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At least, we should keep on doing so until the day arrives when a large proportion of our priests and bishops stop slavishly imitating what the "Real Catholic" Church does and thinks, and rediscover their own authentic Tradition.

Sacrosanctum concilium was directed towards undoing the harm caused by the alienation of the laity from the liturgy, and in restoring the Roman rite to something closer to its "pristine state".

You might say that the reform failed to do so--but the Tridentine reform had the same objective, and failed just as--if not more--abysmally.

The most important and drastic changes to the Roman Rite (in its hybrid Romano-Frankish form) occurred in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, with the introduction of private Masses in the monasteries, which gradually passed into general use as the Low Mass, until it became the predominant form. As the Liturgical Reform movement tried to point out, the Tridentine reform of the Roman liturgy assumed that the Low Mass, rather than the Pontifical or Hierarchical Mass, was the normative form, and that the "High Mass" as well as the Pontifical, were elaborations upon the Low Mass.

The very idea of private Mass, or of an abbreviated Low Mass in which the role of the people was completely subsumed by the celebrant, would have been viewed with shock and abhorrence by the Fathers, both in the West and the East.

To phrase it another way, why were the "sung" Masses and "dialogue" Masses (not to mention things like parochial Vespers) that the Liturgical Movement had been calling for for nearly a century, not implemented on a much wider basis before 1960?

The Dialogue Mass was a low Mass in which the entire congregation recited the responses once said silently by the acolytes. The existence of this hybrid made celebration of the High Mass even more rare, but worse, it encouraged misunderstanding of the congregational role in the Mass. For instance, the priest continued to read silently the Propers, which should have been sung by the congregation; the people did not recite the Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, or Agnus Dei--all of which were still recited silently by the priest. At the same time, the people did recite the Suscipiat response to the Orate, Fratres--which rightfully are a dialogue between the celebrant and concelebrating presbyters.

I cannot think that anyone with pastoral experience would have regarded the sung Mass as being of first importance. Our people love the Mass, but it is the Low Mass without psalm-singing and other musical embellishments, to which they are chiefly attached.

The very idea of private Mass, or of an abbreviated Low Mass in which the role of the people was completely subsumed by the celebrant, would have been viewed with shock and abhorrence by the Fathers, both in the West and the East. Sacrosanctum concilium was directed towards undoing the harm caused by the alienation of the laity from the liturgy, and in restoring the Roman rite to something closer to its "pristine state".

Not where I work, it wouldn't. I won't stand for trash music, and neither will the pastor.

Please clutter your own site with this stuff! BYZANTINE forum, n'est-ce pas?

Please clutter your own site with this stuff! BYZANTINE forum, n'est-ce pas?

This is Town Hall, where what is discussed is not required to be directly--or even indirectly--related to the Byzantine Church.

We use the ICEL Roman Missal chants at certain seasons, and switch to the Latin Ordinary chants for Advent and Lent. Our associate pastor chants the entirety of the priest parts, and the pastor less because of his age and state of health. We sing English Propers and also sing good quality hymns. Most of those hymns are standards that have been around for some time. We are pretty straight laced and stuffy, and enjoy being so.