Guest NLM Report by Mindaugas Kubilius, Lecturer at Vilnius University and Ad Fontes Organizer
“This holy silence during the canon enables us to a deeper participation in the Sacrifice of our Lord on the Cross”, - thus during its conferences, Father Scott Haynes, C.R.S.J.C. (Chicago) helped the participants of Ad Fontes ("to the sources") to rediscover the fullness of the Mysterium Fidei hidden in the Ancient Roman liturgy.
For the sixth consecutive year, nearly one hundred (mainly) young people from all over Lithuania, and also from Hungary, the United States and Latvia, came to Kraziai to study the tradition of the Church and celebrate it in the sacred liturgy. The bells of the baroque Kraziai church summoned them seven times a day to chant the Offices and the Holy Mass.
Here in Lithuania, Benedict XVI's long awaited Motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, has been the great encouragement for scholas in Lithuania, which in 2002 founded the summer academy to embrace fully the ancient Roman rite. The Hungarian professor Laszlo Dobszay and his team prepared especially for the week in Kraziai, Officium Romanum ad usum laicorum. This Officium Crozensis reflects the ancient Roman rite as it was celebrated before the reforms of St. Pius X. Some seminarians are being trained by the brothers of Canons Regular of St. John the Cantius (Chicago) to serve the Missa Cantata in the course of the “Ad Fontes” week. Indeed, each day the ancient Roman rite was celebrated with even greater beauty and dignity.
A great gift for us as well as the whole Catholic Church in Lithuania, was the visit of the Apostolic Nuncio, Archbishop Peter St. Zurbriggen, in Kraziai. He joined the Ad Fontes participants for the Vespers of the Feast of Transfiguration and gave an apostolic blessing in the name of Pope Benedict XVI. The Nuncio expressed the greatfulness of the whole Church to the Pope for the Motu Proprio, Summorum Pontificum.
In line with the teaching of the Church, the Archbishop rightly recalled that the riches of the Tradition of the Church cannot be confined to just one rite and one expression of it. He strongly encouraged the Lithuanian scholas and the participants to continue to promote the tradition of the Church in complete and sincere agreement with the teaching of the Pope.
Ad Fontes 2008 in Kraziai is already being planned. Anyone interested in coming or assisting the project in some way is welcome to contact Mindaugas Kubilius or the Provost of Kraziai parish Father Alionidas Budrius.
Images from Ad Fontes 2007
The arrival of the Apostolic Nuncio
Inside the parish church of Krazai (one can see that the sanctuary and high altar proper are under some kind of construction, also visible below)
The Nuncio addresses the participants
Some of the participants with the Nuncio and with Fr. Scott Haynes of the Canons Regular of St. John Cantius (in cope)
More participants. Prof. Laszlo Dobszay in the centre (with black tote bag)
A general group shot of the 2007 Ad Fontes participants
NLM Comment: if one looks at these photos, you can see they are being quite literal when they suggest the participants are mainly young Catholics. A very encouraging sign, repeated elsewhere in the Catholic world.
