What would you call the following type of Mass...?

[shark76z]

Okay at the church I regularly attend they are very traditional and still call their masses high and low. However at the 10:15 Sunday mass, some parts are spoken and many parts are chanted.

I know at a high mass it’s pretty much all chanted and at a low mass very little is chanted. In the bulletin they don’t give this mass a title so what would it be called?

Thanks

 

[Monica4316]

just a question, - is it a Latin Mass church? because I go to the Latin Mass and they do call it “high” and “low” Mass. High Mass is chanted, low Mass is not.

another way to tell is: how many candles are on the altar? Low Mass has 2, High Mass has 6 (I think).

 

[shark76z]

just a question, - is it a Latin Mass church?

Nope everything is in English, but parts are chanted. For example the responses before and after the Gospel, the preface/Eucharistic prayer, and the final blessing/benediction. But the penitential rite, the creed, and the general intercessions are not chanted.

 

[MarkThompson]

Okay at the church I regularly attend they are very traditional and still call their masses high and low. However at the 10:15 Sunday mass, some parts are spoken and many parts are chanted.

I know at a high mass it’s pretty much all chanted and at a low mass very little is chanted. In the bulletin they don’t give this mass a title so what would it be called?

Thanks

If this is a Mass in the modern form of the rite (Ordinary Form, Mass of Paul VI, Novus Ordo), then there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as a distinction between “high” and “low” Mass, so it is fruitless to try to shoehorn “middle”-sounding Masses into one category or the other.

If it is in the pre-Vatican II form of the rite (Extraordinary Form, Traditional Latin Mass), then without knowing more I would surmise that it is a Missa Cantata, which is technically a form of the Low Mass but which people who don’t know any better sometimes call a High Mass. The actual distinction between low and high Mass in the Extraordinary Form is whether there is a deacon and subdeacon.

 

[MarkThompson]

Nope everything is in English, but parts are chanted. For example the responses before and after the Gospel, the preface/Eucharistic prayer, and the final blessing/benediction. But the penitential rite, the creed, and the general intercessions are not chanted.

Ah, then my first answer applies.

 

[malphono]

If this is a Mass in the modern form of the rite (Ordinary Form, Mass of Paul VI, Novus Ordo), then there is, strictly speaking, no such thing as a distinction between “high” and “low” Mass, so it is fruitless to try to shoehorn “middle”-sounding Masses into one category or the other.

You beat me to it. I had toyed with idea of posting almost exactly that, but decided to leave it.

If it is in the pre-Vatican II form of the rite (Extraordinary Form, Traditional Latin Mass), then without knowing more I would surmise that it is a Missa Cantata, which is technically a form of the Low Mass but which people who don’t know any better sometimes call a High Mass. The actual distinction between low and high Mass in the Extraordinary Form is whether there is a deacon and subdeacon.

Remember that the paradigm in the EF is Missa Solemnis. A Missa Cantata is actually a simplified form of that (with a single celebrant and without the other ministers), chanted/sung as in a Missa Solemnis. Low Mass (Missa Lecta) is a further simplification (or complication, depending on one’s perspective), where nothing is chanted/sung by the celebrant.