Community fair

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As Community Fair , also called " Choir fair " or Missa dialogata ( Dialog Fair ), one called a form of worship in the German Roman Catholic liturgy in which participation (active Participatio actuosa ) the whole church community in the Holy Mass was more pronounced than previously was common. An important instrument was the use of the vernacular for congregational elements of the celebration of mass in addition to and parallel to the Latin of the priestly liturgy. The form of worship emerged from the 1920s and led to the parish mass, which became the basic form of mass celebrations in the entire Catholic Church as a result of the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council from 1970.

Origin and meaning

Declaration of the "community mass" in church prayer for the community service (1949)

The communal mass was one of the main concerns of the liturgical movement in the 1920s and 1930s. It goes back to suggestions from Romano Guardini and the Benedictines of the Abbey of Maria Laach under Abbot Ildefons Herwegen . In 1913, Holy Mass was celebrated in this form for the first time in the crypt of Maria Laach. The Augustinian canon of Klosterneuburg, Pius Parsch, celebrated so-called "community masses " in the Church of St. Gertrud (Klosterneuburg) from 1922, at which parts of the mass were sung by the people in German. The first parish communal masses took place in 1928 in the Cologne parish of St. Aposteln . The church youth associations, especially Quickborn , Bund Neudeutschland (ND) and the Catholic Young Men Association (KJMV), took up this practice and multiplied it. An important function had it lay missals as the "Schott" ( "People's Schott" ) and the 1927 first appeared "people Missal" by Urbanus Bomm and the 1928 by Ludwig Wolker first published booklet church prayer for the community service , which in a short time widespread use beyond the field of youth work. Although the communal mass was banned in some dioceses, it became an increasingly common practice from 1933 onwards. The Episcopal Guidelines for Catholic Pastoral Care of 1936 stated that the communal mass was “officially required for the worship of young people”. On December 24, 1943, the Holy See approved a petition from Cardinal Adolf Bertram , in which he had applied for papal toleration for the various forms of communal mass in Germany ("benignissime toleretur").

After the Second World War, the communal mass became common practice in many Catholic churches in the German-speaking area. The Second Vatican Council took up this development in its constitution Sacrosanctum Concilium on December 4, 1963 and the subsequent liturgical reform of 1969 made these forms of worship - next Pontifical Mass and convention exhibition - as parish Mass ( Missa cum populo ) for current and most common form of the celebration of Mass in the whole Catholic Church.

The mass according to the "Tridentine Rite"

Until the Second Vatican Council, the prescribed form was the so-called “Tridentine Mass” from around 1965 , essentially based on the missal from 1570. The focus was clearly on the sacrificial character. For the “valid” performance of the mass it was important that the priest recited or sang all the prescribed prayer and reading texts in Latin. He "read" the mass quietly with his back to the people ( Missa lecta "reading mass"). If he turned on the acclamations (e.g. Dominus vobiscum ), only the acolytes responded (e.g. Et cum spiritu tuo ). The believers remained silent in the “silent mass” ( Missa secreta ) or prayed the rosary or a “ mass service” quietly or together, which accompanied the events at the altar in a meditative-associative manner. At the “Singmesse”, songs were sung together, in which the text of the time in the church year and the subject of the sacrifice of the Mass were echoed (such as the popular German Mass by Franz Schubert). In the Missa cantata ("sung Mass", often also called " High Mass ") the priest sang the acclamations in Latin alternating with a choral schola or the choir or the congregation; choral pieces could also be used instead of the prayers and songs of the congregation. During the words of institution (the “change”) and the elevation of the Eucharistic gifts of bread and wine, announced by a bell , there was silence.

Forms of community fair

The communal mass had to uphold the liturgical regulations for the valid performance of the Holy Mass - usually the Missa lecta . At the same time, the desire for an active participation of the church service community in the “Spirit of the Liturgy” (based on a well-known work by Romano Guardini published in 1918 ) was realized. The aim was “the ideal of the unified community of the word and supper of Christ” and “to bring the faithful closer to his celebration by closely following the priest's texts and ... to bring them into direct reference to a unified act”.

Basic form

At the communal mass, the mass texts, which the priest at the altar continued to recite softly in Latin, were read or spoken in German. For this purpose, various liturgical "roles" were accentuated:

  • The lecturer read the epistle and the Gospel after the priest had given the introductory acclamation. The priest spoke the epistle and the gospel softly in Latin at the same time.
  • The prayer leader acted as the “electoral leader” of the congregation and agreed to the jointly spoken texts (Gloria, Credo, Sanctus, Our Father, Agnus Dei), for other parts of the Holy Mass he was to a certain extent the “interpreter of the priest” and spoke the orations and the prefation parallel to the priest's soft prayer aloud in German.
  • The Schola could speak or sing the Proprium texts if no church song was sung at the point.

In direct interaction with the priest, the whole community mostly spoke the Kyrie in Greek and the acclamations in Latin.

Betsing mass

Congregational songs were sung in the praying mass, but it followed the structure and the texts of the holy mass more strongly than the common "singing mass". At first, parts of the proprium were sung in the form of German songs, at the entrance and while the priest said the prayer , during the preparation of the sacrifices , during the distribution of communion and at the end. As in the basic form, the texts of the ordinarium were spoken alternately between the prayer leader and the congregation. German forms of singing or songs were increasingly being developed for the ordinarium as well. At the same time, however, all texts were still spoken in Latin by the priest. The duplication of priestly and congregational action has not yet been overcome.

Missa recitata and folk chorale office

A special form of communal mass was the Missa recitata ("recited mass"), in which all ordinarium texts and the pater noster were spoken with the priest in Greek or Latin. This form required a trained community and was practiced at mass celebrations by youth associations such as Quickborn and Bund Neudeutschland, whose membership was made up of high school students.

Similarly, in the folk chorale office , the mass celebration with Gregorian chant , ordinarium, pater noster and acclamations, the proprium of the choral chola was sung by everyone . From 1932 onwards the publication of the “Kyriale” for the people in connection with the Schott folk mess books played an important role. It was widely distributed and led to the Sunday high mass with participation not only in youth work, but soon also in many parishes the congregation could be sung in Latin.

German standard text

The German text basis for the parts of the Holy Mass that were to be spoken together was drawn up in 1928 by a working group which, on the private initiative of the Cologne pastor Joseph Könn, set up in his rectory at St. Aposteln in Cologne under the direction of the General President of the Catholic Young Men’s Association of Germany, Ludwig Wolker , met. Joseph Könn had succeeded in winning everyone who was trying to work out German mass texts at the time, such as the Benedictine abbeys of Beuron and Maria Laach , the liturgical center of the Catholic youth in Germany in Altenberg , the canons of Klosterneuburg with Father  Pius Parsch and other experts such as the Jesuit Fr. Josef Kramp. Until then, the dioceses had different translations of the Latin mass texts in their hymn books.

The uniform texts were first published in the 1930 edition of Ludwig Wolker's prayer book Kirchengebet , which was distributed millions of times in several editions. It offered step prayer , Gloria , Credo , Suscipiat , Sanctus , Pater noster , Agnus Dei and Domine, non sum dignus bilingual Latin and German, Kyrie Greek, the acclamations in Latin and the priestly prayers , especially the Canon missae German.

In 1943, a liturgical commission at the liturgical department of the Fulda Bishops' Conference took over this text version in an official edition of the mass texts, which was approved by the German episcopate . The result was a "uniform text that was actually received everywhere", which was taken over into the current folk mess books and diocesan song books and became naturalized. It remained the valid German standard text for the Ordo Missae and the canon of the German Mass until May 1971 and was then partially changed in favor of ecumenically aligned texts.

Individual evidence

  1. ^ Philipp Harnoncourt: Community mass . In: Walter Kasper (Ed.): Lexicon for Theology and Church . 3. Edition. tape 4 . Herder, Freiburg im Breisgau 1995 .; Adam Gottron: Singing Congregation. Letters on church music practice. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 1935, p. 32.
  2. ^ Hans Bernhard Meyer: Eucharist. History, Theology, Pastoral Regensburg: Pustet 1989 (The Church Service, Volume 4), p. 281.
  3. ^ Theodor Schnitzler : Art. Community mass. In: Lexicon of pastoral theology. Herder-Verlag, Freiburg-Basel-Wien 1972, ISBN 3-451-16517-1 (Handbuch der Pastoraltheologie Vol. V), p. 169.
  4. ↑ P. Dr. Urbanus Bomm OSB: Latin-German Volksmeßbuch - the complete Roman missal for all days of the year, with explanations and a chorale appendix. Publishing house Benziger & Co AG., Einsiedeln / Cologne 1948.
  5. ^ Theodor Schnitzler: Art. Community mass. In: Lexicon of pastoral theology. Herder-Verlag, Freiburg-Basel-Wien 1972, ISBN 3-451-16517-1 (Handbuch der Pastoraltheologie Vol. V), p. 169.
  6. ↑ quoted in: Philipp Harnoncourt: Total Church and Part-Church Liturgy. Studies on the liturgical calendar of saints and on singing in church services with special consideration of the German-speaking area. Herder Verlag, Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1974, ISBN 3-451-16742-5 , p. 359.
  7. ↑ Philipp Harnoncourt: Whole-Church and Part-Church Liturgy. Studies on the liturgical calendar of saints and on singing in church services with special consideration of the German-speaking area. Herder Verlag, Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1974, ISBN 3-451-16742-5 , p. 360f.
  8. ↑ Cf. Thomas Labonté: The "Kirchenlied" collection (1938). Origin, corpus analysis, reception. Francke Verlag, Tübingen 2008, ISBN 978-3-7720-8251-1 , p. 6f.
  9. ↑ Ludwig A. Winterswyl and Felix Messerschmid: The community chants of the holy mass. Werkbund-Verlag, Würzburg 1940, p. 2.
  10. ^ Prelate Ludwig Wolker: Church prayer for the community singing. Christophorus-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau, Berlin and Düsseldorf 1949, p. 1ff.
  11. ↑ Ludwig A. Winterswyl and Felix Messerschmid submitted two "parish singing masses " in 1940 (Ludwig A. Winterswyl and Felix Messerschmid: The parish chants of the holy mass. Werkbund-Verlag, Würzburg 1940).
  12. ^ Hans Bernhard Meyer: Eucharist. History, Theology, Pastoral Regensburg: Pustet 1989 (The Church Service, Volume 4), p. 283.
  13. ^ Prelate Ludwig Wolker: Church prayer for the community singing. Christophorus-Verlag, Freiburg im Breisgau, Berlin and Düsseldorf 1949, p. 5.
  14. ↑ Philipp Harnoncourt: Whole-Church and Part-Church Liturgy. Studies on the liturgical calendar of saints and on singing in church services with special consideration of the German-speaking area. Herder Verlag, Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1974, ISBN 3-451-16742-5 , p. 391f .; Joseph Klein: Build a church today. On the history of the Catholic parish Seckmauern / Odenwald. Lützelbach 1998, p. 393.
  15. ↑ "Credo" written
  16. ↑ Theodor Schnitzler: For the introduction. In: Liturgical Institute (ed.): Una voce. The uniform prayers of the German dioceses and the uniform songs. JP Bachem publishing house, Cologne undated (1950), p. 3.
  17. ↑ Adam Gottron: Singing Congregation. Letters on church music practice. Matthias Grünewald Verlag, Mainz 1935, p. 32; Philipp Harnoncourt: Whole Church and Part Church Liturgy. Studies on the liturgical calendar of saints and on singing in church services with special consideration of the German-speaking area. Herder Verlag, Freiburg-Basel-Vienna 1974, ISBN 3-451-16742-5 , p. 392.