Better hurry up and vote everyone! The “winners" get their way with the way everyone else around them prays for the next 50 years in Holy Mother Democracy!

When "what everybody wants" concurs with the teaching of several preconciliar popes, an ecumenical Council and Popes John Paul II and Benedict XVI, what's not to like about it?

The Pater Noster? Everybody?

And the other 65%, more or less, want silence.

I think there is something marvellous about holy mumbling.

I've never been able to keep up with that one

We do 1, 2 & 3 on Fr. Z's list in Low Masses. For Sung Masses it would be 1 & 3 as the choir is singing the Introit during the Confiteors and the congregation cannot follow. The Our Father is still reserved for the priest alone, except for the "sed libera nos...". Such an approach seems fairly standard here in France.
I did go to a Low Mass when I was back in England last year and found it somewhat disconcerting that the congregation said nothing at all for the whole Mass. Not even Kathy's "holy mumbling". All responses were done by the servers at a whisper.

OK, I voted. "I just do what everyone else does."
Which shouldn't really affect anyone.

No, it's not spinelessness and not wanting to stand out.
It has to do with unity, especially in the Mass. Jesus prayed for this in the garden. I try hard not to argue with Him.

If the congregation holds hands during "Our Father" (like they did when I attended Mass at the Mission Basilica San Diego de Alcala when I attended there) I hold hands. If they cross themselves during the Confiteor (they do in my congregation) I cross myself. If not I don't. If some follow one tradition and some another, then and only then do I feel I have choice.

The time to argue about what should or should not be done in a Mass at a parish in communion with the Church are places like here, or Fr. Zs blog, or at Colloquium etc.

NOT DURING HOLY MASS!

And I believe strongly in geographic parishes. If you don't like your neighborhood's parish, too bad, so sad. Guess where you should be?

If I lived in Saint John XXIII's area of responsibility (do they have one? - I did attend with friends once when it was St. Boniface) I would go to Latin Mass.

If I lived in Oakland I would attend St. Paul. (Now I will admit I normally attend St. Paul for Christmas Eve Midnight Mass every year, and I used to attend Easter Sunday there. But I always had the impression my priest would prefer my family attend attend MY parish for the big ones. I have no idea if he had anything to do with it but they scheduled me as lector Palm Sunday and Easter - hmmmm).

If you are technically correct, and cause division within your congregation during Holy Mass, then I say you are technically incorrect and should discuss the issue with your confessor.

Discussing issues like these in a venue like this forum is a great idea, and I really appreciate it, it's a good place to do it. There's a LOT of education and experience here, honestly I am humbled as I learn things on this forum. As long as correction is humble, otherwise you have your reward here.

Low Mass is an unfortunate compromise. This debate wouldn't be happening if the sung liturgy was restored to its rightful place.

SP, sorry if I misunderstood you. It seemed like what you were saying might have been directed in my general direction, but I was mistaken, I'm sure. I agree with you wholeheartedly that one should try to settle and invest in one parish and not flit around from parish to parish as the mood strikes.

The time to argue about what should or should not be done in a Mass at a parish in communion with the Church are places like here, or Fr. Zs blog, or at Colloquium etc.

Nope. The Church is not a democracy. Decisions are made top down, not bottom up.

Why not discuss the merits of a question? The lay people are not here just to pay, pray, and obey, as the old line goes. Church law (canon 212 of the Code) gives us an express right to respectfully express views about the good of the Church, both to our pastors (bishops) and among the faithful.

Since my going to Mass has a big impact on saving my own soul, you can bet that I will go to a Mass that is reverent and done properly versus my own parish with a priest who doesn't know what Catholicism is and all that. If we lived in a saner time I could believe in parish boundaries, but we don't.

As usual, I agree with Julie.

I agree with Adam.

How can the liturgy fail to be a (the) vital force in Catholicism? And anyway, for whom?

I think the claim is that with the Age of Enlightenment devotions rather than the liturgy itself became the focus of people's spiritual lives. Bouyer's Liturgical Piety is one place where this argument is made. Of course, that's not to say the Bouyer is correct.

I have no problem with people responding with the parts which belong to them. What gets overlooked by the people insisting that everyone make all the responses all the time is that

1. not all of the servers responses belong to the people in the pews
2. the average layman does not know how to pronounce latin

Besides Sunday and Feastday masses should be something other than Low Mass if at all possible.

I Didn't mean legally.

Here's a sweeping statement: ban the Low Mass. It's an abuse and a dishonor to God.

I would again have to ask about where and when he is speaking. In the early 20th c., he himself asked Santa for a book of commentary on the liturgy. So the "whitewash" was in fact not complete.

Yes, let us go back to the Latin Mass, where the people in the pews said rosaries, nobody understood what was being said, and only the choir sang.

My fault for taking it seriously, I'll edit or delete my post accordingly.

The Mass never needed "reforming". It grew organically and became what it is. The whole notion of participation by opening ones mouth is kafooey. Just my opinion.

Happy Easter, Francis! I'm afraid your statement "It grew organically and became what it is" is like waving a red flag at a bull since I couldn't disagree more vehemently.

I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that the majority of preconciliar Catholic liturgists, including the preconciliar popes and also post conciliar liturgists such as Cardinal Ratzinger, viewed the pervasive "silent Low Mass mentality" which became more common in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries more as atrophy and decline from the high point of the Middle Ages, than as organic growth.

What most concerned the leaders of the early Liturgical Movement (before it was "hijacked" as Cardinal Ratzinger said) was the growing tendency of the people to escape into individualism and private devotion instead of worshiping as a collective entity, a "community of brothers" (cf. Cardinal Ratzinger) engaged in hierarchical piety.. The early Liturgical Movement was not a reformist movement but was dedicated to teaching the clergy and laity to understand the received Liturgy and learn to participate in it fully.

What they attempted to do is to use the received Catholic Liturgy as the school in which the Church teaches us to pray because the Catholic faithful were being drawn into novelties and deviations from the liturgy.

Another danger Dom Beaudoin pointed out was that Catholics who are silent in the pews will be silent in the world, and religion was becoming a discreet and reserved affair, a piety in which the spirit, the interior, private disposition, plays a larger part than active, public participation in the rites.

He calls the silent worship of the faithful "an impoverished Christianity" and antithetical to the public, collective nature of the Roman Liturgy which contains professions of faith, collective prayers, obligatory gatherings of the faithful, processions etc., and points to the grand cathedrals, inspired by the Liturgy and built for it.

An excellent example of how the restoration of a collective piety in the traditional Roman rite, in other words, active participation in the received Liturgy, the Mass and the Divine Office, generally forms knowledgeable, active, brave, conscientious Catholics is in the example of French traditional Catholics, esp. at St. Nicholas du Chardonnet in Paris. I was just watching videos last night of their vibrant Sunday Missa Cantata where the entire congregation sings the parts of the Mass antiphonally with the choir, where they have processions and Sunday Vespers (in which the congregation sings antiphonally with the priest) and also videos of them demonstrating for traditional marriage on the streets of Paris. They are manifesting lex orandi statuat legem credendi (et vivendi). They live and believe as they worship.

They act in a corporate manner as the Mystical Body of Christ, publicly manifesting their faith inside the church and out, whether it be singing hymns or singing the Mass, as a united body inside the church and on the streets processing and singing hymns in honor of the Blessed Sacrament, Our Lady or out in the public square shouting their disapproval of gay marriage at the top of their lungs. We have here a clear and consistent mode of action which is the external and public profession and manifestation in all areas of their life, ad intra et ad extra, which clearly has led to the strongest and most vibrant traditional Catholic communities in the world.

If there is a stronger and more vibrant expression of traditional Catholic worship and action anywhere in the world greater than this, I would love to know where it is.

Finally, if you can find me on YouTube one example of where the passive, "mute and silent spectator" style of worship so lamented by Popes Pius X, XI and XII has led to the development of traditional communities who are as strong, vibrant, united, active, and charitable as the traditional Catholics in France, please share it, and I'd be happy to consider your argument. At the very least, whether you can or cannot produce such an example, surely you would be willing to admit that what the traditional Catholics are doing in France both inside and outside the churches, is working quite well and should be applauded and emulated.

"We do 1, 2 & 3 on Fr. Z's list in Low Masses."

Numbers 1, 2, & 3 of Musical Sacram pertain to the employment of singing. If you are singing numbers 1, 2, and 3, why is it a low Mass. Doesn't the singing of all those parts make it a high Mass?