I guess on the active participation I was speaking more along the lines of issues today, not directed at rood screens. As for the first part, I meant exactly what I said. I guess it was my turn to get one of your famous “sentence corrections.” I guess one of my pet peeves is people talking authoritatively on something they obviously do not have knowledge of.What you mean is, “It sounds like you have never attended such -]a/-] Masses. Do I presume correctly?”
Why indeed you do, thanks for asking.
There’s also a lack of understanding of what I said, unfortunately. I intended “active participation” in precisely the way our Holy Father has explained it. As far as I’m concerned, when you can neither see nor hear a Mass, it is pretty much impossible to actively participate. Apparently everyone else agreed, so they tore down rood screens and people were allowed to see what was going on. I’ve don’t think I’ve ever heard a TLM aficionado say, “I love not being able to hear it. Now think, if only they would hide it from my view and have several others going on at roughly the same time! Then I could really join myself to the liturgical action and pray the Mass, as Pius X and other popes have urged!”
Not to be too sarcastic here; my point is that we really have improved our understanding of what the laity’s role in the Mass is and what kind of participation is appropriate. I don’t mean which parts should people get to say; I mean which parts should people get to pray.
Lucky you–must have been beautiful.It is still a common practice. The Masses on the side altars are private altars said by priests and usually a server sotto voce. No bells are typically used unless the side altar is in a proper chapel.
I was just at St. Peters in Rome and at 7:30AM one morning, I counted 16 Masses being offered on side altars. Twelve were in the EF and four in the OF. There was, simultaneously, a Mass being offered in the OF by the Cardinal Secretary of State.
The Mass I attended (and served at) was a Mass in EF in the Clementine Chapel. We used bells since we were in a proper chapel.
I am back in the states but I will PM you a link to some of the pictures I took.Lucky you–must have been beautiful.
If you’re still in Rome and heading back to St Peter’s early in the morning, any chance you could take some pictures? I’d really appreciate it.
Hi Everyone,
I love entering a church or chapel with lots of side altars. Typically the sacred art surrounding the altar and just the altar itself, as a representation of Christ, is very uplifting.
Older people have described to me the days when the churches were full, confession lines packed and 15-20 masses going on at the same time. One woman said it was like a little taste of heaven and each time the people heard bells ringing from different altars, they would bow their heads, knowing a host had become the body and blood of our Lord.
Are simultaneous masses permitted at side altars now in the EF?
the use of side altars simultaneously with the main altar was a response to a papal demand for every priest to be required to say mass daily as celebrant, and the prohibition of concelebration in the Roman Rite. It became the common practice, but was never theologically sound. Prior to that, priests could participate in choir.“Abuses?” Can you elaborate? So, this was something that “crept” in and was not allowable previously? Just developed over time?
This is all great information, please continue-I’m fascinated. Photos would be nice too. Thanks!
Thanks Aramis,the use of side altars simultaneously with the main altar was a response to a papal demand for every priest to be required to say mass daily as celebrant, and the prohibition of concelebration in the Roman Rite. It became the common practice, but was never theologically sound. Prior to that, priests could participate in choir.
V II called for full active participation in the mass at the main altar. It also called for a return to concelebration instead of the use of side altars for simultaneous masses.
note that an altar in a separate chapel may still be used for simultaneous masses; it’s just side altars in the same worship space may not, for it divides the people of God there present.
yes, it is called the modern heresies. they claim to know more than our ancestrals. how sad for them. they might have knowledge of the world but lack the knowledge of God unlike our ancetrals.Your previous post in this thread shows that you have never attended such a Mass. At a monastery, all of the monks that are priest say their own Low Mass early in the morning. Laity are able to attend their own Mass at a side altar or the Mass at the high altar. High Mass follows later in the morning. This would also be the case for other small groups of priests assigned to churches around the world. It is not horrible, but very beautiful.
As for your later post in this thread, I find it sad that people have such a misunderstanding of active participation that they feel like they have to be moving their lips and hands to be participating in the Mass. There is such a lack of understanding of the spiritual today.
It seems that such a clear prohibition might have made it into canon law. Care to cite that document?Note that multiple simultaneous masses in a single edifice is one of the abuses that V II called for an end to.
The development of multiple Masses in a single church cannot be traced to one single factor; at least a half dozen different theories exist as to the origins of “private Mass,” and even those cannot quite agree as to what is meant by the term. The charge, moreover, that the use of multiple altars “was never theologically sound” seems rather myopic, born from the 20th century attitude that only that which we selectively cull from the early Church’s theology is now and has ever been theologically sound. Two differing viewpoints can simultaneously be theologically sound, by dint of being consistent with differing theologies, all of which are accepted as orthodox by the Catholic Church. The celebration of multiple Masses per day was theologically sound according to the systematizations of roughly a millenium or more, but since it doesn’t jibe with what the antiquarians of modernity sought to recover from late antiquity, people now feel confident in declaring the practice to have NEVER been sound, by dint of being now considered passe. That simply does not give due consideration to the spirituality, which one is free to reject but only after having given it an honest shake.the use of side altars simultaneously with the main altar was a response to a papal demand for every priest to be required to say mass daily as celebrant, and the prohibition of concelebration in the Roman Rite. It became the common practice, but was never theologically sound. Prior to that, priests could participate in choir.
V II called for full active participation in the mass at the main altar. It also called for a return to concelebration instead of the use of side altars for simultaneous masses.
note that an altar in a separate chapel may still be used for simultaneous masses; it’s just side altars in the same worship space may not, for it divides the people of God there present.
Two points:Andreas:
Sacrosanctum Concilium sets out norms;
There are other directives which similarly discourage. Likewise, prior to the 1972 missal, concelebration was restricted (SC specifically expands it, and the GIRM for the 1972 missal makes it available whenever 2+ priests are present.).
- It is to be stressed that whenever rites, according to their specific nature, make
provision for communal celebration involving the presence and active participation of the faithful, this way of celebrating them is to be preferred, so far as possible, to a celebration that is individual and quasi-private.
This applies with especial force to the celebration of Mass and the administration of the sacraments, even though every Mass has of itself a public and social nature.
Communal celebration is the normative praxis. Simultaneous celebrations, while permitted later, are not the norm after SC was promulgated, because it makes the celebration quasi-private (since no mass is every truly private).
vatican.va/archive/hist_councils/ii_vatican_council/documents/vat-ii_const_19631204_sacrosanctum-concilium_en.html