The Ancient Dominican Rite at St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary.

Ave Maria! May Our Lady, Queen of Most Holy Rosary together with St. Dominic, St.  Thomas Aquinas, St. Rosa de Lima and Father Luis Cancer, pray for us! On 7 March 2025, the St. Thomas Aquinas Seminary’s Chapel hosted Father Albert Kallio OP, who said a Solemn High Mass in the Dominican Rite. This is the liturgy used by the Order of Preachers (Dominicans) from the mid-13th century until the liturgical changes following the Second Vatican Council. St. Dominic founded his Order of Preachers in 1216 and Bl. Humbert of Romans, his successor, codified the Dominican Rite as we know it today in 1250. This rite of the Mass is also the first recorded Mass in Florida, by Fray Pedro de Feria OP and two other Dominican Friars accompanying Don Tristian de Luna. We highlight recorded because there were probably earlier Masses said as there were priests in Florida as early as 1513 but no surviving record to confirm if a Mass was said. The Mass was said in Pensacola Beach on 15 August 1559, the Feast of the Assumption of Mary, in front of a large wooden and for the company of the settlement. Father Feria and his friars, however, were not the first Dominicans in Florida. The first Dominicans in Florida, also the first martyrs, is Father Luis de Cancer OP and his friars, who came to the Tampa Bay area to establish a Mission in 1549. Father Cancer and two of his friars, Father Diego de Tolosa and Friar Fuentes, would later be killed by the deeply idolatrous Tocobaga tribes. Father Cancer would kneel in prayer on the shores of Florida before being clubbed to death, the first priest to give his life for the Conversion of Florida but certainly not the last. Much like the Texas coast, the first missionary priests and martyrs would be Dominicans, only to be historically overshadowed by later Missions and their Martyrs. A Grand conversion would come to Florida through the Franciscan missions and in 1606 Florida would receive its first episcopal visit from Bishop Juan de las Cabezas Altamirano OP, the Dominican Bishop of Havana. During his visit he confirmed 3,500 natives and personally baptized 1,200, attributing this grand conversion to devotion to Our Lady de la Leche. Bishop Altamirano would approve the establishment of a permanent shrine to Our Lady de la Leche, and his secretary who accompanied him, Father Vincent Ferrer de Andrade OP, would request to return to the Florida Missions, and would also be Martyred in 1611 near Gainesville. The Dominican Order would not formally return to Florida until 1962, and while the grander part of Florida’s Catholic Missions belong to the Jesuits and Franciscans, the Dominicans certainly do have a very significant role in the first grand Conversion of Florida, and they will certainly play a role in its future Conversion. If you wish to see this Dominican Solemn High Mass, Click here.