They don't have to knock: the priest will invite them in because he thinks it will help participation.

Could very well be. I have concluded that some of our local guitar crowd smoked a few too many organic compounds in their days of yore. LOL.

Personally, still in divorced without annulment mode here. If I ever do get married again, my preference would be for EF Nuptial Mass, Low Mass with or without hymns. Of course, I wouldn't be the only one with input into this!

When I do get married, crappy music will not be a problem, believe me. (Sorry for the Trumpism.)

It will huge. You'll have the best music.

Make Nuptial Masses great again!

1. I grew up with hymns at Low Mass and Gregorian Ordinaries at High Mass. I like both, but cannot have both at an EF Mass.

2. Hardly anyone knows very many of the 18 Gregorian Masses, and most of them will insist that they must be unaccompanied. I'm just getting tired of fighting that battle.

K.I.S.S.

What Steve Collins said!

Again, it is a glorification of the "old days" before the Council when all walked on water, Gregorian chant was sung for everything, and a good time was had by all. Not! Unless you are near my age, you have no idea how bad music could be in the good old days.

I'm not the one who lives in the past. It wasn't imaginary, but real. In fact, it set the stage for all we are dealing with today.

Nice and worthy goal. But you can't even find an old mass in many places.

No objection at all to building "outposts of beauty." Just an appeal to reality.

Hey, I merely tell how things are where I live. It may be different elsewhere, but I suspect not so much. Bismarck and Christ? Kind of a ridiculous comparison.

I didn't make the world, the church, its leadership, or contemporary culture. It is what it is.

As others like CGZ said, I'm not trying to move to the past, I'm trying to bring the Roman Rite where it ought to be. The past had some of that (certainly more than now), but it wasn't perfect either.

Our celebrant this morning preached for quite a while how outside a Cathedral (ie, without a bishop), the solemn Mass is the norm, and the low Mass is the exception, not the other way around. Similarly with the sung Mass with one priest. The low Mass was simply created out of concessions that a solemn Mass wasn't always possible. Any time there isn't a solemn Mass, it ought to be because the arrangements (clerics, music, time) could not be made for one, not because we're falling back to the low-Mass-default.

From what I understand, surely that was not the common understanding before the council, and yet that is the proper understanding to have in the Roman Rite. A good example what I mean: I want the fullness of the roman rite, not a time machine to 1953. It just so happens that in many ways (not every way), 1953 parishes did a much better job of that than 2016 parishes.

That's what I mean: I'm not trying to turn back the clock, I'm trying to do things well.

This is why our wedding was a pontifical Mass, and had the bishop not been available, it would have certainly been a solemn Mass. We ought to strive for the ideal whenever possible, and since we had the money and connections to have enough clerics present, having a Pontifical or Solemn Mass was a no-brainer.

...music is a treasure, greater than any other art... should be cultivated and promoted...

These are, indeed, the words of the council, and everyone knows (even those who facetiously let on that they don't) that the music referenced was Gregorian chant, the polyphonic repertory and its modern likenesses, the organ, and choirs, and so forth.

Nonetheless, how many have been and are the bishops and priests (they are without number) who forbid and obstruct these very things. They have zero authority to obstruct what the council admonished, but they do it just the same... because it pleases them. What I don't comprehend is why no one of their colleagues and no one in Rome tells them in no uncertain terms that they have no authority do that because it is literally contrary to what they were given authority to do. These men love, do they not, nothing more in heaven or earth than being obeyed - yet they are masters of disobedience. Small men with large egos that need considerable pruning.

I would add that not only in 1953 were the norms higher, the rites tended to be less problematic and more traditional in themselves, without making adjustments…

Most people will admit the former is very common since the council, but few see (or are willing to see) that the latter is also present.

I see both, but don't have the means to change either. Many folks are in the same position. I can make what are cosmetic changes in the way music is presented, but have no control over the priests. The texts will not be changed unless the bishops or a new pope commit to changes.