Last week I took my teenage daughter to a special Mass which I hoped she would find especially appealing. It included inspiring worship music, elaborate visual stimulation and inspired preaching. And afterward, when I asked her what she thought, she enthusiastically told me that she liked it. Here is a description of this “teen-friendly” Mass from the parish’s website:

A Solemn High Mass in the Extraordinary Form for the Feast of the Purification (Candlemas) with a blessing of the Candles and Procession with polyphonic propers composed by William Byrd, and the Ordinary from his Mass for Four Voices, sung by Chantry.

Now I admit that I am not an “Old Mass-only” Catholic. Nor do I think the Mass needs to be in Latin; I prefer the vernacular, truth be told. However, I can’t help but marvel at the fact that we have spent countless hours and enormous amounts of energy over the past 40 years trying to create a Mass that is “relevant” and engaging to our teens, when perhaps it was collecting mothballs in the closet the whole time?