(LifeSiteNews) — In the newly released Bread Not Stones documentary, Catholics of the Diocese of Charlotte opened up about the Traditional Latin Mass’s (TLM) impact on their lives, and their heartbreak over the suppression of the TLM in their parish churches.
On Monday morning, Regina Magazine unveiled “the first film to document the impact of Traditionis Custodes upon a faith community,” featuring interviews in which lay Catholics as well as priests spoke of their love for the Tridentine Mass and how it has changed their lives.
Father Timothy Reid, pastor of St. Ann Catholic Church in Charlotte, told how he began offering the Latin Mass in the diocese in 2008 after Pope Benedict XVI issued Summorum Pontificum.
“That Mass did something to me,” he said of the first sung Mass he offered, in a cafeteria. “I wanted to do it again. Because it’s powerful, and beautiful.”
One young Catholic, Cyrus River Moore, explained in the film that the Latin Mass was pivotal to his conversion to Catholicism. “Immediately, as soon as I walked in those doors, the grace coming from that Latin Mass just overflowed me,” he said of his first TLM. Six months later, he was baptized and confirmed. Remarkably, he said his experience of grace at that first Latin Mass was even greater than when he was baptized into the Church.
“It really, truly brought me to my knees. It was just an incredible, incredible experience,” said Moore. “I was so happy to be able to be there, even as a non-Catholic.”
The Latin Mass was decisive for the conversion of another lay Catholic, Dr. Scott Aumueller. He told how he had attended “a few” Novus Ordo Masses before his conversion, but they had not made an impression on him. “I wouldn’t have converted if that was all there was. There’s no way I would have,” said Aumueller.
Phil Gephart, a husband and father, suggested he was drawn to Catholicism and the Traditional Latin Mass while searching for the correct Christian denomination. A priest confirmed to him that he “was having some demonic issues” in his spiritual life and that “Latin prayers are actually more potent in combatting the demonic.”
For Dr. Aumueller, the Latin Mass not only led to his conversion, but saved his marriage, according to him and his wife. He said they were “headed to divorce court” before they found the Latin Mass.
READ: Faithful Catholics prayerfully protest Latin Mass suppression in Detroit
“We’re nowhere near it now,” said Aumueller. “Just the opposite. It’s totally changed our lives,” his wife added.
“When you get involved in true Catholicism, you’ve got something to connect to. And you realize that there’s something much more than you,” said Aumueller.
The Latin Mass attendees of the Diocese of Charlotte praised the Usus Antiquior for a wide variety of reasons, from its deep heritage, to its beauty, to the peace it gives, to its “masculine” quality attractive to young men. One mother pointed out that the TLM can have a “very profound effect” on children “and their understanding of God, their relationship with Christ and their understanding of the sacredness” of the Mass itself.
Clare Gephart highlighted the fact that her family’s TLM parish community is thriving exceptionally. “Every single Sunday is standing room only. Every single event we attend is packed and full of life, and I just don’t see that at other parishes the way I see at our parish. It’s just bursting at the seams with love and life and families and children and elderly people, and just every single person is welcome and every single person is cared for,” she said.
Speaking on the forthcoming suppression of the Latin Masses at all four parishes in the diocese where they are currently offered, the TLM attendees all echoed each other: they are heartbroken.
“I cried when we heard the news,” shared Clare Gephart.
One mother compared the TLM suppression to a “forced divorce.”
“If the Latin Mass was to go away at St. Ann’s, it would be super divisive. It would be the worst thing that anybody could do, is to push away part of the parish family. It would be like causing a divorce. … This liturgy has uplifted so many people including me and if it wasn’t for the Latin Mass I wouldn’t be who I am today,” remarked Felicity Nanashima.
“My first thought was … what good father gives their children stones when they’re asking for bread? Or what good father gives them a serpent when they’re asking for fish?” said one unnamed woman.
REGINA Executive Director Natalie Sonnen told LifeSiteNews in a comment that the film “is one of the very first to document the impact of Traditionis Custodes upon a faith community.”
The documentary is “dedicated to all parishes throughout the world who have had their beloved communities shattered by the implementation of this legislation which has either misunderstood or misrepresented the true nature of the faithful’s love of the Vetus Ordo,” said Sonnen.
She added that she prays for our bishops and Church leaders, as the film exhorted at the end: “Pray for our bishops, priests and the communities that have experienced the heartache of being divided and scattered by the very shepherds given watch over them.”
