Wednesday, 20 May 2009
What the Dialogue Mass looked like
This fascinating clip, first broadcast on 25 September 1960 by Radio Canada, shows the beginning of a Pontifical Low Mass for the 16th Sunday after Pentecost celebrated by Bishop Émilien Frenette, Bishop of Saint-Jérôme, in the Studio. The Mass is celebrated as a "Dialogue Mass" versus populum, and the populum confidently bellows out the various responses in Latin.
Everyone knows what to do - the maniple is ready for the end of the Indulgentiam, the servers assist the Bishop ascending the steps by holding the fringe of his alb in ceremonial deference to his office as "Pontifex" and the bugia (hand-held candle) is there right on time for the Introit Miserere mihi Domine. Within a decade, all of this will be rapidly disappearing from the rite.
H/T NLM
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10 comments:
Oooh, nasty! The priest's preparation for Mass was always a private affair, and it is jarring to hear the congregation blasting out the responses! And why are they standing? After all, the servers are kneeling. One can see the beginning of the end! This makes me ask also to what extent television was responsible for the liturgical collapse; perhaps not as much as the internet is contributing to the liturgical renewal; cuius non parva pars Pater Finigan!
Father ~ does this explain why some modern pre-concilar sanctuaries were designed verso populo? For example, Liverpool Cathedral?
Berni - I agree with you and the influence of television is an interesting point.
SV - yes, either "versus populum" or in some cases "dual purpose".
I do not know about Italy, Spain, Germany and Scotland (the other countries where the Dialogue Mass became prevalent before the Council), but in France, Low Mass is still generally said as a Dialogue Mass; though the congregation does not respond that loudly, joining rather in an audible common whisper.
Wow! That was the day before I was born! And of course the very same rite of Mass was being used worldwide - although not of course in the dialogue version. What a shame it was never "allowed" to catch on. All this garbage about Latin being too difficult for ordinary people. Honestly! Over here in Ireland they have no problems forcing Mass in Irish (a difficult language) on people under the polite fiction that we can all speak it. In reality about 10% of the population is fluent. Double standards or what?
Sadie Vacantist makes a most interesting point.
I understand the original Lutyens design in the 1930s for Liverpool Cathedral (never built, apart from the crypt) proposed a "basilica style" high altar facing the nave, in the manner of St. Peter's.
In the event, the modern, circular cathedral designed by Gibberd in 1959, and opened in 1967, has a free standing high altar, and the sanctuary could easily be used for celebrations "ad orientem", although this has never happened.
The origins of the liturgical revolution are, of course, pre-conciliar, though I doubt they influenced Lutyen's plans. I suspect Gibberd's design owes more to Le Corbusier than to Bugnini, though I would agree this is debatable.
Fr. Tim,
Two things struck me about the clip. First, it was a TV programme, so the congregation may have been asked by the director to respond more loudly so that they could be heard when the Mass was broadcast. It's hard to make inferences about the atmospheric of a non-televised dialogue Mass from what we see on this film.
Secondly, the 1960s rot is clearly setting in. The bishop's tinselly vestments, the modernistic crucifix and candles, the awful backdrop...the Latin looks like it's the next domino to fall.
One of the good things about the Summorum Pontificum-based revival is that we are generally defaulting to a more classical style of vesting and altar arrangement where Latin looks and sounds at home, and not intrusive or incongruous.
In remembering the best of the Tridentine Mass being celebrated in Latin, we should also remember how badly it could be too, with little intelligence or understanding. It was often a mechanical exercise with the priest rushing through it, as Timothy Mulligan says. I clearly remember the record for a weekday low Mass being six minutes!
With regard to Michael's comment, I am sure there were priests who celebrated the Old Rite badly - I recall about 20 years ago (when I first began attending LMS Masses), a priest (now a Canon) telling me that soon after his ordination his PP had criticised him for "saying the Latin like you mean it", to which his reply was "surely that's the point!" He did celebrate Mass very well, I recall.
My only personal experience of a flagrant abuse in the EF was of a priest distributing communion roughly as follows:-
"Corpus Domini Nostri Jesu Christi...(gives Host to communicant)...custodiat animam tuum... (gives second Host to next communicant)... in vitam aeternum. Amen... (gives yet another Host to a third communicant), thus giving communion to three people, while only reciting the prayer once. Such things should not happen!
On a more pleasant note, if you would like to see how a Dialogue Mass could be, I found a very nice video of a Missa Cantata being said in dialogue form, in Poland - link as follows.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?
docid=830868996440594893-
God Bless,
Matthaeus.
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