PROVIDENCE — Searching for ways to deepen their prayer during Mass, some 70 people bundled against the bitter cold last Thursday night to attend a Chant Mass at St. Pius V Church on the Feast Day of Our Lady of Guadalupe.
Once inside the church, located across from Providence College, newcomers to a Chant Mass as well those who have attended in the past reverently sang the parts of the Mass that are normally spoken. The air was sweet with the aroma of incense as the church choir intoned the words, leading the congregation.
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“I want to see what a Chant Mass is like; I’ve never seen one before,” said Patricia Callaghan, a parishioner, before Mass began. “I figured tonight on the feast of Our Lady of Guadalupe is a good time to experience this.”
Eileen Gallagher, whose home parish is St. Catherine of Siena in Little Compton, attended because her boyfriend was participating.
“I’ve been to a lot of Chant Masses,” said Gallagher, a mathematics and science teacher in Providence public schools. “I have sung Gregorian chants at Mass.”
All chants were in English except the Kyrie, Gloria, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei, which were from the Missa de Angelis. The parish’s Young Adults Group, which meets weekly on Thursday nights for Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament to pray the rosary and gather for fellowship, helped to organize the celebration.
Jenna Desrosiers, a core leader of the group, handed out programs at the side entrance to the church.
“There is something special and unique about singing all parts of the Mass,” she said. “You feel you are taking part in the liturgy, which is an important part of our lives.”
Father Hyacinth Marie Cordell, O.P., associate pastor of St. Pius V, who concelebrated the Mass with Father Christopher M. Mahar, rector of the Seminary of Our Lady of Providence — who served as the homilist — invoked the expression attributed to St. Augustine, "He who sings well prays twice" to explain the interest in Chant Mass. Several attendees referred to the same quotation in individual interviews when asked why they came out in the cold to participate in the Chant Mass.
“Many people don’t realize that the whole Mass can be sung, and that it ideally should be sung,” Father Hyacinth said. “In the church we have a principle of ‘progressive solemnity,’ meaning that the more important the feast, the more we add singing, incense and servers. So, every once in a while, for a Feast or Solemnity, we at St. Pius V have been offering an all-sung Mass, or Chant Mass. In doing so, we are trying to expose people to the full beauty and ideal form of the Mass, which is very prayerful, contemplative, and joyous.”
He noted that the depth of the music and reverence is supposed to lead one into a deeply prayerful experience of the Mass and encounter with Christ, and that prayer should be important in the lives of worshippers long after a Mass has concluded.
“The Mass is supposed to overflow into life,” Father Hyacinth said. “These Masses aren’t just about an experience of prayer and beauty. The idea is that people will be drawn more deeply into the Mass at the same time they are drawn more deeply into living the Christian life outside the walls of the Church.”
In his homily, Father Mahar recounted the story that the worshippers came out on cold weekday night to celebrate.
In early December of 1531, Our Lady of Guadalupe began to teach to a young peasant farmer named Juan Diego on a hill called Tepeyac in Mexico. She sent little “Jaunito” to the local bishop, requesting that a church be built on the hill. Being weak and insignificant in the eyes of the world, the young farmer was unable to convince the bishop to build the church until he shared his story of the beautiful woman who appeared to him at that spot.
“Mary was not disappointed,” Father Mahar said. “With great patience and unwavering love she simply sent him back once again to request that a church be constructed for her son. Again Juan Diego failed. But he was docile, he was receptive as he was being instructed by Our Lady, and when he returned a third time with the sign of the roses, and the bishop saw the miraculous image of the Blessed Virgin Mary embedded on St. Juan Diego’s tilma, construction began in earnest for that church.”
Within seven years of the construction of the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe, eight million native people have been baptized there, he added. Today, more than five million people travel to the basilica each year to renew their faith and to respond to God’s call to holiness and eternal life
“May we come to embrace that same docility of St. Juan Diego, that same receptivity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and so allow the love of God to be poured out into our hearts and into our world, a world in such desperate need of this order of love and of the God who longs for nothing more than to give it away,” he said.
Those attending the Mass appreciated the beauty of the celebration.
Worshippers were nearly evenly divided into two age groups — those in the 20s and 30s and those in their middle age. Some of the women in the younger group wore mantillas for head cover. The Catholic custom for women had fallen from favor since the 1960s, but has been returning in recent years.
Elizabeth Johnson of Holy Name of Jesus Church, Providence, is drawn to traditional Catholic traditions.
“Gregorian chants uplift your heart toward God and heaven,” she said before Mass as to what had inspired her to attend. “Chant Mass and Gregorian chant enhance prayer and worship. I attend the Tridentine Mass at our parish for the beauty of that Mass.”
