Rorate Cæli

This past Saturday, our parish of Holy Rosary celebrated a Votive Mass of the Blessed Virgin Mary. This particular tradition is known as the Rorate Mass, for the first word of its entrance antiphon (Introit):

Roráte cæli désuper, et núbes plúant jústum. Aperiatur terra et germinet salvatorem.

Drop down dew, ye heavens, from above, and let the clouds rain the just. Let the earth be opened and send forth a Saviour.

The Rorate Mass is celebrated in Advent by candlelight on the high altar and sung in Gregorian Chant. We pretty much chanted the entire Mass, other than the Confiteor and the Canon.

Most Rorate Masses are celebrated in the Extraordinary Form (the so-called “Latin Mass”), but this one was celebrated using the Ordinary Form of the Roman Rite. There was, however, quite a bit of Latin in with the English!

The Mass was celebrated by Rev. Kyle Mangloña with our own priest, Rev. Michael Wagner, celebrating in choro. Thanks must be given to both of these holy priests for making this Mass happen! We are so blessed to have them.

The choir was led by the incomparable Victoria Solenberger and included my lovely bride Francine. And the music was heavenly. They sang the Gregorian propers – some of the most challenging and beautiful in the entire Gregorian repertoire – as well as the Mass setting Missa Alme Pater.

It was beautiful and holy. And the people of God responded; the Mass was packed. At six in the morning. I knew it was going to be crowded when I opened the church doors at just after five, and there were people already waiting.

Just how crowded was it? At the breakfast afterward, we actually ran out of coffee briefly!

This Mass is a great example of what we are trying to do at Holy Rosary. Holy Rosary will never be a neighborhood parish – many of the homes in the parish boundaries were demolished to make way for the freeway in the 1960s, and the neighborhood was further disrupted when the Tacoma Dome was built in the 1980s. The parish decline accelerated after the Benedictines left in the late 1990s. Ten years ago, the financial situation was so bad that there was even talk that the parish might be forced to close.

The solution was to make it a destination parish. Our 12th pastor, Rev. Jacob Maurer, began the project of restoring the liturgical life of the parish to something closer to what it had been under the Benedictines: reverent and traditional, celebrated for the glory of God and the way the Church asks us to celebrate it.

In the years since, Holy Rosary has indeed become a destination parish for those attracted to a more traditional form of the Mass. The installation of the FSSP in nearby Saint Joseph parish has only served to augment that trend. I often attend Mass there, and I’m encouraged to sometimes see other Holy Rosary parishioners there, as I am to see St. Joseph parishioners attending Mass at Holy Rosary on occasion.

I will note that St. Joseph also celebrated a Rorate Mass – Extraordinary Form, naturally – on the same day, and it too was reportedly packed with people.

This is what mutual enrichment looks like.

This is what bringing the mystery and majesty back to the Mass looks like.

And this is what we need more of.

[Thanks to Mary Joseph De Vega for most of the photos!]