The Ars Celebrandi Latin Mass Workshop is the largest TLM workshop in the world -- and it took place this year as well! Naturally, under the circumstances of the current pandemic, a much smaller number of people were able to come and the churches remained almost empty due to restrictions.
However, its continuity was assured.
Here we are praying that in 2021 there will be more people than ever, Deo volente!
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The 7th liturgical workshops "Ars Celebrandi" ended in Licheń (Poland).
The liturgy workshops "Ars Celebrandi" took place at the Marian shrine in Licheń for the seventh time. Throughout the week, from 9 to 16 July 2020, almost 150 people from all over Poland, and several other countries, learned all the skills needed to celebrate Mass in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite.
The coronavirus pandemic caused the number of participants to be limited to 150 (compared to 230 in previous years) and required strict sanitary rules (regular disinfection, wearing masks - in accordance with regulations, social distance), but the nature and program of the workshop were not reduced. Despite restrictions on travel, some participants from other countries (Germany, France, the Czech Republic, Latvia, Lithuania) arrived, although there were fewer than in previous years.
His Excellency Bishop Wiesław Mering, ordinary of the Włocławek diocese, sent his blessing to the participants, expressing his joy that the workshops are once again taking place in his diocese. Bishop Wiesław Mering gives his honorary patronage to the workshops "Ars Celebrandi" since the very beginning.
The "Ars Celebrandi" workshops are organized by the "Una Voce Polonia" Association and include workshops of celebrating the Low and High Mass (workshop available to priests and deacons), of altar service, of Gregorian chant (separately for men and women), as well as of old Polish devotional songs, which used to be sung by simple people during the Mass, according to the Polish tradition.
This year, an additional learning to celebrate baptism, funeral, anointing of the sick and the sacrament of marriage was offered for the first time.
As the coordinator of the "Ars Celebrandi" workshops, Tomasz Olszyński, has explained: "A large group of priests took advantage of this workshop. Traditional pastoral care in Poland is flourising and includes youth and entire families, so the demand for sacraments and sacramentals in the EFRR has significantly increased in recent years.”
Fr. Paweł Korupka, chaplain of the workshop "Ars Celebrandi", has said: "I am particularly pleased with the fact that 10 priests learned to celebrate Mass in the EFRR from scratch this year and celebrated it for the first time in their lives.” In his sermon during the Mass for the closing of the workshops, Fr. Korupka recalled the famous vision of St. John Bosco, in which this great educator of youth saw a ship symbolizing the Church, being thrown by a storm and ruthlessly attacked from many other ships and boats. It managed to survive because it could moor at two luminous columns, symbolizing the Eucharist (Salus credentium - "Salvation of believers") and the Blessed Virgin (Auxilium christianorum, "Help of Christians").
It is the Eucharist and Mary that are the salvation of Catholics, and, as Fr. Korupka highlighted, the "Ars Celebrandi" workshops are based on these columns: their participants look at Christ hidden in the Blessed Sacrament and stay at the images of the Blessed Virgin, worshiped in Licheń and Częstochowa (Black Madonna).
In addition to workshops and celebrations of Mass, the participants took part in the breviary Hours held in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, the adorations of Most Holy Sacrament and Eucharistic processions, as well as in the traditional Saturday evening Marian procession, joining all the faithful and pilgrims coming to the Licheń sanctuary.
A special occasional event of this year's "Ars Celebrandi" workshops, due to the 610th anniversary of the Battle of Grunwald (First Battle of Tannenberg), was a Requiem Mass with absolution for the souls of Polish and Lithuanian knights fallen in the battle.
[Note: many more images and pictures can be found here.]
