benedict XVI, well aware of the
controversy and reluctance that his encyclical would engender, wisely
circumvented the College of Cardinals by issuing it as a Motu Proprio
(of his own personal accord). A Catholic could pray even worship
in Latin with impunity. What is more, he could worship and pray free
of distraction by so many personalities competing for his attention
during the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. He could focus on Christ;
be totally present to the Sacrifice being enacted before him. Free of
drums, cymbals, trap sets, and banging pianos by a troupe of performers
eager to solicit his applause at the end of Mass, he could enter the
Church with one sole purpose: to worship, rather than to be entertained.
This is what you will find at
Mary Immaculate of Lourdes in Newton, Massachusetts: worship of God,
rather than adulation of man. This is heady stuff; the stuff of dreams.
The dreams of so many Catholics for so long. Solemnity, dignity, ecclesiastical
beauty, the organ ... Gregorian chant! The Angelus!
In English, as Well
Mary Immaculate of Lourdes also
celebrates the Mass in the vernacular English found at most parishes,
but with this significant difference: whether in the vernacular or in
Latin, the Most Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is always celebrated with
great reverence, solemnity, and dignity. In this sense, it is the Mass
in the vernacular as the Second Vatican Council had envisioned and intended
... which is to say, not what has been widely implemented in America
and elsewhere. Here we find that the Mass can be experienced as profoundly
sacred even in the vernacular. Christ not the anecdotal
priest as entertainer, not the pianist, the drummer, the lector, or
the "Music Ministers" is the center of the Mass, the Mass understood
and enacted as a Sacrifice the very Sacrifice on Calvary before which
we stand, in which we ourselves participate, not as spectators before
some distant and remote drama, but as participants actually standing
at the foot of the Cross. Drums, cymbals, trap sets, pianos, divas ...
where were they on Calvary? And were they there, could they really do
aught but stand and tremble?
Now that you know the waking reality,
what drive could be so long, what journey so arduous, that you would
conscionably excuse yourself and demur from this tremendous, this
inestimable gift? The Faith of Our Fathers" ... yes. It is here.
Bring, then, the children, that they may know the beauty of the worship
due the true and living God and to bequeath it to their own children
from generation to generation.
Faith of Our Fathers! Ita est!
Note: Mary Immaculate of
Lourdes in Newton, MA is currently undergoing extensive restoration
Mary Immaculate of Lourdes,
home to the Tridentine Mass in Boston, is making every effort to
bring back the beauty of the Church, its sacred statuary, stained
glass, Stations of the Cross, the Sacristy, and murals painted over 100 years ago. Please ... consider sending a donation
to help in this magnificent effort, that our children may
know what their fathers and mothers had known from generations past
to the present. It matters not where you live ... but
where Christ lives:
Mary Immaculate of Lourdes,
Restoration
270 Elliot Street,
Newton, MA 02464
Geoffrey K. Mondello
for the Boston Catholic Journal
Printable PDF Version
DIRECTIONS:
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ADDRESS:
Mary Immaculate of Lourdes
270 Elliot Street,
Newton, MA 02464
Phone: (617) 244-0558
Email: miol@parishmail.com
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Current Bulletin and Archives |
LATIN MASS SCHEDULE
Sundays: 10:30 a.m.
Daily Low Mass: as announced in
bulletin:
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Large Scale
Map and Directions
click to expand
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Detailed Map
and Directions
click to expand
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Written Directions:
From the Mass Pike and points North:
- Take Rt. 95 (128) South to Exit 20A
Rt. 9 (East) toward Boston.
- Drive approximately 1 mile to first
set of lights and gas station, and take a sharp (hairpin) right
at these lights onto Elliot Street.
- Follow this winding road for about
1 mile and Mary Immaculate of Lourdes is on your left.
- Parking is behind the Church and on
the street.
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