-b,

Postures of the laity within the EF are dictated by custom, not rubrics. That's why your FSSP priest didn't say, "The Congregation Shall Sit for the Epistle", bu "it is quite correct for the congregation.... to sit"

Thanks, all, for your responses. For a high Mass I'm singing in the choir loft where we have always been seated during the Epistle. Now I'm in a parish where the high Mass alternates with low Mass on Sundays and I'm down in the pew for the low Mass. A few times now at the low Mass I have sat for the Epistle (and Gradual and Alleluia), but naturally it's awkward when everyone else is kneeling. One comment above mentions "custom", in which case, it looks like I should kneel if everyone else is kneeling. As I somewhat doubt that that posture is an informed one, I suppose the next step for me would be to speak with the pastor about this. Particularly with a long Epistle, it seems wrong to be kneeling, as if in prayer, instead of sitting and listening attentively.
Has anyone encountered/challenged this posture in practice?
Signed: -b, the reluctant lemming

At low Mass, the rubrics do not assume that anyone is present other than the celebrant and server. Where I am, people only sit during low Mass for the sermon and the offertory.

The rubrics of the Tridentine missal give no directions to the congregation AFAIK.[NB corrected below] They rubrics do mention circumstantes and communicandi, but only to direct the priest and ministers. Thus vox clara means audible to those standing around, vox secreta means they cannot hear, and Ecce Agnus Dei ... is spoken to the communicants.

Thanks for these new comments on the subject of rubrics, or lack thereof, for the PiPs at the EF low Mass. I wonder that the habit of kneeling during the Epistle is so universal, and wonder what it would take to pronounce widely that sitting during the Epistle is quite appropriate. After all, we do this at the high Mass! I suspect that if I brought it up to the pastor of our parish he would feel unqualified to direct the people to sit instead of kneel. But maybe I'll approach him, and post the results here.

A very close friend of mine advises that the ICK in Milwaukee is considering implementing "rules" for laity during Low Masses. Supposedly originated from a British document on the topic.

Don't know if anyone really cares.

For the sake of some clarity, may I suggest that we consider what Low Mass is called in instructions? It's called Missa Privata. There's much to unpack here, but privata can be translated as "private", meaning without a congregation, or "deprived", in the sense of something missing. Private Masses, of course, had no music because no one but the priest and the altar boy was there. Deprived Masses had what was necessary for validity, but was lacking something which is necessary to convey in 4 dimensions the reality of the Mass -- namely, music.

A Low Mass (i.e., one without a congregation of lay faithful) can't, obviously, instruct the faithful to stand or sit.... because when a tree falls in a forest......

A Low Mass (i.e., one in which there is no singing) doesn't concern itself with what the lay faithful must do at x or y time because it gives instructions on how the Sacrifice of the Mass is to be conducted, not what postures or procedures must be followed, because, well, it would be wrong to assert an identical kind and level of external participation from a congregation of even a few, since they're not all at the same ability level to participated at Mass. (I'm indebted to Pius XII for this insight.)

A priest saying Mass among a gaggle of Lutherans is the only earthly participant in the Mass, because non-Christians can't, properly, participate in the Mass, even though they can observe and make hand motions and body postures. [The whole court of heaven is there, so he's not alone.]

does it show a greater reverence for the Epistles... than for the Gospels

No. Kneeling is a penitential act. Standing (in this case) is a sign of reverence - a way of acknowledging that we are hearing the words of Christ with attentiveness. If kneeling indicates greater reverence, we could make a similar argument for the Prayers at the Foot of the Altar compared to hearing the instructions of Christ.

CGZ, I'm not sure that I agree with your distinctions. Missa Privata describes something else about the Mass - usually Low but not always. A private Low Mass may be celebrated by a priest alone; with a server (or 2); even with some people present in the pews.

First, the term "private Mass" does not refer to Mass with neither a server nor a congregation, but rather to an unscheduled Mass, regardless of the number of faithful present and regardless of the degree of solemnity (a High Mass can still be a private Mass)...

(http://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2009/08/on-private-masses.html#.XY7NJ0bYqUk)

Missa Lecta is (I believe) the standard term for the Low Mass, properly speaking. In the EF, the rubrics almost never define what the people do - whether a Missa Cantata or Missa Lecta. Typically, the assumption is that the people will more or less do what is defined for the liturgical choir, although there are obvious customs that are different.

The EF is supposed to follow the 1962 missal, and the rubrics there have been changed, the term Missa Privata has no current application.
The traditional rubrics use Missa Privata to mean 'without Deacon and Subdeacon', as CGZ says.
The 1962 rubrics use the term, in quotes, solely to deprecate saying Mass without a congregation (rubric 269).

I was quoting from the version at http://media.musicasacra.com/pdf/missale62.pdf , whether that is what it claims to be, I do not know.

I think this document is a very interesting on the subject of what to recommend as postures at the traditional Mass (this seems to be the latest version):

Understanding when to kneel, sit, and stand by Richard Friend

(mentioned earlier here)
Full of references to Fortescue, O'Connel, Reid and others.

Does anyone know why (Richard Friend does mention the fact eo ipso) this has been removed from the rubrics after 1920? I would guess that this has to do with re-discovering the (somewhat neglected) role of the congregation in the Mass by the liturgical movement.

Having parroted what I have always been told and found that it is untrue, I am reluctant to venture a further opinion.

I can offer a fact, back in the 1950s at Sunday Low Mass with sermon, I would stand, except at the Consecration, and the genuflection in the Creed. Rather wearing, but there were not enough pews and most men and teenage boys would stand.

In Boston in the 1950s and ‘60s, we knelt for the entire low Mass except for the two gospels and the offertory. Back when communion ran while Mass was going on in the background (which is how it appeared from the pews), there was no sitting except the collection; when that changed we did sit for the ablutions after communion.