Bring back the bells!

[exnihilo]

Some folks at mass yesterday are against it, they like the simplicity of our parish.

I’ve found that most people who say they like simplicity when it comes to the Mass do so only in a few things (bells, incense and vestments). But they almost always enjoy the least simple music (complex hymns with multiple instruments) and dislike the most simple, chant. I find this very interesting.

 

[mVitus]

. When the Mass was in Latin they were used to let people know whereabouts the priest was because they couldn’t hear him .

I found that true today. In an earlier post I said that my view of bells was that I could take them or leave them… at a Mass in English. Today I went to a Mass in Spanish* and the bells were helpful in knowing where the priest was in the consecration. So for a Mass in a language that is not your own, I could see the bells being a lot more desireable.

*I know a little Spanish, but not enough to be at all fluent.

 

[Phemie]

I like the bells. But I grew up with the altar servers using a light hand with them. They called attention to what was happening, not to themselves.

At Mass in our parish it always sounds like competition between the server and the priest: who is going to give up first. The bells are rung until the priest lowers the elevated species and it seems to go on forever. It may have something to do with the servers’ first experience with the bells, ringing them during the Gloria on Holy Thursday and the Easter Vigil.

 

[Irishmom2]

At Mass in our parish it always sounds like competition between the server and the priest: who is going to give up first. The bells are rung until the priest lowers the elevated species and it seems to go on forever.

In our parish, the servers need to know the style of the priest saying mass. Some want the bells rung the whole time the host is elevated, whether it is for a long time or short. Others just want a little “jingle.”

 

[dochawk]

we have a set that, aside from the automatic playing at specific times (including 5 minute warning and start of liturgy) we can use a remote (an old android phone) to toll during the institution narrative and then turn to pealing (?) for the joyful portion of the anaphora.

It even works most weeks

 

[Phemie]

Phemie:

At Mass in our parish it always sounds like competition between the server and the priest: who is going to give up first. The bells are rung until the priest lowers the elevated species and it seems to go on forever.

In our parish, the servers need to know the style of the priest saying mass. Some want the bells rung the whole time the host is elevated, whether it is for a long time or short. Others just want a little “jingle.”

Occasionally when the servers aren’t there their dad is. He then does the bells. He always does it in sets of three, the way I remember it done in my parish back in the day. I’ve never asked him but I think he may have been an altar server back in his boyhood days. He seems well versed in the handling a thurible and the bells.

 

[LisaB]

We have the bells of course at my parish, but what’s really majestic is when the big church bells ring during the consecration at High Mass. It’s cool to know that the presence of God is announced to the community. Makes me wish I lived in a Catholic country where everyone recognized it as a miracle that it is.