How has the celebration of the OF Mass you regularly attend changed in the past 15-20 years?

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How has the celebration of the OF Mass you regularly attend changed in the past 15-20 years? Has it improved or degraded in terms of complying with the official OF Mass rubrics? Has it come closer in terms of how you personally prefer the Mass be celebrated or is it further away from your own ideal?

Has your parish church(es) enjoyed fairly stable pastoral stability over that time period? Has the leadership (if any) been strong?

Are you, or have you been personally been involved in a liturgical ministry during this period? What was your experience.

If there was one thing that would be changed about this Mass, what would it be? What’s the last thing you would changed about the Mass you typically attend?
 
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It’s actually been longer than 20 years, and the difference is remarkable. Most notably is a seeming lack of piety in general, as if Sunday Mass was more a social event than Sacred Sacrament. I often wonder if I’m the only one this bothers.
 
Duesenberg said:
How has the celebration of the OF Mass you regularly attend changed in the past 15-20 years? Has it improved or degraded in terms of complying with the official OF Mass rubrics? Has it come closer in terms of how you personally prefer the Mass be celebrated or is it further away from your own ideal?

Has your parish church(es) enjoyed fairly stable pastoral stability over that time period? Has the leadership (if any) been strong?

Are you, or have you been personally been involved in a liturgical ministry during this period? What was your experience.

If there was one thing that would be changed about this Mass, what would it be? What’s the last thing you would changed about the Mass you typically attend?
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what is the purpose of this thread?
 
I find that it depends upon the pastor and the celebrant. The more they stick to the rubrics and written words the better the celebration, IMHO. I’ve seen a general trend towards improvement in these areas over the years.
 
While there are some bad characters here and there, I’d say they’ve gotten better. As a child, it was really, really easy to find heretical teachings and priests got away with everything on the pulpit. It was also very common for churches to be built without kneelers.

I don’t see that anymore…and a few churches that I knew of without kneelers have been retrofitted.
 
In my parish a combination of things have happened. The real horrid stuff like liturgical dance, changing the words of the readings on the fly in a sexist manner and abusing the Blessed Sacrament are long gone, thanks be to God. Unfortunately all the improvements seemed to require a years-long, war-like effort.

In its wake it had left a Mass that is extremely minimalist and utilitarian. Still far, far better than the past horror.
 
JackBlack said:
It’s actually been longer than 20 years, and the difference is remarkable. Most notably is a seeming lack of piety in general, as if Sunday Mass was more a social event than Sacred Sacrament. I often wonder if I’m the only one this bothers.
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Do you think that has a lot to do with the general coarsening of society over that same time period?
 
Well, this whole sky is falling— ain’t things awful in the Churches line of discussion is getting pretty stale. 😑
As far as I see, (and I work in a huge Archdiocese) Mass still happens, people still come, Christ is still present in the Eucharist. The priests are good. Many times things that are not to our taste happen due to over-involved laypersons, but the pastors are very good at stopping that immediately when something is done incorrectly. I find the priests right now are sticklers for correctness and excellence in Liturgy.
Todo Bien.
 
Mary_Ellen said:
I find that it depends upon the pastor and the celebrant. The more they stick to the rubrics and written words the better the celebration, IMHO. I’ve seen a general trend towards improvement in these areas over the years.
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That’s good to hear and I largely feel the same way. I didn’t attend Mass for a great many years until I returned in 2000. I suspect had I not drifted away, that I would have left and still be gone had I experienced the hardcore abuses of decades before.
 
Well for the past 15 years I’ve been mostly attending Mass in a Benedictine monastery where the Propers and Ordinary are in Gregorian chant (Latin & Greek), and the rest in French plainchant, every day of the week. The musical instrument is a large pipe organ played expertly by the abbot and the choirmaster. The liturgy is done carefully, reverentially, and fluidly, neither too rushed nor too slow. In short it is absolutely fantastic!

When I’m not attending Mass there, it’s usually with the schola I belong to (we do Gregorian chant), and we rotate around different parishes. I can’t say I’ve seen many overt “abuses”. The odd glitch here and there -after all we’re all human- and some priests chant better than others and most not at all, but nothing that would cause me to run out of the church screaming.
 
I hadn’t thought of it that way, but your point’s well taken.
 
In the parish I grew up in it’s EXACTLY the same as it was 20 years ago (for better or for worse), minus the changes to the liturgy in 2011. I mentioned this to the current pastor and how I am worried for the kids growing up there now, being even further removed from the old school, as that same environment didn’t exactly produce resounding Catholic men and women in my experience.
 
At least French is a language that can be sung in. The Benedictines near me have turned the Gregorian melodies unrecognizable trying to chant them in English.
 
DignumEtJustum said:
At least French is a language that can be sung in. The Benedictines near me have turned the Gregorian melodies unrecognizable trying to chant them in English.
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Well French is quite a challenge on Gregorian tones as well. The accentuation is completely different than Latin. The abbey’s choirmaster has some very nice French psalm tones adapted to the Gregorian antiphons, used for the minor hours on major feasts which are sung in French (Lauds and Vespers are in Latin Gregorian chant, except for the reading and intercessions). But they are much different finales than the Latin. What they do, is end on the proper note to lead back into the antiphon after the doxology.

For things like the preface and EP, the French works reasonably well and the adaptations now have a lot of mileage on them and sound nice, and most people know the responses instinctively.
 
I suspect that the Benedictines are not singing Gregorian chant, but rather plain chant. The same goes for our local Trappist abbey as well as our Benedictine abbey. I say this, having been in college seminary in the mid 60’s, and having been part of a schola which cut a record in Gregorian chant. What we have now is chant, but not Gregorian. Different melodies.
 
The Benedictines are the keepers of the Liber Usualis which they have published for centuries. The Benedictines nearest me have taken the Mass settings contained within the Liber Usualis and have attempted to adapt them in to English though in doing so have made some of the melodies nearly unrecognizable. I believe the original melodies are possible in English if sung by a Cantor well versed in the Bel Canto technique.
 
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DignumEtJustum said:
The Benedictines are the keepers of the Liber Usualis which they have published for centuries. The Benedictines nearest me have taken the Mass settings contained within the Liber Usualis and have attempted to adapt them in to English though in doing so have made some of the melodies nearly unrecognizable. I believe the original melodies are possible in English if sung by a Cantor well versed in the Bel Canto technique.
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I don’t think they’ve published the Liber Usualis in years. You can often find reprints though. The current reference works they produce for the Mass are the Graduale Romanum and the Graduale Triplex, plus a bunch of other derivative works.

Gregorian chant in any other language than Latin tends to be difficult due to the different accents. the compositions make heavy use of the words’ accents. French is notoriously difficult for this, especially the finales with the silent end syllables and different accentuation typical of French.

Sometimes it can be made to work OK but for the simpler, less melismatic, melodies. But it still sounds best in Latin.
 
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