I do have one of the pre-1960 Missals in my bookcase, and a hymn book from the period as well as an old penny Catechism, the words known by rote by Catholic schoolchildren prior to Vatican Two, but while I understand your regretful remembrance, I might not agree wholly with some aspects of your experience.
Although the lack of a unifying language is a fair point, and there is no obvious answer to that, even if to mention the value of the vernacular for local clarity.
However, perhaps some of those losses, of involvement in singing and responses, varies from parish to parish, and isn’t a universal experience?
In many parishes there would be more involvement perhaps, there is certainly a high level of involvement in singing the hymns in the parishes in my city … so I might say it isn’t a universal experience that there is less congregation involvement.
As the words are always dislayed in data projection, or in individual monitors throughout the churches, or cards provided, there is little to discourage people from singing or responding.
I’d not comment on how involved people are in teh Mass, because it’s hard to assess others’ minds and hearts, and to be observing others, might mean that I’m the one not paying attention to the Mass, I think.
There is certainly more involvement of the congregation regarding responses, than when the altarboys gave the responses for the congregation in Latin whilst the congregation largely remained silent.
At 75 a person is entitled to the nostalgia of past ways, past devotions, and perhaps I’m a little cynical about the glow of the past because I always tended to find my own fire in it all, including the Mass where I would say “the Mass is the Mass”.
My mother-in-law came from a strict English Presbyterian background, and unlike you, her yearning for a past kind of church led her to reject any other, including Presbyterian, so she never returned to church before she died. That was sad. I don’t have a great sense of nostalgia for the past because it, too, has its imperfections and its lacks.
In the end, whatever we have or do not have now, may God bless us all, and bless us with the graces we need for faith and faithfulness, and for love of God above all and others with practical love that Jesus demonstrated to be essential for our salvation, when He described His judgement of souls in Matthew 25, 31-46.
I hadn’t itended to go into all that. I felt a sympathy for you in the loss you feel. There are always losses, and they cause sadness sometimes.
God bless you abundantly!
