Traditional Mass Celebrated in Greenwich

We have seen many beautiful pictures of magnificent celebrations of the Traditional Mass upon the entry into effect of the motu proprio on September 14. Yet I have attended few services as impressive as this Mass, celebrated before a small congregation of mostly young people in a lower church decorated in a clumsy sixties style.
Father Robert Boyd celebrated a Missa Cantata according to the 1962 Missal at St. Mary Church in Greenwich, Connecticut on Friday evening September 14, the feast of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, in thanksgiving for the papal motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. By a few hours, this service missed being the first Tridentine Mass celebrated in the Diocese of Bridgeport under the guidelines of the motu proprio.
Fr. Boyd had spent literally years of careful preparation for this important event. Ordained a priest for the diocese five years ago, he attended a few training sessions on the celebration of the Tridentine rite early in his priesthood but never received an indult. Over the years, he studied a number of manuals on the celebration of the traditional rite and consulted a training video of the celebration of the old Mass.
However, Fr. Boyd did not stop with his own training. He also trained two acolytes to assist him at Mass and spent four years collaborating with music director Michael LaBarre to form a choir to sing the propers and ordinary of the Mass in Gregorian Chant. A priest in residence at St. Mary Church, Father already had a regular congregation of young adults who were attending monthly First Friday Masses at the church. The Society of St. Hugh of Cluny provided a master of ceremonies, an extra acolyte and the altar cards for the Mass.
The Mass went off seamlessly, and the choir sang beautifully. In his sermon, Fr. Boyd declared that the day was solemn because the Tridentine Mass was now able to be freely celebrated throughout the world. He expressed hope that the motu proprio would help bring about reconciliation of Catholics separated from the Church.