Absolutely fantastic news. A new religious order with 500 members, the Francisans of the Immaculate have announced that they shall prefer to celebrate the TLM from now onwards. A letter to the editor of the Italian newspaper La Stampa by the Procurator General of the Order, Fr. Alessandro Maria Apollonio gave the order's reasons:
The Franciscans of the Immaculate avail themselves, with joy and grateful appreciation, of the initiative taken by Pope Benedict XVI with the motu proprio Summorum Pontificum. [...] The choice to predilect the "extraordinary form" corresponds to a legitimate internal choice of the religious family, as foreseen in the same motu proprio, in a Catholic spirit of fidelity to the Pope and to the liturgical tradition of the Order founded by St. Francis of Assisi. [...]
The spirit of St. Francis, in fact, tends to the greatest possible glorification of God through the good and beautiful things of the world and has always led us to seek what most helps to elevate the mind and heart to the "Most High, Almighty and Good Lord" to whom alone are due "praises, glory, honor and all blessing"(Canticle of the Sun). The extraordinary form of the liturgy of the Vetus Ordo - which is accompanied by that of the Novus Ordo (Missal of Paul VI) - offers, indeed, the happy possibility to live more intensely the vocation and mission of St. Francis of Assisi, within the universality of the Church and its wealth of expressions.
As I write the Nuns of the order in a new house in Corwall, England are changing community life to center around the TLM and 1962 Francisan Breviary. The Latin Mass Society of England and Wales has a fine article which tells us:
the nuns at Lanherne have been using the 1962 Mass Rite on a daily basis since June 2008. Their chaplain - one of their own Franciscan Friars of the Immaculate - and a US citizen had no prior experience of celebrating the rite but is doing very well with the 1962 Missal. The Conventual Mass is sung daily - the Masses are open to the faithful.
As Carlos Palad said: "The implications are immense. The FFI, in one blow, has just become the largest Order dedicated to the 1962 Missal in the whole world. They have a large number of convents and missions all over the world. The reach of the EF has just been practically doubled."
Now in the TLM, they can kneel alongside their Franciscan forefathers from the past many centuries and offer the Holy Sacrifice to God without a difference in form of expression.
