If the priest is to follow the rubrics, why should there be any room for a certain “style”? The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is not a something which the priest has the authority to offer with his own “flair” or “style”. The priest, when he goes up to the altar to offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, should essentially become a “slave” to the liturgy. He leaves himself behind and truly become an *alter Christus *, performing with obedient exactitude that which the Church tells him to do in her Sacred Liturgy. Except for during the homily, the priest’s personality should disappear and there should be no difference between how he or another priest offers the Mass. The priest’s personality or particular “style” should not ever be a factor at Mass.
There will always be “styles” in the liturgy and there have always been “styles”. The conventual Mass of a religious community has always had a different “style” than a parish Mass, than an Episcopal Mass, etc. Even when Gregorian chant had pride of place, in there are differences in “style”. There is the Solesmes school, the Pothier school, etc. I’ve been to a fair number of abbeys in Canada and Europe that still use Gregorian chant and each has its distinct voice and style. The abbey I belong too has a free-standing altar where Mass is concelebrated with the priests in a semi-circle around it. Monte Cassino still has the old altar. For the laity, the mass is celebrated ad orientem, but for the community, it is versus populum, as the altar is between the choir and the nave, and the concelebrants are off to the side in their own pews.
A priest may have a good singing voice, and a not-so-good one and may choose to chant-or not-his parts. The celebrant(s) may have an accent. Yes, even in Latin. Listen to a recording of Gregorian chant from Germany, Italy, France, England and Spain. Each will colour the accent with a particular accent.
In the pre-Gregorian days, between roughly the 12th to the late 19th centuries, Gregorian chant slowly fell out of style and plainchant had its regional flavours, and Mass would sound very different-even in Latin-whether heard in Paris or Rome or other places. Prior to when Gregorian chant was originally composed, there were other chant forms such as Gallican, Old Roman, Mozarabic and Sarum, to name a handful. By the time of Trent, Gregorian chant was well on its decline. It wasn’t revived into widespread use until 1908 as the main form of Church music when Pius X promulgated the Vatican Edition of the Roman Gradual. There probably was more uniformity in Gregorian chant from then on but then every choir would have its own “voice” and distinctive sound, and may interpret chant depending on different schools of thought. As I said different abbeys have different sounds, even with exactly the same Gradual and exactly the same notes. It’s a distinctive characteristic of Gregorian chant.
There are also some very different styles within the Western Church, namely Ambrosian and Mozarabic in current use, the Carthusians have their distinctive liturgy and different orders have their way of doing things.
I have an old 1935 Ceremonial. In it, the introduction speaks of the development of liturgy. It says of the reforms of Pius X (translated from French): “At the same time, he happily reformed ecclesiastical chant, and added to the
Rubrics of the Missal many important
variations and
additions, without however altering the text itself of the Missal”. (author’s italics).
It also states “Towards the end of the 17th century and during the 18th century, reactions in France and in Germany broke the liturgical unity, creating new liturgies (neo-Gallican and others). But these were abolished in the 19th century when the Roman liturgy was reestablished in all of the West”.
Churches also have had different layouts. Different art; some churches very ornate, monastic ones, very sparsely decorated. Polyphony was sometimes used instead of chant.
True the priest’s gestures were fairly uniformly prescribed. But there was plenty of room for “style”, for example if a woman’s schola replaced a men’s schola (permitted for grave reasons… one being that the church was the conventual chapel of nuns!). Moreover some priests indeed, in the pre-Conciliar days, would recite faster than others, be more intelligible than others, have more decorum than others.
The rubrics do allow for some variations (after all the Ceremonial says that Pius X
added variations to the Missal), and thus it is normal to expect that some priests will favour one or another of those variations.
So I think your last comment is, with respect, an impossibility to achieve and always has been so.
I’ve been going to my local parish near home since I was born, my parents before that, the church (Our Lady of Good Counsel) opened in 196(3)? But what I’m asking is…how modern is it?? A few years ago we got a new priest after having our old one for more than 10 years, and this new priest, has what people call a “speedy” mass, in the sense that, he says mass in 45 minutes or less, and has removed the ringing of the bell before the consecration, as well as other minor yet traditional parts of the mass, he says they aren’t vital and don’t need to be done, but our old priest had hour + long masses and was very traditional and very Marian, and our new priest doesn’t even live at our rectory? ( not sure if that’s what the little house near the parish is called), but has anyone else experienced this?? A lot of our parish community members always talk about the changes but I don’t think they’ve ever questioned our priest or told him. What do you think?