Catholic "history" question- mid 1960s

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Doing a bit of research for my novel. Set early to mid 1960s, Hawaii. They were still doing the Latin Mass.
  1. At Communion, recipients knelt and received on the tongue. Did they say, “Amen?” Did the priest say “Body of Christ?”
  2. Earlier years- 1952-53, Korea, war situation, MASH unit (like the MASH TV series). If a patient came in and was in very serious condition, but NOT likely to die, would the priest be likely to anoint him? (He is unconscious, no dog tags, so it may also be the priest does not know if he is Catholic or not.) Would priests bring Holy Communion to patients in something like a MASH unit? Today it’s a given that hospital patients get Holy Communion offered to them, was this the norm then?
 
MatureMomG said:
Doing a bit of research for my novel. Set early to mid 1960s, Hawaii. They were still doing the Latin Mass.
  1. At Communion, recipients knelt and received on the tongue. Did they say, “Amen?” Did the priest say “Body of Christ?”
Click to expand...
Yes and yes, as I recall.
 
MatureMomG said:
Doing a bit of research for my novel. Set early to mid 1960s, Hawaii. They were still doing the Latin Mass.
  1. At Communion, recipients knelt and received on the tongue. Did they say, “Amen?” Did the priest say “Body of Christ?”
Click to expand...
I can’t speak to the second one, but do you mean at a TLM?

In that case, the priest says (in Latin) “May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ keep your soul unto life everlasting. Amen.” The faithful do not make a verbal response.

ETA: If you need the Latin, it’s “Corpus Domini nostri Jesu + Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam. Amen.” At the “+” the priest makes a Sign of the Cross over the recipient with the Host.
 
We still had the TLM at my school growing up and we didn’t respond to what the Priest said.
 
MatureMomG said:
Doing a bit of research for my novel. Set early to mid 1960s, Hawaii. They were still doing the Latin Mass.
  1. At Communion, recipients knelt and received on the tongue. Did they say, “Amen?” Did the priest say “Body of Christ?”
Click to expand...
The Communion formula was changed in 1964 to “Corpus Christi/Amen”

I don’t know when it was changed to English/Spanish/French or other.
 
The Mass I am referring to was the ordinary common Mass at that time- it was still said in Latin (as I recall as a child). So would the priest giving Communion say it in Latin as mgsk said? I’m not sure which Mass it was, just the Mass most everyone went to (I don’t think it was the Tridentine Mass). Just Mass at your ordinary average parish.
 
Tridentine Mass - ordinary Sundays - was the Low Mass, and was mostly silent. Listen closely and you heard quiet murmuring from the priest and the server. You normally had a Latin/English missal available, and you were supposed to silently pray the mass prayers along with the priest. If you were keeping pace you’d hear the muttered responses and the bells about when you expected them.

If you couldn’t keep pace, you might be praying your rosary instead while the priest was praying the mass. We used to hear comments that the ordinary Low Mass was nearly silent except for the clattering of rosary beads.

Communion was taken kneeling at the altar rail, with the server holding a paten under your chin just in case the host bumped your nose or lip and fell, instead of landing precisely on your tongue. Priest: “Corpus Christi.” You: “Amen.” Priests had to be careful; planting the host firmly on hundreds of tongues meant he was almost certainly going to get his finger wet.

High Mass was on special feast days. The entire High Mass was spoken or (preferably) sung aloud, accompanied by lots of incense and appropriate processions.

Funny 1960s memory: heads of all girls and women HAD to have some kind of covering. The simplest kind was a lace doily. But… when we forgot… Mom was not going to be scandalized by allowing her girls to go with heads uncovered.
Mom’s solution: kleenex and a hairpin. You read that right. Mom dug a kleenex out of her purse and pinned it to the offending head. If you were the offender, you hoped that kleenex hadn’t been previously used.
 
Thanks, Nan- that’s what I was looking for. And yes, I remember the Kleenex!
 
MatureMomG said:
  1. Earlier years- 1952-53, Korea, war situation, MASH unit (like the MASH TV series). If a patient came in and was in very serious condition, but NOT likely to die, would the priest be likely to anoint him? (He is unconscious, no dog tags, so it may also be the priest does not know if he is Catholic or not.) Would priests bring Holy Communion to patients in something like a MASH unit? Today it’s a given that hospital patients get Holy Communion offered to them, was this the norm then?
Click to expand...
Prior to 1972 this sacrament was called Extreme Unction (final anointing). It was normally given only when death was approaching and bodily recovery was not anticipated. Recipients of Extreme Unction were known to give up fighting to live when they saw the priest approach. Communion was different, and if a priest was available a Catholic could expect to receive communion. Just hope that the priest didn’t start opening the oil jars…

That said, things were always harsher in a war zone. Specifically, there was a lot of death happening, and priests were spread pretty thin. Sure, the priest could look at a guy with freshly amputated limbs, think he was going to live, and move on to the next unit down the road. But if he refrained from offering the sacrament and the guy went downhill fast, hostile war zone conditions could easily prevent the priest from returning in time to anoint the dying. If they guy was conscious I’m sure they’d ask him if he wanted the anointing. If he was unconscious the priest might just go ahead and perform the anointing; you wouldn’t scare him to death if he couldn’t hear you. That said, there was always a risk that some panicy fellow in the next bed would see the anointed unconscious guy wake up and start in with, “You’re gonna die, they poured the oil on you…”

Minister was one faith and soldier was another - Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, whatever? No problem. All military chaplains are trained to offer appropriate prayers for whatever religion their congregants follow. Only a Catholic chaplain could offer Catholic sacraments, of course, and only to Catholics. But the rest was covered.

No dog tags? Don’t know if he’s Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, whatever? Again, no problem. There was a contigency prayer rite for the situation of “we don’t know who or what this guy is/was.” At the end of the day, we trusted in God’s divine mercy to sort it all out.
 
Stylites said:
Yes and yes, as I recall.
Click to expand...
Actually, no and no if it was the 1962 Missal.

The people would kneel at the rail and the priest would say, “Corpus Domini nostri Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aeternam. Amen,” which translate to, “May the Body of Our Lord Jesus Christ preserve your soul unto Everlasting Life,” and the communicant would not say anything.
 
MatureMomG said:
The Mass I am referring to was the ordinary common Mass at that time- it was still said in Latin (as I recall as a child). So would the priest giving Communion say it in Latin as mgsk said? I’m not sure which Mass it was, just the Mass most everyone went to (I don’t think it was the Tridentine Mass). Just Mass at your ordinary average parish.
Click to expand...
I’m sorry I didn’t see this part.

After the First Sunday of Advent, 1964 a lot of parishes changed over to the Missal of 1965 (Mass of Paul VI, take 1) that still walked and talked a lot like the Tridentine Mass but with lots of vernacular and less genuflections. The rest changed within a year or two. I’m not sure where to find the text of that missal online but you could search the term “1965 Missal” and probably find it.
 
I made my First Communion in the early 1960’s. We were taught to kneel at the altar rail and receive on the tongue. No response was made. We simply made the Sign of the Cross and returned to our pew where we knelt, face in hands.
It is only after Vatican II that we responded to the priest with “Amen.”
 
DebChris said:
I made my First Communion in the early 1960’s. We were taught to kneel at the altar rail and receive on the tongue. No response was made. We simply made the Sign of the Cross and returned to our pew where we knelt, face in hands.
It is only after Vatican II that we responded to the priest with “Amen.”
Click to expand...
My recollection as well sans the Sign of the Cross.
 
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