The Dialogue Low Mass versus the Silent Low Mass

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Funny that this thread came up, I just went to a what I now know as a Dialogue Low Mass in Fargo ND (diocesan) 😃

I had been trying to figure out what kinda of TLM it was, it wasnt as silent as any Low Mass I had been too. I was startled when some of the other parishioners responded vocally to Fr. During the Mass. But I saw he only had two acolytes and no incense, so I knew it had to be some sort of Low Mass. It was beautiful as every TLM is. The OF catholic that I was raised as felt somewhat uneasy not knowing the responses, and mostly just kept my eyes on the altar and meditated on Christs Passion all the way till consecration, where I knew my Savior was here.
All in all good ( as is every Mass:) ) , I willl have to go again with my missal!
 
JeraldW said:
Funny that this thread came up, I just went to a what I now know as a Dialogue Low Mass in Fargo ND (diocesan) 😃

I had been trying to figure out what kinda of TLM it was, it wasnt as silent as any Low Mass I had been too. I was startled when some of the other parishioners responded vocally to Fr. During the Mass. But I saw he only had two acolytes and no incense, so I knew it had to be some sort of Low Mass. It was beautiful as every TLM is. The OF catholic that I was raised as felt somewhat uneasy not knowing the responses, and mostly just kept my eyes on the altar and meditated on Christs Passion all the way till consecration, where I knew my Savior was here.
All in all good ( as is every Mass:) ) , I willl have to go again with my missal!
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Awesome! Was that your first TLM?

Now there has to be a dialogue mass buried among the other Latin Masses somewhere on YouTube!
 
Silent low Mass for me. A dialogue Mass is filled with distractions. Besides, nobody ever knows anything but “Et cum spiritu tuo”. All the other responses are mumbled, but when they get to that one, the church thunders! Just let the server make the responses, please and thank you.
 
As an aside (interesting to me, at least), I’ve had several visiting folks (usually elderly) tell me that they prefer X Mass (high or low) because that’s where they get to respond to the server’s parts, and they like that. I guess I could deduce what kind of low Mass their parish normally has from that information. It was a pretty even split so there must be dialogue Masses in my area of which I’m not aware.
 
I’ve only been to a silent Mass once. TLM Mass offered in both the areas I’ve lived since starting to attend EF has been exclusively High Mass so I’ve tried both responding and not and didn’t mind either, but have the comforting noise of others around me.

Then I went to a different Mass, not realising it would be a Low Mass, at it was a silent one. What a shock! It was like my first EF all over again.

Having said that, it was interesting and I would like to try it again. I suspect, given enough exposure to both types, that I would prefer a Low Mass to be silent and go for a High Mass if I wanted noise.
 
I understand the meditative aspect of a silent Mass. However, given the choice, I prefer a dialogue Mass. It could be because I’m a musician and an auditory learner. I focus much better when I can physically say the responses myself. 🤷
 
Either type of Low Mass is fine by me. It depends on the congregation and the priest how much they respond with the server’s parts. Some churches I have attended, there is plenty of people who do the responses, others not at Low Mass. At quieter Low Masses, most of the time the people usually reply in low volumes to the server’s parts that are simple like: Deo Gratias, Et cum spirtu tuo, etc plus in a normal voice after Mass recite the Leonine prayers with the priest in a normal volume of voice.
 
I’ve never been a “fan” of the Dialog Mass, but, a priest friend of mine said that he thought it was easier for people, who were not raised with the TLM, to make the transition. He claimed that it would make better traditional Catholics by slowly weening them away from all “that racket”. (His words, not mine).

Regarding singing the Recessional by the congregation; I just love it when the choir leads us in singing Salve Mater Misericordiae or Holy God We Paraise Thy Name. (all the verses) and backed by the big pipe organ until my dental fillings fall out. 😃
 
I’m still hoping someone will post a video of a dialogue Mass!
 
In line with the topic, I ran across a book review yesterday that touched on the matter of dialogue. (Note that Evelyn Waugh died before the OF was promulgated.)

newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?did=0612-blosser

Specifically,
…
The first liturgical changes remarked upon by Waugh were the revisions of the Easter vigil in 1951 and the abbreviated new rite of Holy Week in 1955, with its changes, omissions, and “endless blank periods,” which left him “resentful of the new liturgy.” Other changes included the dialogue Masses of the 1950s, which were never made obligatory until the introduction of the vernacular in the 1960s, accompanied by persistent confusion occasioned by conflicting statements from Rome. “Repeatedly standing up and saying ‘And with you’ detracts from [the] intimate association” of uniting oneself to the action of the priest, he complained in 1965…
…
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I prefer a dialogue Mass, as that is what Low Mass was when I was a kid. Additionally, I think that fifty years of saying responses in the vernacular conditioned me for wanting to continue that level of participation, even at a Tridentine Mass.

Until about six months ago we had an option in this diocese: A Missa Cantata, or a Dialogue Low Mass, each Sunday. Then the church that had the Dialogue Mass hired a cantor, and he brought in a few other singers. So now both churches offer Missa Cantata.

Grumble. Oh, well, they didn’t consult me!
 
JeraldW said:
Funny that this thread came up, I just went to a what I now know as a Dialogue Low Mass in Fargo ND (diocesan) 😃

I had been trying to figure out what kinda of TLM it was, it wasnt as silent as any Low Mass I had been too. I was startled when some of the other parishioners responded vocally to Fr. During the Mass. But I saw he only had two acolytes and no incense, so I knew it had to be some sort of Low Mass. It was beautiful as every TLM is. The OF catholic that I was raised as felt somewhat uneasy not knowing the responses, and mostly just kept my eyes on the altar and meditated on Christs Passion all the way till consecration, where I knew my Savior was here.
All in all good ( as is every Mass:) ) , I willl have to go again with my missal!
Click to expand...
There are four types of Dialogue Masses. "De musica sacra et sacra liturgia "stipulates four degrees or stages of participation in the Dialogue Mass. The first stage is the congregation making the liturgical responses to the prayers of the priest (i.e. Amen, Et cum spiritu tuo, Deo gratias, etc…). The second stage of participation is to say the prayers that according to the rubrics are prayed by the altar boys (i.e. the Confiteor, Domine non sum dingus, etc…).

The second stage is what we prayed in our chapel everyday during high school. I’m wondering if that was because girls were not allowed in the Sanctuary at that time & we had only girls at my school. The brothers that taught our companion boys school weren’t too crazy about taking one of the guys out of class & sending them over to serve. Of course, the boys would have LOVED to do the honors.

Did anyone here attend an all girls high school. If so, what did you do about Mass??
 
ProVobis said:
In line with the topic, I ran across a book review yesterday that touched on the matter of dialogue. (Note that Evelyn Waugh died before the OF was promulgated.)

newoxfordreview.org/reviews.jsp?did=0612-blosser

Specifically,
Click to expand...
GREAT LINK!! I particularly liked the following:

“It is easy to forget that the Church in the decades preceding Vatican II, whatever her problems, experienced what Pearce calls a “burgeoning Catholic revival” and a nearly unprecedented heyday of notable conversions. A few weeks after Waugh’s conversion, the British weekly magazine Bystander observed that “the brilliant young author [was but] the latest man of letters to be received into the Catholic Church. Other well-known literary people who have gone over to Rome include Sheila Kaye-Smith, Compton MacKenzie, Alfred Noyes, Fr. Ronald Knox, and G.K. Chesterton.” The list might also have included J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Dawson, Hugh Ross Williamson, Sir Alec Guinness, as well as many others — not to mention giants like John Henry Cardinal Newman, Fr. Frederick William Faber, and Gerard Manley Hopkins not much earlier. Meanwhile, a wave of literary converts rivaling England’s was sweeping the Continent, and included François Mauriac, Léon Bloy, Jacques Maritain, Charles Péguy, Henri Ghéon, Giovanni Papini, Gertrud von le Fort, and Sigrid Undset.** “It is a singularly intriguing fact,” Pearce writes, “that the preconciliar Church was so effective in evangelizing modern culture, whereas the number of converts to the faith seemed to diminish in the sixties and seventies in direct proportion to the presence of the much-vaunted aggiorna*mento, the muddle-headed belief that the Church needed to be brought ‘up-to-date.’””**

I’m 70 yrs. old & was blessed to have been born to Catholic parents…especially during that time. We had 9 parishes in our city of 70,000, each with a school. They held 3 or 4 Masses on Sunday, with the larger ones holding one Missa Cantata & 2 or 3 low Masses & each Mass was FILLED. One arrived at least 20 minutes early, as it was hard to stand in back, hard to kneel on the Church floor…especially with babies/young children.

It was a great time to be Catholic…an EASY time. Today, it takes a bit more faith & determination. We just have to remember that these years on earth are short, but heaven lasts forever. :extrahappy:
 
Jane_of_Arc said:
GREAT LINK!! I particularly liked the following:

“It is easy to forget that the Church in the decades preceding Vatican II, whatever her problems, experienced what Pearce calls a “burgeoning Catholic revival” and a nearly unprecedented heyday of notable conversions. A few weeks after Waugh’s conversion, the British weekly magazine Bystander observed that “the brilliant young author [was but] the latest man of letters to be received into the Catholic Church. Other well-known literary people who have gone over to Rome include Sheila Kaye-Smith, Compton MacKenzie, Alfred Noyes, Fr. Ronald Knox, and G.K. Chesterton.” The list might also have included J.R.R. Tolkien, Christopher Dawson, Hugh Ross Williamson, Sir Alec Guinness, as well as many others — not to mention giants like John Henry Cardinal Newman, Fr. Frederick William Faber, and Gerard Manley Hopkins not much earlier. Meanwhile, a wave of literary converts rivaling England’s was sweeping the Continent, and included François Mauriac, Léon Bloy, Jacques Maritain, Charles Péguy, Henri Ghéon, Giovanni Papini, Gertrud von le Fort, and Sigrid Undset.** “It is a singularly intriguing fact,” Pearce writes, “that the preconciliar Church was so effective in evangelizing modern culture, whereas the number of converts to the faith seemed to diminish in the sixties and seventies in direct proportion to the presence of the much-vaunted aggiorna*mento, the muddle-headed belief that the Church needed to be brought ‘up-to-date.’””**

I’m 70 yrs. old & was blessed to have been born to Catholic parents…especially during that time. We had 9 parishes in our city of 70,000, each with a school. They held 3 or 4 Masses on Sunday, with the larger ones holding one Missa Cantata & 2 or 3 low Masses & each Mass was FILLED. One arrived at least 20 minutes early, as it was hard to stand in back, hard to kneel on the Church floor…especially with babies/young children.

It was a great time to be Catholic…an EASY time. Today, it takes a bit more faith & determination. We just have to remember that these years on earth are short, but heaven lasts forever. :extrahappy:
Click to expand...
Thank you for sharing your experience. 👍
 
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