A Catholic mother speaks: please allow us to keep the traditional Mass!

 To: Most Rev. _____

Bishop of the ______ Diocese

July 16, 2021

Your excellency, Bishop ________,

I write humbly today imploring you to continue being such a good shepherd to your flock.  Please make it a priority to continue to allow priests in the diocese of ________ to offer the Traditional Latin Mass.  Please contact the Holy Father and express to him the importance of this matter!  My heart is broken that he would be so callous and indifferent to members of his flock who love the Traditional Mass, and who only wish to make a beautiful and worthy offering to God the Father.

I grew up attending Catholic schools in our diocese, and I have been a practicing Catholic all my life.  Yet, despite this, I had never experienced or even been introduced to so much of the richness of my Catholic Faith.  In all that time, no one taught me the language of my family.  I had never heard Gregorian chant or the exquisite beauty of the simple plainchant Salve Regina.  I went to wooden churches shaped like auditoriums decorated with streamers and banners; I had no idea that churches used to be cruciform and face east, filled with scripture and catechism in pictures and statues.  Only in adulthood was I ushered into the grace-filled beauty that had been our Liturgy for millennia.  This is owed to the rebirth of tradition and the increasing love for the Traditional Mass.  It has deepened my faith and that of my husband and six children.  Far from dividing us, it has increased our knowledge and love of the Faith, and drawn us into a deeper relationship with Christ and His Blessed Mother.

My husband was only received into the Catholic Faith six years ago, and this is owed in large part to a diocesan priest who loves Tradition and the Latin Mass.  My husband was drawn to the old and traditional parts of Catholicism; as he puts it, “to the kneeling and silence”.  It is these things that set our Faith apart in a noisy and irreverent world, and it appeals to those who seek Truth.

My family and I now attend the extraordinary form of the Mass; not because we want to be divisive, but because I want to bring my children to a Mass where they see, hear, smell, and experience heaven touching down to earth.  I want them to not only believe that Christ is truly present in the Blessed Sacrament, but attend a liturgy where everyone there - including the priest - acts like it.  I want them to kneel in humble adoration before our Lord, close their eyes, and await that unspeakable moment when the God of all creation is placed on their tongue.  Anything less is inconsistent with the Truth that I speak to them, and children, as we all know, do not just listen to what we say, but watch intently what we do. 

My good shepherd, I love Holy Mother Church and I submit to her authority, but it is confusing and divisive in itself to see my Holy Father “cancel” a rich and beautiful liturgy, loved by millions around the world.  It is painful to be called “divisive” for wanting to offer my best to God and receive all the Grace I can from his Sacraments.  It would be soothing to hear you, my shepherd, speak out to reassure those of us who love and attend the Traditional Mass, that it will not be taken away.  I only want to teach my children by example and ensure they receive a fuller understanding of the beauty, richness, and tradition of our Faith than I did.  And most of all, to ensure they do not become one of the almost 70% of Catholics who do not believe or know that our Precious Lord becomes truly present in the Eucharist at Holy Mass. 

Yours in humble obedience