I might be your dad's vintage, but some of what I remember is not the same:
-- Part of the reason the altar was moved away from the wall, and the priest went behind it and faced the people, was to emphasize the concept that God is not "out there" but "among His people".
-- Before Vatican II, people went to Mass and left and didn't actually have to interact with anyone else. One of the changes in the post-VII Mass was that during the Offertory, the congregation now turns and greets one another with a handshake (most of the time; sometimes with friends it's hugs.) This was a HUGE thing when it started; people didn't want to actually acknowledge that someone they'd had a fight with was right there. But it's in Jesus's teachings that if you have an argument with someone, you fix the argument and then bring forward your offering, so they couldn't debate the theology of it.
-- Altar girls. Hmm. Not so much. It wasn't universal and it took at least a decade, maybe two before it actually happened -- and in many places the boys were substituted back for the girls if the bishop was visiting. In my old home parish (Rochester diocese, western NY), the girls used to show up to tell the priest that their brothers would be late -- and then the girls started to fill in for their brothers. It wasn't an organized change; it just happened, somewhat illegally and then was legalized.
-- Re the change to the vernacular: One of the big changes with this was that there were two vernacular versions of the Mass. One was a fairly literal translation of the old Tridentine Mass (from the Council of Trent (1545-1563), updated so that the English was more like current English than like Shakespeare's English. The second, which was more commonly used, had all the same elements as the first one but the language was updated to reflect theological understandings and changes since the 1500s. The first one, for instance, still has most of the Roman martyrology at the beginning of the Offertory (the second half of the Mass, after the homily), while the second has a much abridged version without many of the saints whose historicity is doubtful. (I still remember the outcry over dropping St. Christopher, particularly since St. Christopher's Church, next parish over, had just been dedicated.)
-- Communion: Yes, most of the time people lined up down the center aisle, but not always; sometimes even in the old days they lined up and knelt along the altar rail. It depended on the church and its own traditions; this was one of the things I saw being done in various ways in various ethnic parishes in the diocese, which included parishes that were built at various times by separate groups of immigrants from Poland, Ireland, Italy and so on. In the old days both the bread and wine might be made available to a couple who were being married, during their wedding Mass, but not to everyone. There is no standard required type of wine, by the way; it's local option, but generally is slightly sweet and not too expensive.
-- Music: it depended on the wealth of the parish and who was available and wanted to serve -- in poorer parishes, nobody was paid to be organist or choir director. In the old days, better-off parishes had paid organists/choir directors and some paid soloists (and some still do.) The entire congregation was not generally expected to sing along, but some did, at times. Usually it was someone playing organ, and if the priest was chanting the offertory (usual) it was always in the same psalm tone series, often Gregorian but not always. (Even later, at first, we often sounded anemic compared to the Congregationalists across the street with their full-throated 12-voice choir leading the congregation.)
If you do want to write more on this and would like someone to beta it, I would be willing; I was born Catholic in the 1950s and was very active as a Catholic from the 1960s until the early 1980s, when there was increasingly no comfortable place within John Paul II's church for an educated, single, working woman who had studied theology and was not a nun (so I left and went elsewhere.)
no subject
-- Part of the reason the altar was moved away from the wall, and the priest went behind it and faced the people, was to emphasize the concept that God is not "out there" but "among His people".
-- Before Vatican II, people went to Mass and left and didn't actually have to interact with anyone else. One of the changes in the post-VII Mass was that during the Offertory, the congregation now turns and greets one another with a handshake (most of the time; sometimes with friends it's hugs.) This was a HUGE thing when it started; people didn't want to actually acknowledge that someone they'd had a fight with was right there. But it's in Jesus's teachings that if you have an argument with someone, you fix the argument and then bring forward your offering, so they couldn't debate the theology of it.
-- Altar girls. Hmm. Not so much. It wasn't universal and it took at least a decade, maybe two before it actually happened -- and in many places the boys were substituted back for the girls if the bishop was visiting. In my old home parish (Rochester diocese, western NY), the girls used to show up to tell the priest that their brothers would be late -- and then the girls started to fill in for their brothers. It wasn't an organized change; it just happened, somewhat illegally and then was legalized.
-- Re the change to the vernacular: One of the big changes with this was that there were two vernacular versions of the Mass. One was a fairly literal translation of the old Tridentine Mass (from the Council of Trent (1545-1563), updated so that the English was more like current English than like Shakespeare's English. The second, which was more commonly used, had all the same elements as the first one but the language was updated to reflect theological understandings and changes since the 1500s. The first one, for instance, still has most of the Roman martyrology at the beginning of the Offertory (the second half of the Mass, after the homily), while the second has a much abridged version without many of the saints whose historicity is doubtful. (I still remember the outcry over dropping St. Christopher, particularly since St. Christopher's Church, next parish over, had just been dedicated.)
-- Communion: Yes, most of the time people lined up down the center aisle, but not always; sometimes even in the old days they lined up and knelt along the altar rail. It depended on the church and its own traditions; this was one of the things I saw being done in various ways in various ethnic parishes in the diocese, which included parishes that were built at various times by separate groups of immigrants from Poland, Ireland, Italy and so on. In the old days both the bread and wine might be made available to a couple who were being married, during their wedding Mass, but not to everyone. There is no standard required type of wine, by the way; it's local option, but generally is slightly sweet and not too expensive.
-- Music: it depended on the wealth of the parish and who was available and wanted to serve -- in poorer parishes, nobody was paid to be organist or choir director. In the old days, better-off parishes had paid organists/choir directors and some paid soloists (and some still do.) The entire congregation was not generally expected to sing along, but some did, at times. Usually it was someone playing organ, and if the priest was chanting the offertory (usual) it was always in the same psalm tone series, often Gregorian but not always. (Even later, at first, we often sounded anemic compared to the Congregationalists across the street with their full-throated 12-voice choir leading the congregation.)
If you do want to write more on this and would like someone to beta it, I would be willing; I was born Catholic in the 1950s and was very active as a Catholic from the 1960s until the early 1980s, when there was increasingly no comfortable place within John Paul II's church for an educated, single, working woman who had studied theology and was not a nun (so I left and went elsewhere.)