What I Learned at Mass on Sunday

Since I had to blow out of Saturday vigil mass during the presentation of the gifts due to two squirmy children. I decided to go at 10:30 Sunday morning to make up for the missed time. At a different parish, one which my wife loves and attends regulary.

Here I learned a couple of things. First, it appears to be a rule that older women (say 65+) find it impossible to sit in church and quietly (let alone prayerfully) wait for mass to start. This is a BIG church, and there were perhaps a half-dozen LOUD group conversations going on for some time - not to mention a lot of semi-hushed ones. Almost without exception the conversants were old and female.

Funny that the YOUNGER women (<40 or so) seemed to come in, kneel and pray and wait in silence.

Counterintuitive, ain't it?

A Little Latin

Sunday past, at my "home church" we were treated to a beautiful, reverent mass - as always. But this time, it included a sung Kyrie, Sanctus, and Agnus Dei - in latin.

Amazing how that can affect the tone of the mass. How I wish there would be more of the same. Perhaps a sung Pater Noster in latin for starters. Who knows, it might discourage hand-holding!

Sadly, it will all probably disappear after Advent and until Lent...

Dignity... Always, Dignity

"Well, Dora, l've had one motto
which l've always lived by:

'Dignity. Always dignity. '

This was instilled in me by Mum and Dad
from the very beginning."

Gene Kelley, in the opening scene of Singin' in the Rain.




Presiding Bishop of the Episcopal Church, Katharine Jeffers Schori

How Good It Is....

I had the priveledge of attending mass at my home parish this morning, and what a beautiful thing it was. After spending so many hours seeing and reading all about the horrific masses that so many have to put up with, seeing mass celebrated so well just served as a wellspring of grace for me.

Rarely do I get to attend mass at this hour (8:00AM) and alone. Doing so allowed me to concentrate, pray, and sit right up front where I could easily see every detail of the mass. Because of my seat, it struck me right away that our Priest, Father Duong, celebrates the mass with an amazing level of care and precision. It is a true pleasure to watch. Every movement is "just right" and wonderfully executed.

And to make it all even better, our 8:00AM Sunday mass is celebrated in "low mass" style - no singing at all. What that means is there is time for prayer and reflection, time to digest and internalize what is happening on the altar. Don't get me wrong, I love to sing, and I sing all the time (ask my wife). But I have always thought that the singing of hymns in the middle of mass was a distraction at best - intrusion is more like it. All made worse by the fact that virtually all of the hymns found in Catholic churches nowadays suck, both musically and theologically. I know that he who sings prays twice, but I'll settle for praying once, well. To paraphrase an old movie line "When I sing, I sing - and when I pray, I pray". Chant is a tertium quid, and truly does count as prayer, doubled.

Sure it would be better to get Father to "turn towards the lord" and lose the table altar. Or maybe to celebrate in Latin. But, even as it is, this mass is as good as the "new mass" gets. We are truly truly blessed.

So for all my friends out there who feel that they are stuck in a liturgical wasteland, if you want to see a reverent mass in a reverent parish, with a reverent priest and congregation, come to St. Benedict's in Greensboro for the 8:00AM Sunday mass. I hope to see you there.

EXTRAORDINARY means......

extraordinary
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English extraordinarie, from Latin extraordinarius, from extra ordinem out of course, from extra + ordinem, accusative of ordin-, ordo order
1 a : going beyond what is usual, regular, or customary b : exceptional to a very marked extent

Pretty straight forward, don't you think? Now how about this...

ordinary
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English ordinarie, from Latin ordinarius, from ordin-, ordo order
1 : of a kind to be expected in the normal order of events : ROUTINE, USUAL ordinary day>

Ref: Merriam-Webster for the above

Easy one there, too, huh???

These two terms having been established, I would love for someone to explain to me why, at every Sunday Mass at EVERY parish in my area, there are at least three, and often as many as seven EXTRAORDINARY ministers giving communion! If it is ROUTINE, then it, by definition cannot be EXTRAORDINARY!!

There is apparently no practical reason for this procedure. Though I am sure that the standard argument is that communion will take too long if there are not a priest and seven EMHC's to give communion, but that is patently wrong, at least as far as I have seen. For instance, Sunday last, at the Mass I attended there were about 300 communicants. It takes a bit under 3 seconds to deal with each one (I timed it, I'm anal that way). That means, with one priest, communion would have taken about 15 minutes. In fact it took about 8 minutes, start to finish. A savings of 7 minutes, or almost 50%. Looks pretty efficient, no??

Ahhhhh, but not so fast!!!! You see, the presence of these 7 "ministers" means that the priest now has 5 chalices, and 4 ciboria (instead of one of each, respectively) to handle, fill, distribute, collect, and purify. That process takes time. If you then add in the time it takes for these ministers to get up on the altar, communicate each other, form up, and peel off to their positions, it all adds up to about 5 minutes. Hence leaving a net "savings" of 2 minutes... TWO MINUTES!

Then there is the functional problem of having 8 lines of people at the front of the church, jostling for space, bumping into one another (albeit politely). It's a zoo. My 80 year old father can't even GO to communion, except at the 7:00 AM service, when there is a smaller crowd.

Then there is the more important part, to me. That is the "us and them" aspect of the whole thing. The priest does the consecration and his own communion, etc. Then what happens?? We, the poor souls in the pews, have to wait patiently while a half dozen "anointed ones" go up on the altar, where they don't belong to begin with, and go through an elaborate aren't-we-so-special ritual of their own oh-so-special communion, and then, only after they are done, do they "come down" to the level of the groundlings and pass out communion.

All in all, the whole thing is about the most decidedly irreverent and unnecessary procedure in the Mass today. To me, it is tantamount to having the congregation wash the feet of the priest and parish council every Easter - it is backwards and offensive.