Post by hibernicus on Nov 20, 2011 15:41:32 GMT
The question of whether the EF/TLM should be celebrated as a dialogue Mass (i.e. the congregation as a whole say the responses) or with only the server (or the choir) responding (for convenience I will call this the silent Mass) seems to me to need more discussion than it has received so far among Irish trads.
The dominant practice among Irish Catholics before Vatican II was the silent Mass, with the congregation engaging in private prayers (usually the Rosary) during Mass. This was predominant elsewhere in the world, but the dialogue Mass was becoming increasingly widespread on the Continent and in liturgically-interested circles in America. In Ireland it was confined to a few spots such as Glenstal Abbey - I believe Archbishop McQuaid actively discouraged it in the Dublin Archdiocese, presumably in the interests of uniformity.
Oddly enough, I remember a writer in the defunct HIBERNIAN magazine a few years ago, writing from a SSPX perspective, who claimed the post-Vatican II upheavals could have been avoided if the dialogue Mass had been more widely employed before the Council, so that congregations were better educated in the specific features of the Mass text. I have never attended a SSPX Mass so I can't say if they use the dialogue Mass.
The argument for the dialogue Mass is basically that it involves the people more actively and directly in what is going on at the altar, and over time gives them a more intimate understanding of how the Mass is itself a prayer. (The red Mass booklets we use at St Kevin's include a statement by St Pius X advocating that the congregation "pray the Mass" by following it closely, though this is not necessarily the same as the dialogue Mass.) Advocates of this view would say that the silent Mass encourages a general passivity among the congregation which is not healthy, and that it risks reducing them to mere spectators of the priest's actions.
The argument against the dialogue Mass, so far as I can see, is that it is better that the congregation should adopt a general posture of devotion rather than scrambling to keep up with the text, and that the role of priest and congregation should indeed be more sharply differentiated. So long as the congregation know and appreciate what is happening and join their prayers to the priest's intentions, they are actively participating in the Mass, and to dismiss their devotion as worthless is the sort of Bugniniesque arrogance that has landed us all in our current mess.
Up until a few years ago the Dublin indult congregation used the dialogue Mass, but in Belfast and Cork the silent Mass was always used. (I am not aware of practice elsewhere.) In recent years, however, Dublin has also abandoned the dialogue Mass for a silent Mass with the choir saying the responses.
My personal view is that the dialogue Mass ought to be the norm rather than the exception because (a) trads should see themselves as the legitimate heirs of the liturgical reform movement going back to Gueranger and Pius X which took a wrong turn in the postwar era, but was fundamentally sound - rather than wishing to revert indiscriminately to earlier practices (b) One of the valid objections to the pre-conciliar liturgical movement was that it made for excessive self-consciousness, but under present conditions we need to be self-conscious if we are to maintain our position and help others to discover what we have. Encouraging passivity under present conditions is like thinking that because it is safe - nay essential - to fall asleep in your own bed at home, it must be equally safe to fall asleep in the open in a snowdrift on the upper slopes of Mount Everest, with a blizzard blowing. [continued in new post]
The dominant practice among Irish Catholics before Vatican II was the silent Mass, with the congregation engaging in private prayers (usually the Rosary) during Mass. This was predominant elsewhere in the world, but the dialogue Mass was becoming increasingly widespread on the Continent and in liturgically-interested circles in America. In Ireland it was confined to a few spots such as Glenstal Abbey - I believe Archbishop McQuaid actively discouraged it in the Dublin Archdiocese, presumably in the interests of uniformity.
Oddly enough, I remember a writer in the defunct HIBERNIAN magazine a few years ago, writing from a SSPX perspective, who claimed the post-Vatican II upheavals could have been avoided if the dialogue Mass had been more widely employed before the Council, so that congregations were better educated in the specific features of the Mass text. I have never attended a SSPX Mass so I can't say if they use the dialogue Mass.
The argument for the dialogue Mass is basically that it involves the people more actively and directly in what is going on at the altar, and over time gives them a more intimate understanding of how the Mass is itself a prayer. (The red Mass booklets we use at St Kevin's include a statement by St Pius X advocating that the congregation "pray the Mass" by following it closely, though this is not necessarily the same as the dialogue Mass.) Advocates of this view would say that the silent Mass encourages a general passivity among the congregation which is not healthy, and that it risks reducing them to mere spectators of the priest's actions.
The argument against the dialogue Mass, so far as I can see, is that it is better that the congregation should adopt a general posture of devotion rather than scrambling to keep up with the text, and that the role of priest and congregation should indeed be more sharply differentiated. So long as the congregation know and appreciate what is happening and join their prayers to the priest's intentions, they are actively participating in the Mass, and to dismiss their devotion as worthless is the sort of Bugniniesque arrogance that has landed us all in our current mess.
Up until a few years ago the Dublin indult congregation used the dialogue Mass, but in Belfast and Cork the silent Mass was always used. (I am not aware of practice elsewhere.) In recent years, however, Dublin has also abandoned the dialogue Mass for a silent Mass with the choir saying the responses.
My personal view is that the dialogue Mass ought to be the norm rather than the exception because (a) trads should see themselves as the legitimate heirs of the liturgical reform movement going back to Gueranger and Pius X which took a wrong turn in the postwar era, but was fundamentally sound - rather than wishing to revert indiscriminately to earlier practices (b) One of the valid objections to the pre-conciliar liturgical movement was that it made for excessive self-consciousness, but under present conditions we need to be self-conscious if we are to maintain our position and help others to discover what we have. Encouraging passivity under present conditions is like thinking that because it is safe - nay essential - to fall asleep in your own bed at home, it must be equally safe to fall asleep in the open in a snowdrift on the upper slopes of Mount Everest, with a blizzard blowing. [continued in new post]