Is the Latin mass the only solution to our mucked-up modern liturgy? A lot of people seem to think so, and Elizabeth Scalia over at Inside Catholic has weighed in, with her own vivid memories of growing up between the old rite and the new:

How did it happen…that I found my favorite childhood hymn (“Praise to the Lord, the Almighty, the King of Creaaaaaation”) replaced by a congregational rendering of Bob Dylan’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” our doubtful voices urged on by a swaying man wearing blue jeans and strumming a guitar? Why was our priest preaching, not about sacraments or sin or salvation, but about the wisdom of Paul Simon’s Mrs. Robinson, which told us that — coo-coo-catchoo — Jesus loved us more than we knew?

Talk about having a rug pulled out from under you. Seemingly overnight, the genuflections were passe, the organ was silenced and its loft emptied. The chants, which had brought chills and stillness — even to us children — were forgotten. The altar rails were down, the women’s heads uncovered, the sisters mostly gone, and our priests were facing us at a “table.” The Holy Mass that had so recently moved me to ecstatic tears had suddenly become unrecognizable, and almost nothing about these changes was explained.

Having endured my fair share of strummed masses and Dylan-ish music that is anything but sacred, I can relate. Bummer, man.

But I can also relate my own experience of the modern mass (or the “ordinary rite,” as the motu proprio would put it) at my own parish, Our Lady Queen of Martyrs, in Queens. (Pictured on the left.) We play music the old-fashioned way, on an organ. We sing the old-fashioned way, with a full choir, and sometimes in Latin. There’s music at every weekend mass, and every holy day. The sanctuary is shrouded in incense every Sunday at 11:30, our “high” mass. The altar servers wear cassocks and surplices. (And of 90 or servers, they are fairly evenly divided between boys and girls, with a fair number continuing to serve well into high school.)

Some of the hymns we sing regularly include Scalia’s beloved “Praise to the Lord,” along with chestnuts like “Lift High the Cross,” “God’s Blessing Sends Us Forth,” plus some of the better new hymns, like “Here I Am, Lord” and “City of God.” Last weekend, we were treated to a little Handel. “Ode to Joy” pops up during Easter season. Recent hymns have also included Elgar’s “Ave Verum,” and Young’s “Let Us Now Praise God and Sing.” And “Panis Angelicus” is not uncommon. (We do venture into the secular realm every now and then, too. Andrew Lloyd Webber’s “Pie Jesu” is a popular choice for funerals and memorial masses.) They are all exquisitely rendered by one of the best choirs in our diocese. And our soloists and leaders of song aren’t pitiful, pot-bellied warblers. When they sing, they really do “pray twice.”

The liturgies themselves are blissfully free of innovation. No liturgical dancing. All the ordinary ministers of holy communion — the priests and the deacon — are present to give out communion at all of the Sunday masses, so there’s no over-use of EMHCs, who mostly just serve the chalice. (Something rare: my parish offers communion under both species at all masses, even on weekdays.)

Whenever anyone bemoans the state of modern liturgy, I always tell them to come visit my parish in Queens and see how it can be done with reverence, dignity and even beauty.

But if you can’t make it to New York, here’s another option: the mass from the gorgeous Basilica of the Sacred Heart at Notre Dame. It broadcasts every Sunday on the Hallmark Channel. The church is a stunner, and the masses do it full justice. As a side benefit, it’s a joy to see so many young people involved in the liturgy, and clearly loving it. The link, by the way, has many of the masses archived, so you can click and watch.

This, to my mind, is what the Novus Ordo could be and should be: modern, beautiful, clear — engaging both the mind and the heart (and the ear and the voice) for “full, conscious and active participation.”

If Notre Dame can manage it, and even my parish in Queens can do it, why can’t everyone else?