EF Creed - anomaly for server
  • WGS
    Posts: 300
    It's my pleasure to occasionally serve as acolyte for daily and even Sunday low Masses in my FSSP parish.

    When there is a Creed, the published/printed instruction calls for the server to remain kneeling. I am willing to do this (although my knees would prefer a standing position). However, kneeling is obviously out of harmony with the rest of the congregation.

    (And yes, I understand that there are no rubrics for the congregation at a traditional Latin Mass.)

    Does anyone know of a reason for this practice of having the server kneel for the Creed at a low EF Mass?.

    (Perhaps, as my wife would have told me, "That's just the way it is!")
  • madorganist
    Posts: 906
    Good question. I don't serve but have often wondered about that myself. Following!
  • Incardination
    Posts: 832
    Fortescue indicates several things that pertain.
    *** In the 1943 version, he indicates that the rubric is from the General Rubrics XVII-2. My (admittedly horrendous) Latin from reading this rubric in the 1942 Missale renders the gist as the standard position following the Gospel to the end of Mass is kneeling. His further instructions to the server are that, even where the custom of the place is for the people to stand during the Creed (since it is presumed that they also kneel during the Creed at a Low Mass), the server should kneel on the side opposite the open Missale through the Creed.
    *** In the 1962 version, O'Connell has updated this section to indicate that server kneels during the creed. This, however, has a footnote that if the congregation is "taking an active role" in the Mass, then the server should indicate the proper position as per a Dialog Mass and stand during the Creed. Presumably, "active role" would be if this is a Dialog Mass (don't see many of those in my experience).
    *** In looking at the corresponding rubric section from the 1962 Missale, not only are the sections arranged in a different numeric order, but I could not find anything that indicated the position for the Creed - in a Low Mass setting - for the choir. (I did not have to rely on my Latin as there are plenty of translations available. !)
    Thanked by 2WGS madorganist
  • SalieriSalieri
    Posts: 3,177
    The default position for everyone except the priest during Low Mass is kneeling. I have two experiences with Low Masses: Where the people have been attending the TLM continuously since time immemorial (i.e. before Vatican II), all in the congregation tend to kneel through the entire Mass; Where the people are primarily "new" to the TLM (i.e. since Summorum Pontificum), they generally adopt the postures as they would during the analogous parts of the Novus Ordo--or at least they awkwardly try to, the more quick to catch on follow the postures of the server. It is not the server's kneeling during the Creed which is "out of harmony" with the people; it is the people's standing during the Creed which is "our of harmony" with the server.
    Thanked by 3WGS madorganist CCooze
  • madorganist
    Posts: 906
    I think there's more to it than that though. Doesn't local custom factor in? The people also sit for the offertory until the Sanctus. That seems to be pretty generally observed in the U.S. For High Mass, the general rubrics of the missal specify that those in choir who are not actually singing may sit
    a) when the celebrant is sitting;
    b) while the lessons and the epistle, the gradual, the tract and the Alleluia with its verse, and the sequence are being sung;
    c) from the offertory until the incensing of the choir or, if the choir is not incensed, until the preface;
    d) from the end of the communion until the Dominus vobiscum before the postcommunion. (524)
    But if there's a similar rubric for Low Mass, I'm not finding it.
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    Dom Daniel Oppenheimer would go BALLISTIC over this thread.
  • Liam
    Posts: 5,093
    Because?
    Thanked by 1a_f_hawkins
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    He's made a point in his apostolate of teaching his congregation the "correct" postures during mass. Such as the faithful standing through the entirety, not only of the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei, but the Introit as well. (He has a much more European understanding of congregational participation at his church.)
  • Incardination
    Posts: 832
    Stim, just to be clear, you are referring to a Missa Cantata, not the Low Mass? OP was about a Low Mass... (also, it pertained to the server, not the congregation.)

    If yes, that might be more about having the congregation following the rules that would pertain to clerics attending in choir rather than about US vs. European... Some argue that since the rubrics aren't defined for the congregation per se, they should follow liturgical choir rules.
  • dad29
    Posts: 2,232
    Yah....somebody named Thomas Friend has written a comprehensive "when to sit/kneel/stand" during EF Masses. His recommendations are markedly different from the practice used for........a century?........in this Archdiocese.

    So we ignore him and all his research.
    Thanked by 2madorganist Elmar
  • CharlesSA
    Posts: 163
    @Incardination I was recently on a short visit to the Canons Regular of the New Jerusalem (Dom Daniel Oppenheimer's group), and they do indeed extend these postures to the Low Mass.

    I am sure that, among other things, this question of when to stand/sit/kneel is connected to the participation of the congregation in the chants. Since the clergy in choir are directed to stand when singing the chants, I suppose that it would be logical to have the congregation stand for them, if they are being encouraged to sing them. Same for a Dialogue Mass - for when the congregation is saying the parts for which the choir would be directed to stand.
    Thanked by 2Incardination StimsonInRehab
  • StimsonInRehabStimsonInRehab
    Posts: 1,933
    This was indeed Low Mass as well as Missa Cantata. And, as Mr. Charles Essay has stated, the stance reflects what the congregation should be doing at that particular moment. (I tend to agree with Dom Daniel and approve the Dialogue Mass, not dogmatically so; but then again, I also endorse the Solesmes method, organ accompaniment for chant, and singing during the Last Gospel, so I'm sure I haven't pronounced the proper shibboleths as far as these matters go.)
  • Elmar
    Posts: 506
    dad29,
    Thomas Friend has written a comprehensive "when to sit/kneel/stand" during EF Masses. His recommendations are markedly different from the practice used for........a century?........in this Archdiocese. So we ignore him and all his research.


    The recommedations that Thomas Friend gives are essentially derived from Fortescue, O'Connel, and Reid ("The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described" and "The Celebration of Mass").
    He sees the habit of 'Low Mass - congregation kneeling and just listening' as a deformation from the time when 'private' Low Mass became so commonplace that the normative character of the Solemn Mass for 'the Mass' per se, as taught by the Church, got practically lost in most places.

    Thomas Friend concludes that even people's postures prescribed in the NO just reflect the 'best practice' recommendations of the Church in the 50 years preceding VII - which have largely been ignored then, and are still being ignored by many of those who view themselves as the 'defenders of the Tradition'.

Add a Comment