Notre Dame Seminary Celebrates Ordinariate Mass of the Five Wounds

On March 16, 2021, a Votive Mass of the Five Holy Wounds in the Ordinariate Form of the Roman Rite, was celebrated at Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans, Louisiana. Father Aaron Williams of the Diocese of Jackson, Mississippi, was the celebrant. Father Sal Istre of the Diocese of Lafayette, Louisiana, served as the deacon. It was my privilege, as a Transitional Deacon of the Diocese of Alexandria, Louisiana, to serve as subdeacon for this solemn occasion.

I was invited to be subdeacon by Father Williams because he knew of my connection to the Ordinariate and the English Patrimony. Father Williams, who studied at Notre Dame Seminary and The Liturgical Institute, has faculties to celebrate the Ordinariate Form in private. For this occasion, he received permission from Bishop Steven Lopes of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of St. Peter to celebrate this Mass at the seminary.

Why did this Mass take place at Notre Dame Seminary, and why were all three clerics who were involved, not clergy of the Personal Ordinariate? Notre Dame Seminary provides a rich liturgical formation for seminarians. We are regularly exposed to the Roman Rite in the Ordinary and Extraordinary Forms. We frequently celebrate the Ordinary Form Mass in English, Latin, and Spanish. During the week that the Ordinariate Form was celebrated, we also had the opportunity to worship according to Byzantine Ruthenian Rite. This is not for the sake of novelty, but it provides a truly universal perspective of the liturgical traditions present in the Catholic Church. This is something I am grateful for in my formation at Notre Dame Seminary.

Interestingly enough, part of my Lenten discipline this year has been to pray daily the Devotions on the Five Holy Wounds and the Walsingham Chaplet of the Five Holy Wounds which are found in the Saint Gregory Prayer Book. It was providential that as I was praying these devotions for Lent, I was asked to participate in this Mass.

I converted to the Catholic Church in 2009 from Episcopalianism. This was right before Anglicanorum Coetibus was promulgated by then-Pope Benedict XVI. As far as I am able, I continue to develop the English Patrimony in my personal devotions and promote and support the Ordinariate.

In 2011, I was at the Mass in Houston, Texas, at the Co-Cathedral of the Sacred Heart, where Msgr. Steenson became the first ordinary of the Personal Ordinariate of the Chair of Saint Peter. I was present in 2016 when Bishop Lopes took possession of his Cathedral of Our Lady of Walsingham. During the summer of 2019 I did a unit of Clinical Pastoral Education (CPE) in San Antonio, Texas. The parish where I attended Mass for that 10-week program was Our Lady of the Atonement, founded by Father Christopher Phillips. My favorite Marian devotion is to Our Lady of Walsingham, and my patron saint is Saint Thomas Becket of Canterbury. I also have a strong love for Saint Cuthbert and Saint John Henry Newman, among others.

Devotion to the Five Holy Wounds of Christ is part of our faith. By our Lord’s wounds we are healed. The instruments of the Passion have always been some of the most sought after relics of the church. Since medieval times there have been formal devotions to the Five Holy Wounds. Many of these have originated from mystical visions from the saints. An image of the Five Holy Wounds was used as the standard for the 40,000 strong Pilgrimage of Grace in 1536/7. This was a protest against King Henry VIII’s break from the Catholic Church. Sadly, it did not restore Catholic England.

The Sarum Use was the liturgical form celebrated most often in the English Church prior to the so-called Reformation. This Mass of the Five Wounds in Divine Worship: The Missal, comes directly to us from the Sarum Use. The Sarum Missal, says the following about the origin of the Mass of the Five Holy Wounds:

For me, it was a truly moving experience to participate in this form of the Mass as a cleric. I know how important devotion to the Five Holy Wounds has been to so many souls in the history of the church, and how this devotion was savagely removed from the lives of the English people by the Crown’s authority. To have this votive Mass celebrated again in the modern day is moving, because it is the recovery of a spiritual treasure that has been lost for so long, though beloved by so many.

It was an honor to participate in the first celebration of an Ordinariate Form of the liturgy which has been celebrated at Notre Dame Seminary. This is now part of the history of this venerable institution and I am grateful to have been part of it.

The Schola Cantorum of Notre Dame Seminary is committed to excellence in sacred music. Under the leadership of Max Tenney, the schola provided sacred music which comes from the English liturgical patrimony. The Kyrie was from William Byrd’s Mass for Three Voices. The remaining mass ordinary pieces were from the Missa de Sancta Maria Magdalena. The hymn at the offertory was “The Royal Banners Forward Go” from the 1940 Hymnal.

The sense of reverence you feel serving in this mass reflects the reality of the dignity of these sacred mysteries. Ad orientem liturgy is a part of the English Patrimony and the historic way of celebrating the Mass. I feel as if I enter more deeply into the sacred mysteries when I participate in the liturgy celebrated this way.


As a former Episcopalian, I am very comfortable with the sacred vernacular of “thees” and “thous” found in the Prayerbook tradition. It was easy to fall back into the familiar sacral language of prayer in the vernacular. This includes prayers such as the Prayer of Humble Access and the prayer of thanksgiving after communion.

I have missed the procession of the Book of the Gospels to the center of the nave. It is a meaningful tradition to me. It represents the Lord leaving the sanctuary of Heaven in his Incarnation to proclaim the Gospel to the people in their midst.

Many of the seminarians commented how reverent the liturgy was and how they noticed many elements that were similar to what is experienced in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite, such as the option to proclaim the Last Gospel. It was also noticed how familiar many of the elements are from the Ordinary Form.

Benedict XVI’s apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus has left a lasting impression on me, particularly where it says in number III that the Catholic Church desires to “maintain the liturgical, spiritual and pastoral traditions of the Anglican Communion within the Catholic Church, as a precious gift nourishing the faith of the members of the Ordinariate and as a treasure to be shared.”

This is truly a treasure to be shared, and it was certainly shared with the seminarians of Notre Dame Seminary. I hope they will all carry the beauty of this liturgy forward, in their own ways, into their ars celebrandi in their future priestly ministry. I certainly intend to do this.

Benedict XVI also said in the motu proprio, Summorum Pontificum, which allowed for a wider celebration of what we now call the Extraordinary Form of the Mass, that “What earlier generations held as sacred, remains sacred and great for us too.” This is certainly true for all of us who now bring the sacredness of our heritage forward into the Catholic Church, in unity with the Chair of Saint Peter.

In closing, I want to ask for your prayers for me as I complete my theological studies and prepare for ordination as a priest of Jesus Christ. Pray that I will be a holy priest, become a saint, and embrace my participation in the sufferings of Christ that we experience in his Five Holy Wounds.

Our Lady of Walsingham, Pray For Us!
Saints Thomas Becket, Cuthbert, and John Henry Newman, Pray For Us!

About the author: Deacon Thomas Kennedy, 38, is a Transitional Deacon of the Diocese of Alexandria in Louisiana. He was born in West Monroe, Louisiana and studied history at Louisiana Tech University prior to entering seminary at Saint Joseph Seminary College in Covington, Louisiana. After graduating from Notre Dame Seminary with a Masters of Divinity, he will be ordained a priest on Saturday, May 22, 2021 at the Cathedral of Saint Francis Xavier in Alexandria, Louisiana and celebrate his First Solemn Mass of Thanksgiving at the Minor Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in Natchitoches, Louisiana.
 

More photos of the Mass of the Five Wounds can be found below. All photos are courtesy of Notre Dame Seminary and used with permission. Visit here for more information about Notre Dame Seminary in New Orleans.