Yesterday, I really meant to go to the Old St. Patrick’s mass at Our Lady of Sorrows. This 9:15 service is where I accidentally discovered the Tridentine Latin Mass in 2005—a fun story that I’ll share sometime. But I missed the 9:15 Mass. Oh, you don’t care about excuses, but I was rocking my chalk until the late hours of Saturday night and wasn’t ready for Sunday morning to come so soon.

‘Lo! The sweet problems of fanhood!

But I decided instead to head up the Blessed Sacrament Church, home of the St. Philippine Duchesne Latin Mass community for an Extraordinary Mass.

It is interesting to me the differences in congregations between SPD and OSP’s congregations, in ways I cannot exactly put my finger on, but I admire them both very much.

I’ve read a little rumbling that while the Archdiocese of Kansas City in Kansas is shuttering churches whose congregations are disappearing, the Latin Mass congregation is filling their pews while sharing a building with another congregation—apparently indefinitely; I don’t have a well-formed opinion on the subject, but it’s an interesting point of view. And, indeed! SPD had a full house at the 11:00 service on Sunday. I haven’t been to too many services at SPD, but from what I hear, that’s a pretty regular occurrence.

Sunday was a day where I was having a hard time centering myself for Mass (and no, it wasn’t because I was celebrating raucously on Saturday, thankyouverymuch), but I wasn’t really ready to sit and be still when I got to Mass. Ever have those days? But I marched into the church, blessed myself with some Holy Water and took a seat on the end of the pew by myself.

I don’t own a 1962 Missal and usually grab one of the red little Ecclesia Dei missals before I take a kneeler, but I just wasn’t really putting my frazzled self together yesterday and sat down without one. It didn’t really occur to me that I didn’t have a missal until they rang the bell to announce the start of Mass. By that time, I turned around to look over the marching divisions of altar boys to see if I could spot a table or perch for the red books—but no. I was in this one on my own.

Gentle Reader, I don’t speak Latin. Nor do I know the TLM well enough to totally follow along just by sitting in the pew. I figured I’d be lost and miserable for the next hour and a half; I decided to just do the Catholic Calisthenics (sit stand sit stand kneel stand kneel stand sit stand kneel) whenever everyone else did it, and to chirp in the 2-2-0 whenever I heard people start their Et Cum Spiri’s.

I don’t think I’ve ever tried this before, no matter what form of the Mass. I usually like to follow along in the missal in the Ordinary Form of the Mass, reading the scriptures along with the lector. And I enjoy grabbing my hymnal and singing along with whatever blithe Marty Haugen song we’re moaning through in the Novus Ordo. At the Extraordinary Form, I flip along in the red book to try and figure out where we are in the mass. That is kind of hard. Remember? I don’t speak Latin. So even though I’m trying to follow along, I have a hard time reading slow enough while the choir is singing the 27 notes in the word “Deo” and not thinking that I’m either way behind or way ahead in the book. This tendency has lessened the more I go to the Latin Masses, but I still have a tendency to look at the picture of the priest and count along with the bell ringings to see where we are.

But yesterday, I settled in with the idea that I’d just be lost.

You know what? It wasn’t half bad.

There was a strange sense of calm that came over me, somewhere before the Introit (I think), that I really didn’t need to know where we were in the Mass. I got the quiet confidence that the Priest was offering the Mass, and I could assist him by submitting myself as one of the obedient faithful. How liberating! I was there to glorify the Lord while the Priest could perform the sacrifice. He didn’t need me to croon out any dippy sing-alongs!

In front of me was a middle aged couple who were attending with a guy about my age. It appeared to be this guy’s first Latin Mass, because he kept getting lost in the red book while his accompaniers were pointing out where he was in the book. Every now and then, the man would lean over and give some expository bit of information on what was going on. “That guy’s got it lucky”, I thought. My introduction to Tradition was (read: is) a bit more… stumbling. On the other hand, I think that yesterday was pretty lucky for me, too. The stumbling got a little easier when I could just surrender myself to the Mass.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t think I’ll likely go to the Holy Mass unprepared to participate again. I’m still planning on getting a 1962 Missal, and still plan to use the red booklet until I get one, but if I’m lost again, I know that the Good Shepherd can still find me. That’s what he does, you know. And I am proud to be in his flock, no matter where I become lost.