St. Victor Church in North Hollywood is hosting a traditional Tridentine Mass at 7 p.m. on Sundays during Advent.
The Tridentine Mass, often referred to as the Latin Mass, is celebrated according to the 1962 Roman Missal — the way it was celebrated before Second Vatican Council liturgical reforms. In 2007, Pope Benedict XVI made it easier to celebrate the “extraordinary form,” an effort to reach out to Catholics who prefer this traditional Mass.
Father James Fryar, FSSP, is celebrating the Masses at St. Victor’s. He is a member of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, which forms priests according to the traditional liturgy of the Roman rite.
The fraternity has established missions in dioceses throughout the United States, offering the Latin Mass in full Communion with the Roman Catholic Church.
“We’d like as many people as want to come, but we know not everyone will,” said Joe Tropeano, who is the master of ceremonies at Queen of Peace Church in Ocala, Fla. Tropeano worked with Father Fryar and the fraternity to establish the Tridentine Mass at his parish.
To his surprise, young people have started coming. A larger part of the 150 regular attendants are young adults with children, Tropeano said.
“They’re stuck by the beauty, the polyphonic music, the ceremony,” he said. “They’re looking for something, some reverence.”
Carlos de Quesada also learned about the Latin Mass in Florida. He attends Mass at Christ the King Mission in Sarasota.
“I didn’t even know the Latin Mass existed,” the 49-year-old said. “I was late to my regular Mass one day, and just waited for the next one [which was celebrated in the extraordinary form]. I fell in love with the reverence and the solemnity.”
His children, aged 10 and 15, like the Mass, too. His son is an altar server.
“I’m not one of those novus ordo = bad, Tridentine = good people,” he said. “I just feel a tremendous affinity for the solemnity of the Tridentine Mass.”
Knowing Spanish has helped him acclimate to the Latin Mass, he said. “Latin is a dead language,” he said. “So in Latin, there’s going to be a consistent meaning.”
Father Fryar has assembled a choir of 20 to sing the Mass and is planning on establishing a permanent presence of the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter in the Los Angeles Archdiocese.
“We’re getting to a point where a lot of people don’t see this as a controversy,” he said. “They’re neutral. They just like the Latin Mass.”
