We had a meeting of our group on April 21st, and we elected executive members. They are as follows:
President: Leila Chandler
Vice-president: Thomas Vess
Secretary: Carl Chandler
Treasurer: Corrine Nickerson
Thanks for your continued support and interest! Please continue your prayers for us, and by God’s grace we will hopefully see the TLM come to our diocese.
Hi there. I just wanted to let everyone know that I and my family (barring illness or meltdowns) will be attending the Divine Mercy Sunday devotions in Meteghan at the Stella Maris church, at 3pm. It’s not in Latin or anything, we just thought we would go to the service in Meteghan this year.
You are welcome to join us! April 8th, 3pm, at Stella Maris in Meteghan.
Hello everybody. I am sorry about the long absence. I was very busy with the newborn, and then just as I was getting on top of things we got a long string of illnesses, with colds and tummy bugs that never seemed to end. My one friend called it The Plague. It seemed like every family was getting sick!
We are better now and I wanted to share with you a website where you can watch the Latin Mass live. It is broadcast from Warrington, Sarasota, Fribourg and Guadalajara. The schedule for Warrington for Holy Week is here: https://www.dropbox.com/s/5qh6ej42kc7hh8b/HOLY%20WEEK%202018.pdf?dl=0
Warrington is four hours ahead of Nova Scotia, so their Saturday Mass will be broadcast at 6pmour time, and their Sunday Easter Mass will be broadcast at 7am our time.
Introducing Rose Lucy, the newest member of our Latin Mass group! She was born on January 31st at 5:27am, weighing 7lbs 22 oz.
It’s our third girl, so don’t look to this family for altar servers!
Here is some reading material for you: Teaching the Real Presence Without Words, by The Liturgy Guy. It’s a great and short article about how our actions towards the Eucharist communicate our belief in the Real Presence.
December and January were quiet months for us, with everyone busy with Christmas and New Year’s. But we are getting back into the swing of things now and we are working on finding priests who might say the Latin Mass for us.
Also, we are all out of brochures at St. Ambrose again! So I will have to put out some more for interested folk.
That is all to report on that front, so I thought I would do a book review of Treasure and Tradition for anyone considering adding this book to their collection. I ordered my copy and recently finished reading it through.
At Mass the other day someone asked what the priest was wearing and when I said “a stole and chasuble”, she asked, “how do you know all that?” I said it’s because I have….a book! You too can know things with books. 😉
I found it to be a wonderful book, full of useful information. I wish I had had it when I first started attending the Extraordinary Form. It’s like a mini course on the history of the Mass as well as a missal you can take to Mass with you to help you follow along.
The book starts with some useful explanations of the parts of the Mass, types of Mass, the music of the Mass, the Church calendar, and the liturgical seasons.
It also has handy pages about vestments and sacred vessels.
One thing that really thrills me about this book is the word-for-word interlinear translation of the Latin text, where each Latin word has its English equivalent right underneath it. This helps me to better understand the original Latin, because sometimes the English syntax is too different from the Latin for me to be able to figure out the meaning of each Latin word.
There are very useful references to the Old Testament that make connections between what we do in Mass today and the ways in which it draws from ancient Jewish tradition. There are sometimes explanations from Church history about how certain parts made their way into the liturgy, such as the Creed.
I liked these little tidbits about why we believe only the priest may touch the Holy Eucharist with his bare hands, and why the priest keeps his thumb and forefingers together after he has touched the Host. It sends a powerful message about our belief in the Real Presence and the extreme care with which the Eucharist must be handled.
Treasure and Tradition is filled with a lot of extra information, such as this page about the history of the Catholic Bible and its translations. It also explains the Divine Office, includes a detailed glossary, and has prayers for confession and for before and after Communion.
It ends with a bibliography for further reading.
Thanks for tuning in! We will continue to keep you updated with our progress.
Greetings and happy Feast of the Immaculate Conception!
Anyone who is on our mailing list received a copy of our meeting minutes. I will just quickly outline a few important points here:
1. We are changing our name! We are now the Halifax-Yarmouth Latin Mass Society. We decided to combine our efforts with Halifax in order to help each other out and potentially share a priest, if we find one willing to travel. But don’t worry, this does not mean we are passing the reins off to Halifax. We will still be trying to establish a Latin Mass right here in Yarmouth, or near Yarmouth, such as in Digby. The Halifax contact is Thomas Vess, who can be contacted at thomas_vess@hotmail.com.
2. The Archbishop has been made aware of our group.
3. We will soon be trying to expand our advertising.
4. Some of us are searching around for a priest willing to say the TLM for us.
5. Yarmouth and area now has 19 names!
And finally, I would like to say that we probably won’t be sending a letter to the Archbishop, as I had previously said we would be. We will hold off on that for now!
Some of us who are actively involved in getting a Latin Mass in Nova Scotia are going to be having a meeting the afternoon of Dec. 2nd. Please pray for us, that the meeting goes well and that we make progress, and that God’s will be done.
Thank-you and don’t forget to email us if you’d like to be included in the list of people officially requesting the Latin Mass.
Many people can feel a bit confused when they first attend a Mass in the Extraordinary Form. It is different from the Ordinary Form and there are some additions (such as the sprinking rite, called the Asperges) and there are parts of the Mass that the priest says quietly. There are also moments during which the priest is praying while the choir is singing, and it can be hard to follow along.
Don’t worry! We’ve all been there. If you find yourself at a Latin Mass for the first time, just try to relax and enjoy the liturgy, the beauty, the reverence, and the quiet moments. Lift your heart up to the Lord and pray along with the Mass. Here are a few things I can recommend:
(and don’t forget, sometimes a simple Google search will help you find answers to your questions).
Know Your Mass
This little gem is a great book. It is meant for children, but it is quite heavy and involved. I would recommend it to adults, too. All the parts of the Mass are covered, including explanations about vestments and sacred vessels. It was originally published in 1954 and now is making quite the comeback.
It is available here and here, and also from the FSSP bookstore (for a little cheaper!) Alas, I could not find a Canadian supplier. But, if you got a group together who all wanted a copy, you could split the outrageous shipping costs.
I only just recently heard about this book and I really want a copy. It has rave reviews and looks excellent. It’s full title is Treasure and Tradition: the Ultimate Guide to the Latin Mass.
Apparently it has beautiful illustrations and great explanations. Once again, I could not find a Canadian supplier! Luckily for me, I have a relative in the States I can ship to! Otherwise, it is available from St. Augustine Academy Press and Biretta Books and the FSSP Bookstore.
Missals contain the translation of the Latin Mass with the Latin and English side-by-side. The Ordinary is the part of the Mass that (generally) doesn’t change from Mass to Mass, and the Propers are the parts that are different at every Mass, such as the readings from the Bible and some prayers and chants. The great thing about missals is that they usually contain the Propers. Many of them also contain extra devotional prayers and some instructions on the Mass. I find many of those old prayers found in missals to be profound and beautiful. You can find vintage ones online or in stores, and you can also buy one of the beautiful modern missals that are in print. Three popular ones are the St. Edmund Campion Missal & Hymnal, The Roman Catholic Daily Missal, and The Baronius Press Missal. I couldn’t find an online Canadian supplier of these missals, but sometimes they are carried by Catholic book stores. You could check your local Catholic bookstore, and if they don’t have it they might be willing to order it in for you. The FSSP Bookstore also carries Missals, including the famous small “red missal”.
The St. Edmund Campion Missal is quite popular, and its the one my old parish in Edmonton decided to order for the parishioners. It is a bit bigger and heavier than other missals (it is hardcover), but it has absolutely beautiful illustrations inside.
I also have a petite missal booklet that contains the Ordinary in Latin and English and nothing else. It is published by Catholic Truth Society and it is simply called The Extraordinary From of the Mass. I picked mine up at a Catholic bookstore for only $4.25. (I actually have an extra copy if anyone is interested).
So you can see how small it is
Latin
I’m no expert on Latin myself, but if you want to brush up, there are some books specifically about ecclesiastical Latin (which is slightly different from Classical Latin, mostly in the pronunciation), like this one:
If you have any other great resources to suggest, I’d love to hear about them!
Thanks for stopping by.
Pax Christi,
-Leila
Update 10/11/2017: I found an online Canadian supplier of Treasure and Tradition and the 1962 Missal at Joseph’s Inspirational. I ordered a copy of Treasure and Tradition from them!
By the way, in case you are wondering, I am not being paid to endorse any of the above books.
We currently have 17 names on our list! I know that may not sound like much, but my contacts in Edmonton kept telling me that they started with just a dozen people initially. Additionally, there may be some very dedicated people from Halifax who would travel to Yarmouth if we got a stable Latin Mass (and if Halifax did not).
I am hoping to have a meeting with my Halifax (and possibly Moncton) contacts near the end of the month before going ahead with contacting the bishop and looking for a priest.
All of our pamphlets in St. Ambrose got snatched up so I printed 50 more and also put up a poster. This time I specified that we are not going to be changing the English Mass.
Please keep praying for us and spreading the word!
-Leila
P.S: Apparently St. John had around 200 people for their first Latin Mass!
Halifax-Yarmouth Latin Mass Society (Yarmouth Branch) 