Participation - 3

 There is just one place in the 1570 Low Mass where the words explicitly invite the congregation to respond, that is the Orate, fratres ... . However while the words are of course retained, the rubrics up to 1960 require the priest, after the opening words said aloud and towards the congregation, to turn away and complete the request silently. 

What then of the Solemn Mass? We have the claim in Quo primum that the group commissioned to prepare the Missal worked diligently and arduously to discern the "original rite and form of the Holy Fathers". But we do not even know the composition of the group, let alone what they reported. It is known that even within Rome the major basilicas and the tituli each had their own customs, and that many dioceses and nations had their own uses which differed in details, particularly in ways of engaging the people. For example Sarum Use, which had been spread throughout England by Royal Decree, had processions, stational altars, and use of the pax-brede.

Faced with this multiplicity the 1570 adopted the simplest of solutions. The priest would continue to say a Low Mass, adding the interactions for blessing incense, singing the incipit of the Gloria and Credo etc. And all the other parts which in the Curia would be filled by functionaries employed for the purpose, and probably in minor orders, would continue undisturbed. All the multifarious forms used elsewhere to address pastoral concerns would be ignored fall into desuetude or be suppressed. That meant setting aside both what the Council of Trent had desired (or commanded) and the whole of Aquinas' explanations of the didactic functions of liturgy.

Thomas Aquinas Distinction 8 of Book IV of his Commentary on the Sentences of Peter Lombard. can be found in English translation here: https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2015/07/st-thomas-aquinass-early-commentary-on.html#disqus_thread   

The commands of the Council of Trent for teaching the people during Mass are found in Session XXII ch viii  https://www.capdox.capuchin.org.au/reform-resources-16th-century/sources/the-canons-and-decrees-of-the-council-of-trent/#post-2439-_Toc529040197 and the corresponding discussion by Aquinas is at     https://www.newadvent.org/summa/4083.htm#article4

Participation - 2

 In 1570 when Pius V laid down a clear set of rubrics they set out two forms of Mass, Low and Solemn. The Low Mass codified what was needed for a single priest saying Mass alone or with one assistant, theoretically an acolyte but in normal practice a boy possibly intending to become a cleric. Most priests for the previous 600 years or more had said such a Mass daily, often in a chantry or otherwise offering Mass for a departed soul and receiving a stipend, but sometimes simply as a matter of personal devotion. Burchard/Burkhardt the Papal Master of Ceremonies had codified an Ordo Missae and Ritus Servandus for the form to be used in the Roman Curia. Since this was essentially a private Mass said in a public place in which several others might be engaged in the same activity (for example at a side altar in a basilica) the rubrics set out conduct and tones of voice so that they did not disturb  each other.

With a few adjustments to the rubrics this was still the form of Mass most familiar in the UK and Ireland when I was a teenager in the 1950s. Even when it was used in English speaking countries for the majority of Sunday Masses it remained in the form of a private Mass. This was the Mass which impressed Waugh, and sustained most pious souls. And of course it left members of the congregation free to engage intellectually (participate) or not.

Participation

 Musing on a post at NLM https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2024/08/two-english-converts-writing-on-active.html . Evelyn Waugh's views on active participation are well know. But I had not previously seen this by Caswall writing before he converted.

The dangers of this confusion were identified well over a century earlier by an Anglican cleric named Edward Caswall, as he observed the comparative degree of participation in the Anglican and Catholic services. (Thanks to the Rev. Robin Ward, principal of St Stephen’s House, Oxford, in foro privato.)

“The Anglican view of common prayer is that the clergyman is to go through a certain order of prayers aloud, and that every person present must simultaneously go through the same mentally, completing the prayer with an Amen. Thus all intellects are expected in attending our church service to go through the same process and the same mental transitions and course of ideas. No room is left for ex tempore prayer, nor for an adaptation on the part of the individual, and if his thoughts wander for a moment he cannot recover since the prayers have been going on with the regularity of a railroad or of some engine. This often causes persons… to feel disheartened…

now I have observed that the Roman Catholic view of common prayer is quite different. They lay down certain broad demarcations for public service distinguished by ringing of little bells and the actions of the priest, then it is left to everyone according to his capacity and earnestness, and according as he chooses to supply himself with little books learn a few prayers of his own, to join in what is going on. Hence … the use of Latin really does in many respects tend to give the great majority of the congregation comfort, freedom, ease and spontaneousness in public prayer. And it is most certain that a Roman Catholic congregation does enter into the public service with a more complete identification and then English one does, certain I mean to say so far as I can possibly judge from what I see. Wonderful to say, we with an English service are listless and disheartened. They with a Latin service show every token of understanding what each is doing so far as he goes, and betray no listlessness.”

Now there is scope here for a long series of posts, so I shall break off and return tomorrow. But I leave the question of whether Caswall was comparing like with like - most Anglican services are, or were, parts of the daily Office, while the majority of Catholic services are now Mass, and I would think that was already true in the mid 19th century.

Legitimate variety

Writing in The Tablet, Dr A T Kania called for legitimisation of greater variety in Catholic sacramental rites (Let other lights shine, 6 September 2008). He points to the need to balance adaptation of the liturgy with doctrinal clarity and that clarity should not be confused with uniformity.

For some years, I am told, ICEL worked on reviving the English medieval rite of marriage. This would have given us back a multistage process, separating out the troth-plighting, which could take place during the now mandatory period of instruction, and following the marriage with blessing of the matrimonial home (and/or bed). This English rite was much richer than the Roman rite, and could give a much needed signal of how seriously the Church takes the sacrament of marriage. Perhaps ICEL, or our conference of bishops, could return to this when the new Missal is out of the way.

More immediately, for nearly 40 years our bishops had the authority to approve texts in English for singing at the Introit, Offertory and Communion. Since they never acted, commercial publishers filled the gap with hymn books. Since 2005 the bishops' power is restricted to the approval of collections of psalms. As far as I know the only such collection published was The Simple Gradual (ed. J Ainslie, Geoffrey Chapman, 1969) now long out of print, which translated less than half of the Graduale Simplex. Meanwhile illicit use of hymns continues, even in metropolitan cathedrals.

45 years after Sacrosanctum Concilium there is still much work needed on our liturgy, both in legitimising variety and ensuring the soundness of the texts actually in use.