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Views from the Choir Loft

Why St. Josemaría Escrivá Only Celebrated The Extraordinary Form

Jeff Ostrowski · August 4, 2015

431 Josemaría Escrivá Eucharist Mr. John Sonnen shared the following story on his blog. Our readers know we shun gossip, but this story is told by a living person who “names names.”

FEW YEARS AGO I had the honor to sit down with the great Rev. Dr. Giuseppe Soria, personal physician of St. Josemaría Escrivá. Don Giuseppe was his close and personal friend, and was even in the room the moment the saint breathed his last. In fact, he is the one who reached out and closed St. Josemaría’s eyes the moment after he died. Don Giuseppe was ordained in Madrid and lived in Rome in the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s.

I asked Don Giuseppe why St. Josemaría had not celebrated the Novus Ordo Missae. His response was frank and to the point.

St. Josemaría was always first and foremost obedient, but he could not read the faded print in the new edition of the Roman Missal (see this photo). He had cataracts and found it difficult and painful to read the poor quality typeset. Also, the saint had experienced certain mystical moments associated with particular words, sentences, and structural parts of the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite. Such moments had been a part of his spiritual life since boyhood and through his priesthood. In having to celebrate the Mass of Paul VI, the saint would have been cut off from this.

Finally, it was the saint’s secretary, Don Alvaro del Portillo, who at the behest of the saint telephoned Msgr. Annibale Bugnini to ask permission to continue celebrating the Classical Rite. Monsignor Bugnini was quick in his response: “You don’t need permission from me. Just continue to celebrate the Mass of St. Pius V.”

I believe Pope Paul VI allowed priests with certain conditions—such as blindness—as well as retired priests to continue to offer the Traditional Latin Mass, even after the new Missal was introduced circa 1970. I’m told some priests loved the Extraordinary Form so much, they chose to retire early.

Opinions by blog authors do not necessarily represent the views of Corpus Christi Watershed.

Filed Under: Articles Last Updated: January 1, 2020

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About Jeff Ostrowski

Jeff Ostrowski holds his B.M. in Music Theory from the University of Kansas (2004). He resides with his wife and children in Los Angeles.—(Read full biography).

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Corpus Christi Watershed

Quick Thoughts

    Vespers Booklet (4th Sunday of Lent)
    The organ accompaniment booklet (24 pages) which I created for the 4th Sunday of Lent (“Lætare Sunday”) may now be downloaded, for those who desire such a thing.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Vespers Booklet, 3rd Sunday of Lent
    The organ accompaniment I created for the 3rd Sunday of Lent (“Extraordinary Form”) may now be downloaded, if anyone is interested in this.
    —Jeff Ostrowski
    Weeping For Joy! (We Hope!)
    Listening to this Easter Alleluia—an SATB arrangement I made twenty years ago based on the work of Monsignor Jules Van Nuffel—one of our readers left this comment: “I get tears in my eyes each time I sing to this hymn.” I hope this person is weeping for joy!
    —Jeff Ostrowski

Random Quote

Ambrose and Prudentius took something classical and made it Christian; the revisers and their imitators took something Christian and tried to make it classical. The result may be pedantry, and sometimes perhaps poetry; but it is not piety. “Accessit Latinitas, discessit pietas.”

— Fr. Joseph Connelly (1954)

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