Returning to the roots: Orthodox church to celebrate Latin Mass

For the first time in more than 50 years, a Mass in Latin will be celebrated regularly at a church in Wichita Falls.

Beginning Tuesday, June 6, St. Benedict Orthodox Church will have an Extraordinary Latin Mass at 11 a.m. each Tuesday.

St. Benedict is part of the Western (Latin) Rite Vicariate of the Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese of North America.

“We are fighting progressivism and secularism, and nurturing a love for tradition and wonder,” the Rev. Peter Kavanaugh said about the decision to add the Latin Mass.

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Plus, he said it is good practice as he’s teaching his children Latin as part of their home-school education.

A search for meaning

Kavanaugh said in recent years, there has been a resurgence in people, especially young adults, longing for a more meaningful spiritual experience.

After COVID especially, he said, St. Benedict — a small church with about 50 regular members — saw a surge in new visitors. Now, about a third of their congregation is young adults and their families.

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After the isolation and fear during COVID, Kavanaugh said many people in society are looking for a religious practice with roots, something that feels authentic.

“I feel it’s a tragedy that the West is abandoning its traditions. The Latin Mass very well embodies a pre-modern expression of Western Christianity. The Latin Mass was the foundation and heartbeat of Western civilization and culture for hundreds and hundreds of years, and in our modern era, we are starving as a people for the rich, deep Christian culture handed down to us. I think in our day and age the Latin Mass plays a part in keeping that older Christian mentality alive,” Kavanaugh said.

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The Orthodox Church says there is an unbroken line from the practices and traditions of the earliest Christians and what their church still practices today.

As you worship, so you live

“Lex Orandi, Lex Crediendi, Lex Vivendi,” Kavanaugh said, quoting an old Latin saying, which means “As we worship, so we believe, so we live.”

“Our whole world view is shaped by how we worship,” he says.

The cutting away of traditions creates a different world view and modern worshipers are losing that ancient Christian perspective, he said.

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Craving a more meaningful experience himself years ago, Kavanaugh is from Virginia, was raised Christian but converted to Orthodox Christianity as a young adult.

He spent time in a monastery in Greece before returning to the United States where he was assigned to lead St. Benedict in 2016. He is married to wife Zoë, and they have four children.

With a return to a Mass in this “dead” language, Kavanaugh said the service itself is alive and vibrant. The church, he says, found that the “mystery” of not understanding all of the parts of the service does not detract from the worship but rather invites a different kind of experience.

“Like going up on a mountain top during a storm. You don’t know what’s going on, but it’s big and beautiful. … The way we participate in Mass is by being. You don’t even need to know what’s being said if you are in tune with the Holy Spirit,” he said.

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At a regular Mass at St. Benedict, Kavanaugh said the Mass is said in English in the style of Gregorian chant, they sing some songs in Latin or English and the choir performs formal music.

For the Latin Mass, the format will be the same except the Mass will be said completely in Latin, and all the music will be in Latin.

The enemy of secularism

Kavanaugh said the Orthodox Church often says the greatest enemy today is not atheism, but secularism — the separation of people from spiritual things.

“The belief that there’s man’s world and then spirituality is somewhere else. That dichotomization of the two. In Orthodox, that does not exist. We really do not believe in a separation of the spiritual and the physical,” he said.

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All are welcome to attend and observe at services at St. Benedict church. However, only Orthodox Christians are allowed to participate in the sacraments.

St. Benedict Orthodox Church is located at 3808 Seymour Road.

For more information about this church, visit their website at https://www.saintbenedictorthodox.com/ or Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/saintbenedictorthodoxchurch/

This article originally appeared on Wichita Falls Times Record News: Returning to the roots: Orthodox church to celebrate Latin Mass