A NOVELTY - NOT A RESTORATION

Dialogue mass is a novelty in the history of the Church. Even those who approve of it and feel that it is an improvement on what went before must, in all honesty, admit this for it does nothing for their case to pretend otherwise. It was quite unknown before the 20th century. St Pius X did not envisage Dialogue Mass but rather congregational singing when he advocated ”active participation” for although the Dialogue Mass simply did not exist in his day he could easily have introduced it. This is proved by his radical reform of the Roman Breviary which clearly demonstrates that he did not hesitate to implement liturgical change which he considered necessary. This successor Benedict XV is credited with having done so and of having personally celebrated Dialogue Mass ONCE in his priesthood which lasted 44 years. It seems that Pius XI celebrated it twice. This does not indicate that they considered it a high priority but it was enthusiastically adopted in latter years by bishops and clergy who were very progressive at the time, especially in France and Germany.

The Dialogue Mass is nothing more than a liturgical praxis. Although it may not be Modernist in terms of theology, it is undoubtedly MODERN and imbued with the spirit of the age which produced it as Joseph Jungman in his book Missarum Solmenia frankly admits ,“from the Dialogue Mass the Faithful gain a living knowledge of the actual course of the Mass and so they can follow the Low Mass as well as the Solemn Mass with an entirely new understanding. To have been deprived of such an understanding much longer would not have been tolerable even to the masses in this age of advanced education and enhanced self consciousness. But what is even more important, now that the Faithful answer the priest and concur in his prayers, sacrifice with him and communicate with him, they become properly conscious for the first time of their dignity as Christians.” ( sic!)

It is scarcely credible that a scholar of Jungmann’s repute should claim that it was only in the twentieth century of the Church’s history that the Faithful for the first time of their dignity as Christians – and that thanks to the introduction of Dialogue Mass!


Papal Mass in the 1950'S -a Liturgy not yet "restored"

Whereas it is indeed true that “there is nothing new under the sun” (Ecce 1.10), it is generally accepted in common parlance that anything which re-emerges after a lapse of centuries, or the best part of a millennium, is reckoned new. Vocal participation in Sung Masses has, of course, always been the norm and this has never been questioned, but the degree of such participation in Low Mass, over the centuries of its development, is far from certain. Certain liturgical authorities such as Father Ellard in his book The Mass of the Future are sometimes quoted as giving a number of examples to demonstrate vocal participation into the mediaeval period. However, it is noteworthy that, in spite of that, he writes: “Taking Christendom as a whole it is accurate to say that the countries not deeply affected by the Protestant revolt were carrying into the modern age the same self imposed secrecy touching the Canon of the Mass (and sometimes by extension other Mass prayers also) that had been common in the late Middle Ages”. In another place Father Ellard states: “That modern usage commonly styled the Dialogue Mass was something implicit in Pius X’s great Motu Proprio. This liturgical expert of modernist tendency takes it for granted that the practice IS modern and by claiming that Dialogue Mass is merely implicit in that document confirms that Pius X’s description of “mute spectators” refers to Sung Mass and not to Dialogue Low Mass. The Motu Proprio of 1903 was, of course, concerned with Sacred Music as Dialogue Mass had not yet been introduced into the Church.

Once the supposedly implicit in the Motu Proprio became explicit and Dialogue Mass was later permitted, care was taken to describe it as a restoration and therefore unquestionably justified. On this basis most of what Traditional Catholics term innovations in the post-Conciliar liturgy i.e. vernacular, communion in the hand, altars constructed as tables, tabernacles removed from altars, communion under two kinds etc , are all likewise restorations. Should this assertion be doubted, we invoke the authority of Mgr Bugnini whom many Traditional Catholics see as the creator of the New Mass. In another book The Mass in Transition (1956), Father Ellard states, “Father Bugnini said editorially in Osservatore Romano last year, changing the liturgy is not like laying out a new subdivision in the suburbs: ‘ For the liturgy is not an uninhabited and open field on which one can draw the outlines of a new city. Rather there is a question of ‘restoration’…” (p153)
The following photographs give a sample of the “Restored” Liturgical ideal of the 1950’s:



High Mass at Mount Saviour Elmira NY. incensation of the altar and chanting the gospel


grand fellow on the feast of the Exaltion of the Holy Cross

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CATHOLIC AND PROTESTANT WORSHIP

“The main difficulty experienced by Protestants in witnessing Catholic worship arises from their not understanding the difference between a common act and a common prayer. The acts of the Church, such as processions, expositions of the Blessed Sacrament, the administration of the Sacraments, and above all the Holy Sacrifice, are indeed always accompanied by prayer, and generally by prayers of priest and people, though not necessarily by united or common prayer. In any case, the act must be distinguished from the prayers.

A Protestant may easily understand what is meant by this distinction by aid of a few illustrations:

Suppose a ship, filled with a mixed crew of French, Spanish, and Portuguese, is being wrecked off the coast of England. A crowd is assembled on the cliff, watching with intense earnestness the efforts being made by the captain and crew on the one hand, and by life boats from the coast on the other, to save the lives of the passengers. A great act is being performed, in which all are taking part, some as immediate actors, others as eager assistants. We may suppose this act carried out in the midst of united prayers. English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, each in their own tongues and many without spoken words at all, are sending up petitions to Almighty God for the safety of the passengers. It is a common act at which they assist; it is accompanied by the prayers of all; but they are not common prayers, in the sense of all joining either vocally or mentally in the same form of words.



When the priest Zacharias had gone into the temple of the Lord to offer incense, and “all the multitude of the people was praying without” (Luke 1.9), there was a common act performed by priest and people – by the priest as actor, by the people as assistants – and the act was accompanied by united prayers. But it mattered not to the people what language was spoken by the priest or what sacred formulae were used. Their intentions were joined with his. Their individual and varied petitions were one great Amen said to his sacerdotal invocations; and all ascended together in a sweet-smelling cloud of incense to Heaven.

Or to come still nearer to Catholic worship, let the reader represent to himself the great act of Calvary. Our Lord Jesus Christ is Priest and Victim. He accompanies His oblation of Himself with mysterious and most sacred prayer. Two of His seven words are from the Psalms; and it has therefore been conjectured that He continued to recite secretly the Psalm, after giving us the clue to it, by pronouncing the words, ”Eloi, Eloi, Lamma Sabacthani?- My God, my God , why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Or again, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit”. There were many assistants at that act and among those who assisted piously – the Blessed Mother of Jesus, the Apostle St. John, the holy women, the centurion, the multitude “who returned striking their breasts” – there was a certain unity in variety, not a uniform prayer, yet a great act of harmonious worship.



There are, then, prayers used in Catholic churches in which the whole congregation joins, such as the singing of hymns, the recitation of the Rosary, performing the Stations of the Way of the Cross, especially the chanting of Vespers or Compline. Such prayers are either recited in the vernacular, or, when Latin is used, they require some little education in those who take a direct and vocal part in them. But the great act of Catholic worship is the Holy Mass, or the unbloody sacrifice. One alone stands forth and makes the awful offering; the rest kneel around, and join their intentions and devotions with his; but even were there not a solitary worshiper present, the sacrifice both for the living and dead would be efficacious and complete. To join in this act of sacrifice, and to participate in its effects, it is not necessary to follow the priest or to use the words he uses. Every Catholic knows what the priest is doing though he may not know or understand what he is saying and is consequently able to follow with his devotions every portion of the Holy Sacrifice. Hence a wonderful union of sacrificial, of congregational and of individual devotion. The prayers of the priest are not substituted for those of the people. No one desires to force his brother against his will. It is the most marvellous unity of liberty and law which this earth can show. The beggar with his beads, the child with her pictures, the gentleman with his Missal, the maiden meditating on each mystery of the Passion, or adoring her God in silent love too deep for words, and the grateful communicant, have but one intent, one meaning, and one heart, as they have one action, one object, before their mental vision. They bow themselves to the dust as sinners; they pray to be heard for Christ’s sake; they joyfully accept His words as the words of God; they offer the bread and wine; they unite themselves with the celebrant in the Sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ, which he as their priest offers for them; they communicate spiritually; they give thanks for the ineffable gift which God has given them. Their words differ, their thoughts vary; but their hearts are united and their will is one. Therefore is their offering pure and acceptable in the sight of Him who knows their secret souls, and who accepts a man, not for the multitude or the fewness of his sayings, for his book or for his beads, but for the intention with which he has, according to his sphere and capacities, fulfilled His sacred will, through the merits of the Adorable Victim who is offered for him”.
(Ritual of the New Testament by Rev. T. G. Bridgett)



from grand fellow 2nd September 2011