Usus Antiquior of the Cistercian Rite used for first time in 40 years in Sparta WI

This morning our subprior, The Rev. Robert Keffer, O.Cist., said a private Mass in the Usus Antiquior of the Cistercian Rite in what was most likely the first time that the older form of our rite has been used in the U.S. in 40 years. I hardly need to tell you what joy this gives me to report.

This is a matter that has been under discussion in the community for some time. About half of our Masses are already said in Latin according to the reforms of the Cistercian Rite that followed Vatican II. For the last 18 months under the leadership of our prior, Dom Bernard McCoy, all Masses have been said ad orientem. The return of the old rite to the house follows logically.

Let me be quick to say that this does not indicate that we will be making a wholesale return to the old books. The occasional conventual Mass may be said in the old rite as well as some private Masses and there has been some talk of returning to the older rite on the days we sing the Office of the Dead, but we shall probably remain largely where we are. The Divine Office and the Mass are currently offered in the Ordinary Form with all of the dignity that our small community can muster. As many of you know, our Br. David has spearheaded a multi-year project to create new folio-sized Choir books for the Abbey that incorporate the changes made at the time of the Council while retaining the traditional Latin texts and providing a dignified English translation in a second column. We do our best to present the reformed Cistercian Rite with the noble simplicity it was intended to have. Our former abbot, Dom Blaise, was fond of saying, “Americans shouldn’t say they don’t like the Novus Ordo. They’ve probably never seen it.”

Fr. Robert emailed me this morning after his Mass and, like many others who celebrate the Extraordinary form for the first time, he said that he was taken with its sense of prayerfulness and rightness. He also mentioned that he found the tutorials at the Sancta Missa website of the Canons Regular of St John Cantius particularly helpful in addition to the expert coaching of our oblate brother, Frater Lawrence.

 Sub Tuum