SERVING AT MISSA CANTATA (Foreword)

Foreword

The time has gone, for the present, when boys and young men learnt to serve the old Roman Rite by being taught by their elders as Sunday after Sunday and weekday after weekday they attended the old liturgy and the Liturgical Year unfolded before us in all its beauty.

I hope this booklet will in some part help to make good the loss.



The old Roman Rite is essentially a simple rite. Fr Adrian Fortescue in the Preface to The Ceremonies of the Roman Rite Described remarks that "the chief note of the Roman Rite has always been its -austere simplicity... It is surely worth while to preserve this note externally also, to repress any Byzantine tendencies in our ceremonies."



No attempt should be made to elaborate the ceremonies by additions to the rite or adding unnecessary personnel and finding things for them to do.



We live in unusual times and often when we go to a church for the celebration of the Mass according to the 1962 Missal, we find that many of the things required for its celebration are not readily available. Try to make sure in advance that everything needed is to be found, or be ready to make do without.

Although the form of Missa Cantata which is common in England and Wales is based on that of High Mass, there is another form which can served by two servers only, who act much as they would at a Low Mass, except they generally stand for most of the Mass, rather than kneel, and they carry torch candles from the Sanctus until after Communion. They kneel when they are carrying their torch candles. There may be two, four or six torchbearers.

Prior to 1962 an indult, renewable at regular intervals, was required for the use of incense at Missa Cantata, but the rubrics of the 1962 Missal permit the use of incense at all sung Masses. The manner of serving which follows in this booklet is the usual form of Missa Cantata with incense.