Hole and Corner Mass

I think Luther somewhere inveighs against "hole and corner Masses" - even though he elsewhere postulated, like a forerunner of modernism, that "real Christians" would gather in tiny groups in houses for informal, and somehow therefore more "authentic", true-to-the-Gospel, "evangelical" liturgies.

Early morning before today's trip to Milford Sound found me walking into St Bernard's Church, Te Anau, and checking the time for Mass, which was set for 9am. I returned in due time and waited, waited... I finally walked round to see if there were a presbytery, saw a light on, knocked firmly, waited, knocked again, and was let in by the sole congregant, who was attending Mass as offered by an nice old priest, Fr FitzGibbon, who is hunched over with arthritis or such. By the time I arrived, Fr was already into the Canon - yes, the Roman Canon - and I joined the two of them for Holy Mass. Apparently, weekday Mass when they have it is in the house, not the church; when I asked politely if they could put out a notice to advertise this, they told me that no one ever had come before.

I was struck by several things: evidently Fr reads Mass with attention, but out of some little local New Zealand ringbound publication that substitutes for a Missal (ICEL has been consulted about this copyright issue I believe); and the readings had evidently been taken from a small people's massbook. The necessary vessels and linen were all there, but of the very simplest... Again, I could not join in the very prayer of prayers, the Lord's Prayer, because of the modern N.Z. version being used.

Contrast this with my experience serving private Low Masses: there would be absolutely no question of not using a proper altar, nor of not using a proper Missal, etc., unless driven by necessity - in my opinion, the changeover period in the sixties habituated the clergy and people to ad hoc devices such as reading from photocopies rather than from proper liturgical books, and from this stemmed the vile pseudo-cult of the informal as somehow more meaningful and authentic; which is an aberrant notion that Luther seems to have revived.

(Note: I mean no disrespect to Fr FitzGibbon, who is obviously not in the best of health and so can only do what he can do; it is the general principle of liturgical minimalism that I am critiquing. Indeed, Fr stands for what is right in that he read the Roman Canon, which few modernistic priests ever do - they find it too long and overly sacrificial.)