EPISTLES

In a 2021 interview with Patrick Coffin, Dr. Janet Smith discusses her move toward the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM). Smith is a prominent voice in the Catholic Church, especially for her defense of Humanae Vitae. View a collection of her works on Humanae Vitae here.

However, she spent much of her life feeling frustrated by modern liturgies. She found them lacking in reverence. She often felt that the music and the personal styles of some priests were distracting.

For a long time, Smith avoided the Latin Mass. She was already considered “conservative.” She feared that attending the Old Mass would make her look like an extremist. She did not want to be further marginalized or lose her audience. She even avoided reading books about the Traditional Liturgy for fear she might be convinced by them.

Everything changed. Smith began attending the Latin Mass regularly after a series of unexpected events. She describes the experience as discovering “a piece of heaven.” She was struck by the deep silence and the joy of the young families in attendance. The beauty of the rite provided her with a level of spiritual nourishment she never expected.

In her own words, here is what Janet Smith said:

“When I became full-force, return to the Church, I was largely appalled at the liturgy. For most of my adult life, I really felt it was a kind of a torture—especially with the music and then various showboating and different things that would go on at the Mass. It was very rare that I could get to a Mass that I thought really had the kind of reverence that was suitable for the Mass.

But three years ago, God kind of tricked me into going to some Latin Masses. I didn’t go all those years where I was defending Humanae Vitae (started at Notre Dame). It wasn’t much available around Notre Dame, but it was like one more thing I couldn’t flirt with.

I was already too far to the right in everything in the Church. And if I wanted any kind of an audience—if I got to be known as a ‘rad Trad’—I would definitely be even more marginalized than I was. So, I didn’t read anything by Michael Davies or Lefebvre, thinking that somehow it was off-limits. I was tending to think they were extreme and schismatics, etc., and I didn’t want to look at it for fear that I’d be convinced.

As I said, three years ago, through various circumstances, I went to circle Latin Masses in a row, and I just felt like I discovered a piece of heaven. It just seemed to me: I couldn’t go early enough; I couldn’t stay long enough.

I remember one Sunday, I went to a church where they were somewhat halfway through the Latin Mass. I stayed for the rest of it. I stayed for the intervening time to pray, and then I went to the next one—both of them at least an hour and a half long, and an hour in between. I felt it was one of the most marvelous spiritual moments in my life.

At the same time, I’d be calling up old friends I hadn’t talked to for months, and I’d say, ‘I’m starting to go back to Latin Mass.’ And they said, ‘We have been, too.’ I said, ‘What?’ And they’d say, ‘I went to a retreat near a church that—that’s all they said.’ I just was stuck on it.

Someone else said, ‘I just sort of got interested, and I went,’ and now she has access to it every day where she is. So, I was just stunned.

Then, of course, I was stunned by the youth—the youthfulness and the young families. I sit there, and every Sunday, I just grin from ear to ear just looking at one family after another trot up there with all those kids. It gives me just quite… almost a levitating joy. I am just so happy.

And all the altar boys—the little altar boys who are so profoundly happy to be there—and the parents who say that their boys won’t get up for anything early except for Latin Mass, and the families that say when, almost the first time their kids encounter it, that’s what they want. And I just look at them: ‘What is that all about? What makes your kids able to resonate to this, anyway?’

That has been my experience in the last three years. It’s nourished my spiritual life in a way that I never, ever, ever would have expected from something like this.

And I’ve read—tried to read—as many books as I can get my hands on for the history of the liturgy and why it’s this way, and what happened for the production of the Novus Ordo. I’ve got two shelves on my bookshelves filled with liturgy books now, which was never anything I paid any attention to.”

Source: Patrick Coffin (2021, July 27). Why was the Latin Mass really attacked? — Dr. Janet Smith. Patrick Coffin Media.