The Tridentine Mass for Joe Sixpack

Parish offers refresher course on Latin Mass, sacraments

"Tridentine Mass and Sacraments 4 Dummies” is the title of a series of courses on “the extraordinary form of Blessed John XXIII” to be held at Ss. Peter and Paul Church in Wilmington (near San Pedro). Norbertine Fr. Michael Perea, the parish’s associate pastor, will teach the courses.

“The Tridentine Low Mass for Joe Sixpack” is the name for the first class, to be held Nov. 7. The titles for the classes to be held over subsequent weeks are “Getting Married the Way Grandpa Did It” (Nov. 14), “The Requiem Mass” (Nov. 21), and “How to Baptize Babies the Old Way” (Nov. 28).

Fr. Michael told California Catholic Daily that one parishioner was upset by the title of the course series. But, said Fr. Michael, it was not meant to be offensive. “It’s a popular approach,” he said. “We want to make the course user-friendly. We want to encourage the average Joe to attend, because it seems that the Tridentine crowd tends to be a specialized crowd.”

This is the beginning of the end for the Novus Ordo Mass. The great thing about the Tridentine Mass is that it is learnable, it's pretty much all the same every week, its the perfect balm from the troubled mind and the busy life. The Novus Ordo Mass is a reflection of the rotten world, the Tridentine Mass is an oasis from it.