Modernists often like to pigeon-hole real Catholics as “traditional Catholics” not because they have anything against certain traditions in the Catholic Church, but because they want to make it sound like we live in a LARPing time-warp to the 1940s.  As I have written before, modernists will happily admit that the Traditional Latin Mass (TLM) has its roots in the Council of Trent, but this is only to insist that the Novus Ordo Missæ (NOM) is the simpler “catacombs version” of the Mass, meaning the new-Mass is ironically older than the old-Mass!

Of course, that doesn’t even make sense linguistically, not to mention theologically.  As I have written before here, the Council of Trent states that the Roman Canon is apostolic in origin.  No, the Roman Canon was probably not prayed by the Apostles in Latin.  No, the Roman Canon prayed by the Apostles did not have all the 2nd and 3rd century martyrs named in it (for obvious chronological reasons.)  But the Council of Trent infallibly states that Christ gave the bare-bones of the Roman Canon to the Apostles.

This is one of a hundred reasons why the moniker “traditional Catholic” is truly tantamount to “Apostolic Catholic.” And that is why I usually prefer the latter term on my site and channel.

This summer, I lived with the Lebanese in Jerusalem.  Even though the Lebanese have their own rite (the Maronite Rite) I was surprised to find in their library a 150 year old Roman Missal used in the Holy Land in the 19th century!  The above picture captures that Missal from the very balcony the kind Lebanese let me rent for quite cheap for this summer prayer retreat.

In fact, you can see the Church of the Anastasis (the Resurrection Church of Jesus Christ—the grey dome) just above the old-Missal that I found and snapped from their balcony.  Yes, I found that book just outside my room in a dusty library.

But should I have used it for Mass?  Would a doctor take a rusty scalpel from the 19th century to surgery just to show how adept he was as a surgeon in the 21st century?  No.  Of course, such an action would be the height of arrogance.  But maybe this was different.  I was confident that so little had changed in Apostolic Catholicism before the 1960s that I thought perhaps I could offer Mass with this old Missal.

To keep myself from being deceived and committing sacrilege, I thumbed through the Missal before bringing it to the Lebanese altar.  I wanted to make sure that little had changed (like I keep blabbing on all my blogs and podcasts.)  But claiming something on a podcast has higher stakes at the altar.

Well, I found out a tiny bit had changed from the 19th to 20th century Missals:  1) The Roman numeral “i” looked like a “j” in this old Palestinian Missal.  2) Certain Gospels had to be found in the Commons of the saints, not Propers of the day like my pre-55 travel Missal.  That’s it.  That’s all I had to adjust for to get ready to offer Holy Mass in the Holy Land from a Palestinian Roman Missal from 1850.

This shows you the timelessness of true Catholicism.  This is not “traditional Catholicism.”  This is Apostolic Catholicism, the Deposit of the Faith (and liturgy) that God never intended to change [much] over the centuries.