Just a quick question. What is the proper rubrics for the Sanctus? should the congregation kneel or stand for the Sanctus during a Solemn Sung High Mass? My mother had always taught me that as soon as you hear the bells for the Sanctus ring, you should fall to your knees. About 25% of our church had always done this. A few weeks ago, our pastor told everyone from the pulpit that it is not proper to kneel for the Sanctus during a Solemn Sung High Mass and told everyone that they should be standing. It is only proper to kneel for the Sanctus if it is a low Mass. Is Father correct or is this modernism trying to sneak it's way in?
Thanks in advance.
There are no
rubrics for the faithful attending the Holy Sacrifice in any of the liturgical books. Only the Priest who offers the sacred Mysteries at the Altar, the clerics serving the same Altar (which is a role that laymen may fulfill by gracious indult of the Holy See) and clerics assisting at Holy Mass in choir: their gestures, movements, &c., are regulated by the rubrics found in the typical editions of such tomes as the
Missale Romanum, the
Pontificale Romanum, the
Ceremoniale episcoporum, &c.
None of the clerics of the anti-modernists resistance have the authority to impose any novel directives upon the faithful as if they could use coercion to enforce them, much less go beyond what the Church in her liturgical law regulated. And those directives that they should enforce (such as dismissing immodestly dressed people) do not come from their own peculiar authority (for they have no ordinary jurisdiction, nor Canonical office or mission, and thus no authority in the practical sphere) but from the binding authority of the decrees from whence such directives were made or from the authority of the Church in matters pertaining to faith and morals.
Depending on the individual cleric, it may not be so much modernism as party-line/lemming mentality that has quite a distorted view of the Church: but then again, that was exactly what enabled modernism to wreak its havoc...
I personally find it more edifying and more sensible to kneel at the
Sanctus when one is not singing in the choir (for the choir must stand to sing and thus
they stand for the
Sanctus in sung or High Masses).
As the Priest begins to pronounce the seraphic praise of the thrice-Holy God, I cannot but feel myself weighed down with a sacred dread before the ineffable and awe-inspiring Mystery that is to be accomplished upon the Altar. Feeling the weight of my utter unworthiness and of the iniquities wherewith I have coinquinated my soul in a heightened and clearer sense that is unspeakably unnerving and humbling, I cannot but readily kneel down and bow my head at the
Sanctus as the bells announce the beginning the most sacred of prayers in the Roman Rite. I can almost hear the ancient
Cherubikon echo within the depths of my soul, knowing how unworthy I am, as the Priest enters the hallowed silence of the Canon, like as Moses ascended into the shady cloud on Mount Sinai. I cannot but beckon the pious terror and wonder that seized the Prophets of old when they foresaw the glories of the Incarnate Word: "O Lord, I have heard the report of Thee, and was afraid; I heard, and mine inmost parts shuddered, my lips quivered at the report" (Hab. cap. iii. 2, 16).
But, this is my personal interpretation and point of view. Just like some follow the older prayer-books and meditate upon the Passion of Our Lord throughout the ceremonies of Holy Mass, or pray the Holy Rosary quietly, so others (like myself) cannot but follow the texts and rubrics of the Mass exactly as they are being recited (or chanted) and done at the Altar in order to gain as much fruit from Holy Mass as one is capable of doing so and enabled by grace and cooperation therewith.
It is wrong to politicize the rubrics of the Mass for purposes of control, especially when these "rubrics" do not exist but are in reality either principles misunderstood and therefore misapplied or outright novelties.
Topic: Sanctus? (Read 1679 times)