Taking advantage of today's Gospel reading admonition to "be of one mind and one spirit," the priest began the sermon announcements by acknowledging that, although the Church does not normally specify any particular Mass posturess for the faithful, he exhorted us to stand during the Kyrie (and other parts of the Mass where the faithful ought to sing, such as the Sanctus and Agnus Dei, etc.).
As I sat there wondering how the priest (who faces the altar during the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei) could know that a handful of people (like 5-6?) retained the old custom of kneeling during those parts at a sung Mass, I also wondered why such a miniscule miniscule number was troubling him.
In any case, I thought it might be productive to review the history of this push for the faithful to adopt uniform, modernist Mass postures, in order that the change in our chapel can be seen within context.
The IHM chapel was started back in 1977, and from that time until the mid-2000's, the priests said low Mass quietly (i.e., not loud, as though they were addressing the faithful, like it was important for them to hear the words or something), and for sung Masses, the faithful remained kneeling when the priest ascended the altar after the prayers at the foot of the altar, during the Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei. They also remained kneeling during the incensing of the faithful, until the thurifer turned toward them to incense them.
This custom lasted 40+ years.
In 2007, Fr. Beck was pastor at this chapel, when Roman Hymnals showed up in all the pews one day. There was a push for the faithful to sing. Since the ralliement was as yet undetected at this time, I suspected nothing more. The Mass postures hadn't changed yet, but I seem to recall that the priests at/after this time began to say low Mass in loud voices (can anyone confirm? There are several lurkers from IHM who frequent this board).
Note that during this time (say from 2003 - 2013), Fr. LeRoux had displaced +Williamson in Winona, and imported modernist French liturgical customs to Winona. Since St. Paul is proximate to Winona, and many parishioners visited there, I recall hearing some of the women complaining that in Winona the faithful now stand during the Kyrie, Sanctus, Agnus Dei, and all the rest mentioned above. Well, "it was a seminary," we told ourselves (at least until 2010-2012 rolled around). "Things are always a little different there."
But the post-Williamson priests were being given a new branded formation, consistent with the French liturgical modernism and the overall goals of the ralliement, by which the SSPX inched closer and closer to conciliar practices (e.g., interpreting "active participation" as vocal participation).
In early 2018, when Fr. Daniel Dailey was pastor (ordained in 2010, with a formation imparted under the new LeRoux regime), I arrived in the chapel one day to find inserts in all the pews instructing the faithful on new Mass postures:
Breaking 40+ years of local custom, we were now to adopt the French/modernist postures (as Fr. Brown confirmed today, so that we could all sing): Congregational singing was now to be the norm. We need to be active.
Incidentally (but not coincidentally), you will note that this trend mirrors the advance and proliferation of dialogue Masses in the USA (where once again, they were never the custom).
So, while Fr. and his band of tattlers may be distraught that 5-6 people continue the traditional and local liturgical, pre-ralliement Mass postures which prevailed here for over 40 years, and urge us to unity in being of one mind in worship, I would simply offer Fr.'s own acknowledgement back to him, that the Church makes no such requirement regarding uniformity in the Mass postures of the faithful, and that in saner times, the Church never thought it necessary to enforce such unity (as the lack of rubrics for the faithful evinces).
For my part, I think it is a shame that 99.9% of the chapel was so easily and mindlessly led away from their/our prevailing custom here. Was the SSPX teaching us wrongly for 40 years? Was our worship defective all along? Were we misled? Are those few of us who still honor the old ways such an unbearable sign of contradiction that we must be snuffed out? Is our example dangerous to preserving the status quo by serving as a reminder of the practice which once prevailed (in the same way the Winona seminary was)?
Topic: SSPX Enforcing French Modernist Mass Postures? (Read 3753 times)