In a low Mass, the priest may be assisted by altar boys rather than deacons, and use appropriately simplified rubrics.
The Catholic Encyclopedia of 1913 describes the result as follows: […] concelebration was in the early Middle Ages replaced by separate private celebrations.
The separate celebrations then involved the building of many altars in one church and the reduction of the ritual to the simplest possible form.
His criticisms were such that priests, who had been living on Mass stipends, could no longer do so as easily, even in staunchly Catholic areas as the Archbishopric of Salzburg.
[7] The Council of Trent was concerned above all with the "Low Mass" (that is, with a liturgy that was recited and not sung), which had become the ordinary form of the Eucharistic celebration in the parishes.
Some have argued that in giving priority to the "Low Mass", a practice developed of making the Eucharistic celebration an act of private devotion by the priest, whereas the faithful were simply invited to attend the Mass and to unite their prayers with it as sincerely as possible as a certain individualism developed alongside the devotio moderna.
[8] Those who during the Counter-Reformation attempted to rebuild religious life had to look for different ways and means to enable the faithful to participate in a devout manner.
[10] By the mid-20th century, a new form of the Low Mass, the missa dialogata, appeared as a new mode of encouraging the participation of the faithful.
Various local churches went in various directions and the so-called Betsingmesse ("pray and sing mass") very quickly gained recognition since its first trial use at the Vienna Catholic Day in 1933.
The Tridentine Mass defined officially in the Code of Rubrics included in the 1962 edition of the Roman Missal is a Mass in which the priest does not chant the parts that the rubrics assign to him.
[12] In 2007 Pope Benedict XVI introduced an optional novelty into the traditional Low Mass: in Masses with a congregation celebrated according to the 1962 Missal, the vernacular language, and not Latin alone, may be used in proclaiming the Scripture readings, provided that the translation used comes from an edition approved by the Holy See.
[18] In 1960 Pope John XXIII, who in 1962 removed from the Roman Missal the section headed Rubricae generales Missalis, replacing it with his Code of Rubrics, decried use of the term "Missa privata": "The most sacred Sacrifice of the Mass celebrated according to the rites and regulations is an act of public worship offered to God in the name of Christ and the Church.
[20] The Eucharistic celebration is "one single act of worship" but consists of different elements, which always include "the proclamation of the Word of God; thanksgiving to God the Father for all his benefits, above all the gift of his Son; the consecration of bread and wine, which signifies also our own transformation into the body of Christ;[21] and participation in the liturgical banquet by receiving the Lord's body and blood".
[26] Before the Second Vatican Council, at a Papal Low Mass (which was usually celebrated at a portable altar set up in one of the rooms of the Apostolic Palace and is distinct from the private Mass the Pope said in his private chapel), the Pope was assisted by two bishops and four papal Masters of Ceremonies.
[27] The Three Low Masses (Les Trois Messes basses) is a Christmas story by Alphonse Daudet, published in 1875 in the Tales of Monday and integrated in 1879 in the collection of the Letters from my Windmill.
Tempted by the devil who, in the guise of his young sexton, has described to him in great detail the exquisite menu of New Year's Eve, he sends off three Christmas Masses to rush more quickly to the table.
God punishes his offense: before going to heaven, he will have to recite, for a century, in the company of his faithful culprits, a service of the Nativity, or three hundred low masses.