Beautiful churches like this lift your mind and heart to God.  Nothing makes my heart feel desolation like the church pictured in the previous post.  Why do some see this and others don’t. They do not want anything sacred in their worship?

Often it is merely ignorance or inexperience. I believe that if most committed Catholics were catechized on the theological nature of architecture and what it teaches doctrinally and how it impacts the soul, this would go a long way to correcting many of the common mistakes with Church design. On the other hand, there are some who understand the impact who have agendas to tear down the truth through architecture and do so.

From the point of view of the architecture, the traditional style of churches was intended to lift you up to God…the height, upward sweep of the arches and vaulted ceilings, even the cross of the floor plan.  This was all purposeful and worship-directed.  Modern churches are low and hulking, grounding you instead of lifting you.  The style is cold, isolated, and self-centered.  The liturgical abuses we witness these days are completely in keeping with the style of the architecture.

Congratulations Dan. I too travel quite a bit and have found a couple of these gems. What i find disheartening, once returning home to my parish, is that every Parish, everywhere is not exactly just like this one.
So we pray for our Priests, our Bishops and the Holy Father that they will be able to lead us all to this yet again. One Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church in Union one with another.
And before anyone jumps in, yes i know that there are other, just as reverent forms of Liturgy in the Catholic Church. I am simply referring to the average Diocesan Parish across the US and the manner in which The Ordinary Form is practiced.

Happy New Year. Pax

My best friend was married here just last month. Beautiful church. I especially appreciated the mosaic on the roof over the tabernacle, which shows two peacocks bowing before the Blessed Sacrament.

If you enjoyed the 7:30am Mass, you should have attended the 11am! You would have been BLOWN AWAY. I am a long-time parishioner of the parish (since conception, if we’re counting that far back; 26 years since birth) and a member of our music program. We are so blest to not only have such a beautiful building, but the spiritual guidance of Father John Libone and musical direction and formation of Michael Conrady.

Thank you for such a glowing review of a parish I love so much—not only for beautiful, faithful Masses but also for the community which attends there. It doesn’t get much better than St. Thomas!

Oh, and if you like that YouTube link, you’ll LOVE this one: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RkL4wf0Kaw

fdgefdgdfgdfg

@Laura - Wow - you have an amazing group of talented musicians. I am sold. I will check with EWTN and see if I can move the National Catholic Register headquarters to Texas :-)

It’s a lovely church and experience.  It’s amazing what piles of money can buy.  Too bad that this is held up as what being Catholic should be, when most parishes cannot come close to affording what St Thomas can.  I’m sure some busybody will take exception with that, but my home parish has attendance of 2000 a Sunday and takes in between $5K-$10K.  Yes, that’s as much as five dollars a person.  We cannot afford the beauty of St Thomas.

@Joe: In my travels I once attended a grand Basilica and then a very poor diocesan parish that could not even afford basic stained glass windows. The mass in the poor parish was far more beautiful and transcendent than the one in the Basilica. I would not have judged the beauty of St. Thomas as such if it were not thoroughly so. Yes, they seem blessed materially. However, more importantly, they are faithful. This creates a true beauty both in form and substance. The true and essential beauty of St. Thomas is available to any parish that seeks to elevate the profound and life changing reality of an encounter with Christ Himself in the Mass. In fact, if you read my previous post, one of the most beautiful experiences of my travels during the past week was Christmas Mass in a stark cinder block chapel of a monastery. For the same reasons, this experience was also profoundly moving.

Try 4PM Anticipation Mass.  5 of us, all tenors, do plainchant.  We are, the “Schola Cantorum Gregorii” of St. Thomas Aquinas Roman Catholic Church.  Mark Quintana & I have done this for about 20 years.  I was in the 1st graduating class at Cistercian, where I learned the trade fro Ralph March & the other Hungarian refugee Monks.  Was born & Baptized into St. Thomas in 1951.  Been my Parish my whole life.  This is pretty much the only Church I have ever known.  Only other places I have ever felt at home were St. Patrick’s in New York & The Shrine in DC.

It’s not about money.  The priest is everything, he sets the tone, sets the standards. 

We all know there are plenty of churches as lovely as this, and a few recently purchased (ahem) that are far MORE expensive than this, and you want to run screaming from the place because of disrespectful rubrics, sloppy prayers, heretical homilies or OCP music and guitars. 

By contrast, for years I have attended a little wooden church hand built by parishioners in one day during the depression.  The congregation in this small rural town has always been poor.  Yet over the years, bit by bit, bake sale by fundraiser, a series of devout priests and a loyal parish have added beautiful works of art.  The sanctuary is tiny, but the quality of appointments and linens would rival any cathedral.  Most of the people don’t have beyond a high school education, but the priest has patiently taught them the Agnus Dei and Gloria in Latin.  They genuflect, they are silent, they have rosary and adoration times.  All under the wise guidance of the type of priest we need more of today.  Regardless of the edifice.

Actually the beauty of these Churches are catechisms in stone.

I too am a fairly new Catholic and am wondering about communion.  I think I read recently that communion should only be served to us by a priest. If this is correct, why then is it so common to be served by someone other that a priest in our parish?

I come from an angelican background and really miss kneeling to receive communion from the priest also. We are members of the cathedral in our parish so it’s pretty large.

The priest can properly enlist what are known as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion. They are supposed to be used as little as is possible. However, in most parishes, if they are not used, the Mass would extend well beyond an hour and would be unmanageable. They are essentially his official/trained delegates in distributing the body and blood of Christ.

Thank you so much for writing this article.  I am a parishioner and love it as well.  I just wanted to share how providential it was that you chose to include this youtube video.  The much-loved, talented organist in the video just passed away on Dec. 5.  I’m so glad that many more people will get to enjoy Deb’s music thanks to your link.  Thank you and God bless.

I wish I could attend Mass and receive Holy Communion kneeling down more often… there is a nearby Carmelite parish that does this… But since I go to Sunday Mass with my family, I cant go there on my own even if I want to…
Is it really wrong to hold Mass during the “Our Father” Everyone I know always done it when beside family or friends…it doesn’t distract me but help me to remember to pray as a community… I can’t just stop… that would insult my companions…Is it a sin to pray like that?

St. Thomas is one of the older parishes. for another Dallas parish with magnificent architecture check out Christ the King
http://www.ctkdallas.org/

in Houston check out Our Lady of Walsingham
http://www.walsingham-church.org/site/Welcome.html

“They are supposed to be used as little as is possible.” That’s the key. Unfortunately, too often, they are used far out of proportion to the legitimate needs of the congregation size. How often have I seen 12-14 EMHC’s troop up to serve a couple hundred souls - often when there are multiple ordained ministers available anyway! The difficulty, I think, is that too many layfolk feel that they are not participating unless they are “doing something” in the sanctuary, and priests are reluctant to say “no.” Especially when it’s a new priest confronting a long established practice, and certain laymen/women (usually the latter, I fear) who have been accustomed to doing it for years. This may not seem like the *worst* problem we confront in the liturgy today, save to the extent that it reflects a larger misunderstanding of what it means to participate in the liturgy, and a creeping clericalization of the laity of the sort that John Paul II warned against.

Hello Maria:
“Is it really wrong to hold Mass during the “Our Father” Everyone I know always done it when beside family or friends…it doesn’t distract me but help me to remember to pray as a community… I can’t just stop… that would insult my companions…Is it a sin to pray like that?”
A sin? Certainly not. There’s nothing in Church teaching that says that it’s a sin - unless there’s some problematic motivation for doing so (and that does not seem to be the case with you). I think the concern that folks like Dan (and myself) have is when certain congregants (no doubt usually well intentioned) attempt to go beyond just family members and try to thrust it eagerly on strangers as well. Not everyone is confortable with this practice; and it creates its own awkwardness when such people fear giving offense by saying “no.”

@Richard: Dead on target

Great article!  I attended there briefly when I lived in Dallas.  I went the 4:00 Mass on Saturday and at that point, they sung some Gregorian Chant.  It is a very wonderful parish with great clergy.

Dan Burke, you said, “The priest can properly enlist what are known as Extraordinary Ministers of Holy Communion.

Who consecrated their hands to handle the host?

I’m so glad you got to see SOME things at holiday Mass that satisfied your oh so high-horse mentality of what fulfills the description of a “good” Liturgy. Can I just add something? I read other post about people who harped on “liturgical abuses” at Christmas season masses they had to “endure” while traveling and such. Here’s some perspective: because of financial constraints, a stressful job and the responsibilities I have helping to take care of my elderly father, I get to travel to see my extended family in Pennsylvania once a year, maybe, if I’m lucky. When I do get away, and I have a chance to attend Mass with any of them, I’m so happy and thankful to just be with them that I dont’ have time to be picky and upset about “abuses” and things I don’t like at the Mass. Did it ever occur to you to just be thankful you get to attend Mass regularly and maybe look over some of the errors or quirks that comes along with being human and in a diverse Church? When I read some of the articles on the Catholic media sites and blogosphere and learn how many people spend all their time at Mass upset about what people are wearing, what the priest is saying, music, etc. etc. I wonder how many people around me are really trying to just pray and focus on the Eucharist. Just some perspective on the issue. Take it or leave it.

Dan: Glad that you found worthy worship in the Ordinary Form. Regarding certain com-box remarks you made to the following effect on your previous post: that Holy Church’s present state of affairs is the result of poorly implemented Council documents; and that reversion to the Latin Mass won’t solve the problem; I rebut both these points at length.
http://little-light-reign.blogspot.com/ 
Yours Truly in Christ, Ben Quivenit
a.k.a. Austin Walsh - Light and Darkness

Darlene, if you “dont’ have time to be picky and upset about “abuses””, than who is suppose to defend truth and to speak against them for you? 

“Did it ever occur to you to just be thankful you get to attend Mass regularly and maybe look over some of the errors or quirks that comes along with being human and in a diverse Church?”

Not if those errors propound or encourage heresy, or even result in an invalid Eucharist. 

Souls are at stake here. Pastors and their liturgical staff have a solemn duty to provide the sacraments to God’s faithful in the form laid forth in the liturgical books.

Joe and Richard,
do you ever just spend time praying to God and enjoying the opportunity to attend Mass instead of looking around for heresy and worrying about souls being at stake? Try resting in the presence of Christ once in a while at Mass. If I saw an egregious abuse I certainly would be upset, but I also wouldn’t be running around writing entire columns or lists of picky details and things that I saw that upset me at Christmas Mass. And people holding hands during the Our Father is not endangering anybody’s soul, so calm down.

Hello Darlene,
“do you ever just spend time praying to God and enjoying the opportunity to attend Mass instead of looking around for heresy and worrying about souls being at stake?” I do, Darlene - but that is why I attend only the traditional mass, or an Ordinariate mass (using the Anglican missal). Too many times at the OF have I been disturbed (even by clergy!) by those wanting to talk to me, or talk very loudly amongst themselves in the nave, while I am trying to pray before or after mass (really: If you see someone trying to pray right before or after mass in their pew, is it so much to ask not to bother them, or to take your chat out into the gathering space/narthex?), or jarred out of prayer by someone insisting on holding or shaking my hand during it. There’s a place for socializing, and it’s NOT inside the church proper. That is space we reserve for praying to God, and glorifying him - not ourselves. 

Darlene - You mock Christ, the Martyrs and the Saints.  Did they overlook abuses and heresies?  In ‘charity’ for souls we must speak out.
    “Christians are, moreover, made for combat….To recoil before an enemy, or to keep silence when from all sides such clamors are raised against truth . . . is insulting to God, and both are incompatible with the salvation of mankind.”  ‘SAPIENTIAE CHRISTIANAE’ 

www.papalencyclicals.net/Leo13/l13sapie.htm

Richard M.  What are you doing using an Anglican misseal????
  Have you read:  “Work of Human Hands” by Rev. Anthony Cekada?

Hello Joe - The ordinariates have been authorized by Rome to use the Anglican missal with suitable changes to strip out un-Catholic theology. What it is as celebrated now is essentially the TLM in hieratic English, the three year lectionary (alas), and a couple extra penitential prayers. 
I should clarify what the Anglican missal I’m referring to actually *is*. It’s an alternative to the Book of Common Prayer used by many Anglo-Catholics, which means that it’s almost never used now in the Anglican communion (let alone the Episcopal Church). It’s based almost entirely on the pre-1962 Roman Missal (Tridentine mass), but revised slightly to reflect Anglican heritage. (I am familiar with Fr. Cekada’s book, but I have only read excerpts.)

Richard M.  Are you attending the T L M said by priests who also say the novus ordo missae?

Thomist -

  The dismantling of the Catholic Faith has been proven by the many Catholic Churches that have been demolished and sold.  Likewise, the Modernists say that the true Church of Christ is not exclusively identified with the church Christ instituted; the One Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Christ, they say, extends beyond the Catholic Church. 

      To quote a Vatican II theologian, Fr. Avery Dulles (later made a cardinal), “The Church of Jesus Christ is not exclusively identical to the Roman Catholic Church. It does indeed “subsists in” the Roman Catholic Church, but it is also present in varying modes and degrees in other Christian communities… As a result of their common sharing in the reality of the one Church, the several Christian communities already have with one another a real but imperfect communion.”

    This is called a new development of doctrine -.  No wonder the Obama administration won on changes.  He was able to sell ‘change’ because so-called ‘Catholics’ were shanghaied to accept the many many changes of Vatican II “developments”.

Thomist = ....Vatican II theologian, Fr. Avery Dulles (later made a cardinal)said, “The Church of Jesus Christ is not exclusively identical to the Roman Catholic Church. It does indeed “subsists in” the Roman Catholic Church, but it is also present in varying modes and degrees in other Christian communities… As a result of their common sharing in the reality of the one Church, the several Christian communities already have with one another a real but imperfect communion.”

Thomist - you need to reconsider your understanding of Lumen Gentium, para. 8 and ‘subsists in”.

Hello Joe - As a rule, yes. In the archdiocese of Washington (where I live) there are only three parishes that offer a regular TLM, usually on sufferance, and the priests obviously celebrate the OF (Novus Ordo) as well, save for the occasional FSSP priest who drops in. There are absolutely *no* TLM-exclusive Ecclesia Dei societies such as the ICR or FSSP, since the current ordinary wants nothing to do with them. In Baltimore, the situation is not much better, as it only has St. Alphonsus, which is split between TLM and Lithuanian language masses, and Mount Calvary, the ordinariate parish, which just received permission to resume celebration of the TLM. If I want to go to a TLM exclusive community, I’d have to go to all the way to Harrisburg or Richmond, I’m afraid - at least if I want to go to an authorized TLM. Otherwise all there is is St. Athanasius, an SSPX affiliated independent chapel over in Northern Virginia. In short, the situation for traditional sacraments in the Washington/Baltimore area is pretty grim, at least relative to many parts of the country.

Richard M.  Thanks for answering that the ‘priest’ who offers the T L M is also saying the novus ordo missae.  Have you ever asked him:
1. how he can justify two completely different consecrations? 
2.  how many months (not years) of understanding and speaking Latin he has had?
3.  is he using ‘hosts’ from the novus ordo missae?
4.  Will he give the ‘hosts’ to non-Catholics?

Richard M.  What happens to the ‘table’ when the T L M is offered?

Hello Joe,

Well, I can see where this is going, I’m afraid. I haven’t asked these questions, because I *do* think (contra Gerry Matatics, et al) that the actual consecration formula in the N.O. *is* valid, properly and accurately said, with proper matter and form (and, I grant, this is not always the case). I do not think that the N.O. is invalid,or even evil (as some in the SSPX contend), just theologically impoverished, and imprudent in many respects. I also know the priests well enough to be able to assess their fluency in Latin to my satisfaction. Fr. Cekada makes many excellent criticisms of the N.O., as Fr. Wadsworth and Alcuin Reid have noted; but I can’t go so far as to say it’s not valid per se. In any event, I fear we are going down a rabbit hole that our host does not wish to go; but if you wish to continue the discussion further, I would be delighted to give you my email.

P.S. In my experience at these local parishes offering the TLM, the Cranmer Table is ignored entirely in favor of the old high altar. St. Alphonsus and Mount Calvary have no freestanding altars, so there is nothing to ignore.

Dear Richard and Joe,
thank you so much for being so charitable and accusing me of “mocking the saints and martyrs” by simply trying to offer some perspective and a slightly different opinion from yours. Thank you for denigrating my faith and the integrity of my belief.

This is only the third time I’ve attempted to join a discussion on National Catholic Register and it will be my last.

Thanks for driving me away from ever trying to have a discussion on this fourm again. And how dare you denigrate my faith or my integrity as a Catholic

Have a Happy New Year, gentlemen. I will pray for you.

Hello Darlene,
It wasn’t my intention to denigrate your faith, and I’m sorry that you took it that way. Speaking for myself, I was only conveying my own, unfortunate experiences at certain suburban masses. I *do* think that there are objective standards for the celebration of mass, and it is very regrettable when they are not met; but I am not attempting to deprecate your own experiences, about which (after all) I know almost nothing. 

Richard M.  You say, the novus ordo missae is “just theologically impoverished, and imprudent in many respects”.  Six protestants wrote the novus ordo missae.  One of them said the new order mass would not be offensive for protestants to attend. 
  Holy Mother Church never gives the world what is impoverished and imprudent.  These sacrileges’  actions are overlooked which gravely offends the Holy Spirit.  How grievous when men prefer to honor men than God.  I’m willing to reason further with you so not to offend ‘our host’.  Truth can be very offensive and more provoking than any fabricated theories.  How can we communicate?

Richard M.  how can we communicate when moderator stops my comments?  I’m not being disrespectful.  Truth is very provoking and disturbing even for an electronic moderator.

@Joe - nobody is moderating your comments.

Hello Joe - I don’t know anything about the moderating here. But if you like, feel free to email me at malcolmrichard@rocketmail.com. I will be pleased to respond to you.

Mr. Burke, there must be computer ‘key words’ preventing my comments, all though some eventually do get posted.  Thank you for responding.

I’ve been seeing the term EF Mass, apparently meaning the TLM. Can someone tell me what exactly does the EF stand for and does it mean the Traditional Latin Mass?

Thanks

Hi Joan - “EF” stands for “Extraordinary Form.” This is a relatively new term for the Traditional Latin Mass. It originates from Pope Benedict’s motu proprio Summorum Pontificum, where he declared that the Roman Rite had two forms: the current missal of Paul VI, or Novus Ordo, which he called the “Ordinary Form,” and the old, Traditional Latin Mass (the most recent edition of which was the 1962 missal), which he called the “Extraordinary Form.” I think most people still use “TLM,” but you can use either term, and most people in the know will know what you’re talking about.

Thanks, Richard!

Joan62,  What Richard failed to tell you is that the TLM was given back for ‘sentimental preference’ and he did not point out
the main differences,  the Traditional Mass and the New Mass? The traditional Latin Mass is the clear expression of Catholic teaching, which understands the Mass as the re-enactment of the Sacrifice of Calvary.
The New Mass was made to please Protestants, and for this purpose:
1. suppressed the sacrificial character of the Mass, denied by Protestants,

2. emphasized the Mass as a memorial and a banquet, as preached by Protestants,

3. stressed the role of the people as essential to the “celebration of the Eucharist,” also defended by Protestants.

Priests who say the TLM must say the novus ordo mass that has an entirely different consecration that should make anyone uneasy.

There are major differences with the New Order Mass to the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass that is to be offered as promulgated by Pope Saint Pius V in Quo Primum.  According to Richard the Saint got it wrong and needed to be corrected.

Joe, I asked a very simple question and Richard answered it. That was all that was needed. I am aware of the problems we have had with the Novus Ordo.

Joe: Though after reading your comments, they are worthy of moderation. You are obviously outside of the fold and in schism. You, in fact, are a protestant. This is not an exercise in name calling, but a clear distinction regarding where you stand.