Low Mass
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Low Mass (Latin Missa Privata) is a Mass celebrated by a priest without the assistance of sacred ministers (deacon and subdeacon). Before the 1969 reforms, a sub-distinction was also made between the sung Mass (Missa in cantu), when the celebrant still chants those parts which the rubrics require to be chanted, and the low Mass (Missa lecta) where the liturgy is spoken.
In a low Mass, the priest may be assisted by altar boys (acolytes) rather than deacons, and use appropriately simplified rubrics.
A full sung Mass celebrated with the assistance of sacred ministers is a High or Solemn Mass.
The celebration of Low Mass occurred in the Roman Rite, prior to the 1969 reforms in the Catholicism, and continues in Lutheranism, as well as parts of Anglicanism.