How long should a daily TLM last?

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FrRJBoyd

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I’ve been saying the TLM since September 14, 2007, and I was just wondering what people think about the average length for a daily TLM. I know St. Alphonsus Liguori seems to come down on the side of approximately 30 min. for a “private” Mass without communion of the faithful; certainly he says it should not be less than 20 min. But I really haven’t been able to say the Mass in much less than 40 min. (I think 38 min. is my “record”). It’s not a problem with the Latin or uncertainty in the rubrics; it just seems like I’m going at a reasonable and respectful pace, and I don’t think I could maintain the same reverence if I went faster. Am I missing something?
 
Father,

It may be how fast you are doing things- when I went to my first TLM, the priest was going extremely fast. Then i noticed that was kinda typical of TLMs in general (there is a LOT of text to get through)
 
At our daily TLM there are usually 20 people there to receive Communion and our one priest says the Mass in 30 minutes while our other priest usually says the Mass in about 40 with the same number of parishioners there to receive Communion. One priest is just a faster speaker than the other. They both give due respect…I think their rate of speech is just the difference.

:heart:Blyss
 
FrRJBoyd said:
I’ve been saying the TLM since September 14, 2007, and I was just wondering what people think about the average length for a daily TLM. I know St. Alphonsus Liguori seems to come down on the side of approximately 30 min. for a “private” Mass without communion of the faithful; certainly he says it should not be less than 20 min. But I really haven’t been able to say the Mass in much less than 40 min. (I think 38 min. is my “record”). It’s not a problem with the Latin or uncertainty in the rubrics; it just seems like I’m going at a reasonable and respectful pace, and I don’t think I could maintain the same reverence if I went faster. Am I missing something?
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Hi Father!
Longer is better than shorter. I would rather have a mass 10 minutes longer than watch a priest running a “liturgical marathon”.
 
I would rather have a mass 10 minutes longer than watch a priest running a “liturgical marathon”.

Such a shorter time would not be a marathon but a dash.
 
Father, if you are being reverent & prayerful, neither you nor anyone else should worry at all about how long you take to celebrate the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass. May God bless & keep you always!
 
Father, I’m thankful you offer the Extraordinary Rite. Please don’t worry about the length of Mass.

I was at a High Mass on Wednesday night, which was the feast of St. Marcellus I, that took 1 hour. I didn’t know it lasted an hour until I got in my car and looked at the clock.

Offering Mass reverently will make people forget the time.
 
well as I recall from the old days we used to time priests at various parishes, St. Clare had the record, the old pastor their clocked in at 17 minutes, which we had timed because of the school bus and first bell schedules. average on a school morning which included communion for about half the student body and misc. nuns & other adults, was about 35 minutes, less for earlier Masses w/o students. I also recall that on Sunday there were Low Mass people (like my dad who opted for the early shorter non-singing Mass) and High Mass people (like FIL who sang in the choir and would not have considered it a real Mass w/o the extra singing and incense etc.) and again folks had their favorite priests, and the ones who finished in under an hour were highly regarded by folks like my dad.
 
Sometimes the speed of the Latin Mass just seemed fast when one could not follow along in the bilingual missal as fast as the priest was speaking 😃 .
As a military chaplain’s assistant, I noticed that a weekday Low Mass length would vary with the season and the day’s specific liturgy, 20 to 40 minutes. Sunday Mass was 40 to 60 minutes, the latter I had to time because we were broadcasting it and if it came up much too short, it was necessary to fill the time with music until the end of the hour.
I remember one of our chaplains, a Redemptorist, who would wrap up on Wednesday evening in no more than 20 minute, ever.
That was the Chaplains’ bowling night; Chaplains of all faith stationed there played and called their team The Holy Rollers.
 
I want to make it clear that I’m not criticising those Priests who can say Mass “fast”…

but Father, you’ve answered your own question:

“I don’t think I could maintain the same reverence if I went faster”!! 👍
 
Fr. John Fearon, of eternal memory, would do the Dominican Rite Mass in 15-20 minutes, including communing the two altar servers… having been one of the two, I can attest to the lower end.

Fr. Greg of San Antonio is said to have been doing a daily mass in 20 minutes back in the 1960’s.
 
markadm said:
I want to make it clear that I’m not criticising those Priests who can say Mass “fast”…

but Father, you’ve answered your own question:

“I don’t think I could maintain the same reverence if I went faster”!! 👍
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I don’t think in the case of our priest who says the Mass “faster” as being irreverent…he talks fast when you speak to him in person. There are just some folks who do that. The fact that he gives due respect to the saying of the Mass is absolutely without question.

:heart:Blyss
 
I also think certain things have to be taken into consideration…such as are most of the folks going to mass heading off to work immediatly or is the assembly mostly retired folks who can stay a bit longer? Is there a funeral immediatly following mass? We do not celebrate the EF in our parish, but these things are a consideration for daily mass. If we go over 30 minutes people would miss their train and we have seen it where people have to leave mass early if the priest goes over 1/2 hour. Also if there is a funeral, the priest usually has to make his homily very brief to accomodate setting up and people arriving for the funeral. Sometimes we have two funerals and that makes timing the daily mass to no more than 1/2 hour even more important as the first funeral starts earlier.
 
Joannm said:
I also think certain things have to be taken into consideration…such as are most of the folks going to mass heading off to work immediatly or is the assembly mostly retired folks who can stay a bit longer? Is there a funeral immediatly following mass? We do not celebrate the EF in our parish, but these things are a consideration for daily mass. If we go over 30 minutes people would miss their train and we have seen it where people have to leave mass early if the priest goes over 1/2 hour. Also if there is a funeral, the priest usually has to make his homily very brief to accomodate setting up and people arriving for the funeral. Sometimes we have two funerals and that makes timing the daily mass to no more than 1/2 hour even more important as the first funeral starts earlier.
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This is the concern I have. I have no problem saying a Novus Ordo in 30 min. (although I use all of the 30 min. and do not include petitions). But you have to admit there are many more prayers that are to be said in the TLM. I’m not trying to accuse anyone of saying the TLM irreverently if they speak faster than I do, it’s just that I’m not even sure how it could be done in 20 min. It’s not really a pressing issue for me right now, since I only say a daily TLM if I have no assigned Masses in my parish and on my day off. I definitely don’t mind taking 40 min. I guess I would just like to see the TLM done in 25 or 30 min. and be able to make a judgment for myself as to what parts are done faster.
 
GandalfTheWhite said:
Hi Father!
Longer is better than shorter. I would rather have a mass 10 minutes longer than watch a priest running a “liturgical marathon”.
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Absolutely. If one has to make a choice, choose reverence. I think that forty minutes for daily Mass is very reasonable.
 
FrRJBoyd - first, welcome to CAF.

To answer your question of how long a daily TLM should last I would say the same length of time a daily OF should last. Speed is not the goal in either yet on a daily basis you need to take into consideration those who are attending - there are going to be some who like to attend a daily Mass and can fit it in on their way to work if the Mass only lasts 30 mins. so I guess the goal should be a 30 min. Mass and chances are as you continue to say the EF you will be able to say it faster while still keeping the reverence, in the meantime, just keep doing what you are doing.

May God Bless you in your Vocation - thank you for answering the call!

Brenda V.
 
BlyssfulDreamer said:
I don’t think in the case of our priest who says the Mass “faster” as being irreverent…he talks fast when you speak to him in person. There are just some folks who do that. The fact that he gives due respect to the saying of the Mass is absolutely without question.
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Indeed; our FSSP Priest can say Low Mass in 30 minutes, and is not at all irreverent. 👍
 
I was an altar boy when the Tridentine Latin Mass was the norm and daily Masses lasted from 15 minutes to 45 minutes. I often wondered how some of those fellows could really pray so fast as to finish the entire (private) Mass in 15 minutes, but I wasn’t about to ask. The longer Masses entailed distributing Eucharist to a church full of squirming elementary school students and I’m sure that the priests wanted to get it over with as soon as possible in order to send them to their classrooms upstairs (yes, the church was in the basement of the school, rather like the catacombs.)

Matthew
 
The Fraternity of St. Peter priests in Germany said a daily Mass in between 30 and 45 minutes. If they had some appointment that was pressing they said it in 30 minutes. A silent Mass goes no more than 30 minutes. One French Fraternity read the daily Mass in under 20 minutes and we were quite shocked. We attributed it to perhaps his character or being from Normandy.

Once we attended an indult Sunday Mass in the US where the priest came very late. He said the whole Sunday Mass in 20 minutes. We were rather horrified. My two oldest sons who had served at that time several hundred Sunday Masses in the various positions with Fraternity priests, looked at each other in amazement and said, ‘We didn’t know those prayers could be said that fast’!
 
FrRJBoyd said:
I’ve been saying the TLM since September 14, 2007, and I was just wondering what people think about the average length for a daily TLM. I know St. Alphonsus Liguori seems to come down on the side of approximately 30 min. for a “private” Mass without communion of the faithful; certainly he says it should not be less than 20 min. But I really haven’t been able to say the Mass in much less than 40 min. (I think 38 min. is my “record”). It’s not a problem with the Latin or uncertainty in the rubrics; it just seems like I’m going at a reasonable and respectful pace, and I don’t think I could maintain the same reverence if I went faster. Am I missing something?
Click to expand...
I’ve been to daily mass at a lot of different churches and it is usually between 30 and 40 minutes. Some days the readings are longer, and some days the gloria and creed are not said, which will obviously effect the amount of time.

It would seem to me that as you become more familiar with the prayers and the language, it might speed up just a little. Not that you are stumbing through it now, but it would just seem that after a few years it will become so familiar that you would naturally speed up just up some due to the familiarity.

For example, my wife reads the Mass out of the missal, while I have it memorized. If we attend a Mass where the Priest says the prayers fast, she always complains that she has a hard time following along, which is not a problem for me since I am not having to read it. I would guess that as you become more familiar with the prayers the mass will shorted by a couple minutes. I guess time will tell.

Oh… if you don’t mind, I have a question: What are your thoughts on the Old Mass? Have you enjoyed saying it, and what, if anything, have you got from it?
 
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