Brick by Brick

Benedict Ambrose counted 77 people at the Edinburgh Missa Cantata on Sunday, including the Girl Guide company. We discovered that the large contingent of students was from Glasgow and that they hope to make it to our Mass at least once a month. We are terribly pleased. Glasgow is only 47 miles away, but trains are not cheap, so this represents a real effort on the part of the Glasgow young.

Some time ago a middle-aged visitor from Ireland remarked cuttingly that ours was not a young congregation, which he meant as a kind of insult. But as a matter of fact, half the congregation (including the altar servers) was under forty. The demographic we're short on is babies. There are parents, teenagers and children, but only two or so babies currently. This may be because the largest contingent of people of child-bearing age are unmarried university students who, after they graduate, will likely move elsewhere.

It is always said when the university students move away. They never call, they rarely write, nidgy nie zadzwonią, a rzadko piszą listy... 

Patrick Archibald wrote quite a good article on getting the hang of the Traditional Latin Mass. Too bad it's in the Remnant, where he is preaching to the choir. Those readers who don't go to the TLM every week may be turned off by the anti-Novus Ordo remarks in the combox.

I think he overstates the difficulties, but it can't be said too many times that the Traditional Latin Mass is bewildering and even boring to many people the first and second time they attend. And without a missal--or a handy-dandy White Sheet picked up at the back of the church--they are going to have a very quiet hour.

However, the most important thing in traddery is that hour. Nothing else really matters in comparison. The after-Mass social is lovely, and making friends with fellow congregants is marvellous, and signing this petition and going to that rally dutiful, and looking for veils online is fun, but what matters most is the Mass.