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Cavaille-Coll
Guest
There is no need to ring bells during a Lutheran liturgy because nothing happens during the consecration.
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Cavaille-Coll
Guest
Our rota is not medieval but was built by yours truly using twelve Swiss bells and donated to the church. I don’t have a photo but here is a short video of it taken from my phone. The video does not do justice to the beautiful and loud sound.
s1035.photobucket.com/albums/a432/Audire/Church%20architecture/?action=view¤t=Rota.flv
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callmeChris
Guest
My Parish does. But instead of doing the traditional ringing, the servers just start rapidly jingling them. A little annoying but still… I FOCUS ON THE ALTAR.
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Holly3278
Guest
My parish’s bell tower has two bells in it. One large and one smaller one. Not only do they ring the small bells at the front of the altar during the consecration but the small bell in the bell tower is rung a couple of times during the consecration too. 
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Cavaille-Coll
Guest
The GIRM does not specify what “bell” means, so it is generally left to local custom. While four-bell clusters are most common, single handbells, mushroom-shaped gongs, tubular chimes, and tower bells are used in many places. In some poor locales, old welding tanks with the ends cut off are used for bells. Our old church building has a set of five tubular chimes installed behind a side altar in the 1920’s, and pushbuttons set into one of the altar steps. These were somewhat common in those days, but they do remind one of a doorbell.
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boatbearer
Guest
That’s truly beautiful! Wonderful job you did. What sort of bells are those exactly? I love history like that. Most of those who are clamouring for hand-held bells know nothing of these rotas or the earlier tradition of ringing the parish’s largest tower bell (and later a dedicated large bell) at the appropriate times.
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tngail
Guest
we do, and I love it!
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CatholicLife
Guest
We ring the bells at every mass.
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boatbearer
Guest
The GIRM says “BELL” and a GONG, TUBULAR CHIME, etc. are not by definition bells…
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centurionguard
Guest
I don’t believe its necessary for the GIRM to define what the “bell” means.
Look at our rich Catholic Church history that is continually being eroded and termed as archaic in a ultra-modern secular age that has changed not only how our ordinary un-catechised lay parishioners think but increasingly the clergy as well.
All Bells used inside the Catholic Church are termed as Sanctus Bells which take on rich symbolic significance. adoremus.org/0305SantusBells.html
Even the hand-held Sanctus bells used at consecration have colloquially assumed the same name.
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Brendan
Guest
Here is Webster on it.
Based off of this, it would appear that a tubular chime would be permitted, but not a gong (not hollow)
Of course, since the GIRM is only truely authoritative in Latin, it would depend on what the Latin word means, not the English one.
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Bbigam
Guest
At our parish (Ordinary Form, mostly English) we always use the bells except on Holy Thursday (clackers) and on the very rare occasion of no altar servers.
Other parishes in the area vary widely, but I think our parish uses them the most consistently (along with the FSSP EF community). At the Cathedral, sadly, they never use the bells for the big Pontifical Masses, although one priest there uses them on occasion.
Ours is also the only parish in the area that I’ve ever seen use communion patens (aside from the EF community, of course).
Other parishes in the area vary widely, but I think our parish uses them the most consistently (along with the FSSP EF community). At the Cathedral, sadly, they never use the bells for the big Pontifical Masses, although one priest there uses them on occasion.
Ours is also the only parish in the area that I’ve ever seen use communion patens (aside from the EF community, of course).
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boatbearer
Guest
I FULLY agree. In the Latin Rite of the Church we have a very rich history in the use of BELLS going back to our Judaic roots. It doesn’t take an Oxford Dictionary to make a differentiation between a BELL and a gong/chime/etc. They are richly significant – that’s why they are replaced by clappers during Lent.
Some smarties will come along and claim that a Glockenspiel is also known as an “orchestra bell” or that a group of bells is a “chime.” While they are technically correct, both are CLEARLY not bells based on the historical tradition of our Church.
Those gongs and tubular chimes of the 1930’s-1970’s are examples of not following what the Church directs – at least by today’s GIRM. Maybe the rubrics of the EF Mass allows non-bells to be run during the Mass?
Within the last month or so a religious sister got upset with me because I would not sound her Tibetan singing bowl (nothing more than a short/wide tubular chime) in place of sanctus bells. Abuse comes in many forms.
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