here is a post from a list of Traditional Catholic Youth that I moderate:
There's a lot of history here.
First, the development of the Low and High Masses. There are about 5
different "forms" for a TLM celebrated by a Priest, but they are all
basically variations of these two. To start out, it is important to
remember that these are English terms. The proper terms for these two types
of Mass are "Missa Privata" (Private Mass) and "Missa Solemnis" (Solemn
Mass), and that right there tells you a lot about them.
A proper Missa Solemnis is what we refer to in English as a "Solemn High
Mass" - The Priest is served by a Deacon and Subdeacon, incense is used,
everything that is not quiet or silent is chanted, etc. The Missa Solemnis
was the normative form of a Mass with a congregation everywhere up until the
aftermath of the Protestant Revolt (more on that below). It is still
SUPPOSED to be the normative form. (as an aside, one of the supposed goals
of the Liturgical Revolutionaries in the 60s was to eliminate the Low Mass
and make every Mass a Solemn one - but like all of their stated goals, it
turned out to be the opposite of what they actually did). There is one
variation on the Missa Solemnis that I know of, the Missa Cantata. This is
essentially a Missa Solemnis without the Deacon and Subdeacon, and is
usually referred to as a "High Mass" in English.
It is possible that in the beginning, the entire congregation made the
responses along with the Deacon and Subdeacon. However, with the
development of Gregorian Chant, this became somewhat impractical. To give a
modern example, the people at St. Agnes (at the Latin NO) are used to
chanting the Pater Noster along with the Priest. However, they only know
the usual setting. At All Souls, a different setting of chant is used
throughout the Mass. At the Pater Noster then, we have the unfortunate
situation of the Priest and Choir singing one setting and the people singing
another. It's pretty awful. Now, in the TLM, the Pater Noster is never
sung, but there are many other parts that are, and some of them can change
quite a bit, depending on the solemnity of the feastday and other
considerations. Therefore, the practice developed of having a choir drawn
from the congregation, stationed with the congregation in the Nave (usually
in a loft), and trained to make the proper responses in the proper settings,
on the part of the congregation.
A proper Missa Privata is just that - private. It is said by a Priest with
one server (who says the responses quietly) and no congregation (aside from
the Saints and Angels, of course). Why have a private form of the Mass? In
the West, concelebration was suppressed pretty early on, but Priests were
also required to say Holy Mass once a day. Private Mass was the solution,
and a pretty good one, as it meant that the Holy Sacrifice was offered in
propitiation for the sins of the world quite a bit more often than it is
today. After the Protestant Revolt, Catholics in many areas were persecuted
and driven "underground." When you are hiding from the authorities, it
tends to be inadvisable to have nice, loud Solemn Masses. Therefore, the
practice developed of having the Priest say a Missa Privata with a
congregation (As a sidenote, the Irish would often have Masses underneath a
tavern or hall where some "lookouts" would be dancing that "Riverdance" type
of folk dance. If they saw the authorities coming, they would change the
dance and "tap" a message to the congregation below to hide the Priest).
After centuries of having silent Low Masses and no other external signs of
Faith, the Irish and English Catholics tended to view singing, processions,
religious festivals, etc., as "Anglican." It is also important to point out
that even while this was going on, the normative form of Mass in the
Catholic countries remained the Missa Solemnis, and even the missionaries of
the 15th and 16th Centuries were celebrating the Missa Solemnis with as much
splendor as possible in the wilds of South America, Africa, and Asia.
Obviously, there was originally no congregation and thus no response from
them. Equally obvious, the congregation would not be making responses out
loud when they were trying to celebrate the Holy Mass in secret. However,
two developments occurred. One is that "Low Masses" began to be celebrated
- though not as the norm - in the Catholic countries as well. There are
many reasons for this, but the primary ones are time and effort. It takes a
lot less effort to celebrate a Low Mass, and it takes less time, which can
be a valid concern if you have a huge parish and need to cram enough Holy
Masses for them into Sunday Morning (before Pius XII, you could not start a
Holy Mass after 12 Noon). This often happened in America, which brings us
to the second development. After English won out against German to be the
national language of the US, and many persecuted Catholics began streaming
into America (out of the frying pan?), one group of immigrants became
incredibly powerful and more or less ruled the Church in America - the
Irish. This was due largely to their native command of English, and the
fact that with the huge amounts of immigrants during the Famine, they were
often the largest ethnic group among US Catholics.
Now, in England, the restored Hierarchy of 1850 was led by Nicholas Cardinal
Wiseman, who grew up in Spain, was an Italianophile, and loved Solemnity.
This caused a lot of friction with the Catholics who tended to view
solemnity as Anglican, but both traditions ended up being preserved in
English Catholicism (until, of course, 1962). In America, however, there
was no Cardinal Wiseman. The Irish Bishops more or less made the Low Mass
the norm, and tended to view other ethnic parishes - with their Solemn
Masses and Processions and Sermons in "foreign languages" - as somewhat
suspicious (for the worst example of this, look into the Archbishop Ireland
/ Alexis Toth affair - Ireland was basically responsible for a huge schism
and the foundation of the "Orthodox (schismatic) Church of America"). Added
to this official disdain was the problem of numbers. There were so many
Catholics that Churches could not be built fast enough, and therefore the
existing Churches had huge parishes. With only so much time between 4am
(when some of the big city parishes would have their first Mass) and Noon,
Low Masses were relied upon because they were quick - especially if you drop
the Sermon (remember also that before Pope St. Pius X, most people did not
receive Communion every Sunday).
Low Masses are beautiful in their simplicity and silence, but they are
definitely not as pleasing to the senses as a Solemn Mass - especially if
you were from a Catholic country and were used to solemnity! The first
adaptation of the Low Mass was the "4 hymns." To add some music to the
Mass, hymns were sung for the procession/prayers at the foot of the altar;
the Offertory; the Communion; and the recession. The problem with this
approach is that music should not just be in the Liturgy for decoration;
music is properly a part of Holy Mass. Pope St. Pius X made this point in
"Tre La Solicitudino." Therefore, if you are going to sing something during
Holy Mass, sing the propers! This led to two further developments. The
first is the "Sung Low Mass" in which the Priest does not chant anything,
but the Choir sings the propers. The second is the dialogue Mass, where the
people make (or more to the point, attempt to make) the responses of the
server. There are many problems with this - a lot of the same problems that
led to the development of the Choir in the Solemn Mass. The average
parishioner is not going to know Latin. He may have a Missal, but Latin
pronunciation can not be learned by a Missal alone. The result of a
dialogue Mass is what we have at the Indult here - 20 to 30 people trying to
make the responses and instead making a garbled mess.
The solution to all of this is simple. Solemn Mass should be the norm, and
the people who want to make responses should join the choir. Then the
Solemn Masses will be properly sung, and the Low Masses will be properly
silent. Both traditions can exist side-by-side, but they really shouldn't
be joined.
