Kyrie eleison
Posted in Religious on Jul 26th, 2008 No Comments »
Brought up a Catholic before the Second Vatican Council means that all my early experiences of worship are of the traditional Latin Mass - and almost ten years as an altar boy meant I officiated at one or more every week. But it must be forty years since I last went to one. The Latin Mass was replaced in the 1970s by the mass in the vernacular. Occasionally I attended versions of the mass on Sunday where some latin was allowed, mainly in the singing, but it was a weak and insipid thing compared with the original.
It’s heartening to see the blanket ban on the traditional Latin Mass being lifted by the present Pope, but I’m not sure if the art can have survived forty years of silence. Let’s hope so. And if they want altar boys over sixty, who remember it last time round, I’m available.
Here’s a moment of nostalgia to touch all Catholics of a certain age. It’s the Kyrie, sung by choir and congregation, at a late celebration of the Latin Mass on All Saints Day 1975, at Downham Market, England by Fr Oswald Baker.
