To love the traditional Mass is to love something very old and very alive. Its history is not a museum piece but a living inheritance — the prayer of the Church handed down, generation to generation, across nearly two thousand years. Here is a brief and necessarily simplified sketch.
The early centuries
From the first generations, the Church in Rome celebrated the Eucharist in continuity with the Last Supper and the command of the Lord, “Do this in remembrance of me.” By the fourth century, as the Church emerged from persecution, the Roman liturgy was taking on recognizable shape, and Latin gradually became its language as it became the common tongue of the faithful in the West. The Roman Canon, the great prayer of consecration, was substantially in place by this early period.
Pope St. Gregory the Great
Pope St. Gregory the Great (590–604) holds a special place in this story. He gave the Roman liturgy and its chant a lasting order, and the tradition of sacred song that bears his name — Gregorian chant — remains the Church’s own music to this day. For centuries afterward the Roman Rite spread through Europe, carried by missionaries and monks, developing organically while preserving its essential core.
The Council of Trent and St. Pius V
In 1570, in the wake of the Council of Trent, Pope St. Pius V promulgated an edition of the Roman Missal intended to safeguard and standardize the Roman liturgy. He did not invent a new Mass; he codified the received tradition, drawing on the ancient usage of the city of Rome. This is why the traditional Mass is often called the Tridentine Mass. For four centuries this Missal nourished the saints, the missions, and the ordinary faithful across the world.
The Missal of 1962
Over the following centuries the Missal received modest revisions, but its substance remained remarkably constant. The edition promulgated under Pope St. John XXIII in 1962 represents the last form of the Roman Missal before the liturgical reform that followed the Second Vatican Council. It is this 1962 Missal that defines the traditional Mass celebrated today, including here in the Diocese of La Crosse and the surrounding region.
An organic inheritance
What is striking in this history is its continuity. The traditional Mass was not the work of any single hand or single age; it grew the way living things grow, slowly and from within. To assist at it is to stand in a vast company — apostles and martyrs, Doctors and missionaries, grandparents and children — all praying, in their turn, the prayer of the Church.
That continuity is a great consolation, especially for a community that has known loss. The liturgy that formed the saints is a sure path, and it remains ours to cherish and to hand on. In the articles that follow, we will explore its structure, its language, and its spiritual riches in greater depth.