I've never been able to quite catch on to the whole carrying-on about "rupture" ... with slow and careful implementation and good cetechesis I went almost seamlessly from the Mass of 1962 as permitted by the bishop, which was the dialogue Missa Cantata, right to the current Mostly-Sung Dialogue Mass in the Known Tongue, by the time I graduated from high school.
The rupture usually refers to the change in the form of the Mass being a break with the past. Its implementation, though, could also take the form of a rupture, as in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee. Amy Welborn was here last year for a speaking engagement at the Cousins Center, which then housed the Archdiocesan offices.
during my talk, Michael studied a display outside the Archdiocesan archives - materials from the Vatican II era, including a letter written by, I believe, the Archbishop (or perhaps an underling) to the priests of the Archdiocese in September, after the Council ended. He wrote them that beginning on the First Sunday of Advent, the Mass would be in the vernacular instead of Latin, and that should be time enough to prepare the people for the change. 3 months.
We were already responding to everything, in Latin. And we all already knew the Known Tongue version of the Our Father, and its adapted chant. So we had to learn the Known Tongue versions of the Confiteor, the Holy, and the Agnus Dei, and one musical setting for the last two. That takes more than three months?
ReplyDeleteOr was Milwaukee coming straight from the Old Old Mass. the one where only the priest and altar boy prayed Mass and everyone else recited the rosary and the prayers on the petpetual novena card? I know some places did, but I always was under the impression that Milwaukee was just as liturgy-minded as Cleveland was.
"one where only the priest and altar boy prayed Mass and everyone else recited the rosary and the prayers on the petpetual novena card? "
ReplyDeleteWow, that is insightful. Karen, I remember the Old Rite fondly, and we all prayed the Mass. I prefer those days and that Mass to the profanity circus taking place in most Milwaukee parishes where people don't even bother to genuflect to the Most Holy of Holies.
Anonymous, that straw man portrait of the past is one component.
ReplyDeleteThen note how the need for "slow and careful implementation and good cetechesis" turns into three months of rote learning.
There's no rapture in rupture!
ReplyDeleteNot a straw man. I had to be taught specifically about the Old Old Mass when I was in kindergarten, when the family went on a two-week vacation to relatives in another diocese, where the public recitation of private devotions had not yet been forbidden during Holy Mass. And there were the dissident parishes that my parents would never go to, which I later found out were resisting the bishop's order to not recite private devotions during Mass, and to celebrate the Dialogue Missa Cantata (or Solemn High if there were sufficient priests) only, no "silent low Masses", on Sundays.
ReplyDeleteThe teaching about how to pray and sing the Mass began, where I was, a couple of years before I was born, in the early to mid 1950s. Changing languages just made it less difficult to do.
Here's how these distinctions were explained in the Baltimore Catechism of 1891.
ReplyDelete"Q. 925. How are Masses distinguished?
A. Masses are distinguished thus:
(1) When the Mass is sung by a bishop, assisted by a deacon and sub-deacon, it is called a Pontifical Mass;
(2) When it is sung by a priest, assisted by a deacon and sub-deacon, it is called a Solemn Mass;
(3) When sung by a priest without deacon and sub-deacon, it is called a Missa Cantata or High Mass;
(4) When the Mass is only read in a low tone it is called a low or private Mass."
Cleveland does not appear to be mentioned in 'The Dialog Mass' by Gerald Ellard, S.J. (Longmans, Green and Company 1942), while Milwaukee was one of the many cities that was.
It reminds me of your claim that altars had turned into shelves. Have you considered the possibility that people might make stuff up to try to make some of the post-conciliar liturgical changes look good by comparison?
I have reason to believe you are even older than me, and Milwaukee has many more pre-depression Catholic church buildings than Akron. so I know you have seen them also, probably more than me.
ReplyDeleteI've attended Mass in lots of different places. St Sebastian Akron, with the huge mosaic on the apse wall. Guardian Angels Copley, a brand new in 1964 little wooden church with exposed beamwork and a freestanding altar made with a wrought-iron base I spent my share of time cleaning. Moved into town to St Martha Akron. A temporary church under the school that had been that for 60 years already. Gesu. Cathedral. A dormitory chapel with ceiling lower than priest was tall, which called for interesting rubrical adaptions. And other places besides, but the Mass is always the Mass, and Jesus always keeps His promise.
Is Christ present at Clown Masses?
ReplyDeletehttp://romancatholicblog.typepad.com/roman_catholic_blog/2006/12/a_sacrilegious_.html
If He is, I am embarrassed.
Mark
Would that be Missa Fossoris?
ReplyDelete