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So in the Archdiocese of Chicago, this is Annual Catholic Appeal time.\u00a0 Not a fan, especially for that one week when, rather than a homily, we listen to a recording of the cardinal and are then instructed to fill out pledge cards in the pew, down to a literal script in which the priest says, \u201cIn Box 1, put your name.\u00a0 In Box 2, write your street address.\u00a0 Don\u2019t forget your apartment number if you have one,\u201d etc.\u00a0 So, since we were spending the day in Kenosha, I went to the Latin mass offered at one of the churches there<\/a>.<\/p>\n Here\u2019s my honest reaction:<\/p>\n I expected to be given a booklet with the mass in English and Latin, to follow along with, and I was.<\/p>\n I expected to hear the readings in English and have a homily delivered in English, and so it was.<\/p>\n I expected to see a diversity of ages, and that was true as well \u2014 with a preponderance of younger adults, and, interestingly enough, a fair number of small children but not really any grade school or older children, that I could tell, even though grade-school religious ed classes are held in-between the English and Latin mass on Sunday mornings, so there shouldn\u2019t be any schedule conflicts.\u00a0 It was not a packed-to-the-gills church, however, though I didn\u2019t really have an expectation for how many people there \u201cshould\u201d have been.<\/p>\n What I did not expect was the silence of the mass.<\/p>\n Sure, maybe I should have, had I done a bit more looking beforehand.<\/p>\n After all, I knew that this sort of mass \u2014 the priest going about his business with the server saying the responses \u2014 was the norm in pre-Vatican II days.\u00a0 But I had assumed that this had been abandoned by those who prefer to worship with the Latin Mass just as much as with the modern, vernacular mass.\u00a0 Who wouldn\u2019t prefer, given the option, to hear the priest and server?\u00a0 For that matter, in Dad\u2019s old missal, there\u2019s the instruction of how to know which responses are said by the worshippers in \u201cthe dialog mass,\u201d and I had understood it to be the case that, before the mass was translated into English, before Vatican II, it had already evolved to the point of having this greater degree of participation.<\/p>\n Now, here\u2019s the description of \u201cThe differences between Low Masses and Sung Masses<\/a>\u201d at a website for a parish which is exclusively Latin-mass:<\/p>\n Low Mass is celebrated by a priest assisted by one or more altar boys. The prayers are spoken (in Latin), and much of the Mass of the Faithful (after the offertory) is almost inaudible, in imitation of the ancient Jewish liturgies given by God to Moses, and emphasizing the fact that we are faced with a profound mystery.<\/p>\n During Low Mass, only the altar servers respond to the priest. The priest alone says the Pater Noster prayer (Our Father), and only he assumes the Orans prayer position (hands extended and held shoulder-width apart). . . .<\/p>\n Sung Mass includes the Asperges before Mass, in which the priest sprinkles the congregation with Holy Water as part of the opening liturgical ceremony. Sung Mass is so called because many of the prayers of the Mass are sung by the priest, choir, or schola. Sung Mass also usually employs the use of incense.<\/p>\n At Sung Mass, the faithful chant the Kyrie, Gloria, Credo, Sanctus and Agnus Dei with the Schola (choir). The congregation also responds to the Priest in chant during multiple points during the Mass.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n So what I saw was something in-between: there was a choir singing the mass parts listed, but I didn\u2019t hear so many of the congregants singing as for it to be clear to me that we were \u201csupposed to\u201d (though, let\u2019s face it, with the small numbers, I couldn\u2019t say for certain what the expectation was vs. what people chose to do).\u00a0 And there was incense but no sprinkling rite.\u00a0 And the \u201cinaudible\u201d portion seemed to include not just the post-offertory liturgy but the opening rites and pretty much everything except the readings, which were audible both in Latin and English.<\/p>\n Was this truly \u201cin imitation of the ancient Jewish liturgies given by God to Moses\u201d?\u00a0 Dunno.\u00a0 The Eastern Churches are similar \u2014 in fact, have an altar screen behind which the consecration and associated prayers take place.\u00a0 On the other hand, a Q & A at another Latin mass parish<\/a> describes this as evolving from the High Medieval development of an increasing number of masses being said in monasteries and cathedrals, with the low voice resulting from speaking softly so as to not disturb the priest simultaneously saying mass in an adjacent side chapel.<\/p>\n And the dialog mass was an innovation of the early 20th century<\/a>, along with the promotion of the printing of missals so that every worshipper could follow along with the mass.\u00a0 But, it turns out, the dialog mass has its opponents, those for whom the difference between the Latin mass and the modern vernacular mass is not merely a matter of the language in which it\u2019s spoken seeming more sacred, or the prayers being more prayerful (because, after all, the novus ordo<\/em> mass is more \u2014 or less \u2014 than a translation of the Latin Tridentine mass, and, in fact, for a several year stretch, the Tridentine mass was simply translated into English without the text being altered, prior to the prayers and the overall structure being simplified and shortened).\u00a0 Here\u2019s some text from \u201cThe Dialogue Mass, a Tool <\/a> It is important not to underestimate the seriousness of the proposal to make the Dialogue Mass the outcome of participation for all the faithful. A centuries-old custom of silent prayer that flowed from the faith and practice of generations of Catholics was about to be abolished, sacrificed on the altar of a destructive egalitarianism in which everyone\u2019s \u201cactive participation\u201d \u2013 whether clerical or lay \u2013 is treated as of equal status.<\/p>\n It was also a totalitarian measure in which the individual is sacrificed to the collective. The faithful, exhorted to join in the collective vocal responses, would no longer be free to choose whichever method of silent participation works best for them. Experience shows that, for those wishing to join their minds and hearts to the Holy Sacrifice being re-enacted on the altar, interior recollection can be distracted by the intrusive voices of others in the pews.<\/p>\n Henceforth, wherever the Dialogue Mass took root, the atmosphere of Catholic worship in the Roman rite would be forever changed as spoken responses drowned silent participation. What is more, silent participation has become a sort of lightning rod for the hatred of liturgical reformers. Indeed, it is now held to be an affront to democratic values in the \u201cage of the laity\u201d inaugurated by Vatican II.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, were all my fellow worshippers engaged in private devotions?\u00a0 No idea.\u00a0 Were they experienced enough with the Latin low mass that they knew where the were in the missal rather than trying to figure it out by watching the priest\u2019s actions (left side, right side, center, back again to the left) as I was?\u00a0 Was the appeal of this form of worship, in the end, the silence, or was that of secondary importance?<\/p>\n
\nto Democratize Liturgy,\u201d an article (part of a long series) which I happened upon in trying to find out what the dialog mass was all about:<\/p>\n