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The Mass and the People

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 August 2024

J. D. Crichton
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It might be thought that much, too much, has been said about what the Holy See has for over fifty years called actuos participatio of the people in the Mass, and much of what has been said is often superficial enough. The impression has sometimes been given that all that was required was that you should make the people vocal, that it was a good thing for them to be roused, that they should be weaned from ‘individualistic’ ways of assisting at Mass, that they themselves should say all that the server says, or that they should sing all the plainsong chants of the Mass even when these are not fitted to their capacity. Taken separately most of these things are good in themselves but they do not go to the roots of the matter. The question is: why should the people be active at Mass? To answer this question one needs to consider two matters: (I) the nature of the Mass itself; and (II) the nature of the Christian people.

Type
Research Article
Information
Life of the Spirit , Volume 11 , Issue 132 , June 1957 , pp. 548 - 560
Copyright
Copyright © 1957 Provincial Council of the English Province of the Order of Preachers

References

1 This latter is notoriously the most difficult to obtain, and it is to be hoped that in t” coming reform of the liturgy the last part of the Canon from Per quern haec otnnii “ be intoned or said aloud by the celebrant.

2 There would seem to be no rule against the people's saying their Domine non sum dignus before Communion, and if we may go by practice which continues over a wide area unreproved, it must be said to be at least tolerated. There is no practical difficulty about it and it is obviously highly fitting. It is the people's prayer, the one the Church would have them say immediately before Communion. The question of the Pater noster, recently debated in the Clergy Review, is not so clear and is not mentioned in the reply of S.C.R. of 1935 which regulated the practice of Dialogue Mass. The Restored Holy Week Order enjoins it for Good Friday alone. Until further light is thrown on the matter it is difficult to say that it is permissible for the people to say it with the priest.

3 There is only one mentions the Mass in the new Westminster Hymnal (no. 76).

4 Or something expressing the sentiments of Ubi caritas et amor.

5 It must be said that if we could develop the Gelineau psalms, some of which have been uapted by the Grail, it would be much easier to integrate them into the Mass. A vernacular psalm, echoing the introit, is obviously better than the best of hymns.