. . . Truly, it is/was everything we would hope for: celebration of the mass in a traditional manner; the priest said the mass in a very reverential way; the people attended to the mass in a respectful way with great reverence; the music and liturgy were beautiful. I long for a church like this in Northern California.There's no church like this in Northern California? Really? There are numerous Latin masses all over California, which you can find at latinmasstimes.com. Just skimming through the list, there are examples in Los Gatos, Burlingame, Newark, Oakland, Petaluma, and many other places. They far outnumber the four OCSP groups, none of which is a parish, and none of which offers anything like a range of parish activities.. . . This is a beautiful, young church which goes back to the traditional ways of the Mass being about Our Lord, Jesus Christ. It is so reverent and loving-a joy to Jesus! The love of Jesus is so apparent! NO ONE leaves early. The Tabernacle is on the altar. Prayers are to Jesus.
. . . Fosters a beautiful, more traditional, and intellectual community for Catholics.
But there's such a thing as a reverent OF mass. My wife and I attend at St John the Baptist Napa when we're up there. A photo on the Diocese of Santa Rosa web page shows Bp Vasa censing an altar, and our impression of him -- he made a special visit to St John the Baptist during the 2017 fires to thank first-responders in person -- is that he's a remarkable man. I believe the mass at the St Eugene Cathedral is noted as being especially reverent. So if the issue is "our own parish is flip-flops and halter-tops", I would say the corrective is drive another 15 minutes and see what else is out there. I strongly suspect laziness is involved here.
All the comments suggest the mass in Murrieta is "traditional". Right. The Divine Worship Missal was approved in 2015. The OF mass dates from 1969. Which is more traditional? The DW mass is basically some Cranmerian prayers grafted onto a version of the OF mass that was tarted up with some thees and thous emended into the text by a Viennese (!) professor. It's about as authentic as an evening at Medieval Times. Oh, but it's such an intellectual community at Holy Martyrs Murrieta!
Well, if beer breakfasts and whiskey evenings with Fr Bartus are intellectual, I guess, suit yourself. There's a con going on here. And as the truism goes, you can't con someone who doesn't want to be conned. The gushy reviews about how "traditional" the DW mass is (not like our awful parish down the street) suggest some people use this as an excuse either not to go to the awful mass at all, or not to work to improve that mass, or not to drive another 15 minutes for something better that nevertheless may not be a cousin of Ye Olde Pastry Shoppe.
There's another issue that stood out in the news from the Our Lady of Grace group: they're going to buy the event hall they'd been using. Now, I know a little -- still not a whole lot -- about building funds. Our pastor hit us up for ours. The Archdiocese of Los Angeles doesn't mess around when it comes to building funds. They are years in the inception and approval process. The diocese requires an approved planning firm for such things. And when the fundraising starts (believe us), you don't just sign a pledge card. You set up an automatic monthly deduction from your bank account, and oh-by-the-way, a first lump sum of 10% of the pledge.
Is the Our Lady of Grace group doing anything like this? Are there any guidelines from Houston at all for doing this? Is anyone in Houston aware that this is going on? Does anyone look this over and approve it? Is the funding done via anything other than desultory $20 checks? I assume that buying the property involves a 6- or 7-figure expenditure. How is a group of two dozen remotely going to manage this?
But maybe someone can fill me in. Otherwise, the people who gush over reverent masses in storefronts are simply marks, and their bishop is not shepherding his sheep.
