Pre-55 Pilgrimaging: A Travelogue & How-To Guide

Joining forces with friends to celebrate the ancient Holy Week is worth your time and effort

The priest, deacon, and subdeacon in liturgical order during the first half of the Easter Vigil at the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales in Sulphur, LA. Photo credit: Jay Balza. [All photos are credited to Anthony Jones unless otherwise indicated.]

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In March of 2025, Dr. Kwasniewski wrote an essay here at Tradition & Sanity titled “Emerging from the Liturgical Cave.” In it, he recounted the journey of many Catholics in search of the fullness of their sacred birthright: “You do eventually get to the end: you reach a point where you can see the Roman Rite in its fullness, that is, the rite as codified by Pius V and very gently amended by his successors, down to the twentieth century when, for the first time, the itch for change becomes stronger, bit by bit, than the customary reverence for tradition that usually keeps it in check.”

I recommend reading the entire essay, but for today’s purposes, it will suffice to briefly recall the continuity established therein between Pope Pius XII’s revised Holy Week liturgies of 1955 and the Novus Ordo liturgies published after the Second Vatican Council. Pope Paul VI explained that the latter “follow logically” from the 1955 Holy Week reform,¹ which he described as “a first step towards the adaptation of the Roman Missal to the sensitivities of this new age.”² Father Carlo Braga, a close collaborator of Archbishop Annibale Bugnini, depicted the reform of Holy Saturday in particular as “the head of the battering-ram which pierced the fortress of our hitherto static liturgy.”³

Why did the reformers identify the pre-1955 Holy Week as ground zero for their project of radical transformation? What made it so valuable that a battering ram of changes was required to bring it down—and the entire fortress of the ancient Roman rite down along with it?⁴

Several resources pertaining to the pre-55 Holy Week have appeared in recent years, answering those very questions. The latest is Lumen Christi: Defending the Use of the Classical Roman Rite by a Benedictine Oblate (Os Justi Press, 2025), which is informative, pithy, and not to be missed. Among the best articles on the topic are: Dr. Kwasniewski’s “Ending Seventy Years of Liturgical Exile: The Return of the Pre-55 Holy Week” and “My First Experience of a Pre-1955 Holy Triduum”; Gregory DiPippo’s Holy Week series at NLM, which dives into the history of the 1955 reform; and the studies available on the Pre-1955 Holy Week website.⁵

Before I ever assisted at the ancient Roman Holy Week in person, I read and reread those articles until I yearned for an experience of my long-lost liturgical inheritance. This essay will not attempt to rehash existing descriptions of the ancient liturgies surrounding the Triduum but will offer a model for how Catholics can habitually encounter them, even when circumstances render it difficult.

The Origins of the Pilgrimage

During Lent in 2022, I decided to take a decisive step: I located the nearest Institute of Christ the King parish (since the Institute exclusively celebrates the pre-55 Holy Week) and organized a pre-1955 Holy Triduum pilgrimage. My diocese of Austin, Texas was something of a liturgical desert: the only two Vetus Ordo (traditional Latin) Mass locations⁶ are diocesan, and they offer only Novus Ordo Masses during the Triduum. Hence, most tradition-loving Catholics in the diocese must drive for several hours to find an old-rite Triduum, let alone a pre-55 one.

The first year, there were four in my group. Every year since, the number has grown, along with the organizational prowess of the endeavor. We send out invitations to friends, who invite their friends, who sometimes invite their friends. As a result, it always ends up being a great way to meet new people, all of whom are brought together by a desire for immersion in the Paschal Mystery. This year we had 15 in our group, comprising young men and women, some single, some married, with two babies in tow!

Many of us had been to pre-55 Holy Week liturgies before and were back for more, while others were new to its splendors. Some were newcomers to (or only intermittent frequenters of) the old Mass, and for one young man who recently converted to Catholicism, this was his first-ever experience of the Triduum. Suffice to say, all are welcome to drink deeply from the well of tradition!

Holy Thursday—The Great High Priest Gathers Us to Himself

We secured a short-term rental house less than two miles from the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales through VRBO, which enabled us to commute easily between the weekend’s two centers of activity.

Nearly every street sign in the neighborhood around our rental house bore a Marian name. How refreshing to be in a land steeped in Catholicism, in history and culture if no longer staunch in belief and practice. To learn more about the Catholic history of Louisiana (and of other communities across the United States), I recommend Charles A. Coulombe, Puritan’s Empire: A Catholic Perspective on American History (Tumblar House, 2008). Photo credit: Devan Brandalick.

After the five-hour drive from Texas, we convened at the Oratory for Holy Thursday Mass at 6:00 pm, followed by the procession to the repository and vespers.

The Eucharist is placed in the repository, which is set up in the narthex of the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales in Sulphur, LA.

After time in silent adoration, our group gathered at the rental house for a simple but satisfying xerophagiae meal. As Matthew Plese explains, xerophagiae is

a diet of simple, dry, uncooked food, such as raw nuts, bread, fruits, and vegetables. Fish and oil are not part of it and neither are flesh nor animal products. It was a precept to fast on these only during Holy Week by custom and/or decree until approximately the time of Pope St. Gregory the Great (reigned 590 – 604 AD), who mentions nothing of it. It may still have been a custom at that time but no mention of it is made in the Decretals of Gregory IX published in 1234.⁷

As the final meal before plunging into the Passion Fast, it is the edible equivalent of the bells that are rung during the Gloria at Holy Thursday Mass—one last burst of jubilation before the sobering reality of Good Friday takes hold. What is the Passion Fast? It is a way of humbly uniting oneself with Christ’s Passion, in the course of which every human comfort and even the bare necessities were stripped from him. It involves abstaining from all food and water from after dinner on Holy Thursday until after the Vigil Mass on Holy Saturday evening. Plese notes that the Passion Fast was “the original Lenten fast. For those who were too weak to follow this fast the minimum fast at this time was that of xerophagiae.”⁸

Indeed, not everyone can—or should—maintain the Passion Fast in its entirety. Serious medical impediments or pregnancy/nursing have always been grounds for exemption, and several in our group adopted a modified version of the fast as a result. Our approach was simple: we encouraged each other to make the maximum effort to live out the traditional rule, but we did not criticize or denounce anyone who, for whatever reason, decided that prudence warranted less than the full Passion Fast in their particular circumstances—whether that entailed drinking water, having snacks, or otherwise. To facilitate rigorous fasting for those determined to try, we deliberately refrained from establishing group mealtimes on Friday or Saturday before the Vigil Mass.

As many readers of this article doubtless know first-hand, intense fasting during the Triduum is challenging but very rewarding. After forty days of Lenten fasting and prayer, the body and soul are physically and spiritually prepared for the final stretch. There is obviously no canonical requirement to embrace the Passion Fast, and Roman-rite Catholics are completely free to stick with the mandatory minimum fasting and abstinence on Good Friday.

As Dom Prosper Guéranger says in commenting on the relaxation of Ember Day fasting, the absence of rigorous canonical requirements, while lamentable, gives Catholics the opportunity to live out the traditional penitential regimen entirely motivated by love. Love for Christ, uniting ourselves more fully with his salvific suffering; love for the Church, uniting ourselves with countless members of her body who practiced the same penance while on earth and now cheer us on from heaven. Just as fasting is made lighter and more meaningful when accompanied by prayer and almsgiving, the same is true when the one fasting is surrounded by others with the same zeal. A mini-pilgrimage creates a fantastic environment for just such a community—at least during the Triduum, when it matters most: “The days will come, when the bridegroom shall be taken away from them, and then they shall fast” (Matt 9:15).

Most of our group is pictured here at the commencement of our xerophagiae meal after Holy Thursday Mass. Those familiar with Nicholas Cavazos (The Traditional Thomist on YouTube) will recognize him third from the left. He is a good friend and an invaluable member of our annual pilgrimage group.

Although our meal was over and the clock was about to strike midnight, our day was not quite over. We concluded Holy Thursday by once again taking up the mantle of the Divine Office, which we had first experienced after Mass that evening. Compline was the first of many pre-55 Hours we chanted at the rental house, in a space we set up as a makeshift oratory. Anyone who has prayed the Divine Office during the Triduum knows how jarringly unique it is compared to the rest of the year, or even compared to the Lenten office. As Gregory DiPippo explains in his phenomenal series on the 1955 Holy Week revisions of Pius XII:

The [pre-55] Divine Office of the Sacred Triduum is not only the simplest form of the Office that exists, but also the most ancient, going back to the fourth century. . . .

The Office has the following special characteristics. The doxology, which, according to a common tradition was added to the Office by Pope Saint Damasus I (366 – 384), is everywhere omitted, as are the Invitatory, Hymns, Little Chapters, and indeed, all the elements which have been added to the Office over the course of the centuries to increase its beauty and solemnity. The Church has deliberately maintained this original form of the Office as a sign of mourning in the days immediately before Easter, so that all may be restored to its rightful place during the octave of Christ’s Resurrection, when all things are made new. Indeed, the process of gradually stripping the Office in this way forms an intrinsic part of the liturgical year’s progress towards Easter. The word Alleluja is removed from the entire liturgy on Septuagesima Sunday; on Passion Sunday, the doxology is removed from the Invitatory, the Responsories, and the Mass….

At the minor Hours, the psalms are said as on feast days, but without antiphon; at Compline, the Nunc dimittis is added to the psalms. Vespers consists of five psalms with their antiphons as usual, and the Magnificat, with an antiphon from the Gospel of the day. At the end of each Hour are said Christus factus est, Pater noster, the psalm Miserere and the prayer Respice, as at the end of Lauds.⁹

The simplicity and brevity of these hours make them ideal for a group of young adults with varying levels of experience with traditional liturgy and varying levels of musical ability. As Christ’s Passion was a leveling event, making it possible for all men to cooperate with his grace and attain salvation, so too the minor Hours of the Divine Office during the commemoration of that Passion have a leveling effect. Practically no prior knowledge is required to pick up a packet with the relevant psalms and join in. This is especially true because the rubrics specify that nearly the entirety of these Hours is to be chanted recto tono (on a single note). Thus, during the Triduum not only much of the textual content of the minor Hours is stripped but their typical musical richness is diminished as well, in an audible manifestation of Christ’s Passion. At the conclusion of Compline, we blew out the candles, reverenced the relics, and departed to our beds (or sleeping bags) in silence.

The group chanted the Miserere kneeling at the end of each minor Hour during the Triduum. Sadly, this beautiful and ancient feature was deleted in the 1955 reforms—but it’s making a comeback on pre-55 pilgrimages like ours. See “The eightfold Miserere” in Dr. Kwasniewski’s “The Need for Continual Purification as Basic Spiritual Attitude.”

Good Friday—Obedience unto Death

This momentous day began as the previous day ended: in communal prayer. On Friday morning, however, we gathered at the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales rather than in the makeshift oratory of the rental house. At 7:30 am, Tenebrae was set to begin.¹⁰ Most of us sat and chanted in the pews with the Oratory layfolk, but the most musically competent men of our crew were invited to vest in cassock and surplice and join the schola and priests in the sanctuary. The pastor extends this invitation each year, and it is a memorable opportunity for our group to integrate with the parish and “give back” to the community in a small way. A couple of years ago, good Bishop Provost of the Diocese of Lake Charles joined us and even knelt at the customary times, despite his advanced age.

Like the minor Hours of the Triduum, Tenebrae is set apart from the regular weekly cycle of the Divine Office. It is comprised of Matins and Lauds, and each day in the Triduum uses a specific set of psalms intermingled with Lamentations of Jeremiah, epistles, and patristic meditations to offer “a prophetic enlargement of our vision of what Our Lord suffered,” according to James Monti.¹¹ Thursday begs divine deliverance from the enemy that is closing in, Friday focuses on the agony of Christ before and during his crucifixion, and Saturday reflects on the anguish of a people bereft of its Messiah, the barren peace of the closed tomb, and the glorious triumph just over the horizon.

The candle-stand employed during Tenebrae, known as the hearse or Tenebrario. As Monti attests, “The ceremonial extinction of these candles as the offices of Matins and Lauds progress, described in an 11th-century customary of Saint Paul’s Monastery in Rome, has remained essentially the same for at least a thousand years.” Sadly, Paul VI abolished the use of the Tenebrario when he published the Liturgia Horarum in 1971. Wherever the old Divine Office is prayed, the Tenebrario is making a comeback.

By means of the dramatic hours of Tenebrae, our minds are lifted to meditation on the events of the Passion and our hearts are pierced with compunction for our sins. We are thereby more fittingly attuned to the liturgical reality of the day and prepared to unite ourselves to the other sacred actions that await.

On Good Friday, that included Stations of the Cross at 1:00 pm in the Oratory, followed by the Liturgy of the Presanctified at 3:00 pm—the hour when Christ breathed his last. This liturgy, as anyone who has assisted at it knows, is incredibly rich. It begins with the priest, deacon, and subdeacon prostrating themselves before the altar, a moving act of public humiliation in subordination to Christ and in union with his total self-sacrifice on the cross.

Later in the liturgy, rather than receiving communion—which is reserved for the priest alone on this day—each person in the congregation comes forward discalced and kisses a large crucifix as the choir chants the Improperia, the tender reproaches of Christ to his people, in alternating Latin and Greek.

By the time we returned to the rental house, dusk was already settling in. The liturgy left our demeanors somber, and at 9:00 pm we gathered to chant Compline and enter into Great Silence, the monastic practice that limits speaking to matters of necessity. With spirits sorrowful and stomachs empty, we entrusted the night to Lord, bracing ourselves for a final day of penance, prayer, and labor before the long-awaited respite.

Holy Saturday—Work, Prayer, and Eager Expectation

Upon waking, a large contingent of our group drove or walked to the Oratory for Tenebrae. Although in the readings from Lamentations we cried out to God in anguish over the desolation of Jerusalem, we were consoled by St. Augustine’s comment in the lessons that “God shall still be exalted.”

Afterward, the clerics of the Oratory were gracious enough to chat with us outside the rectory, getting to know us and sharing stories as though we were old friends. As many of us later reflected, the hospitality of those associated with the Institute is second to none, even on what is perhaps the most physically and mentally demanding day of the year for a priest.

After receiving a blessing, it was time to get to work. Some of us volunteered to help prepare the sanctuary for the impending Vigil Mass, heaving rugs and whatever else was required. The rest of us created a shopping list of ingredients we needed for the repast after the Vigil Mass and to cook the Easter Sunday feast. A few men then embarked on a massive grocery store run, filling up three shopping carts to the brim and racking up a tab of approximately $900. I encouraged the group to add items to the shopping list that were of the highest quality, such that the caliber of our feasting might match that of our fasting and correspond to the magnificence of the weekend’s liturgies. The total cost was also more manageable after we divided it up among the 15 of us. This may sound like a lot of food (and it was), but as I’ll share in a bit, the abundance always becomes a providential catalyst to hospitality.

Once the ingredients were deposited and somewhat organized in the kitchen, many of us started cooking. For the next several hours, the room was transformed into a cacophony of cutting boards, measuring cups, and incredible aromas. The latter were all the more potent on account of our fasting, which by this point was nearing its apogee.

Every year I make beef wellington, which is a tenderloin surrounded by puff pastry, a delectable floury shell with 720 layers of butter. This takes most of the afternoon to prepare, a task made light by the others buzzing around the kitchen and the remainder of our group gathered in the living room. The layout of our rental house was open enough that those in the kitchen could see and talk with those in the living room—or at least occasionally interject amid wandering discussions about moral theology, liturgy, the spiritual life, romantic misadventures, and life stories. A few of our crew (including the babies) absented themselves from the action downstairs, retreating to their rooms to pray or nap.

At the twelve and three o’clock hours we briefly broke up the cooking and conversations to chant Sext and None, which ensured that the rhythm of our day was tied to and ordered around the liturgy. We thereby ensured that our lamps were full of oil in anticipation of the evening darkness that would beckon the bridegroom’s arrival.

At 6:30 pm, we packed our dishes into the fridge and returned to the Oratory, where the firepit was being prepared as the sun began to sink toward the horizon.¹²

Outside the Oratory of St. Francis de Sales, the priest begins the blessing of the new fire. Photo credit: Jay Balza.

Rather than recount all the splendors of the Vigil Mass, I will only mention one reflection that particularly ravished my heart this year. It was occasioned by two prayers that stood out as supremely fitting for those who, however imperfectly, embraced the penitential nature of Lent and the Triduum, and had neither tasted food nor drunk anything since the end of Holy Thursday—a sort of self-imposed famine and drought.

First, in the Tract after the eleventh prophecy, Moses compares heavenly teaching to water that nourishes creation: “Let my doctrine gather as the rain, let my speech distil as the dew, as a shower upon the herb, and as drops upon the grass.”¹³ Likewise, the Tract that is chanted as the ministers process to the baptismal font to bless the water draws on the famous opening verses of Psalm 41: “As the hart panteth after the fountains of water; so my soul panteth after Thee, O God. My soul hath thirsted after the strong living God; when shall I come and appear before the face of God? My tears have been my bread day and night, whilst it is said to me daily: Where is thy God?”¹⁴

The chant to which these Tracts were set gave me extra time to meditate on their meaning. If the body needs food and drink, how much more so does the soul need spiritual nourishment? Much more. Hearing those words amidst hunger and thirst helped me redirect my desire toward the Lord, whose Eucharistic and Paschal arrival was nearly at hand. As Christ proclaimed, “My flesh is meat indeed: and my blood is drink indeed” (Jn 6:56). When I received Christ onto my parched tongue later during the Mass, all I could do was grin. God had reminded me of my utter dependence upon him and filled me with what can truly satisfy: himself.

One more thing to note about the Vigil. While we chanted the Litany of Saints after the blessing of the baptismal font but before the start of Mass, the three ministers prostrated before the altar and then retreated to the sacristy in their violet vestments. At their disappearance, 18 altar boys and acolytes buzzed around the sanctuary and nave, lighting candles, arranging flowers, and removing the violet coverings from the statues. The gradual transformation from darkness to light combined with the resounding litany brought tears to my eyes. As the church visibly prepared to enter into the joy of the Resurrection, we implored the intercession of the many saints who were already partaking in its eternal effects, begging them to obtain for us a share in God’s glory on the eve of the greatest liturgical feast of the year.

The emergence of white-robed ministers from the sacristy and their recitation of the Gloria to the ringing of altar bells inaugurated the long-awaited joy of Easter. However, until Easter Sunday morning that joy is liturgically incomplete, as the peculiarities of the Vigil Mass testify. For anyone interested in a deep dive on the topic, you can access a compilation of relevant sources in the document linked here.

A few choice quotations from that document will summarize the matter. According to Gregory DiPippo,

The traditional Easter vigil is not celebrated with the fullness of solemnity typical for a festive Mass in the Roman tradition: it is has no Introit; the arrangement of the chants between the Epistle and Gospel is atypical; it has no Creed, no Offertory, no Agnus Dei, and the peace is not given; it does not have a Communio of its own, but rather, Vespers is said as the Communio. All of these elements are restored at the Mass of Easter morning.

Hence, as Dr. Kwasniewski wrote to me once:

The traditional (pre-55 and in fact centuries-old) understanding is that the Easter Vigil is transitional from the darkness of Good Friday to the full joy of Easter Sunday. The vigil was never seen as the “first Easter Mass” the way that midnight Mass of Christmas is properly the “first Mass of Christmas.” The vigil had a unique character to it.

Fr. Adrian Fortescue insists that “to understand these ceremonies, we are to imagine ourselves keeping the long Easter vigil during the Night between Saturday and Sunday, ending with the first Easter Mass just before sunrise on Easter Day.”

The Byzantine rite taught me that the all-night vigil need not be limited to the imagination but can also be manifest in action. After the Easter Vigil in the Byzantine chapel at Wyoming Catholic College, patristic Paschal homilies are read throughout the night as many of the faithful pray (or doze) before an iconographic burial shroud, waiting for the Son to rise.

Another manifestation of the unique period of expectation between the Easter Vigil Mass and Easter Sunday Mass is the traditional meal that immediately follows the former. Consistent with the partial joy of the vigil, it offers relief from the Passion Fast of the previous two days but maintains the Lenten abstinence from animal products. Not until after the Sunday morning Mass—when eggs and lamb were traditionally blessed—would Catholics let the fulness of Easter joy overflow into a full feast. As you can see in the source document, Dom Guéranger attests to this practice in the West, which laudably persists in the East to this day.

Although the Oratory in Louisiana doesn’t offer the chance to keep watch all night in the parish, our group eagerly embraced the tradition of the post-Vigil Mass meal. Our spread lacked animal products but was well-stocked with fruit, nuts, bread, wine—and water! The food and drink replenished our energy as the Vigil Mass had our spirits, yet we knew the best was still to come in a mere handful of hours. After chanting Compline with its restored Alleluia, the Glory Be, and the Regina Caeli, we went to bed having caught a glimpse of Easter joy, eager to experience it in full.

Easter Sunday—The Lord is Risen Indeed, Alleluia

On the day of the Resurrection, a few of us woke up early to pray Paschal Matins outside as the sun rose. This has become one of my favorite parts of the pilgrimage. The chirping birds accompanied our chanting of the Te Deum, and in the words of the Paschal homily of Pope St. Gregory the Great from the Lessons of Matins, the “soft brilliancy of rejoicing” filled both the air and our hearts.

This beautiful office, together with the Vespers and Compline that preceded it, were completely and tragically deleted in 1955. The reform moved Paschal Lauds to the end of the Vigil Mass, effectively cutting short the all-night vigil just as it begins! In so doing, it defies all logic and marks a stark departure from the ancient practice of both West and East, undermining the liturgical significance of the night and the long-awaited joy of Easter morn.

Speaking of Sunday morning, after Matins we went to Sung Mass, which was replete with a ritual and musical solemnity that had been incomplete the night before. Christ’s victory was now definitive, and the Epistle from the Mass called for zealous celebration: “Therefore let us feast (Itaque epulemur), not with the old leaven, nor with the leaven of malice and wickedness; but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth” (1 Cor 5:8).

Not disposed to disobey such a command, we returned to the rental house and set out the feast: cucumber salad, apples and baked brie, bacon-wrapped dates, a breakfast casserole, burgers, chicken barbequed and fried, fajitas, Louisiana boudin, mashed potatoes, brussels sprouts, and of course, beef wellington. Dessert was also plentiful—the difficulty was saving room for it!

One of several dining areas where we enjoyed the Easter Sunday feast after Mass.

Earlier I mentioned that the abundance of food was a catalyst to hospitality. Indeed it was, as the three clergy from the Oratory and a handful of parishioners graciously accepted our invitation to join us. After a full weekend of intricate liturgies, the clergy were grateful for a place to dine and unwind. It was the least we could provide, a small token of our thanks for the inestimable treasures they had made available to us.

This is the most complete picture of our entire pilgrimage group, plus a few special guests from the Oratory! Can you tell it’s Easter Sunday by our smiles?

Most Easter Sundays in my life have begun with Mass, continued with a large meal, and then tapered off in a blur of unmemorable relaxation. Not so in Sulphur, Louisiana, where the Institute of Christ the King honors the directive of Vatican II’s Sacrosanctum Concilium §100.¹⁵ At 4:30 pm, we returned to the Oratory for Vespers and Eucharistic Adoration, after which a few of us spontaneously chanted Palestrina’s Sicut Cervus at the behest of the pastor. The motet brought him to tears and filled the nave with a sweet reminder that the Tract from the Easter Vigil had been fulfilled. As another hymn expresses, “The three sad days have quickly sped; He rises glorious from the dead.”¹⁶

Easter Sunday Vespers at the Oratory, with the high altar visible in all its Paschal glory.

We spent the last quarter of Easter Sunday at the home of the Harringtons, a lovely family that attends the parish. They have nine children and are the epitome of a virtuous Catholic household. Like so many others, during the COVID lockdown they stumbled upon a livestream of a Vetus Ordo Mass, promptly switched parishes, and began homeschooling their children. The father, Rocky, is a carpenter and built his workshop next to his house (which he also built), allowing his sons to learn his craft between studying and participating in The American Society for the Defense of Tradition, Family and Property (TFP), a lay Catholic action organization.

Every year they generously invite us over for a second round of Easter feasting, in which we happily partake while their children run around, tell us about the lessons they learned from another season of traditional fasting, and model civility and the good kind of normal. Their mother, Monica, is the perfect hostess and conversationalist, so it’s no wonder the children are so well behaved.

As the sun set on Easter day, the women naturally congregated inside with Monica and whichever kids were still awake. The men sat outside in a circle with pipes and whiskey, discussing theological quandaries, the crisis in the Church, and the grace God provides to persevere in manly virtue through it all. This continued until about 1:00 am, when we finally drove back to the rental house for our final night in Louisiana.

Easter Monday—A Farewell to the Pope and One Another

The next morning, we awoke to the news that Pope Francis had died. Upon hearing the news, the joy and levity of the previous day changed to a mixture of emotions. Piercing through it all was a solemn awareness that he deserved our prayers, perhaps more than ever before. After cleaning the house and checking out, we gathered one last time at the Oratory to pray the Divine Office. Although it was only the second day of the Easter Octave, we decided to chant Lauds from the Office of the Dead, begging God to have mercy on the late pontiff’s soul and welcome him into the eternal joy of the Resurrection. With that, we bade farewell to each other and drove back to Texas in our respective vehicles, grateful for another blessed pilgrimage of fasting and feasting, praying and sacrificing, all for the glory of God.

Although many in our group had to drive home the previous night or early in the morning, the few that remained reconvened at the Oratory to chant Lauds before departing.

Conclusion: Pre-55 Pilgrimaging Essentials

After four years of leading our pre-55 pilgrimage over the Triduum and Easter, I’ve learned several “best practices” that serve as essential ingredients for optimal success on a small, short pilgrimage like this one. They can be categorized under three general roles:

The organizer

This person, the de facto leader of the group, should locate the nearest location where the pre-55 Triduum will be celebrated. The first time I organized this pilgrimage, I called every parish that offered the Vetus Ordo within a several-hundred-mile radius and asked if they would be offering the pre-55 Triduum. Once a viable parish has been identified, the organizer should find and book nearby rental housing at least a month in advance, then recruit pilgrims and establish a clear channel of communication between everyone. I did this through a Signal group chat, since it works well on both Android and Apple devices, but good old-fashioned email is also an option. The organizer is also responsible for establishing and maintaining rental house rules, organizing carpooling, and crafting a rough schedule of the week. He is also in charge of the finances, ideally paying for and collecting from pilgrims what is owed for the rental house and groceries.

The cantor

This role entails printing packets of the Divine Office Hours that the group will pray together at the rental house and leading the group in chanting them. These can be found at DivinumOfficium.com (select “Divino Afflatu—1954” or earlier), and the directions for chanting them are in the Liber Usualis. Some familiarity with chant is obviously required, but the more adept at chanting, the better. Ideally, this person will also set up the makeshift oratory in the rental house, as well as bringing or organizing the transport of furnishings for it such as statues, icons, holy water, relics, etc.

The kitchen commando

The person who fills this position should be assertive yet respectful, ready to guide less experienced chefs around the kitchen and enforce rules for its safe and effective use. Before the pilgrimage, the kitchen commando should create a list of kitchen appliances that are not likely to be found at the rental house and share it with pilgrims, asking for volunteers to bring them just in case the rental house kitchen is lacking. In advance of the shopping trip on Holy Saturday, this person finds out what everyone intends to cook and compiles a list of ingredients to buy. During the rest of the weekend, the commando keeps track of who is cooking what and where in the kitchen, reducing traffic jams and pointing people to the appropriate measuring cups when needed. In our case, Ms. Angela Cuba, a fellow contributor at Tradition & Sanity, filled this vital role with humility and West Texan flair.

Finally, wherever you go, remember to make a generous financial contribution before you leave—perhaps handed directly to the pastor in an envelope—as a sign of thanks for everything the community provided. Traditionally-minded priests need all the encouragement they can get, especially when they put in the effort and coordination to celebrate the pre-55 Triduum.

Jubilate Deo—rejoice in the Lord!

Despite the decline of Western culture, the traditional Roman rite is on the rise, including the pre-55 Holy Week liturgies. It is especially exciting to see many Catholics (Eastern and Western) returning to the traditional observance of the Triduum, both in terms of the liturgical reality and the ascetical practice that flows from it and supports it.¹⁷ A full restoration of our venerable traditions should include a return to both. Thankfully, momentum is currently building in the Catholic world to do exactly that.

Continued growth in this endeavor requires you, dear reader, to respond to the grace of the Holy Spirit and attend the pre-55 Triduum as you are able. Start making plans now for a pilgrimage for next year’s Holy Week. Gauge interest, share resources, and pray for wisdom as you seek to restore the most venerable liturgical treasures the Church has to offer. In sum, make the prayer after the Easter Vigil’s second Prophecy your own:

May the whole world experience and see that what was cast down is raised up, what was old is renewed, and all things are returning to perfection, through Him from whom they received their first being, our Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son: Who livest and reignest with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, God, world without end. Amen.¹⁸

1. Mysterii Paschalis, February 14, 1969.

2. Apostolic Constitution Missale Romanum, April 3, 1969.

3. Carlo Braga, “‘Maxima Redemptionis Nostrae Mysteria’: 50 anni dopo (1955–2005)” in Ecclesia Orans, n. 23 (2006): 13; the author clearly affirms that he witnessed the reforms first-hand and that he actively assisted them by his labors.

4. Recall the harrowing words of Fr. Joseph Gélineau, a member of the Consilium tasked with reforming the Roman rite in the 1960s: “Let those who like myself have known and celebrated a Latin and Gregorian High Mass remember it if they can. Let them compare it with the Mass that we now have. Not only the words, the melodies, and some of the gestures are different. In truth, it is a different liturgy of the Mass. This needs to be said in no uncertain terms: the Roman Rite as we knew it has ceased to exist. It has been destroyed.” (Joseph Gélineau, Demain la liturgie. Essai sur l’évolution des assemblées chrétiennes [Cerf, 1976], 10, English quotation from Réginald-Marie Rivoire, Does ‘Traditionis Custodes’ Pass the Juridical Rationality Test?, trans. William Barker [Os Justi Press, 2022], 30, emphasis added.)

5. I also recommend the following resources: Msgr Léon Gromier, Papal Master of Ceremonies of Pius XII, “The ‘Restored’ Holy Week,” As the Sun in its Orb, 1960; Stefano Carusi, “The Reform of Holy Week in the Years 1951-1956,” Rorate Caeli, March 25, 2018; Peter Kwasniewski, “The Excision of the Institution Narratives from Pius XII’s Holy Week,” NLM, July 8, 2024; ibid, The Once and Future Roman Rite: Returning to the Traditional Latin Liturgy After Seventy Years of Exile (TAN Books, 2022), chapter 12 (pp. 333–75); Gregory DiPippo, “Two Ancient Prophecies of Holy Saturday,” NLM, April 15, 2023. Click here to listen to Canon Altiere, of the Institute of Christ the King’s Saints Cyril and Methodius Oratory, walk through the ceremonies of pre-55 Holy Week.

6. There used to be more, but the diocese—like so many others—has enforced restrictions on the ancient liturgy in recent years, as I wrote about here.

7. Matthew R. Plese, The Definitive Guide to Catholic Fasting and Abstinence, second edition (Our Lady of Victory Press, 2024), 27.

8. Plese, The Definitive Guide, 27.

9. Gregory DiPippo, “Compendium of the 1955 Holy Week Revisions of Pius XII: Part 5 - Tenebrae and the Divine Office of the Triduum,” NLM, April 07, 2009.

10. The timing here was an aberration, the cause of which is unknown to me. As Gregory DiPippo explains, Tenebrae is normally done at night (as the word itself indicates):

The Matins and Lauds of these three days, sung together as a single service, are universally known as “Tenebrae,” Latin for “darkness.” Each day’s Tenebrae was traditionally anticipated to the evening of the preceding day; Tenebrae of Holy Thursday was done on the evening of Spy Wednesday, etc. Over the course of the ceremony, all of the lights in the church were gradually extinguished, . . . so that the last part of the ceremony took place in complete darkness.

Gregory DiPippo, “Compendium of the 1955 Holy Week Revisions of Pius XII: Part 5 - Tenebrae and the Divine Office of the Triduum,” NLM, April 7, 2009).

11. James Monti, “Tenebrae: The Church’s ‘Office of the Dead’ for Christ Crucified,” April 12, 2025, posted April 16, 2025, by Catholic Institute of Sacred Music, YouTube. This lecture provides a phenomenal overview of the history and symbolic richness of the Tenebrae. For an explanation of how each psalm relates to the Paschal Mystery, see Kate Edwards, “Psalms of Holy Week Tenebrae: Masterpost,” Psallam Domino, February 22, 2011. See also this short promotional video on Tenebrae from Dr. Peter Kwasniewski.

12. The timing of this Easter Vigil Mass may strike some as strange, considering the pre-55 custom of a morning Vigil and the post-55 stipulation that the Vigil begin after sunset. However, as Gregory DiPippo has explained, “the celebration of the Easter vigil during the night, the supposed greatest triumph and restoration of 1955, and the earliest (permitted ad experimentum in 1951), is completely inauthentic, and, like most of the innovations of 1955, based on an historical falsehood” (“Bad Scholarship on the Easter Vigil,” NLM, May 14, 2020).

13. Expectétur sicut plúvia elóquium meum: et descendant sicut ros verba mea, sicut imber super grámina. Et sicut nix super fænum (The Masses of Holy Week & Tenebrae [Os Justi Press, 2024], 409–10).

14. Sicut cervus desíderat ad fontes aquárum: ita desiderat ánima mea ad Deum vivum: quando véniam, et apparébo ante fáciem Dei mei? Fuérunt mihi lácrimæ meæ panes die ac nocte, dum dícitur mihi per síngulos dies: Ubi est Deus tuus? (The Masses of Holy Week & Tenebrae [Os Justi Press, 2024], 415–16).

15. Curent animarum pastores ut horae praecipuae, praesertim vesperae, diebus dominicis et festis sollemnioribus, in ecclesia communiter celebrentur. Commendatur ut et ipsi laici recitent officium divinum, vel cum sacerdotibus, vel inter se congregate, quin immo unusquisque solus. “Pastors of souls should see to it that the chief hours, especially Vespers, are celebrated in common in church on Sundays and the more solemn feasts. And the laity, too, are encouraged to recite the divine office, either with the priests, or among themselves, or even individually.” Sacrosanctum Concilium 100, in Norman P. Tanner, ed., Decrees of the Ecumenical Councils, vol. 2 (Georgetown University Press, 1990), 837.

16. “The Strife Is O’er, the Battle Done,” in The Our Lady of Mount Carmel Hymnal (Os Justi Press, 2023), 342.

17. The return to traditional fasting practices has been laudably furthered by Matthew Plese’s A Catholic Life blog and Feast and Fast Facebook group, OnePeterFive’s Fellowship of St. Nicholas, and Fr. Withoos’s work at the IRIA Foundation. I heartily recommend exploring these resources and sharing them with others.

18. Totúsque mundus experiátur et vídeat, dejecta érigi, inveteráta renovári, et per ipsum redíre ómnia in integrum, a quo sumpsére principium: Dóminum nostrum Jesum Christum, Fílium tuum: Qui tecum vivit et regnam in unitáte Spíritus Sancti Deus per ómnia saecula sæculórum. Amen (The Masses of Holy Week & Tenebrae [Os Justi Press, 2024], 391).