The “Private” Mass from Its Origins to the Thirteenth Century — Guest Article by Canon Gilles Guitard, ICRSP

NLM is deeply grateful to the International Centre for Liturgical Studies (CIEL) for permission to publish a translation of an extremely important paper that was given by Canon Guitard at the XIIIth colloquium of the CIEL, Rome, January 25, 2024. The text will be definitively published in the proceedings, scheduled to appear in January 2025.

The “Private” Mass from Its Origins to the Thirteenth Century

Canon Gilles Guitard, ICRSP

Introduction and terminology

The “private” Mass is specific to the Latin Church; it is not present in the Eastern liturgies, and when it is, we note that it has appeared recently, on the occasion of renewed relations with the Roman Church.[1]

Let us make it clear from the outset that by “private” we mean Mass formally celebrated for its own sake, without taking into account the physical presence of servers or a group of the faithful. “The latter may or may not be present, either individually or as a group, but their presence is neither required nor indispensable to the celebration [...]. [The ‘missa privata’ is in this sense [i.e. formally speaking] a ‘missa solitaria’“ [2], even though it is often materially different. Indeed, while a solitary Mass is necessarily “private”, a “private” Mass is not always solitary.

It is also worth recalling here the ontologically public nature of the Mass. Indeed, as Pius XII taught, the “sacrifice [of the Eucharist], everywhere and always, necessarily and by its very nature, has a public and social role”. [3] This is why we use inverted commas for the adjective “private” to describe the Mass.

The adjective “private” therefore does not qualify the intrinsic nature of the Mass, but the way in which it is celebrated.

Having established this, it should be borne in mind that the expression “private Mass” has prevailed throughout the history of the Church, and that it corresponds to a tradition dating back several centuries. [4] We find it, for example, in the Cluniac Customs of Ulrich, abbot of Cluny, in the second half of the eleventh century. [5] Finally, it was used in the various editions of the Missale Romanum, from 1570 to 1960, with a fluctuating meaning: Sometimes “missa privata” (or “privatim celebrata”) refers to a low Mass, as opposed to a solemn or sung Mass [6] sometimes it refers to a Mass where no one would respond or serve, as opposed to a public Mass; [7] sometimes it refers to the Mass celebrated individually by priests attached to a collegiate church, as opposed to the main Mass of a community (the parish or conventual Mass). [8]

These last two cases are clearly those of a “private” Mass. The first, on the other hand, is at least that of a Mass “deprived of solemnity”, but there is no guarantee that it is purely “private”; for this, we would need to know the inner workings of the celebrant: only the context will help us to know this, or at least to assume it. This is often why it is so difficult for the historian of the liturgy to identify a “private” Mass in the multitude of ecclesiastical writings and disciplinary decrees at his disposal.

The best clue for him is the Mass “deprived of solemnity”, since this is most often — if not almost always — the ritual form of the “private” Mass. Once such a ceremony has been spotted, it is its context that will reveal whether it can be considered with certainty or with a certain probability to be a formally ‘private’ Mass.

Historically, the “private” Mass can be traced back without a shadow of a doubt to the 13th century. In the Franciscan missal Regula — published around 1230 and inherited almost word for word from the now extinct missal of Honorius III (1216-1227) — we find the following heading: “Sed si sunt plures sacerdotes in loco, secrete possunt cantare missam quam volunt”. [9] Then, in 1243, an ordo missæ was for the first time devoted solely to the materially “private” Mass: this was the Ordo “Indutus planeta”, written by the Franciscan general Aymon de Faversham. [10] This document marked a turning point in the history of the liturgy: for the first time, the Mass “deprived of solemnity” — which can be considered the most frequent ritual form of the “private” Mass — became the norm for the Eucharistic liturgy to the detriment of the solemn public liturgy, which then appeared to be the result of additions made to the basic model. This ceremonial was the direct ancestor of the Ritus servandus in celebratione Missæ of the 1570 missal.

Paradoxically, only a few years before the publication of the Regula missal, in 1226, Saint Francis of Assisi emphatically recommended to his brothers that, if several priests were in the same place, only one Mass should be celebrated per day, and that all should attend. [11] The “private” Mass was therefore clearly and firmly discouraged by the holy founder from his brother priests, in order to favour the bonds of charity.

The question then must be posed: Was the “private” celebration of Mass something new that appeared in the 13th century? Could its appearance in communities of priests be the cause of the cooling of charity?

The aim of this paper is to show the deep roots of the “private” Mass in the Roman liturgical tradition. We believe that an overview of the history of its existence, and then of its ritual form, will suffice to show its organic development, as Alcuin Reid has been able to establish its criteria: slow, gradual growth, controlled — though not imposed — by authority. [12]

Evidence of its existence

As the Acts of the Apostles testifies, the Mass — then known as the “breaking of bread” — was celebrated from apostolic times onwards in private homes, which were the only places of public worship available at the time. It was celebrated on the first day of the week (Acts 20:7) and sometimes even every day in Jerusalem, as the description of the life of the first Christians in that city seems to indicate (Acts 2:46).

It is clear, then, that for the first Christians, the Mass was more than a simple act of devotion: from the outset, it was considered to be the centre of all Christian life.

With this in mind, although scriptural evidence is lacking, it does not seem absurd to us to suppose that Saint Paul and the first missionaries who accompanied him celebrated the “breaking of bread” “in private” when they stayed for a while in places where the natives, not (yet) converted to the Christian faith, did not therefore attend the celebration of the Eucharistic sacrifice. [13]

Finally, on a more general level, we think it reasonable to agree with Jungmann that it is highly probable that there was a “private” celebration on weekdays from apostolic times onwards. [14] Although we lack explicit proof, there are no serious objections to this possibility.

The persecutions of the first centuries also favoured celebrations attended by a small group of the faithful. Various sources show us the existence of Masses celebrated for a small group, during the week and on Sundays, in secret places or even in prison. [15] The local community, because of the hardships imposed by persecution, was far from being present as a whole. However, even in these cases, the priest would say Mass, because he saw the whole Church in this small audience. [16] This did not mean — at least in most cases — that these were strictly “private” Masses, but it is nevertheless certain that this type of situation necessarily limited the external ceremonial of the celebrations, which were therefore often “deprived of solemnity”.

Subsequently, the religious peace introduced by the Edict of Milan in 313 gave Christians official places of worship, but it did not bring about the disappearance of these particular Masses for small groups of worshippers. On the contrary, they continued to multiply on the fringes of official assemblies, to such an extent that the authorities were forced to legislate on the subject: it was at the beginning of the 6th century^e that a ban was introduced on celebrations in private homes on feast days, outside official places of worship (extra parochias& [17], in villa [18]). This proves that these private Masses were growing in number, especially in Gaul. It should be noted that it was not the “private” Mass as such that was targeted by these disciplinary decrees, [19] but rather the fact that Christians were turning away from the official public services of the local Church, celebrated by the bishop or his delegates. [20]

The reliquary of St Augustine

Reasons for its existence

Why did private Masses persist despite the move from the domus ecclesiae to the basilica? In our opinion, mainly because of

1. Christians’ attachment to votive Masses [21]

Let us quote here — among many others — the anecdote recounted by Saint Augustine: one of his priests celebrated Mass in the house of a Roman officer whose servants and livestock were being subjected to demonic vexations, with the intention of asking for an end to these torments; at the end of this votive Mass, everything stopped [22]

2. …combined with the rise of the cultus of relics.

Inherited from ancient pagan funeral banquets, which were held near or even on tombs, the practice spread — at the time when Christians were granted freedom of worship — of building shrines over the tombs of martyrs (martyria). [23] From this point onwards, it is clear that “veneration of the shrine, relics and celebration of the memoria passionis domini form a single whole” [24] in the minds of Christians of this period. Numerous testimonies testify to the popularity of pilgrimages among the martyrias.

It is therefore not surprising to find in the Sacramentary of Verona numerous Mass forms intended to be celebrated in honour of the martyrs. [25] Some libelli (in the month of April, in section VIII) are even “without indication of names”; [26] the priest therefore had at his disposal this kind of “Common of Martyrs” before its time, applicable to any altar.

Under these conditions, the presence of pilgrims attending the celebration — while remaining a very important reason for celebrating Mass — may nevertheless remain secondary to the honour paid to the Lord through his martyrs. In the long term, therefore, the rise of the cult of relics will be a not inconsiderable cause of the appearance and development of the celebration of Mass “for its own sake”, i.e. the “private” Mass.

One of the consequences of this was the proliferation of secondary places of worship: sanctuaries, oratories and even — probably from the time of Pope Symmachus (†514) and attested to in increasing numbers during the VIth century — secondary altars built in churches. [27]

Low Mass at Prinknash Abbey

Exponential growth

Taking advantage of these favourable conditions, as well as the increase in the number of priests with no specific pastoral responsibilities, [28] the “private” Mass enjoyed considerable growth between the 7th and 11th centuries, particularly under the impetus of the Carolingian reform and in monastic circles. Ecclesiastical documents bear witness to this in great numbers.

The Ordo romanus XV, in particular, provides clear and irrefutable proof of the existence of the “private” Mass. This liturgical book of a purely ceremonial nature, which was compiled in monastic circles between 750 and 775 [29] and addressed to all ecclesiastics — both regular and secular [30] — refers in particular to the different types of celebration, among which it explicitly mentions that of the solitary Mass (which is undoubtedly a “private” Mass. [31]) There can be no doubt, therefore, that this type of celebration was — as early as the third quarter of the eighth century — sufficiently well known and widespread in Frankish lands for it to be officially mentioned.

The consequences of this boom are clear to see. These include the exponential growth in the number of secondary altars in abbey and collegiate churches, and the gradual formation of the plenary missal.

Let us consider for a moment the appearance of this type of missal in the ninth century^e and its gradual development, which culminated in the replacement of the sacramentary in its favour during the twelfth century. [32] The celebration of “private” Mass appeared well before the plenary missal; it was then probably celebrated with the sacramentary alone. Then gradually came the obligation on the celebrant, initiated according to our sources by the Ordo romanus XV, not to omit the recitation of the parts performed at solemn Masses by the singers and sacred ministers. The celebrant is therefore no longer obliged to celebrate with the sacramentary alone, but also with a lectionary and an antiphonary. This is why it became urgent — for the twin reasons of ritual integrity and practical convenience — to design a Euchological book containing all these parts of the Mass; this was the plenary missal. [33] Conversely, as we shall see below, the development of liturgical books had an impact on the development of the ritual form of the “private” Mass.

In addition, the growth of “private” celebration made it necessary for the hierarchy to correct certain abuses, which never fail to occur when a phenomenon spreads. In addition to the restrictions still imposed on domestic Masses, we should mention the case of multiple daily celebrations and solitary Masses.

1. In some places as early as the 8th century, we find decrees recommending that priests celebrate only one Mass per day; [34] this is hardly surprising, given that the number of daily celebrations by a single priest was as high as twenty or thirty in some cases. It was not until Alexander II (†1073) that there was a universal prescription on this point: binating was forbidden, with the exception of the pastoral need for a Mass pro defunctis. [35]

2. As for solitary Mass, it was prohibited from the ninth century [36] in explicit terms; the reason given by the legislator was that the social nature of the Mass should be manifested externally by the presence of at least one assistant who responded and took communion. If the practice of solitary Mass was subsequently conceded on an occasional basis to certain monks or hermits, it was — it would seem — by special indult. [37] It should nevertheless be added that Saint Peter Damian (†1072), in his famous opuscule Dominus vobiscum, [38] was at pains to justify this practice of solitary Mass theologically. Here is the doctor’s main argument. The priest is a part of the body that is the Church; [39] and the office of a single member of the body involves and concerns the whole body (as the analogy with the human body, which is an organic whole, shows); [40] and moreover, the Church is both simple in a multiplicity of members (through the unity of faith) and whole in each of its members (through the bond of charity and the gifts of the Holy Spirit). [41] Consequently, the words of the priest at Mass (the priestly greetings, and possibly the responses) are said in the name of the whole Church; [42] as a result, the priest, if he is alone, can provide the plural greetings and the corresponding responses. [43] Moreover,” adds Pierre Damien, “if this were not so, there is no reason why the priest could also say, when he is alone, the plural passages of the Divine Office, such as: ‘Venite, exsultemus Domino’, ‘Venite adoremus’, ‘Oremus’, ‘Benedicamus Domino’. [44]

It should be noted that, although abuses were reprimanded by the hierarchy, “private” celebration itself was not banned at any time or in any region of Christianity. On the contrary, it appears officially in the monastic constitutions of the eleventh century as a monk’s daily practice. [45]

(To be concluded next week.)

Monastic private Masses

NOTES

[1] This presentation is a summary of the author’s own licentiate thesis, presented at the University of the Holy Cross in 2019, the title of which was: La “célébration privée” de la messe dans le rit romain: des origines au XIII^e siècle.

[2] C. Vogel (1980) Une mutation cultuelle inexpliquée : le passage de l’eucharistie communautaire à la messe privée : “ Revue des Sciences Religieuses “54, 234.

[3] Pius XII (20 November 1947) Encyclical Letter Mediator Dei: “Documentation Catholique” 45, 222. Here is the complete passage: “This sacrifice [the Eucharistic sacrifice], everywhere and always, in a necessary way and by its very nature, has a public and social role, since the one who immolates it acts in the name of Christ and of Christians, of whom the divine Redeemer is the head, offering it to God for the holy Catholic Church, for the living and for the dead (Missale Rom., Canon Missae)”. And also: “The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is an act of public worship, rendered to God in the name of Christ and of the Church, whatever the place and manner of celebration. The expression ‘private Mass’ should therefore be avoided” (Sacred Congregation of Rites (3 September 1958) Instruction De Musica Sacra 2: DC 55, 1429).

[4] Cf. V. Raffa (2003) Liturgia eucaristica. Mistagogia della Messa: dalla storia e dalla teologia alla pastorale pratica, CLV-Edizioni liturgiche, Roma, 872.

[5] Cf. Udalricus Cluniacensis Antiquiores Consuetudines Cluniacensis Monasterii 2, 30: PL 149, 719A.

[6] Cf. M. Sodi — A.M. Triacca [edr] (1998) Missale Romanum, Editio Princeps (1570), Libreria Editrice Vaticana, Città del Vaticano, 8*. 33*.

[7] See Ibid. 23*. 25*. 29*.

[8] Cf. Ibid. 8*. 34*. This type of ‘private’ Mass is directly opposed to sacramental concelebration, which is still unknown in the Tridentine Missale Romanum.

[9] M. Przeczewski [edr] (2003) Missale Franciscanum Regulæ (Codicis VI.G.38 Bibliothecæ Nationalis Neapolinensis), Libreria Editrice Vaticiana, Città del Vaticano, 37.

[10] Its full name is Ordo agendorum et dicendorum a sacerdote in missa privata et feriali iuxta consuetudinem ecclesie romane.

[11] Cf. Francis of Assisi, Epistola toti ordini missa una cum oratione: omnipotens, æterne, 30-31: Th. Desbonnets [edr] (1981) Ecrits, (SCh 285), Cerf-Editions franciscaines, Paris 2003, 250-251. We read: “ut in locis, in quibus fratres morantur, una tantum missa celebretur in die secundum formam sanctae Ecclesiae. Si vero plures in loco fuerint sacerdotes, sit per amorem caritatis alter contentus auditu celebrationis alterius sacerdotis.” Quoted in: G. Derville (2011) La concélébration eucharistique. Du symbole à la réalité, Wilson & Lafleur Ltée, Montréal, 15, note 38.

[12] Cf. A. Reid (2004) The Organic Development of the Liturgy. The Principles of Liturgical Reform and Their Relation to the Twentieth-century Liturgical Movement Prior to the Second Vatican Council, Ignatius Press, San Francisco 2005, 307-308.

[13] Cf. S.J.P. Van Dijk — J.H. Walker (1960) The Origins of the Modern Roman Liturgy. The Liturgy of the Papal Court and the Franciscan Order in the Thirteenth Century, The Newman Press, Westminster MD & Darton-Longman-Todd, London,45, note 2. The following cases are also cited: Paul and Barnabas on their first missionary journey; Paul, Timothy and Silas in Thessalonica; Paul alone in Athens (cf. Acts 13-14 and Acts 17). The same thesis is expounded by Righetti (M. Righetti (1966) Manuale di Storia Liturgica, III: La Messa. Commento storico-liturgico alla luce del concilio Vaticano II, Ancora, Milano 2005, 148).

[14] “Since, at the outset, public celebrations bringing the community together were planned only on Sundays and feast days, it could easily follow that, on the intervening days, the bishop or the priest himself would offer a sacrifice in his own name, prompted by a desire for personal thanksgiving and prayer” (J.A. Jungmann, Missarum Sollemnia, 1952). (J.A. Jungmann (1952) Missarum Sollemnia. Genetic Explanation of the Roman Mass. Tome premier, Traduction revue et mise à jour d’après la 3^e édition allemande, Aubier-éditions Montaigne, Paris 1956, 266-267).

[15] Saint Augustine attests that Christians celebrated Mass in prison during the persecutions (cf. Augustinus Breviculus collationis cum donatistis III, 17, 33: PL 43, 644).

[16] For example, Tertullian mentions the case of Sunday celebrations in times of persecution. When asked how this should be done, he replies that if it is not possible to gather the community together during the day, there is still the possibility of celebrating at night, and that if it is not possible to gather all the brothers together, the Eucharist should be celebrated, even if only three people are present; the Church is then represented by them (“sit tibi et in tribus Ecclesia”). Tertullian concludes by saying that it is better for the priest not to see his faithful at times than to compromise them: “melius est turbas tuas aliquando non videas, quam addicas” (Tertullianus De fuga in persecutione XIV: PL 2, 120).

[17] Canon 21 of the Council of Adge (506) : Mansi 8, 328.

[18] Canon 25 of the Council of Orleans (511) : MGH Conc. I, 8.

[19] Especially as these domestic masses, although “deprived of solemnity”, were not necessarily “private”.

[20] Cf. C. Vogel (1980) Une mutation cultuelle inexpliquée : le passage de l’eucharistie communautaire à la messe privée : RSR 54, 235. The subsequent history of canon law shows that the authorities have always urged the faithful to attend cathedral or parish masses on Sundays.

[21] From the Latin “votum: wish”, these Masses are celebrated to obtain spiritual or temporal goods, public or private. There are many examples of this, and they often take place in the very place where the special grace is requested: for example, in the home of the sick person whose recovery is hoped for, or at the grave of the deceased for whom eternal rest is requested.

[22] Cf. Augustinus De Civitate Dei XXII, 8, 6: PL 41, 764.

[23] Cf. A.A. Häussling (1965) Ursprünge der Privatmesse: “Stimmen der Zeit” 176, 24. We do not always agree with this author’s theological conclusions, but let us simply quote his historical observation. Already in the time of Saint Cyprian of Carthage (†258), Christians celebrated the torments of the martyrs and their anniversary feasts, i.e. the anniversary of their martyrdom, with sacrifices (cf. Cyprianus Carthaginensis Epistola XXXIV, 3: PL 4, 323A).

[24] A.A. Häussling Ursprünge 24.

[25] Cf. C. Vogel (1966) Introduction aux sources de l’histoire du culte chrétien au Moyen-Age, Centro italiano di studi sull’alto medioevo, Spoleto, 40-42. It should be remembered here that the Verona Sacramentary, as a collection, is commonly dated to the VI^e century (cf. C. Vogel Introduction 33), but that certain formularies may date from the middle of the V^e century (cf. C. Vogel Introduction 39).

[26] Cf. C. Vogel Introduction 40.

[27] See O. Nussbaum (1961) Kloster, Priestermönch und Privatmesse, Peter Hanstein Verlag GmbH, Bonn, 186 and J. Braun (1924) Der christliche Altar in seiner geschichtlichen Entwicklung, I: Arten, Bestandtelle, Altargrab, Weihe, Symbolik, Alte Meister Guenther Koch & Co, München, 369. The original custom, which still exists in the East, was to build only one altar per church (cf. J. Braun Arten 373).

[28] At the synod held in Rome in 610, Pope Boniface IV declared himself in favour of the priestly ordination of monks (Cf. Mansi 10, 504-505). Until then, the disciples of Saint Benedict had been content with their status as monks. More often than not, there were only a tiny number of priests in each monastery — or even just one — who celebrated Mass for the community (Cf. P. Delatte Commentaire sur la Règle de saint Benoît, Solesmes 1985, 484 (on chapter 62 of the Rule of Saint Benedict: “Des prêtres du monastère”). Between the eighth^e and tenth^e centuries, the proportion of monk-priests to non-priest monks increased significantly in the monasteries of France and Germany, rising from an average of 26% around the year 800 to an average of 55% a century and a half later (see the statistics provided by Nussbaum (Kloster 78-80)).

[29] M. Andrieu (1951) Les Ordines Romani du Haut Moyen-Age. III: Les textes (suite) (Ordines XIV-XXXIV), Spicilegium Sacrum Lovaniense, Louvain, 18-20.

[30] Cf. C. Vogel Introduction 143.

[31] In n. 121 : “Hoc tamen sciendum est [...] in cenubiis, sive in civitatibus, [...] aut ubicumque sacerdus missas celebraverit, sive dominicis seu cottidianis diebus, vel in aliis solemnitatibus tam sanctorum quam et reliquorum martirum, sive cum clero puplice, vel etiam cum duabus aut unum ministrum, vel etiam si singolorum sacrificium Deo obtulerit, observare debit [...]” (Ordo romanus XV, 121 : M. Andrieu Les Ordines III, 120). And in n. 123: “Et sic incurvati contra altare ad orientem adornant, dicentes Kyriaeleison prolexe unusquisque chorus per novem vicibus. Si autem singolus fuerit sacerdos, novem tantum vicibus inclinatus adornando dicit Kyriaeleison” (Ordo romanus XV, 123: M. Andrieu Les Ordines III, 121). The bold characters are our own.

[32] Cf. C. Vogel Introduction 87-88.

[33] Of the four most popular theories to explain the birth of the plenary missal, Dom Folsom sets out the one we have just described (C. Folsom (1998) I libri liturgici romani : A.J. Chupungco [edr] (1998) Scientia liturgica. Manuale di liturgia. I: Introduzione alla liturgia, Piemme, Casale Monferrato, 285)

[34] Thus Egbert, Bishop of York: “Et sufficit sacerdoti unam missam in una die celebrare, quia Christus semel passus est, et totum mundum redemit; in Levitico quoque scriptum est non debere Aaron ingredi assidue interius in sancta” (Egbertus Eboracensis Archiepiscopus Excerptiones e dictis et canonibus sanctorum patrum concinnatae, et ad ecclesiasticae politiae institutionem conducentes 54: PL 89, 386B).

[35] Cf. Decretum Gratiani III, 1, 53: A.L. Richter — A. Friedberg. [edr] (1955) Corpus Iuris Canonici, I : Decretum magistri gratiani, Akademische Druck-U. Verlagsanstalt, Graz, 1308.

[36] In particular with Théodulfe d’Orléans (†821) and the canons of the Council of Mainz (813) and Paris (829).

[37] Cf. J. Bona (1671) De la liturgie, ou Traité sur le saint sacrifice de la messe (tome premier), Louis Vivès, Paris 1874, 154; Sacra Congregatio de Disciplina Sacramentorum (1949) Instructio Quam plurimum III, 1-2: AAS 41, 506-507. We also know the famous case of Saint Charles de Foucauld (1858-1916) who, when he lived as a hermit in the Saharan desert, did not celebrate Mass — until he had received the long-awaited indult from Rome — on the (many) days when he was alone.

[38] Cf. Petrus Damianus Liber qui appellatur Dominus vobiscum ad Leonem eremitam: PL 145, 231B-252B. Others followed him, including Odon de Cambrai (†1113) and Etienne de Baugé, bishop of Autun (†1136).

[39] Cf. Petrus Damianus Dominus vobiscum 10: PL 145, 238D-239A.

[40] Cf. Petrus Damianus Dominus vobiscum 9: PL 145, 238C-238D.

[41] Cf. Petrus Damianus Dominus vobiscum 5: PL 145, 235A-235C.

[42] Cf. Petrus Damianus Dominus vobiscum 10: PL 145, 239A-240A.

[43] Cf. Petrus Damianus Dominus vobiscum 13: PL 145, 241D-242C.

[44] Cf. Petrus Damianus Dominus vobiscum 7: PL 145, 236C-237C.

[45] In this respect, it is interesting to consult the Cluniac monastic customs, and in particular the analysis made by Dom Tirot in this article: P. Tirot (1981) Un Ordo Missæ monastique : Cluny, Cîteaux, La Chartreuse : EphL 95, 44-120.220-251.

On “Hearing Mass”

Pope Pius XI famously said that Catholics should not be “detached and silent spectators” at Mass (Divini Cultus of 1928). I am sympathetic to this statement when it comes to the High Mass: there is little reason for the faithful not to sing the Ordinary and the various responses. But one wonders if Pius XI was already being influenced too much by a certain modern way of thinking, whereby doing something external, or at least seeming to be doing something, is the major point to be accentuated. This idea grew over the next forty years into the self-sapping activism of the Novus Ordo era.

Should we not instead be thinking first about the manner in which one is entering into the liturgy—the way one is assimilating it, relating to it interiorly?

In the old days it used to be said that Catholics “assisted” at Mass. This concept is fruitful. Every member of the body assists in (and at) the divine uplifting of the liturgy, each according to his place, but without thinking that he has to take on any particular action, other than faith-filled attention. It was also common in the old days, in fact for centuries, to say that Catholics went to “hear Mass.” We read in the lives of lay saints like Louis IX that “he heard Mass twice a day.”

Modern liturgists wince at that expression, for to them it seems to epitomize the worst of the Tridentine (or, let’s say, broadly medieval) era: a bunch of laity “doing nothing but” listening while the priest and server spoke all the words of the Mass on their behalf. In their view, only the ones saying or singing the Mass are doing it. Indeed, the dialogue Mass, promoted first by the same Pius XI, was intended as an alternative, one might even say a remedy, to move people from hearing to speaking.

But we should slow down and think more about hearing. Family counselors often like to make a distinction between hearing and listening—between mere auditory reception and actually absorbing the import of what is being said and responding appropriately. “You heard me, but did you listen to me?” When people are said to “hear Mass,” the meaning surely is that they are listening intently with the ear of the heart, to use the lovely expression of the Rule of St. Benedict.

Listening is a difficult activity to do well. It is something that requires and rewards experience, practice, concentration, receptivity, humility—an openness to being the carved-out space in which a word or sound can dwell and bear fruit. It is not for nothing that the vast majority of works of art that depict Our Lady show her looking and listening at the Archangel Gabriel, rather than talking back to him or taking action. She is pondering the Word of God in her cell; she receives his greeting and wonders within her heart what it means; after the dialogue (usually not depicted), she accepts the Word made flesh. The Virgin Mary assists at the first Mass; she hears the first Mass.

As John Paul II loved to say, the Blessed Virgin Mary reveals to us that being is more basic than doing, receiving is more fundamental than giving—just as our insertion into Christ at baptism, which happens to us (we suffer a spiritual death and God raises us up), is more basic to our identity than any particular act we perform on the basis of our baptism. No man makes himself a Christian; he (or his parents on his behalf) consent that he be made a Christian by God.

Modern times are characterized by an unusual degree of noise, busyness, and image saturation. We are always being drawn out of ourselves, out of our deep inner identity as sons of God, into distractions and dissipations. “You were inside and I was outside,” as St. Augustine said to God in the Confessions. For this reason, and without for a moment abandoning the importance of the High Mass as the most beautiful and normative expression of the liturgy, I will say that the quiet Low Mass is more relevant and more needed than ever, as a bulwark against the total extroversion and superficiality of secular life.

One wonders if the forms of meditation offered by Buddhism and other increasingly popular Far Eastern phenomena would ever have made such huge inroads in Western society without the loss of the one omnipresent form of “silent meditation” that we once had in abundance.

There have been many times in my life when I have longed for nothing more than a quiet Low Mass early in the morning. Attending it was like arriving at an oasis in the desert, or stepping through a low wooden door into a secret garden. Assisting at Mass, one can feel the roots sinking deeper into the earth, the branches reaching out higher towards the heavens, the leaves opening to the sun and the buds ripening. It is a time outside of time, a place of holy encounter, leaving one speechless and happy not to speak.

In Defense of Multiple Orations

This and other photos: Missale Romanum editio VI juxta typicam Vaticanam, New York, 1947

In each Mass, there are three very important prayers familiarly grouped as the “orations”: the Collect, which comes near the beginning; the Secret, said silently just before the Preface to the Canon; and the Postcommunion, said after the ablutions. For centuries, it was the custom for priests to say or to sing more than one set of orations at Mass. (This carried over into Lauds and Vespers as well.) The rubrics often told the priest which additional prayers to use. For example, in Advent, from the first Sunday, the pre-1956 Missal prescribes the addition of a second collect of the Blessed Virgin Mary and a third collect for either the Church or for the Pope, although if there are saints to be commemorated, their prayers would be used instead. On Sundays, too, saints would be commemorated instead of simply ignored.

To give a sense of how this would work in practice, let’s take Sunday, June 30, 2019. I choose this day because it is a typical Roman “constellation”: the Third Sunday after Pentecost, in the Octave of the Sacred Heart and of the birth of St. John the Baptist, but also the commemoration of St. Paul, who is always accompanied by his fellow Apostle St. Peter. So the priest at Mass would say or sing five Collects: Sunday’s, followed by St. Paul, St. Peter, the Sacred Heart, and St. John the Baptist.

Paul Cavendish, master of the 1939 rubrics, offers a primer for adding votive collects beyond those required for the day. The commemorations of occurring saints are almost always done with the exception on Doubles of the First Class. Other than of occurring saints, the general principle is that the seasonal and ad libitum commemorations are done only on days of Semidouble and Simple rank. There are some exceptions, but on any day of these two lowest ranks, there have to be at least three orations at Mass. For most of the year, the third is specified by the season, either for the church or the pope (for about 2/3 of the year) or the prayer for the living and the dead (in Lent: the third prayer is ad libitum after February 2, but is for the church or pope before the Purification, during the time after Epiphany and in Septuagesimatide). If it were a feria per annum, for example, a priest could not choose simply to omit the second and third orations, even when the last was an open choice — he still had to choose some set of third orations to add. Doubles of any grade are the most festive and do not add these extra orations.

Essentially, these are the principles that had been in place since Trent up to 1955, with tweaks here and there (and not taking into account the orationes imperatae, which have their own requirements). The rules for the “seasonal collects” are described in chapter IX of the pre-1960 Rubricæ generales of the Missal, a translation of which is found at the end of this article. They remained unchanged from 1570 until 1960 — a period of almost four centuries.

Prior to 1955, the maximum number of Orations at a low Mass on simple days was five or seven (depending on circumstances).[1] In 1955, this number was reduced to three, and mandatory prayers of the season were abolished. In 1960, the possibility of additional orations was reduced still further, and done away with altogether for most Sundays of the year. All this was done in pursuit of streamlined rational simplicity. The end game was the Novus Ordo, which never has more than one set of orations per Mass.

But should we not ask why the custom of praying several orations arose to begin with? What role did it play? What we have lost by its unceremonious abolition?

It seems to me evident that this custom was the way in which the Roman rite expanded the urgency and comprehensiveness of its petitions, making room for the needs of the priest and of the community, for special occasions or seasons or devotions. For example, at the Benedictine monastery in Norcia, a town that was devastated by earthquakes a few years ago, the monks will still at times add the orations against earthquakes at their private Masses. Other priests may pray for the gift of charity, the gift of continence, or the gift of tears. Sometimes a celebrant will add a Collect for his parents, for a friend in need, for peace in time of war, or for the unity of the Church; for people in authority and those under their charge, for those in temptation or tribulation, or for help against persecutors and evildoers; for rain or fine weather, to avert storms, to beg for a good harvest or to beg the lifting of a plague. Thus, a wise and controlled liberty, solely drawing on fully-formed prayers hallowed by centuries of use, allowed for responses to personal and local needs.

These Collects, moreover, expressed and inculcated devotion to Our Lady and the saints, including the patron saint of the church in which the people are gathered for prayer. I remember my first introduction to the riches of the additional Collects in a visit to Norcia, when I assisted at an early morning Low Mass. The celebrant added the orations “To implore the intercession of the saints” (appointed for after the Purification until Ash Wednesday and during the Time after Pentecost — translation from the St. Andrew Daily Missal, 1945 edition, p. 1712):

Collect. Defend us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, from all dangers of mind and body; that through the intercession of the blessed and glorious ever Virgin Mary, Mother of God, together with blessed Joseph, Thy blessed apostles Peter and Paul, blessed N. [titular saint of the church], and all the saints, mercifully grant us safety and peace, that all adversities and errors being overcome, Thy Church may serve Thee in security and freedom. Through the same Lord Jesus Christ Thy Son…

Secret. Graciously hear us, O God our Savior, and by the virtue of this sacrament protect us from all enemies of soul and body, bestowing on us both grace in this life and glory hereafter. Through our Lord Jesus Christ…

Postcommunion. May the oblation of this divine Sacrament both cleanse and defend us, we beseech Thee, O Lord, through the intercession of the blessed Virgin Mary, Mother of God, with blessed Joseph, Thy blessed apostles, Peter and Paul, blessed N. [titular saint of the church], and all the saints, render us at once purified from all perversities and freed from all adversities. Through our Lord Jesus Christ…

The prayers translated below are found on the left page

To give another example, here is a translation of the second set of orations appointed to be said from Ash Wednesday to Passion Sunday (ibid., p. 1713):

Collect. O almighty and eternal God, Who hast dominion over the living and the dead, and art merciful to all whom Thou foreknowest will be Thine by faith and good works: we humbly beseech Thee that they for whom we have purposed to pour forth our prayers, whether this present world still detains them in the flesh or the next world hath already received them divested of their bodies, may, by the intercession of Thy saints and the clemency of Thy goodness, obtain pardon and full remission of all their sins. Through Our Lord Jesus Christ, Thy Son… 

Secret. O God, Who alone knowest the number of the elect to be admitted to the supreme felicity of Heaven, grant, we beseech Thee, that through the intercession of all Thy saints, the names of all who have been recommended to our prayers and of all the faithful, may be inscribed in the book of blessed predestination. Through our Lord Jesus Christ…

Postcommunion. Let us pray. May the sacraments which we have received purify us, we beseech Thee, O almighty and merciful Lord; and through the intercession of all Thy saints, grant that this Thy sacrament may not be unto us a condemnation, but a salutary intercession for pardon; may it be the washing away of sin, the strength of the weak, a protection against all dangers of the world, and a remission of all the sins of the faithful, whether living or dead. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, Who livest and reignest, with God the Father, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, one God For ever and ever. R. Amen.

Quite apart from the obvious value of praying for intentions like these on a regular basis, one cannot fail to note the extraordinary beauty and profound theology of these additional orations, where the lex orandi expresses with incomparable luminosity the lex credendi on the predestination and intercession of the saints.

This practice of multiple collects was the daily liturgical equivalent — on a smaller scale, of course — of the Good Friday intercessions, which, let us recall, are not in the form of a Byzantine litany, much less in the form of the Novus Ordo “prayers of the faithful” or General Intercessions, but rather take the form of a series of petitions announced and then prayed for with Collects. The intercessory element survived in the orationes ad libitum and the orationes imperatae, obviating the need for an artificially constructed “prayer of the faithful” or “general intercessions.” Once again, we see that the Roman tradition in its Tridentine maturity already contained within itself the resources it needed for bringing before God the needs of the celebrant, the local community, the larger world, or certain categories of people. It was already all there. It was only after those resources had been hacked out under Pius XII and John XXIII that the Consilium discovered a “lack” that had to be filled with a pseudo-antiquarian modern invention.

A significant benefit of leaving room for multiple orations is the way in which it permits the temporal and sanctoral cycles to interpenetrate and harmonize as it were effortlessly, without great loss suffered on either level. Sundays may be privileged, but they do not exclude the saints; the saints, too, receive our devotion, but not at the expense of the ferial prayers of Advent and Lent.[2] When the Novus Ordo brutally reduced orations to a single set per Mass across the board, it introduced for the first time an outright opposition between the temporal and sanctoral cycles, an either/or that is highly uncharacteristic of the Catholic both/and. Rather than a great conjunction where two planets draw near in our vision without being in danger of actual collision, the insistence on a single set of orations bespeaks a tunnel-vision incapable of taking in the breadth of revelation, Church history, and the ebb and flow of seasons.

Far too many treasured orations of the Roman rite effectively disappeared from the prayer of the Church due to the shortsighted postwar reforms, particularly those contained in the 1960 code of rubrics, which, let us be candid, marks a significant rupture with the Tridentine inheritance — a sort of dry run for principles that would be applied with still further ruthlessness in the 1969 missal and its code, the Institutio Generalis Missalis Romani. The recovery of multiple Collects — initially three, but eventually a larger number, of which five may be a good ceiling — will therefore certainly become a more familiar feature in our churches, as priests rediscover the once and future Roman Rite.

I express my thanks to several Facebook friends (you know who you are) for your help with navigating rubrical details and understanding when and how the rubrics changed in the twentieth century.

An illustration from Bussard-Kirsch, The Meaning of the Mass (CUA, 1942)

APPENDIX

(Translation of Chapter IX of the pre-1960 Rubricæ generales of the Missale Romanum, by Gerhard Eger, originally published on Canticum Salomonis.)

IX. On Collects

1. On double Feasts only one Collect is said, unless another Commemoration is to be made, as said above.

2. On semidouble feasts occurring from the Octave of Pentecost until Advent, and from the Candlemas until Lent, the second Collect is A cunctis, and the third ad libitum.

3. On semidouble Feasts occurring from the Octave of Epiphany until Candlemas, the second Collect is Deus, qui salútis, and the third Ecclésiæ tuæ or Deus, ómnium fidélium for the Pope.

4. On semidouble Feasts from Ash Wednesday until Passion Sunday, the second Collect is of the Feria, and the third A cunctis.

5. On Semidoubles from Passion Sunday until Palm Sunday, the second Collect is of the Feria, and the third Ecclésiæ tuæ or for the Pope.

6. On semidouble Feasts from the Octave of Easter until Ascension, the second Collect is Concéde nos of Our Lady, and the third Ecclésiæ tuæ or for the Pope.

7. On semidouble feasts occurring within Octaves, the second collect is of the Octave, and the third the one placed in second place within the Octave.

8. During the Octaves of Easter and Pentecost, on Masses of the Octave only two Collects are said, one of the day, and the second Ecclésiæ tuæ or for the Pope.

9. During other Octaves, and on fasting Vigils (except the Vigil of Christmas and of Pentecost), three Collects are said, one of the day, the second of Our Lady, and the third Ecclésiæ tuæ or for the Pope. But during Octaves of Our Lady, and on the Vigil and during the Octave of All Saints, the second Collect is Deus, qui corda of the Holy Ghost, and the third Ecclésiæ tuæ or for the Pope.

10. On Sundays occurring within Octaves two Collects are said, one of the Sunday, and the second of the Octave. On the Octave day, only one Collect is said, unless another Commemoration is to be made.

11. On Sundays three Collects are said, as assigned in the Ordinary, except on the Sundays otherwise noted.

12. On simple Feasts and Ferias per annum, unless otherwise noted three Collects are said, as on Semidoubles, or five, or even up to seven ad libitum.

13. On Ember days and when several Lessons are read, these several Collects are said after the last Collect before the Epistle, as is noted in the Proper de Tempore of the Missal.

14. In votive Masses said solemnly for a grave matter or for a public cause of the Church, only one Collect is said. On a Mass for Thanksgiving, however another Collect is added, as noted in the proper place. In other votive Masses, however, several Collects are always said, as on simple Feasts.

15. On votive Masses of Our Lady the second Collect is of the Office of the day, and the third of the Holy Ghost. But when the Office of Our Lady is said on Saturday, the second Collect is of the Holy Ghost, and the third Ecclésiæ tuæ or for the Pope. On votive Masses of the Apostles, the Collect of Our Lady Concéde nos is said in place of the Collect A cunctis.

16. If, when several Collects are said, there should occur a Commemoration of some Saint, the Commemoration is said in second place, and the third Collect is the one that was otherwise in second place.

17. Let the following arrangement be observed for the conclusion of Collects. If the Collect is directed to the Father, it concludes Per Dóminum nostrum, etc. If to the Son, Qui vivis et regnas cum Deo Patre, etc. If the Son is mentioned at the beginning of the Collect, it concludes Per eúndem Dóminum nostrum, etc. If the Son is mentioned at the end of the Collect, it concludes Qui tecum vivit, etc. If the Holy Ghost is mentioned, at the conclusion one says: In unitáte ejúsdem Spíritus Sancti, etc. Let the other things be also followed in the saying of Collects that are said above in the Rubric on Commemorations.

NOTES

[1] Denis the Carthusian comments on why the tradition specified an odd number of Collects: “When the counter-greeting of the people is done, Et cum spiritu tuo, the priest pours forth prayers for the people and for himself [the Collects]. And it is said in the Rationale Divinorum Officiorum [of Durandus] that the numbers of prayers is always odd in number, that is, one, because of the unity of the divine nature; or three, because of the mystery of the Trinity; or five, because of the five wounds of Christ; or seven, because that is the total number of petitions in the Lord’s Prayer. Nor ought there be more than this [seven], without a very special and serious reason, because Christ did not exceed this number of petitions.”

[2] In like manner, the custom of multiple orations for Sundays kept fresh the memory of older liturgical strata. For example, when Trinity Sunday was imposed on the First Sunday after Pentecost, or the Holy Family on the First Sunday after Epiphany, the dominical orations would still be said, instead of being shuffled off to the nearest available feria (as occurs with the 1962 missal). “No Collect left behind” was the wise policy of our forefathers. It hardly needs to be added that all of the considerations in this article apply, perhaps even moreso, to the Divine Office. In the old office of Lauds and Vespers, there would always be a commemoration of the lesser occurring feast or season, with its Benedictus or Magnificat antiphon, versicle, and Collect. In the new Liturgy of the Hours, the intertwining between temporal and sanctoral has been eliminated with barbaric totality.

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube channel. 

Should the Postures of the Laity at the Traditional Latin Mass Be Regulated, Legislated, or Revised?

One plan; not the only plan.

Over the years, I have noticed an interesting group of people who are passionate on the subject of the postures of the laity at the traditional Latin Mass. They sometimes have the zeal of crusaders warring against a stubborn enemy, be it Indifference (laity who couldn’t bother to care who’s kneeling or standing or sitting, when, or why), Diversity (varying customs from country to country or even church to church), or Disorderliness (lack of uniformity at the same Mass). To them, it is very important that a consistent rubric derived from custom or argument be created and implemented.

One can, after all, sympathize with them. We all know about the mayhem that can occur inside a church when the congregation is made up of a mix of regular attendees and newbies who are clueless about what’s going on in the TLM. At various moments, certain decisive individuals kneel decisively, and people look around sheepishly as if to figure out what they’re supposed to do. Sometimes you have a visiting European, or perhaps an American who intensively studies Liturgical Movement brochures, who follows a different set of customs; the confusion multiplies. One can understand, from a purely pragmatic point of view, why a common rubric might be helpful.

This is the perspective offered by a friend who sent me the following letter:

Ever since I started attending the Latin Mass last year, I have wondered about the physical gestures done by those around me. For example, making the sign of the cross during the prayer after the Confiteor, during the Gloria, and during the Sanctus, as well as striking the breast during the consecration. I am not sure if I am supposed to be doing all these or not (or even what all of them are—is there a list somewhere?).
       Having grown up in the Novus Ordo, I have been accustomed to seeing people all doing the same thing, and I had always been told that it was wrong when certain individuals did their own thing (e.g., kneeling during the Agnus Dei), on the basis that “since the Church doesn’t say we’re supposed to do these gestures, we’re not supposed to do them.” Am I mistaken in thinking that a gesture of the people must be approved or instructed to be done by the GIRM? Would this assumption only apply to the Mass of Paul VI?
       I suppose my inclination toward uniformity in gestures comes from a desire to have the “say the black, do the red” consistency of the Tridentine Mass equally present for both the priest and the people. I want to go to Mass and (as you said in this article) “know what I am going to see and hear. The same texts, the same gestures, the same ethos, the same Catholic religion.” Am I misguided in desiring that consistency among the congregation?
       In one way, I lean toward desiring to perform more gestures as a layperson. I’m not sure why, but it seems like a more wholly immersive experience if my arms are symbolizing a truth of the liturgy in addition to my legs (kneeling and standing). On the other hand, my desire to “do” more might just be the permeation of the faulty desire of the late Liturgical Movement to create more opportunities for “active participation,” as if my standing there in reverent, attentive participation isn’t enough. I am torn and don’t know what to do, in both the old and new Mass.

IKEA’s worship aid. (This version is missing the other 67 languages.)

My response was as follows.

You raise a great question about bodily participation. The wonderful thing about the old Mass is that the laity’s bodily postures and actions were never regulated. For nearly 2,000 years, and even now, there are no rubrics that govern what the laity do. Whether they stand, sit, kneel, beat their breasts, make the sign of the cross — all of this is up to them.

The liturgical reformers, who were generally of a bureaucratic and even fascist mentality, were disturbed about this lack of uniformity, which struck them as devotionalistic if not dissolute, and succeeded in creating, in the Novus Ordo, a totally regulated set of actions for the congregation. The problem is, what they agreed on is rather minimalistic, so that one ends up with the surprising paradox that the old rite tended, in the customs that grew up around it, to promote more bodily activity during the Mass, while the new rite tends to encourage something more rationalistic and passive. In this article (which became a chapter in this book), I document the wide variety of actions that are often seen at the TLM (note: as customs, not as requirements).

I suggest that you relinquish the very modern idea that everyone should be doing the same thing at the same time. It may be fitting to make certain physical gestures, but they simply can’t be imposed or demanded. It seems better that books (or occasionally homilies) should explain to the faithful how their discreet imitation of some of the priest’s gestures can be a way to make their prayer more holistic, more “whole-person,” and more likely to elicit real prayer—without any of it being required. Basically, if it helps, do it; if it doesn’t, no bother.

To my mind there is a judgment call with the Novus Ordo. If one attempts to do all of the old gestures at it, one will probably become a distraction to others, and perhaps to oneself. If, on the other hand, no one is likely to notice you, why not do some of the same gestures that one would do during the old Mass? It may be a form of “mutual enrichment,” such as Benedict XVI called for. When I was still attending the Novus Ordo, I found myself making all sorts of “extra-rubrical” signs of the cross, kneeling when I wasn’t “supposed” to, and so forth. I could get away with it easily enough because I basically lived in the choir loft!

Has our thinking become permeated with the GIRM?

To this, my intrepid friend responded:

The article you linked from 1P5 does a good job clarifying that active participation is more perfectly present in the TLM, a point I remember reading about in Resurgent too. I am, however, still left with some confusion.
       You said that I should relinquish the modern idea that everyone should be doing the same thing. I can see why this idea is wrong when it is motivated by bureaucratic and fascist intentions, but I do not understand what could be wrong with it when it springs from an authentic desire for liturgical unity among the laity, consistent with the precise liturgical unity demanded of priests during the Mass. If it is demanded down to the last detail that the priest have specific physical gestures, why is it unreasonable to similarly demand specific physical gestures from the laity?
       It seems like such a demand would promote the liturgical unity and consistency you so often extol. I remember you telling me once about why the rubrics of the traditional Latin Mass were originally “nailed down”: years of regional liturgical variances had resulted in a certain anarchy within Catholic worship. To recover liturgical unity in the face of the Protestants, the Church demanded that priests adhere to the rubrics she put forth, which were not novel but had organically developed through the centuries.
       The situation with the laity seems similar to me. Even if distraction by what others are idiosyncratically doing during Mass is the sole detrimental result of the lack of gestural unity, that lack itself seems to contradict the marvelously regimented spirit of the old Mass. Would it not be helpful for the Church to put forth a set of TLM rubrics that definitively list the physical gestures she wants the people to follow, as long as the gestures on the list are the ones that have organically developed throughout the centuries of tradition?
       Perhaps I am misunderstanding the shortcomings of a regulated set of actions created by the liturgical reformers. In order to avoid the danger of minimalism, doesn’t it seem better to establish a more thorough and rightly-ordered rubric?
       Your advocacy of “extra-rubrical” gestures in the Novus Ordo surprises me, considering what GIRM 42 says (2011 ed., USA): The gestures and bodily posture of both the Priest, the Deacon, and the ministers, and also of the people, must be conducive to making the entire celebration resplendent with beauty and noble simplicity, to making clear the true and full meaning of its different parts, and to fostering the participation of all. Attention must therefore be paid to what is determined by this General Instruction and by the traditional practice of the Roman Rite and to what serves the common spiritual good of the People of God, rather than private inclination or arbitrary choice. A common bodily posture, to be observed by all those taking part, is a sign of the unity of the members of the Christian community gathered together for the Sacred Liturgy, for it expresses the intentions and spiritual attitude of the participants and also fosters them.”
       The part I put into italics sounds reasonable to me; am I barking up the wrong tree?

In response, I wrote:

There is something indescribably beautiful about people being allowed to pray in their own way, and peacefully. Now, obviously, some large-scale postures can be expected of everyone: this is consistent with piety, and who would complain? We all stand at both Gospels (the Gospel of the day and the Last Gospel); we all kneel at the “Et incarnatus est” and during the Canon. There are some other widespread customs.

But the moment one tries to legislate details such as “everyone makes the sign of the cross at these eight times, and everyone beats their breast at these four times, and everyone should bow their heads at these five times,” etc., it becames extremely difficult to implement and enforce, and also turns into an occasion for policing and hectoring. It’s too complicated to ask it of everyone all the time. Heck, I don’t even do quite the same thing each time I attend Mass. It partly depends on how slowly or quickly the priest is celebrating it, or how well one can hear the priest and servers! [1]

To achieve total uniformity, one would have to “put people through their paces,” like a marching band or a squadron of soldiers. In addition, one would be forced to simplify to a minimalist extent, as has indeed occurred with N.O. rubrics for the laity. The very thought of it makes me cringe. I honestly don’t think it’s either possible or desirable. It is good to have some broad agreement on major postures and then broad latitude about everything else.

Even with the major postures, customs differ from country to country. Why should the bishops or liturgists of the USA or Canada, the United Kingdom or Ireland, Poland or Germany, etc., get to be the ones who decide how the rest of the world will behave?

Jacques and Raïssa Maritain were convinced that Rome was the friend of liberty in this regard — even as late as the years just before the Second Vatican Council; and perhaps, indeed, she once was. Here is what they say in a book published in French in 1959 and in English in 1960:

Against the pseudo-liturgical exaggerations it behooves one to defend the liberty of souls. . . . Rome has always been vigilant in opposing any attempt to regiment souls. She knows that the spirit of the liturgy requires respect for the Gospel liberty proper to the New Law. On the contrary, in holding as valid one single form of piety, that in which each one acts in common with the others, and in demanding of all that by word and gesture they obey the liturgical forms with a military precision; in challenging or putting in question private devotions, nay even the adoration of the Blessed Sacrament outside of Mass, those who confuse liturgy and pseudo-liturgy impose on souls rigid frameworks and burden them with external obligations which are of the same type as the observances of the Old Law. [2] 

The Maritains, earlier in their career

So, in a truly Catholic spirit, we should let the Irish kneel throughout High Mass if that is how they pray best, and let Americans stand a lot instead; we should let some countries or parishes make all the Mass responses, and others say a few or none. Catholicity involves both holding the most important things in common, and having a wide variation and flexibility in how things that are not matters of natural or divine law are conducted. I am reminded of the old saying, which is no less true for being vague and overused: “In necessariis unitas, in dubiis libertas, in omnibus caritas” — in necessary matters, unity; in doubtful matters, liberty; in everything, charity. I think one would be extremely hard-pressed to argue successfully that a regulated uniformity of lay postures and gestures during Mass is something essential to our fruitful participation in the liturgy.

As Michael Fiedrowicz writes:

In typical Catholic vastness, a great variety of individual possibilities for participation accompany the rubrical strictness of the rite that do not need to be regulated in any way, but should be respected. Even being silently present and merely watching do not necessarily indicate a lack of interior involvement. The very act of listening, be it with the ears or with the heart, is assuredly a form of active participation. (The Traditional Mass: History, Form, and Theology of the Classical Roman Rite [Brooklyn, NY: Angelico Press, 2020], 228)

I would hazard to guess that most traditional Catholics prefer it when everyone is doing the same things in regard to the major actions of standing, sitting, and kneeling, as it removes occasions of confusion and distraction and assists in prayerful engagement with the liturgy. But this much has become clear to me from my travels: whenever I am somewhere unfamiliar, I don’t sit in the front row but rather towards the back, and, keeping my wits about me, I look at what the majority are doing, and follow the local custom, as St. Augustine recommended long ago in his Letter 54 to Januarius. Few things are worse than the stranger who acts like an angel sent by God to correct singlehandedly the waywardness of backwater yokels. If it matters much to you to keep your own postures, be sure to sit far in the back where you won’t be a bother to the rest. (Fr. Z offers similar advice.)

There is but one further angle to examine: the Problem of Pews. Since nearly every Catholic church in the West is now equipped with pews, usually bolted down for permanence, the topic is far more speculative than what we have discussed heretofore, and deserving of a separate treatment.

NOTES

[1] I recommend two articles for further reading: “ASK FATHER: Excessive pious gestures during Mass”; “Is Passivity Mistaken for Piety? On the Perils and Pitfalls of Participation.” Concerning the GIRM, this article discusses two different approaches to rubrics in the Novus Ordo.

[2] Liturgy and Contemplation, trans. Joseph W. Evans (New York: P.J. Kennedy & Sons, 1960), 88–90.

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website, SoundCloud page, and YouTube channel.

In Defense of Side Altars

Side altars in a splendid German neo-Baroque church: St. Anna in Altötting (built 1910-12)

A reader of NLM wrote to me:

I attended a conference in Rome in which a respected liturgist gave a talk about church art. He criticized the phenomenon of “side altars” as a deviation from early Christian practice. I’m not sure if there’s something online that defends not only private Masses for priests but also the architectural phenomenon of side altars, and why, further to that, it is okay for different Masses to be happening simultaneously in one church — say, the parish Mass and a priest’s (or priests’) private Masses.

The critique of side altars is, like so much else, an expression of unsophisticated antiquarianism and misplaced Byzantinophilia.

It is true that the Christian East has held on tightly (as they have done with so many features of worship) to the original architectural plan of a sanctuary centered on a single altar, which signifies Christ, the one and only High Priest and Mediator between God and Man. This is why the altar is dedicated and anointed, and later, kissed and incensed. Liturgy is celebrated solemnly in song once a day at this altar.

The symbolism is magnificent, yes, but it is not exhaustive of the possibilities of the cult of the saints and devotional liturgy, which were to develop prodigiously in the West. In the first millennium, side altars developed as a way to house the relics of the saints. Most side altars, even to this day, are associated with a particular saint or devotion, while the high altar retains an obvious primacy, prominence, and centrality for the solemn conventual Mass. As Enrico Finotti comments:

The side altar keeps its liturgical function intact and it is rather harmful to transmit to the faithful the idea that the emergence of the side altars is the sign of a decadent and incorrect phase of liturgical development. The side altars celebrate with amazing artistic expressions the wonderful fruits of the only Sacrifice of Christ: the Saints and their works. Their memory, erected in connection with the altar, affirms that from the Sacrifice of Christ they received the grace of their holiness and the efficacy of their witness. Wanting to deprive such monuments of the table [i.e., the mensa for offering Mass] is to disrupt them theologically from their divine source. The multiplicity of the side altars is the visual manifestation of the infinite prism of the fruits of the one Altar and of the only Sacrifice, Christ Jesus. This is why the side altars cannot be “museified,” but must remain “alive” with all their own signs, open to the exercise of their liturgical function.

In the West, with the general absence of concelebration, and with the proliferation of monastic and cathedral clergy, the custom arose of priests offering their own daily low Mass, a Missa lecta or Missa recitata or Missa privata — as still occurs in a number of traditional religious and clerical communities today. Therefore, quite apart from the cult of the saints, which requires suitably beautiful repositories for their relics, the essential defense of side altars rests on the legitimacy in itself, and the value for the Church, of the priest’s daily, individual, “devotional” offering of the Mass, over against the postconciliar imposition of the alien custom of concelebration in a feeble imitation of the East.[1]

Nor should it cause any surprise to recall that the claim that there should only be one altar in each church was specifically condemned by Pope Pius VI in the Bull Auctorem Fidei as one of the numerous errors of the Synod of Pistoia:

Propositio Synodi enuntians, conveniens esse, pro divinorum officiorum ordine et antiqua consuetudine, ut in unoquoque templo unum tantum sit altare, sibique adeo placere morem illum restituere: temeraria, perantiquo, pio, multis abhinc saeculis in Ecclesia, praesertim Latina, vigenti et probato mori iniuriosa.
       [The proposition of the synod enunciating that it is fitting, in accordance with the order of divine services and ancient custom, that there be only one altar in each church and, therefore, that it is pleased to restore that custom: rash, injurious to the very ancient pious custom flourishing and approved for these many centuries in the Church, especially in the Latin Church.] (Denzinger 2631)

In response to the reader’s question, let me mention that the definitive study has been written by the Carmelite priest Joseph de Sainte-Marie, OCD, The Holy Eucharist—The World’s Salvation. Studies on the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, its Celebration, and its Concelebration (reviewed here). I have defended the fittingness of the daily private Mass in chapter 10 of my book Resurgent in the Midst of Crisis (“The Loss of Graces: Private Masses and Concelebration”) and in two articles at NLM (“Celebration vs. Concelebration: Theological Considerations” and “The Mounting Threat of Coercive Concelebration”). Dr. Joseph Shaw has also made a contribution on this topic (“What Are Side Chapels For?”).

Once one admits the legitimacy of a priest offering his Mass each morning (when not otherwise engaged for public Mass), the existence of side altars is basically unavoidable, for the clergy cannot be reasonably accommodated otherwise.

In the monastery . . . 

. . . and during retreats or workshops . . .

. . . and at times of pilgrimage or international events.

From a symbolic point of view, it may not seem appropriate to have many priests offering many Masses at many altars in a church, as if this detracts from the unity of Christ, His priesthood, and His sacrifice. On the other hand, since symbolism cuts many ways, a counterargument can be made that the many offerings symbolize the multiplication of Christ’s priestly power in His ministers and into His Mystical Body, which has many members, all of which, being persons, are temples of the Holy Spirit. The very fact that the one all-sufficient sacrifice is renewed unbloodily at many altars glorifies and exalts the priestly power of Christ, who sanctifies all places and all times, giving rise to many springs from one reservoir, gathering all streams together in a measureless ocean. Moreover, it emphasizes the subordinate nature of the ministers and of the liturgy as compared with the one Mediator Himself and His heavenly self-offering “beyond the veil” in the true Holy of Holies. In other words, as we can see to be typical of Western liturgy, it both welcomes Christ into our midst and emphasizes, in obvious and subtle ways, the distance between the earthly realm and the heavenly kingdom, unlike the Eastern liturgy which tends to see the earthly liturgy as a direct reflection of and immediate participation in the heavenly kingdom.

I do not want to overemphasize this contrast, as one can find features of the Eastern liturgy that deeply express man’s fallen condition and his exile from heaven, just as there are aspects of the Western liturgy that symbolize or enact the union of earth with heaven (most notably, the “Supplices te rogamus” of the Roman Canon). We also find Sacrosanctum Concilium giving prominence to this point, in a paragraph that would become all but unintelligible in the wake of the Consilium’s reform:

In the earthly liturgy we take part in a foretaste of that heavenly liturgy which is celebrated in the holy city of Jerusalem toward which we journey as pilgrims, where Christ is sitting at the right hand of God, a minister of the holies and of the true tabernacle; we sing a hymn to the Lord’s glory with all the warriors of the heavenly army; venerating the memory of the saints, we hope for some part and fellowship with them; we eagerly await the Savior, Our Lord Jesus Christ, until He, our life, shall appear and we too will appear with Him in glory. (n. 8)

Two, then, can play this game of symbolism. A symbolic argument will never, by itself, be sufficiently determinate to decide between two conflicting practices. One has to justify any liturgical practice based on theological, spiritual, pastoral, and aesthetic arguments — not simply on the basis of archaic practice or Eastern practice or a modern penchant for simplicity, which usually comes out as horizontal, democratic, undifferentiated, and plain, when not ugly.

As for side altars, we may well say: in the East, anathema sit; in the West, “multiply and fill the earth.”

Stift Wilten (Norbertine) in Innsbruck

St. Gallus, Bregenz (h/t Fr Jerabek)

NOTE

[1] Additionally to the question of relics, there is another major motivator for the creation of side-altars, which really takes off in the age of the canons regular (who emerge as a major force within the Church in the 12th century) and the mendicants (13th century): since they were largely an urban phenomenon, and did not have stable foundations based on owning land, as monks did, canons regular and mendicants had to provide for themselves from their apostolic works; as St Paul says in 1 Timothy 5:18, “the worker is worthy of his wage.” Within a large house of (e.g.) Dominicans like Santa Maria Novella in Florence, each side-altar was privately owned by a family, who paid for everything, including all the accoutrements necessary for saying Mass, and the priest’s salary. All the Masses were therefore said for that family’s intentions. This was one of the things that made the apostolic ministry of such communities possible, and in addition, gave us a lot of really amazing art, since the families that could afford their own chapel could generally also afford to hire the best artists to decorate it.

Visit Dr. Kwasniewski’s website for articles, sacred music, and classics reprinted by Os Justi Press (e.g., Newman, Benson, Scheeben, Parsch, Guardini, Chaignon, Leen, Roguet, Croegaert), his SoundCloud page for lectures and interviews, and his YouTube channel for talks and sacred music.