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I wish that I could be there! From the Detroit Latin Mass community:
For the first time in approximately 40 years, St. Josaphat Church will celebrate All Souls Day according to the old tradition: At 6:00 PM Two Low Masses will simultaneously be celebrated at each of the two side altars inside the sanctuary. Then, at 7:00 PM, a Solemn High Mass with Deacon and Subdeacon will be celebrated at the high altar, to be followed by Absolution at the Catafalque, in commemoration of all of the faithful departed. This All Souls Day tradition is one of the topics covered in this weeks Tridentine Community News [PDF warning].
Is the “simultaneously” bit supposed to be part of the tradition, or just coincidental to what the essential element of the tradition, i.e. three Masses on a non-Sunday? And it gets more interesting:
Our own situation is somewhat nuanced: One priest will celebrate his Low Mass as the First Mass of All Souls Day, as that will be the only Mass he celebrates that day. Per the rubrics, the second priest will celebrate his Low Mass as the Second Mass of All Souls Day, then he will celebrate the Solemn High Mass as the First Mass of All Souls Day, as the Sung Mass of the day must be the First Mass (“First” and “Second” referring to the Mass Propers set, not the sequence in which the Masses are said). This second priest will binate, while the first priest, who will be the Subdeacon at the Solemn High Mass, will not binate, because the Deacon and Subdeacon at a Solemn High Mass are not concelebrants. Indeed, they do not need to be priests at all. Thus, we will have three Masses on All Souls Day, but we will not be using all three sets of Mass Propers because we will not have a trinating priest. . . .
This all is extremely interesting – do look at the PDF, the whole column about their All Souls celebration – but I didn’t see anything in there about why these Masses will occur simultaneously; just because of time constraints? Or to demonstrates that, yes, two Masses can be said in the same church at one time – take that Bugninists! I’m very curious.
St. Louis-Marie de Montfort,
Pope St. Pius X,
St. Joseph,
St. Ambrose of Milan,
St. Thomas Aquinas,
St. Francis (and St. Clare),
St. Catherine of Siena,
St. Alphonsus Ligouri,
St. John Chrysostom,
I dont think that it is an All Souls day tradition in particular to have masses simultaneously. The practice of having simutaneous masses is fairly rare and traditional in that it demonstrates the nature and value of the Holy Sacrifice, at odds with the common novus ordo opinion that “active participation”[busibodiness, horizontalism] is esential to the mass
That’s great that they have the priests who are willing to say their Masses on that day in such a way as to make the point!
If I remember Merton’s description of the private Masses being said in his Monastery was similar. If I remember correctly he describes the Sun streaming in as different places in the Mass for the different priests. Some of the priest monks being veated over their work boots. Merton was struck by the Universality and the beauty of the moment. I think it was Seven Storey Mountain but it has been twenty years, Thus Simultaneaously may not be that unusual or out of place.
JPG
In June of 2007 (just before the 7/7/2007 motu proprio) I attended the ordination by Ab. Burke of two ICK priests in his St. Louis Cathedral Basilica. Early the next morning, I arrived early — over an hour before the scheduled first solemn high Mass of one of the new priests — at St. Francis de Sales Oratory (ICK) there. I immediately saw that five separate silent low Masses had begun, each with just the priest and a single altar boy, had apparently just started at five different (one main and four side) altars. They were somewhat staggered, so in the space of 10 minutes I was able to adore our Lord at 10 separate elevations of Body and Blood. Wow! I was reminded of a remark attributed to then Cardinal Ratzinger several years back when he had a similar experience at Fontgombeault, having arrived early one morning while the monks were all saying their individual private Masses. “Now this is the real Catholic Church,” he whispered to his escort.
Yes, and you can see the same thing at Clear Creek. Perhaps – faciebam e rivo flumina magna – in my first, initial reading of their announcement, my impression was that something special was mixed up with the simultaneity. But I don’t suppose so now: just for whatever reason, they decided to do these low Masses at the same time.
It was often the case that at funerals where many priests were present there would be Masses celebrated at the lateral altars while the Solemn Mass was sung at the high altar. In parishes served by religious it was a daily event that Masses were celebrated at different altars at the same time, sometimes in shifts if the number of priests was great.
Usually on All Soul’s Day (and Christmas) a priest would celebrate the three Masses consecutively unless he was scheduled for the high altar.