By FR. KEVIN M. CUSICK
Deacons in active service are regularly assigned only by their bishops, as are priests, to parish work. When was the last time you heard of a deacon voluntarily choosing his own parish? It is one of our newest parish members who has done just that.
Some of our readers may remember my recent obituary article about the Rev. Mark Ervin, a diocesan priest friend of mine whom I had come to know in just the last few years before his untimely death. We had met for dinner a few times at his rectory where he cooked our dinner on his gas grill. I joked with friends after he died that I was dismayed that he had not thought to leave that gas grill, which I had coveted somewhat, to me in his will. Only with the passage of time was it revealed that he left behind something much better for me: his deacon.
Some months after Fr. Ervin’s death and upon the advent of a new pastor to succeed Fr. Ervin, the deacon and his wife started to appear regularly at our parish Traditional Latin Mass. After requesting a leave of absence from his parish assignment he was freed to attend the Traditional Mass as he preferred. He has followed that desire by registering with our parish.
With the opportunity to talk at length with my new ordained parishioner I have learned more about Fr. Ervin’s story and wish to lay to rest mysteries surrounding his tragic death by sharing some of the facts I have to come to learn about his last months.
Fr. Ervin had been informed by his doctor that he had a heart condition and recommended open heart surgery. Fr. Ervin rejected his recommendation and began to take heart medications as a substitute for following the medical advice. Whatever the sickness which caused his coughing and other symptoms in his last days, no doubt it triggered a reaction in his weakened and fragile heart, which incident ended his life.
Those who read my earlier article will remember that Fr. Ervin had undergone a deep conversion to Tradition. He was wearing his cassock and obtaining materials necessary for the offering of the Traditional Mass.
As background it helps to know that Fr. Ervin was a convert from Protestantism. For many years it had been his habit to begin Mass, almost as if he were a circus barker, by calling out “Good morning, church!” to greet the congregation gathered for Holy Mass. Evidently his extensive Roman training at the North American College did nothing to impart a sense of the dignity and sacredness of Roman ritual worship.
About four years ago, after undergoing the experience of restoring his parish’s historic St. John Vianney shrine, Fr. Ervin turned to his deacon and asked him what he thought about his manner of offering the Holy Mass. The deacon responded, “Like a Protestant.” The words left a very deep impression, causing such a radical change of heart that Fr. Ervin’s manner of offering the Holy Mass changed radically almost overnight.
Where he had once been very casual, Father now sought to discover the mind of the Church and to do what the Church does in her sacred worship, handed down infallibly by the Holy Spirit. He began, for example, to observe the holding of thumb and forefinger together after the consecration of the Sacred Host, asking for the deacon’s assistance in turning the pages so as to better assist his faithful observation of this rubric.
Fr. Ervin suffered greatly for his conversion to observance and teaching of the sacred manner of celebrating and praying the Church’s public worship. Parishioners vocally complained and some left the parish in protest at the marked change in his now dignified demeanor, which years of Roman training had failed to impart.
I have also come to learn that Fr. Ervin was training under the tutelage of a priest of the Society of St. Pius X on the proper celebration of the Traditional Latin Mass in preparation for joining the society. It turns out that at the time of his death he was very close to realizing his goal. I asked the deacon how close he had been to making the “jump,” and in answer the deacon held up two fingers and separated them to reveal an inch of space.
Fr. Ervin is not an unusual case. Yes, going to the length of excardinating from a diocese and joining the society as he had planned to do is the most radical transition one can imagination. I am not privy to Fr. Ervin’s reasons for his choice as to pursuing priesthood in Tradition through the SSPX and thus cannot address questions as to why he did not opt for a community in full communion with the Holy See, such as the FSSP or ICKSP.
The SSPX is only part of the movement toward tradition, however. Priests and seminarians everywhere are privately learning how to celebrate the Traditional Mass. Some of these have begun to reintroduce the Latin Mass on an occasional basis to their parishioners.
What’s more significant, in one archdiocese which virtually ignores the directives of Summorum Pontificum, seminarians are obtaining official approval to take instruction on how to serve the Traditional Mass. In that same local Church, priests and musicians joined forces this year to celebrate a solemn High Mass for the Solemnity of the Assumption at a parish which, according to the pastor, has not witnessed the living traditional worship in at least half a century.
Our Catholic worship is by its nature repetitive. For years many priests and bishops have regularly functioned in practical denial of this fact by availing themselves of every option to maintain an addiction to seeming infinite variety.
As a result the cheap ruse of constant diversion and entertainment has been maintained at the cost of integral faith and true worship of the living God which it nourishes. The high numbers of those falling away from regular attendance at Holy Mass uncovers the sad result of this collision course set up by a false and ruptured interpretation of sacred Tradition.
Fr. Ervin, and now so many others like him, had discovered the blessing of our tradition which acknowledges the ritual nature of the Holy Mass. Something cannot be handed down by the apostles and saints but also constantly at the same time subject to constant manipulation by the contemporary Church.
Accepting and handing on the Traditional immemorial Mass is the answer — always, of course, in full communion with the Holy See. Increasing numbers of priests and young people are joining the ranks of traditional Catholics who have always rightly insisted on this fact.
Isn’t it more honest, after all, to simply introduce our young people and families to the Traditional Latin Mass which forthrightly acknowledges its formal and ritual nature through signs and symbols adequate to the task?
@MCITLFrAphorism
Powered by WPtouch Mobile Suite for WordPress