The Vatican II changes in Liturgy

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We are adoring Christ when the host and the Chalice are raised. We look and adore.
 
clclnn said:
That never happened. When the Host was raised we bowed our heads.
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Then you missed the point of the bells being rung. They ring so that everyone knows to look up at the host and then at the chalice.
 
MagdalenaRita said:
So, just wondering, if people didn’t understand the liturgy because it was in Latin, how did Christendom get built? In the past despite the Mass in Latin, people knew enough to build parishes and Cathedrals and Catholic hospitals and preach the gospels and become missionaries and be martyred for the faith, but they didn’t understand the language?

Just wondering.
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Latin wasn’t a always a “dead language.” For a long time it was actually spoken & even after it wasn’t commonly spoken, texts in universities were still in Latin. So I think for a long time people / a portion of the Faithful did not find Latin unfamiliar at all. They didn’t have or need a missal to follow along in English.
 
CilladeRoma said:
I also have first-hand knowledge of people saying the rosary, walking around praying the Stations or devotions to Saints. Many men just hung out on the front steps smoking and talking until the bells rang.
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My mother grew up pre-Vatican II, and she remembered those things, too.
 
stpurl said:
I was 10 in 1966, and in the school year 1966-1967, even then an aspiring student of the organ, I was allowed to play by the Sister who directed the all-girls school choir, made up of students from grades 5-8, in our parish school. That year we sang the Mass settings in Latin.

The following year, in 1967-1968, the organ was still used and we sang the Mass settings but with English words instead.

The following year, in 1968-1969, the choir came down from the loft, the organ was no longer in use, and the choir members went to the left hand side and stood on the bottom step/shelf in front of the church, where in the middle the new ‘free standing altar’ with the priest ‘facing the people’ stood. Instead of the Gregorian chant Mass settings we now had a ‘4 hymn sandwich’ including things like “Joy is Like the Rain”, “Michael Row the Boat Ashore”, “Shout from the Highest Mountain”, and “Sons of God”, while we were ‘accompanied’ by a sister with a guitar and 2-3 other boys and girls who were learning. Guitars seemed to breed overnight. The sisters as well as the older (he was probably all of 30) man and the two 30-something women who played the organ for weddings and funerals disappeared, but there were plenty of guitar players! And this was in the (still beautiful to me even now) city of Philadelphia. . .
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I can’t imagine all that change in such a short time! Just curious: how did that feel to you as a child, esp one learning the organ?
 
The altar boys mimicked the responses which they memorized by rote. They had little idea what the words meant.

I trained to be an altar boy in 1959
 
No, we couldn’t hear the priest or altar boys other than them mumbling through the words as fast as they could. It was difficult to follow along with our missals and many people just gave up and sat there. Others prayed the Rosary, which isn’t what the Mass is for.
 
When I grew up in the 1950’s before Vatican II, confessions were often heard at various parishes during Mass.
 
Corporate asks you to find the difference between these two pictures.

Shows Faith and Religion

St Francis: They’re the same picture 🙂
 
Faith is a gift from God. It is God’s revelation to the individual, however that may happen

Religion, is a response to faith by the person

A person can have religion, but not faith

St Augustine stated such in his work, City of God
 
Not sure but confessions can still be heard during Mass if a priest is available.
JimR-OCDS said:
When I grew up in the 1950’s before Vatican II, confessions were often heard at various parishes during Mass.
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That still happens at large parishes and was approved by Pope John Paul II in Misercordei Dei in 2002:

2. Local Ordinaries, and parish priests and rectors of churches and shrines, should periodically verify that the greatest possible provision is in fact being made for the faithful to confess their sins. It is particularly recommended that in places of worship confessors be visibly present at the advertised times, that these times be adapted to the real circumstances of penitents, and that confessions be especially available before Masses, and even during Mass if there are other priests available, in order to meet the needs of the faithful.
 
JimR-OCDS said:
It was difficult to follow along with our missals
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The St Joseph Continuous Sunday Missal was designed not to keep flipping back and forth. However I never really got a chance to use it as the Mass was being changed. Things got really confusing during the transition period in the 60’s.
 
ProVobis said:
The ironic thing was that each session of the council was preceded with the old Latin Mass, the very Mass they felt they outgrew.
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Why would it be ironic that a session of a Council of the Catholic Church was preceded by the then-current Mass? What is now referred to as the Ordinary Form wasn’t promulgated until some years after the Council ended.
 
The OF came into being on the First Sunday of Advent 1969.

Between the end of the Council in 1965 and 1969 many small, subtle changes started to happen.
 
I had a missal even when I was in just the 4th grade. In fact, about 12 years ago while cleaning out my parents house, I found it. My niece asked if she could have it, being she was interested in languages.

From what I remember after the Mass changed, the most awkward part was getting Catholics to sing. The parish had a woman who taught us the hymns before the Mass started. We were all given mimeograph copies of the hymns for that Sunday. Hardly anyone sang as they were use to letting the choir that existed, do the singing.

Eventually things changed and Catholics began singing, as the hymns became more familiar, especially with the Monks of the Weston Priory, then of course the St Louis Jesuits.

Catholics still sit in the back pews however. My wife and myself sit the 2nd row from the front, as three woman sit in the very front row. We pray the Divine Mercy Chaplet before Mass starts. Meanwhile behind us, there are no less than five empty pews before the first row of parishioners. Mind you, this is a very small church which when full, seats about 170 people. 😃
 
They still are in some places. At our cathedral if there is a line for confession, one or more priests will often continue hearing confessions while Mass begins. This is on weekdays though as confessions are scheduled Monday to Saturday but not on Sunday (just because, I think, there are 7 scheduled Masses on Sunday so the priests are tied up).
 
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