Pictures of an Ordinariate Mass at the National Shrine in D.C.

Our thanks to Mr James Griffin of The Durandus Institute for Sacred Liturgy and Music for sharing with us these pictures (taken by Mr Alan Lopez) and this account of a Mass recently celebrated at the National Shrine in Washington DC in the Ordinariate Rite.

On August 3, the Durandus Institute for Sacred Liturgy and Music coordinated a solemn Mass according to the Ordinariate’s Divine Worship Missal at the crypt of the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception in Washington, D.C. The liturgy was a votive Mass of St John Henry Newman, celebrated to open the 2023 academic conference of the St John Henry Newman Association of America. A music program sung by the renowned DC-area men’s ensemble The Suspicious Cheese Lords additionally commemorated the 400th anniversary of the death of composer William Byrd (July 4, 1623) this year, with his “Mass for Three Voices”, and “Ave verum corpus” sung during Holy Communion.

The Holy Mass was celebrated by a priest of the Ordinariate, Fr Jason Catania, assisted by Fr Christopher Woodall as deacon, and Fr Armando Alejandro, Jr. as subdeacon. Fr Nathan Davis preached the sermon, and the director of the Durandus Institute, James Griffin, assisted as the 1st Master of Ceremonies.

The crypt of the National Shrine is an important site in the life of the Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter, since it was the place where, on the feast of St John Henry Newman, October 9, in 2011, the community of St Luke’s (an historical Anglo-Catholic church in Bladensburg, Maryland) and their rector was received into the full communion of the Catholic Church. The crypt has also been the site for the ordinations of several Ordinariate clerics. However, the Durandus Institute’s event marks the first time that the Divine Worship Missal has been used for a public celebration within the National Shrine.

The entrance procession is led by the verger.