At some Masses I have attended I wished I could hold up a sign reading:
Just Here For the Eucharist.
Eucharist
- Donald R. McClarey
Donald R. McClarey
Cradle Catholic. Active in the pro-life movement since 1973. Father of three, one in Heaven, and happily married for 43 years. Small town lawyer and amateur historian. Former president of the board of directors of the local crisis pregnancy center for a decade.
I went through a phase like this after I stopped attending the Tridentine Mass. But there’s usually at least something I can use in a homily, even when the style doesn’t suit me. And there are so many beautiful prayers, and the readings to focus on.
My current distraction during Mass is the low number of attendees. Particularly as Mass begins – my local parish takes a while to fill out. One thing I love at my parish is the backed-up line for Communion on the tongue. I think that’s helped me to not lose perspective during the covid era. They’ve offered it this whole time, as long as Masses have been allowed. And I’m still kind of giddy every time we sing, use holy water, et cetera. Most of us have never suffered in Islamic or communist states, but there was a time when we didn’t have Mass, and we should never get complacent about it.
It would be agreeable to find a parish where you have a choir in the loft chanting the ordinaries and a cantor or schola in the sanctuary chanting the propers. And one young man as acolyte. And a homily which elaborates on the Gospel and perhaps some of other readings, about 11 minutes long. Ideally written decades ago, with some annotations from more recent readings of the Church Fathers. And individual thanksgiving after the service. And no chatter in the nave. And announcements printed in the bulletin. Utopian.
Yes! You nailed it. If I could make ONE change in the celebration of Mass at my parish is to get rid of the lounge singer.
I apologize for the bizarre syntax of my previous post. I still which we didn’t have a lounge singer providing insipid music at Mass.
I am DOOMED!! Apparently, I am doomed to be perceived as functionally illiterate on the internet. Carthage must be destroyed! And we need sacred music at the mass, NOT a lounge singer.
Don’t let the lack of an edit function intimidate you. We’ve all produced some, um, remarkable sentences.
I wouldn’t say ‘lounge singer’. Peggy Lee was a lounge singer, and quite entertaining for ‘a that. The music sounds like leftovers from the score of a Hallmark Channel movie, not like mid-century jazz.