The entire atmosphere that the old Mass promotes and demands is itself the most powerful catechesis ever offered, and it communicates far more powerfully than a thousand sermons or books.
REGINA: What if children don’t immediately ‘get’ it?
DR. KWASNIEWSKI: I'm not saying that everyone immediately "gets" this. But if a family gives it time, it ends up having the most amazing effects on the children. They learn to sit still, to kneel, to watch, to pray. I barely knew how to pray until I began attending the old Mass, and I think this is the same experience countless others have. To put it simply: the traditional Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is absorbing for those whose eyes and ears adjust to it.
REGINA: Why do you think this is?
DR. KWASNIEWSKI: The traditional Mass is so bafflingly other, so strongly contemptuous of one’s individuality, that it commands respect. I think young people clue in to this rather more quickly than we give them credit for. Isn't it similar to the way young people, at least the motivated ones, will be attracted to a taskmaster sports coach, or a critical commandant of a teacher?
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