Dialogue Masses, where the people did say the responses (in Latin), did exist prior to Vatican II… they were being promoted in some locales as part of the Liturgical Movement- the same movement that led to the Vatican II reforms ultimately.
Right on. Pope Pius XII got the ball rolling with
Mediator Dei, and by the 1950’s many parishes were utilizing the Dialogue Mass. In fact, on September 3rd, 1958, the Sacred Congregation of Rites issued an Instruction greatly urging the use of the Dialogue Mass. The St. Joseph Daily Missal that I use when attending the EF (once used by my grandfather) was printed in 1959, and has all the parts for the Dialogue Mass listed.
Jim:
Add Latin at a Mass in an English speaking parish and you begin to leave people behind with regards to participation.
I think this is an extremely narrow view of what active participation is. It has reduced the act of “participating” to responses in the vernacular. This view also makes it seem like people aren’t intelligent enough to understand Latin, as other posters have pointed out here in the last couple pages.
To quote a bit from Pius XII’s
Mediator Dei, let’s take a look at what it actually
means to participate, and what it
looks like. Such active participation (
participatio actuosa) is
not to be defined primarily by whether or not one can reply in the vernacular…
It is, therefore, desirable, Venerable Brethren, that all the faithful should be aware that to participate in the Eucharistic sacrifice is their chief duty and supreme dignity, and that not in an inert and negligent fashion, giving way to distractions and day-dreaming, but with such earnestness and concentration that they may be united as closely as possible with the High Priest, according to the Apostle, ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus.’
A quick note, but suffice it to say that there are many people in North American parishes that are very clearly day dreaming or distracted during Mass, even with responses in English and not in Latin. Reintroducing Latin into certain places during the Mass would not leave people anymore behind than the uncatechized or uninterested already are.
Pope Pius XII continues…
[This] exhortation of the Apostle, “Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus,” requires that all Christians should possess, as far as is humanly possible, the same dispositions as those which the divine Redeemer had when He offered Himself in sacrifice: that is to say, they should in a humble attitude of mind, pay adoration, honor, praise and thanksgiving to the supreme majesty of God.
Moreover, it means that they must assume to some extent the character of a victim, that they deny themselves as the Gospel commands, that freely and of their own accord they do penance and that each detests and satisfies for his sins. It means, in a word, that we must all undergo with Christ a mystical death on the cross so that we can apply to ourselves the words of St. Paul, “With Christ I am nailed to the cross.”
To have this “same disposition” as our “divine Redeemer had”…
that is how we most actively participate in the Mass. Not by our responses. Because if that were the case, I wouldn’t be “participating” at all, because half the time I can’t make any of the responses because my wife and I are busy wrangling our children! Yet our interior dispositions allow us to participate actively.
As for the claim that not being able to understand Latin is a hindrance to understanding the Mass and participating in it, Pius XII commented:
Many of the faithful are unable to use the Roman missal even though it is written in the vernacular; nor are all capable of understanding correctly the liturgical rites and formulas. So varied and diverse are men’s talents and characters that it is impossible for all to be moved and attracted to the same extent by community prayers, hymns and liturgical services.
Moreover, the needs and inclinations of all are not the same, nor are they always constant in the same individual. Who, then, would say, on account of such a prejudice, that all these Christians cannot participate in the Mass nor share its fruits? On the contrary, they can adopt some other method which proves easier for certain people; for instance, they can lovingly meditate on the mysteries of Jesus Christ or perform other exercises of piety or recite prayers which, though they differ from the sacred rites, are still essentially in harmony with them. (MD 108)
I tend to do the same thing when I have to attend a Spanish or Polish Mass. I often had to serve the Polish OF Mass as an altar boy. That language barrier didn’t hinder my understanding of the Mass in any way. I was catechized enough to know exactly what was going on, even before my teenage years.
But if we want the words of a more recent pope, look no further than
St. John Paul II in an address to the US bishops in 1988:
Active participation certainly means that, in gesture, word, song and service, all the members of the community take part in an act of worship, which is anything but inert or passive. Yet active participation does not preclude the active passivity of silence, stillness and listening: indeed, it demands it
…In a culture which neither favors nor fosters meditative quiet, the art of interior listening is learned only with difficulty. Here we see how the liturgy, though it must always be properly inculturated, must also be counter-cultural.
