Dr. Kwasniewski’s Lecture at Steubenville: “The Old Mass and the New Evangelization: Beyond the Long Winter of Rationalism”

On Monday, September 7, 2015, Dr. Peter Kwasniewski (one of our contributors and well known to lovers of the traditional liturgy) delivered a lecture at the Franciscan University of Steubenville. The event was well attended by students, faculty, and staff. Rorate is pleased to be able to publish the text in full -- an exclusive publication, for which we are very grateful.

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The Old Mass and the New Evangelization:
Beyond the Long Winter of Rationalism

Peter A. Kwasniewski [*]

Gentile Gallery of the J. C. Williams Center

The Franciscan University of Steubenville

September 7, 2015

It is an honor and a joy for me to be here this evening. I am grateful to Dr. Michael Sirilla for the invitation to speak at the Franciscan University of Steubenville, which, for so many years, has maintained the reputation of a school where Our Lord Jesus Christ is “the king and center of all hearts” and where the Catholic Faith is taught, practiced, and loved. On a more personal note, I have the feeling of “coming full circle,” since I taught for the Austrian Program at the Kartause in Gaming, and at that time mingled with many wonderful people from the university—but never had a chance to visit the home campus.

As I was working on this talk, I came to see that my title, “The Old Mass and the New Evangelization,” really deserves to be a book, not a lecture. I decided to limit myself to an aspect that seemed especially fruitful—“Beyond the Long Winter of Rationalism”—even though one could approach the topic from so many angles.[1]

Rediscovering the Ancient Mass