Miss the bells at Mass?

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I don’t think they’re gone…this is an aside, but I love the scene in Cinema Paradiso, where the little altar boy gets into trouble, because he falls asleep during the mass, and the priest memorized the prayers based on the bells, so he gets confused.
 
I once attended a parish that, at the moment of consecration, rung both sanctus bells and the church bells. I thought that was awesome to announce to the whole neighborhood the miracle that took place on the altar.
 
tom.wineman said:
They are not missing at Sacred Heart Church in Tampa, Florida 🙂
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Unfortunately, my parish, Sacred Heart in WV is missing the bells. Our pastor has forbidden them. When I do attend a church which has the bells I get chills and feel so happy. For me they express the beautiful and awesome act which is taking place on the altar.
 
We still use them. But when I attend other parishes that don’t, I find myself hoping someone’s cell phone would go off and ring just like them.
 
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amasimp:
I once attended a parish that, at the moment of consecration, rung both sanctus bells and the church bells. I thought that was awesome to announce to the whole neighborhood the miracle that took place on the altar.
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Were you aware that the earliest Sanctus bells were large bells in the belfry? Not only did they create a joyous noise to God, they also alerted those not able to attend Mass that something supernatural was taking place inside the church.

Visit former Catholic churches in England and you can see hanging Sanctus bells from the 1500’s and 1600’s.

The idea that the bells were initially used to focus people’s attention to the altar at the time of the two transformations is incorrect and it confuses a great many people.
 
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katherine2:
I’m a member of a very progressive parish and we use them at every Mass.

However pleasing they may be, I don’t think failure to use them is an indication of the smell of Satan.

In fact, if their use is considered to be saving us from that, I would ask for their discontinuation rather than suggest a falsity.
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There is documented evidence that within the Church that bells were long thought to possess apotropaic powers. Many great saints including St. Francis of Assisi and St. Thomas Aquinas wouldn’t leave home without their bells…
 
I do not miss those bells because at my parish I hear them at every mass twice. Once when the host is being raised then again when the chalice is raised.
 
At every Mass that has servers we have the bells. One of our priests also uses incense on important feast days. He is an Anglican convert.
 
There’s been a kind of sea change in the parishes around here…10 years ago, you never heard bells at the Consecration; now, you find it almost everywhere.

I like it (anything that gets away from Old Hippies With Guitars Doing the Monster Mass is fine with me), but I wish there was more standardization. Some parishes use the traditional old pre-Vatican II bells, some use single-note hand bells, at least one I know of uses a sort of wind chime, and one uses something that sounds like a cow bell.

But all in all, it’s a good trend. The further away we get from Woodstock and the Summer of Love, the more things improve. 😉
 
we still have our bells, you americans sound like you have a bad time of it just now judging by other threads /posts i’ve read can someone tell me what an altar dancer is? we dont have them here
 
St. james Cathedral in Orlando recently returned the bells. However, there is still a lot to do in Orlando.
 
we still have the bells… i only miss them when i am in one of those pro gress ive
churches
 
A very confused Benedictine monk wrote a story for our diocesan newspaper. In it he suggested that the vocal acclamation of the Sanctus or “Holy, Holy, Holy” actually took the place of the bells.

Utter malarky!

Some people may not like the bells (their use in optional in the Pauline Mass) but they should not be fabricating non-truths as to why they should no longer be rung.

Frist it was “the spirit of Vatican II.” Then it was the interpretation of the GIRM. Then it was the “interruption of the *gradual *consecration.” Now it’s this.

I’m dead tired of these baseless excuses…
 
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Wolseley:
There’s been a kind of sea change in the parishes around here…10 years ago, you never heard bells at the Consecration; now, you find it almost everywhere.

I like it (anything that gets away from Old Hippies With Guitars Doing the Monster Mass is fine with me), but I wish there was more standardization. Some parishes use the traditional old pre-Vatican II bells, some use single-note hand bells, at least one I know of uses a sort of wind chime, and one uses something that sounds like a cow bell.

But all in all, it’s a good trend. The further away we get from Woodstock and the Summer of Love, the more things improve. 😉
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The most traditional Sanctus bells hang high in the belfry or in their own special bell cote…

The single handheld bells are certainly more traditional than the 3-5 handheld clusters (which I prefer.)

We recently took down the tubular three chime that used to be “rung” in the 1950’s and early 1960’s around here. Sounded like the NBC chime…

For more information please don’t forget my free booklet on the history and use of Sanctus bells at:

geocities.com/sanctusbells/
 
Up until 2000, I would have answered “What bells?”😃 . As a convert in 1990, I had not experienced a Mass with bells until I attended Mass in the UK. I’ve since been to a couple of Masses here at home with bells.

I think they bring good focus on the reason we attend Mass.

God Bless,

Robert.
 
I think most parishes in the UK still use bells. We certainly do - in fact, the first time I attended Mass at a church which didn’t use them (I was a newish convert) I was completely thrown. We also use the summoning bell in the tower at the two moments of consecration for the Sunday morning Masses.

I can see why they might have been discontinued, mind you: with the Old Rite of Mass, the priest faces east and the consecration is said sotto voce, so one can’t actually tell that it’s happening, or that the Elevation is going to take place, unless the bells inform the congregation. With the new rite, one hears and sees everything, and the bells aren’t necessary in the same way. Nevertheless, they intensify the solemnity and the holiness of what is happening - and, in purely practical terms, I wouldn’t like to calculate the number of times they’ve summoned me back from day-dreaming and distractions…:o

Sue
 
I live in Texas, am on assignment in Venezuela and was in Colombia over Christmas. Bells in all three places. At home in Texas, when there isn’t an altar server for daily Mass, one of the men from the congregation usually rings the bells. 🙂

I don’t miss them because they aren’t missing but I didn’t vote “no” since I didn’t want it to sound like I didn’t like them. Someone mentioned standardization and I agree. Sometimes they are just rung for the elevation, sometimes also just before the consecration begins and sometimes rung for a long prolonged ring.
 
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cainem:
can someone tell me what an altar dancer is? we dont have them here
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You have never seen a dancer at Mass?! I’m assuming that an “altar dancer” is the same thing as a “liturgical dancer”. A liturgical dancer is someone, (usually a liberal female in a tight fitting leotard) who dances around the front of the church, often with a group.

I think those dancers are now out of fashion as I haven’t seen them in years. I thought of them this past Sunday as the mom in front of me swayed to the closing song while holding her toddler, I held my baby and rocked side to side with the music. Other mothers did the same thing. I hope this is the only dancing I will see at church from now on.
 
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