The Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite at Saint Augustine Major Seminary

The seminarians of the the Saint Augustine Major Seminary has invited Rev. Fr. Joseph Skelton of the Diocese of Tagbilaran, Bohol to celebrate the Traditional Form of the Latin Mass., last Tuesday, February 9, 2010. The Saint Augustine Major Seminary or SASMA is a Catholic, formation seminary of the Vicariates of Calapan and San Jose, Occidental Mindoro located in Tagaytay City, Cavite, Philippines. The seminarians of SASMA attend to their academics at the Divine Word Seminary.

Fr. Skelton, who is on a private retreat at St. Scholastica's retreat house, saw it as a privilege to promote traditional Catholic liturgy and music to seminarians who have not experienced the extraordinary form of the Roman Rite. The Sung Mass of St. Cyril of Alexandria was observed and celebrated around 5PM, with Alain Nacor EDSSJ as Mass server and Dennis Raymond Maturan EDSSJ as organist and cantor. Both came all the way from Manila as requested by Fr. Skelton himself.

After the communal dinner Fr. Skelton and Mr. Maturan, a Master of Arts in Theology degree holder was invited to a one hour talk expounding on the forgotten traditonal culture and practices of the Catholic Church. Fr. Skelton shared his conversion story from protestantism to Catholicism due to films depicting Catholicism such as the Song of Bernadette and the Cardinal. His first encounter with Catholicism as a 12 year old boy is when he attended his first solemn Mass at a gothic cathedral in the USA with one of the American Cardinals as celebrant. The sounds and smell of the liturgy were instrumental to his conversion which were lacking in protestantism.

Later, Mr. Maturan gave a short backgrounder of the legitimate movement to revive the traditional Catholic liturgy and culture in the Philippines and for the future priests to rediscover their Church's rich traditions while remaining faithful to the Holy Magisterium and always be loyal and obedient to the Holy Father. The seminarians were truly grateful to Fr. Skelton and the EDSSJ team for giving them them opportunity for the first time to experience the extraordinary rite. They manifested their desire to of course learn the art of Gregorian Chanting and to promote orthodox Catholic liturgy, culture and music as future priests.  After the talk, the rector of the seminary, Fr. Carlos Paglitawan, together with Fr. LJ, invited Fr. Skelton and the EDDSJ group, to celebrate the Traditional Mass again for the next batch of seminarians.