The Cross-Fertilization Has Begun!

The cross-fertilization has begun! Benedict, whom God has blessed us with, ruled that the old mass, the mass celebrated according to the missal of John XXIII, can licitly be celebrated by any priest. A crucial part of his program is to encourage the reverence and spirituality of the extraordinary usage to leach into the practice of the ordinary usage while creating an opportunity for the true reforms envisioned by the council fathers of Vatican II to finally bear fruit. I have characterized this as the cross-fertilization of the old with the new usages of the mass.

It is happening!

Fr. Michael Kerper, a priest in New Hampshire, a true liberal, celebrated an old mass in response to a request of his parishioners. He appears to have been ordained in the mid 1980s and characterizes himself as a progressive. Cast into the role of a cipher, devoid of a personality and solely a role, he found this liberation. He made the shocking discovery that there is a spirituality most unlike what he knew and expected.

Read his very personal story in, of all places, America! I discovered this on "The Cafeteria Is Closed." Fr. Z. also comments on this as well as a critical article about the old mass.