Tuesday, August 30, 2011

The Subdeacon at Dominican Solemn Mass

This slide show with music was prepared for the New Liturgical Movement by Mr. Jason Mata. It shows images of the Solemn High Dominican Rite Mass of St. Dominic celebrated at Blessed Sacrament Church, Seattle WA, on August 8, 2011. It is reproduced here because I think it will interest many of our readers.


Credit and thanks to Mr. Mata and the Dominican Community at Blessed Sacrament Priory.

Monday, August 22, 2011

Dominican Liturgy Conferences in Hungary, August 2011

As I had earlier mentioned I was in Budapest with the Dominican Sisters of the Congregation of St. Margaret of Hungary from August 4-8, giving them a series of conferences on the history of the Dominican Liturgy and its Spirituality.

I was invited by their Prioress General, Sister Hedvig Deàk Viktória, O.P. The Congregation was founded in 1868 and reached a total of 200 sisters, but then was suppressed by the Communists. A courageous group of sisters, never more than 15, kept the congregation alive in secret, while holding jobs in the secular world as teachers, nurses, and one even as a psychiatrist. They have rebounded since the reestablishment of common life in 1991, and now number just under 40. Today they emphasize education and have sisters teaching all age levels from Kindergarten up, including four professors at Sapientia College in Budapest, the "Sapientia." If readers would like short history of the congregation, they can find it here (in English).

I will prepare a longer post on this eventually, but I wanted to get some photos up now. The first shows the conference room. Sister Hedvig is left in front. The photo also gives some idea of the sisters age distribution.


The next image shows me during one of the conferences with the sister translator. No, I did not learn Hungarian for this event: about a third of the young sisters have some English (German is more common for the older sisters) and four of the sisters rotated translating my talks. We had four 90 minute conferences each day for the three days. We also viewed and discussed two videos of Dominican Rite Solemn Masses (one of these was in the evening and "optional" but as far as I could count, all the sisters came).


On two of the three days, Mass was in the Ordinary Form in Latin, with music from the Antiphonale Hungaricum, which has the Hungarian Propers set to the Gregorian melodies. This worked very well and the singing was beautiful. The last day, Transfiguration, was a Dominican Rite Missa Cantata. Here is a picture of the Mass during the Gloria. You can see one of the Congregation's two novices in the right left. They also have four postulants this year, but they did not attend the conference. The Conference was held in the guest house of a monastery of Cistercian Nuns outside of Budapest, and this was the chapel that was allocated to our use. And, yes, that is a Eucharistic Dove above the altar.


In this last photo, you can see the whole chapel, with the sisters assembled singing the Office. This two was in Hungarian Gregorian Chant. The sisters are working to slowly increase the amount of Latin Dominican Chant in their Office.


I will try to get a more complete post up in a few days. But this should give you an idea of how this Congregation has been thriving since the end of Communism. I thank them all for their invitation and for their kindness, in particular, Sister Hedvig, whose idea this was.


Tuesday, August 16, 2011

Dominican Rite Solemn Mass: Feast of St. Dominic, Portland OR 2011

Here are two videos from the recent celebration of the Feast of St. Dominic at Holy Rosary Church in Portland OR according to the Dominican Rite Solemn Mass. The celebrant is Fr. Anthony-M. Patalano, O.P., pastor; deacon, Fr. Vincent Kelber, O.P., the new parochial vicar; subdeacon, Mr. Jesson Mata ("The Urban Monk"). Fr. Anthony will soon be moving to Holy Family Cathedral, Ancorage AK to become the new pastor. Fr. Vincent has just completed his service there.

In this first video, we see the celebration from the Collect to the the singing of the Epistle. Notice the Dominican swing of the ministers to the side for the Collect, the seating of the priest with the spreading of the Mappula over his lap, and the deacon's opening of the corporal during the Epistle.



In this second video, we see Mr. Jesson Mata, who will be subdeacon, introducing the video (with Bro. Simon Kim, O.P.) and talking about the rite on the way to Portland from Seattle. He then interviews the servers for the Mass, and explains the vesting of the ministers. Excepts from the Mass are as follows:

At 5:45: The Aspeges

At 5:50: Prayers at the Foot of the Altar

At 6:08: Officium and Kyrie

at 6:17: Gloria (with procession of Chalice to altar) and Collect

at 7:36: Epistle (with unfolding of Chalice)

at 7:40: Chants between the Readings (with preparation of Chalice)

at 7:50: Gospel

at 7: 58: Creed

at 8:06: The Great Swing to the left for the Offertory

at 8:26: The Preface (with incensing) and Sanctus

at 8:39: The Consecration

at 8:45: The Pater Noster and the Pax

at 8:57: Communion

at 9:15: Postcommunion Collect to the Blessing

at 10:04 Last Gospel and Recessional