I went to Mass last Sunday not expecting a lot of problems because I knew everybody would be doing their best.   A standing room only crowd in this big church.   The choir and congregation were preparing for their Christmas liturgy, which meant the priest sang and the congregation responded.   Including the Kyrie.  Not bad, really. 

The celebrant was an international priest with a heavy accent.  This means that the much touted more dignified and reverent Mass did not and could not come across as promised.   On top of that, it was a church full of young families with children, and so there was this (to me, at least) wonderful restless whispering movement that defied solemnity.    The newly revised latinized prayers were proclaimed in that strong accent and so their possible moral superiority to what they replaced was a lost cause.  And the same with the Eucharistic prayer.  The priest, a good man doing his best, tried to pronounce as well as he could.  As a result the Mass was about five minutes longer than usual. 

The music, usually first class, was quite diminishe for unknown reasons.  I have learned that a good choir can make even a mediocre Mass proclaimer sound good.  I think parishes should make a lot of room in their budget for a choir...even a paid choir. 

Anyway, a lot of fuss, a lot of worry, and we had what we used to call in my speaking days, a "mud thud."  I.E., like when a stone is thrown into the mud, there were few ripples.