Is Eucharist "food for the journey" or an award for toeing the line?

[hedgehog]

I read a blog by a young priest (29 years old) who happens to be a pastor. He started out chiding people that they must be properly prepared for communion and noted that anyone who has committed mortal sin must receive Penance and absolution before approaching communion. Fair enough, although I wonder how many murderers really look forward to Mass and communion on Sundays.

Then he went on to declare that proper preparation for communion includes attending the entire Mass. He suggested that if you are not in church and in your pew for the opening procession, you should skip communion!

Clearly, the young "father" has never experienced the travails of a real young father trying to locate three pairs of tiny shoes buried in the toy box and under the crib on a Sunday morning!


I'd say it's the frazzled parents coming in late who need the strength from Communion the most! Just what are seminaries teaching these days?

[rug]

1. If you get there by the Gospel it counts.

[hedgehog]

2. In the old days, if you missed Mass it was supposedly a mortal sin.

After being told such nonsense with a straight face so many years, is it any wonder so many people of a certain age dropped out of the Church?

[rug]

3. It still is, although the modern term is "grave sin".

[hedgehog]

4. Sorry, can't put missing Mass and murdering someone in the same category. nt

[Matilda]

5. I think the idea is that missing Mass can lead

eventually to becoming a lapsed Catholic, and from there you begin to lose the awareness of sin,
and are in greater danger of committing mortal sin. It's a bit tortuous, but you can see the
point.

And in regard to your initial post, I was taught that you must arrive before the Gospel, and
shouldn't leave before the priest. We don't have many latecomers at our church, but a lot leave
right after Communion - receive the Host and straight out the door.

[hedgehog]

7. I have two comments about that. Sometimes people leave early

because they have to go to a job or because they can't physically stay any longer. Sitting in a pew can be agony if you have a bad back. When my mother worked nights, she sometimes ducked out early of 8AM Mass because she was exhausted.

Otherwise, telling people not to leave is missing the point. If people are leaving, the parish should be asking what is wrong with the way Mass is being celebrated? We shouldn't be there out of obligation but because our week would be empty if we weren't there. If people are leaving early out of boredom or apathy, then the Good News is not being celebrated properly.


Our priest stretches out his homilies to ensure that Mass is exactly 60 minutes long and people sit there reading the bulletin. My husband says the priest grieves the Mass. With our former priest, Mass might run anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a quarter depending on the circumstances, and no one left early because everyone was engaged. That priest knew how to lead a celebration!

[AngryOldDem]

6. We got the same line of crap from a young priest once

Openly chided latecomers, assuming that they all just couldn't get to Mass on times due to outright laziness or poor planning. As fate would have it, we were late that morning because of -- you guessed it -- getting three kids and a newborn all pointed in the same direction. Time kinda got away from us, but at least we made it to Mass.

On the way out my husband pointedly told the priest that he cannot always assume why people are late and to automatically assume the worst is really not the way to make people receptive to the message. Sometimes circumstances get beyond one's control. The main thing is, we were there.

[CBHagman]

8. I'm going to be the skunk at the garden party.

Full disclosure: For a long time I had a bad habit of coming late to mass, which I have finally had some success at conquering. I would rather be there at the beginning anyway.

That said, I could name a member of my family who, despite frequent tardiness or at least late departures for mass, had a very sincere faith and attended mass as often as possible. So it's possible to stumble in with heart and mind fully engaged.

And obviously nurses, medical residents, cops, and various others who have tricky work schedules have my full sympathy, as do all people who have a rough time getting to mass, whether due to handicaps or rounding up their brood.

But the thing that I have noticed is what I believe to be a trend in American society: the expectation that one's instructors, classmates, coworkers, fellow worshipers and theatergoers and moviegoers must accept everything from constant text-messaging to constant talking to ringing cell phones to latecomers climbing over the already seated to work going undone because Ms. or Mr. X still hasn't shown up for work -- again.

Some moviegoers even refuse to seat themselves until the theater is dark and the feature is just about to start, which means they're going to be climbing over and/or blocking the view of people who arrived at or before the scheduled screening time.

I'm not complaining about a fussy baby wailing at mass or a nurse slipping out to cover her/his shift in the emergency room. The nurse has a living to make, and the baby is just being a baby. I do have a problem with something I see every day: a complete alienation from practicing simple courtesy. I get fresh examples of it every time I attend a lecture or go to the theater, and don't get me started on the workplace.


I blame a lot of it on technology -- iPods, cell phones, microwaves -- which shortens or eliminates waiting times and also keeps people walled off from their fellow human beings.

[hedgehog]

9. I can hear what you're saying. The times are certainly changing.

I'm flabbergasted at how often I see people in the Communion line chewing gum! They're so used to always having a cud going it never occurs to them that maybe Mass isn't the place! It's somewhat akin to the young men who have no idea at all why wearing a baseball cap indoors so enrages some older people.

[CBHagman]

10. Oh, I had no idea about the gum!

I did once see a young girl bite into a host as though it were a chip.

And tonight at Palm Sunday Mass one guy was tearing and weaving palms during prayers and the reading of the Gospel. I was half-tempted to ask if he was going to make balloon animals during Easter Sunday services.

On edit: And even the most easygoing priest in our parish has said he goes nuts when people flip through the bulletin during the homily.

And tonight at least two cell phones went off, including once during the reading of the Passion narrative.

[hedgehog]

11. I see a couple of solutions there.

1. Make the homilies more intersting than the bulletin.

2. It would solve a lot of problems if we introduced a new custom. People come in and look around and say hi to their freinds. I think that's ok, we are supposed to be a community. Maybe a few minutes before Mass, an usher, the choir director or a lector could step to a mike,nad say something like " We'd like to eldcome everybody today to our celebration. Please turn off all pagers and phones. Let us all take a minute or two to meditate on the theme of today's gospel "...." before we begin our celebration. "

[CBHagman]

12. I'm not going to let this one go.

1. Make the homilies more interesting than the bulletin.

Let me give you some context. The priest who made the observation that it drives him crazy when people look at the bulletin during his homilies made that comment in a humorous way, but I do think he meant it. I should also add that his masses are well-attended, his homilies are clear and audible (which is more than I can say for some I've caught in 49 years of attending services) and, more importantly, appear to engage the congregation, many, many of which want to talk to him personally after mass. So if you think it's Father Boring Droner I'm talking about, you would be mistaken, although Father Boring Droner and some of his scarier brethren have often been assigned to parishes I've belonged to.

As for the idea to fill people in on how to maintain a prayerful atmosphere, that's a great idea. The request to silence cell phones and pagers is made every week at my parish, as it is in theaters and movie houses, and in none of those places is the entreaty honored.

Saturday I went to the movies with a friend. At least twice during the film a person directly in front of us looked at the lighted screen (or keypad or whatever) on a cellphone. My friend said afterwards that she wondered why this particular moviegoer had even bothered to come out to the cinema.

If you were having dinner with a friend and he spent the evening looking at a TV or laptop, or using his cell phone, would your first thought be, "My, I must be a terribly boring person deserving of utter contempt," or "Maybe he wasn't interested in getting together tonight"?

I would submit that as with driving, a number of badly behaved people make it rough for the majority who are behaving well.

On edit: A friend of mine swears his parish in Richmond, VA, used to have an annual Mass etiquette homily, including admonitions not to indulge in my friend's personal pet peeve, the act of chasing the priest down the aisle -- i.e., by leaving as the celebrant, deacon, and servers attempt to process down the aisle at the last verse of the closing hymn.

[DemBones DemBones]

13. Talking outside the sanctuary is fine but chatting in the

sanctuary is a denial of respect to the Lord. Everyone 7 and over should know better.