Latin Mass fills Christ the King Chapel with record-breaking crowd

Latin Mass

OLIVIA RAO
WEB EDITOR

Latin Mass
Photo provided by the Marketing and Communications Department

Franciscan University of Steubenville’s first Latin Extraordinary Form Mass of the semester drew unexpected crowds to Christ the King Chapel Sunday afternoon. 

Sunday’s Mass was the first of eight monthly Latin Masses scheduled to take place on campus this academic year. The Rev. Vincent Huber, a retired priest from the diocese of Steubenville, celebrated the Mass. 

Franciscan’s “Schola Cantorum Franciscana” sang the propers and ordinary for the Mass as well as motets by Giovanni Pier Luigi da Palestrina and William Byrd.

According to an official count provided by the chapel office, the 2 p.m. Latin Mass drew 436 students, professors, staff members and locals.

Tyler Boyd, a university senior who served as a sacristan at the chapel during the Mass, said that the size of the crowd was unprecedented. 

“Today’s Mass was the largest Latin Mass we have ever had since it was first celebrated here in 2007,” Boyd said, referring to the year Pope Benedict XVI officially allowed the Latin Mass to be celebrated under all circumstances.

The congregation, which was too large to fit in the chapel, spilled out of the pews and into the hallways and vestibule, and many students had to stand throughout the Mass. 

After the Massthe Juventutem Franciscan club invited the congregants to a reception in the Fireside Lounge of the J.C. Williams Center to eat donuts and pizza. 

Juventutem Franciscan, a new campus club which helped plan and advertise for the day’s Mass, is a chapter of an international organization devoted to the Latin Mass and became an official club a few weeks ago. 

The club’s members aim to educate Franciscan students about the Latin rite of the Mass, to raise awareness of the Latin Mass community on campus and to provide transportation to the various Latin Masses celebrated around the area. 

Sophia Stuckey, a senior philosophy student and assistant coordinator of the club, spoke about the club’s goals at the reception. 

“Our main goal with Franciscan’s Juventutem chapter,” Stuckey said, “is to help our young men and women on this campus — through prayer, education and simple transportation to Mass — to grow in holiness through the beauty that is found in the traditions of our faith.” 

The next Latin Extraordinary Form Mass at Christ the King Chapel will take place at 2 p.m. Oct. 13 and will again be followed by a reception hosted by Juventutem Franciscan. 

26 Comments

  1. THIS is the future. “The Church stands and falls with the Liturgy” Pope Benedict XVI

    1. Indeed. The revival of the Traditional Latin Mass is the real youth movement in the Church today.

    2. If this is the future of the Church, dear God help us all. Do you all just decide Vatican II didn’t happen?

      1. Wow, what a vacuous remark. Please do your homework if you really want to know!

  2. Fr. V. Huber is a good man! This is what the faithful want! THE MYSTERY OF FAITH. The return to a solid, traditional Catholicism.

    1. No, I like the changes! Mainstream Catholics don’t want to go back to Latin masses, and male dominated ritual.

  3. I do believe in my heart, the TLM will be the salvation of the Church. Thank God for Pope Benedict XVI!

  4. Did people pray out loud in Latin or English? If they prayed in Latin, where did they learn the Latin? May be wonderful for scholars who know Latin, but a lot of Catholics don’t know Latin.

    1. A large percentage of the congregants were Latin Mass attendees who were able to make the responses in Latin and sing the regular prayers and ordinaries with the schola.

      It’s not only scholars who understand the Latin of the Mass – it’s also regular people, from children to adults – who have grown with it and grown to love it and appreciate its beauty. It’s anyone who has taken the time.

      Yes, it is true that many Catholics do not know Latin and would have to study to learn it. But it takes time, and study, and love, and patience to understand the sacred liturgy in any language.

      If we put in the time to learn to understand the Mass in Latin, it unifies us in our Faith with every other living soul, because we can join our prayers together in one language. From China to India to Egypt to Brazil, everyone in the world can travel anywhere and find the same Mass, and that is a beautifully unifying thing – and something that is definitely worth working toward.

      1. The missal for the mass is in Latin and Enghish. Anyone can follow the mass by listening and responding to the prayers in the missal. Quite easy.

    2. You learn. Just go and you will be drawn into the beauty and mystery of the Sacrifice of the Mass.We are truly at the foot of the cross.

    3. There are several sites on he internet that can help people learn and understand Latin.

    4. You can use the Missal of 1962 as those who are faithful to the Mass of the Ages do. Or you can pray and enter into the mystery of the Mass until one feels more at home. Once it becomes more familiar to the soul you will never want to leave. I came into Tradition fully ten years ago. I can not go back. The Traditional Mass was never intended to be participatory. The Priest prays the Mass we follow and pray with the Church.

    5. It’s not hard. I am neither a scholar nor young but I have learned how to follow along and make responses by just attending. Don’t even try at first, just watch, listen soak it in. There are missals to help when you want to follow. . We are so conditioned by the NO that we have to participate in a certain way and all do the same actions that the EF feels uncomfortable at first because it is not rigid in that way.

    6. How many Catholics go to Mass, receive Holy Communion and don’t know the faith? Latin is part of knowing the faith. We put tons of effort learning other things but little to none when it comes to what leads us to eternal life. Knowledge of our faith is simply the first commandment, putting God first in our lives, not many Catholics put great effort into learning our faith. I suggest to you [The New Saint Thomas Institute. com]

    7. Going way back, we had Missals, one side of the page had the prayers in English, the other side had the prayers in Latin. I still have 2 of mine.

    8. I was not a scholar at age 10 but I could chant 5 Latin ordinaries by heart. If you treat people like little children, that’s what they will be.

      1. I was about to answer the same thing. Before I began formal altar boy training – which was just prior to the liturgical “renewal” – I already understood precisely what I was saying in the Ordinary of the Mass. Even the Credo was perfectly intelligible to a child of 10 years old. And I had never studied any Latin.

    9. I hope and pray that the Extraordinary Latin Rite Mass, is celebrated at every parish church all over the world at least once a month.

      Prayer for the Restoration of the Roman Mass

      O Lord Jesus Christ, Eternal High Priest and Immaculate Lamb of God, slain for us and for many on the altar of Calvary, and continually offered to Thy Heavenly Father in the clean oblation of Thy Eucharistic Sacrifice:

      Grant, we beseech Thee, through the merits and prayers of Thy Saints Gregory the Great, Thomas Aquinas and Pius V, that the holy Roman and Apostolic Catholic Mass, ratified, expounded and perpetuated by them respectively, may be rightly restored to the altars of Thy Church throughout the world; that once again this most awesome, majestic and perennial rite may offer infinite worship and homage to the Most Blessed Trinity; the fullest fruits and consolation and spiritual nourishment to the faithful; an impregnable defense and counterbalance against the rising tide of evil; and a sure termination of the anguish, fear, doubts and profanations occasioned by its unsanctioned abandonment and replacement.

      O Holy Saints of the centuries, who sanctified and nourished your souls with the perennial Roman Mass, and Holy Martyrs who shed your blood for it, grant, we pray in desperation, that we will no longer be bereft of it, and that we will, as you, commit ourselves to the Mass at all costs and to the last breath of our lives.

      O Holy Virgin Mary, Mother of the Immaculate Eucharistic Victim, pray for us that we may bravely, prudently, diligently, and with sound doctrine and means pursue the rectification of the present encroachment on the Eucharistic Sacrifice, and secure with thy powerful maternal aid the restoration of our Roman Catholic Mass and the Reign and Order of the Kingship of Jesus Christ thy Son.
      Amen.

      1. I cannot thank you enough for posting this most beautiful prayer. May the most Holy Trinity bless you and pour upon you many graces. I have copied this prayer for myself. I pray this prayer finds its way into millions of hands.

  5. Seems to me that there is a want and need of the Latin Mass every week rather than once a month.

  6. It’s so heart-warming to see the growing love for the beautiful sacred TLM that produced saints through 2 millinia. By way of sharing my spiritual experience, I belong to a Latin Mass Chaplaincy in Auckland, New Zealand where we also have perpetual adoration.

    My wife and our 10 children here are so thankful to be part of this community.

    Well done to the congregation of Christ The King Chapel and to Fr. V. Huber.

  7. To any and all, curious to attend the Ancient Mass, please do not feel you need to know or study Latin in order to attend a Traditional Latin Mass. In fact, it is more important to follow with the eye, the heart and the mind, all that occurs on the altar. Offer your entire being, stripped of this material world, on the paten with the bread and wine at The Offertory. Transform your Will to God’s Will at the Consecration and Adore HIM. Kneel before HIM, receive and offer Thanksgiving for HIS renewing strength at Holy Communion. By doing this you have actively participated in the Holy Sacrifice of Calvary. The more you return, the more Latin you will learn simply by hearing it, sung and spoken. Most TLM Churches and Chapels have Latin/English Missals available and these can be great worship aids especially as your desire to learn increases. But please do not feel obligated to “keep up” or follow word for word in the Missal. It is far more important to actively participate with the Priest and servers. To this point, altar servers offer all prayer responses to the Priest FOR THE FAITHFUL. Many Faithful do offer audible prayer responses, but it truly is not required. With that said, you will find information in the Daily Missal, especially in the margins, offering details of rubrics, prayers and Mass elements. With so much Traditional Catholic information online, you’ll learn more about the Faith, Its history and The Magisterium than you ever imagined. Humbling, indeed, as intended.

  8. Wonderful. The TLM or Extraordinary Form is becoming very popular in the UK and it is surprising how many children attend.

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