Post intelligent and civil comments. Opinions expressed are not necessarily those of the NLM
This is great. I reserved my copy.
It would be nice if good training videos were produced for the Novus Ordo also. Sure, not as much knowledge is needed to celebrate the Novus Ordo, but much good could be done through a very thorough training video.
given the great number of options in the celebration of the N.O., and the unclear and imprecise nature of the rubrics of the N.O. it seems to me that creating an instructional DVD would be monumentally difficult if not impossible. There is no one way to say the N.O. and thus no one way to instruct celebrants in it.
Would it be available for seminarians?
Why the emphasis on Low Mass? I think that's a horrible way to start! If more and more priests and parishes are going to get "up to speed" on the Extraordinary Form, do we really want them exposed to Low Mass, with or without a few maudlin hymns thrown in? (Quintessentially Mother Angelica, however!)
Or is the idea that Low Mass is just an easier place to start, and FSSP and EWTN are quickly following up with the 4 DVD set for High Mass? (The 4th DVD should be, of course, a primer on the chant ordinaries and propers!)
Virgil,
A Low Mass Training DVD is better than no DVD at all. We should applaud them for their effort. Additionally this DVD is made available to any North American priest that wants it FOR FREE. The Low Mass is much easier to say and therefore there is a greater chance of more priests learning to say it than if this was a High Mass DVD (because you'd need a choir, more servers, etc).
Fr. WTC - it would be sufficient, I think, to choose a select number of options (just as a TLM DVD only presents certain forms of the Mass, not all of the possibilities -- granted that there are fewer possibilities). The main point of such a video, in my mind, would be to communicate a sense of the ars celebrandi for the Novus Ordo, which is not always communicated very well in the seminary and is certainly not presented by way of example by many of our pastors today.
It is possible to teach the ars celebrandi and the "ethos" of sacred celebration without going through every option in the sacramentary.
Virgil,
Because the Low Mass rubrics and ceremonies are fairly universal and relevant to even the Sung Mass; very little has to change between a Low Mass and Missa Cantata for the priest (unlike Solemn Mass).
It's also the natural starting point for one learning this Missal and the place most priests would do so.
I believe the priest saying Mass in the video is Fr. Howard from Our Lady of Fatima in NJ is it not?
No, it is Fr. Pendergraft, FSSP
@ Anthony: The Priest is Fr. Pendergraft. He's a very good celebrant. One of the few priests who have read Mgr. Martinucci!
Priests need to start with the form of the Mass that they will say more frequently. If a priest is going to learn the traditional Mass, he should certainly attempt to celebrate it frequently and not just for special occasion. It would be difficult to have a sung Mass every single day.
Also, the basics of the Rubrics are in the way Low Mass is celebrated. If a Priest cannot celebrate Low Mass well, he will never be able to celebrate sung or Solemn Mass in a very apropriate way, either.
"Also, the basics of the Rubrics are in the way Low Mass is celebrated."
Not so. Please see Fortescue's "The Mass: a Study of the Roman Liturgy."
So I guess the DVD is not free for priests anymore?
Commenting by HaloScan
