15 Minute Mass increases audience size

[The_Reginator]

palmas855 mentioned this in another thread:

Church attendance soars with the 15 minute Mass

I felt that this story deserved its own thread, and a tweaking of the headline.
It’s great that more people attend Mass, but …

I suppose it would be great if after returning to Mass people began attending Adoration,etc, and finally spending more time with our Lord.

But only 15 minutes a week??? How this must hurt the Sacred Heart. But we do worse things, don’t we …

 

[ProVobis]

But you have to get up early. That’s the catch.

 

[Elsport1]

At first I was disgusted. Then I read the article. I think they’re talking about daily Mass not Sunday Mass. Fifteen minutes is a bit on the short side even for daily Mass but not by much, a homily isn’t required (I really like it when there is one though!) which definitely cuts some time out. I hate that often daily Mass times aren’t accessible to people who work 9-5. because it seems like most places have mass around 8:30 or so. Moving it to 7:00 or 7:30 really allows “professional’s” and students to have a chance to go to Mass everyday. In an ideal world there would be an early morning Mass, a lunchtime Mass and an evening Mass everyday. I think the current common time slot of 8:30-9:00 is the absolute worst time for anyone but the retired to go.

 

[Nec5]

At first I was disgusted. Then I read the article. I think they’re talking about daily Mass not Sunday Mass. Fifteen minutes is a bit on the short side even for daily Mass but not by much, a homily isn’t required (I really like it when there is one though!) which definitely cuts some time out.

It seems like without a homily and only 15 minutes, it’s more of a eat-and-run mentality, which is obviously not the point at all.

 

[OriginalJS]

For this I hearken back to “the day” in the 50’s when daily Mass started at 6 a.m. That may be a bit early for many, but right now many of us are on the road to work by 7 a.m. Our local priest’s daily Mass usually lasts about 20 minutes, so there is nothing new with speed. One Priest I know of is from somewhere in the East (India, I believe) and his fast Mass is referred to by parishioners as “The Orient Express.” With only thirty or forty at Mass and a couple of communion ministers, things can move very quickly.

 

[EmperorNapoleon]

I’ve gone to mass occassionally at St. Joseph Cathedral; which is the seat of the Bishop here. You’ll be standing in the back or on the sides if you don’t get there an hour early on Christmas or Easter. There’s generally good attendance on Sundays. Daily Mass? 10 people tops and all over the age of 50.

 

[mick321]

A weekday Ordinary Form Mass with all essential words and rubrics can easily be done in 15 minutes without sermon. The most time-consuming part is distributing Holy Communion. I regularly attend a daily 8AM Mass that is comfortably completed - including sermon and Holy Communion in both species - in 25 minutes.

I see no need to criticize parish priest who meets the needs of a stable group of parishioners by offering a businesslike, no-frills daily Mass. The fact that he is willing to rise a bit early to attend his flock is commendable.

The original Novus Ordo Mass was designed to be as brief or elaborate as the celebrant determined was necessary to meet the needs of the faithful. This is possible because many of the words and rubrics which are mandatory in the Traditional Latin Mass were totally eliminated from the Novus Ordo.

In recent years, I have not seen a Extraordinary Form low mass completed - with sermon and Holy Communion - in less than 40 minutes. Naturally, a private mass - without faithful in attendance - can be offered in a fraction of that.

BTW, there are parishes in my diocese that regularly offer daily Holy Communion services without a Mass. All one needs to do is arrive at the scheduled time and they are permitted to receive the Blessed Sacrament directly from a lay EMHC. That’s what I think of as the* eat & run* mentality.
.

 

[Lycorth]

Out of 168 hours in the week, what’s sad is that so many people complain about having to be at Mass for a single hour.

That’s to say nothing of Masses on big holy days, such as Easter. We invited some family to Easter vigil Mass with us and one relative complained on the way home that Mass was “so long” - all it took was two hours that the rest of us didn’t even notice had gone by. Two measly hours out of 168 - ugh

No wonder God does not bless us - we don’t want to take too much time out of our lives for Him.

 

[Sarabande]

For daily mass, I can see this happen. When I haven’t been working and attended daily, they usually last about 20 minutes. The priest makes a short homily and it doesn’t take long to distribute the Eucharist since there may be about 30-40 or less people there who are usually older, retired Catholics. I agree that an earlier daily mass would be nice for professionals and students. There was one parish near me where the priest moved the daily mass from 8:30 to 10:30 a.m. and I know a lot of people were upset about that initially - especially the older folks who like to start their days early by attending daily mass.

I will say, though, that I’ve attended masses on Saturday Vigil and Sunday where they might last 30 to 40 minutes. Nothing is cut out or rushed and communion is probably the longest point at mass since so many people attend those masses. I think it’s because the priest is really good at saying everything that needs to be said regarding the readings very concisely in his homily - intellectual, spiritual, yet accessible. A super long homily with hardly any substance or just repeating over and over and over again in different phrases is not nice. But most of those priests are doing their best. They may not just be good at speaking and developing a good homily.

 

[Sarabande]

Out of 168 hours in the week, what’s sad is that so many people complain about having to be at Mass for a single hour.

I do agree with this as well. One hour is really not a big deal. You see people sit for hours at sport games or concerts. Classical music concerts/recitals and operas you usually have to be quiet and sit still and they usually last 1 1/2 to 2 or 3 hours with one or two points to get up and move your legs. People do that, yet I’ve heard the same people complain about how long the mass or their service is. Thing is you have to be just as engaged at mass as you are at a concert. The difference is at the concert, the engagement is to get the full value of the music and all the nuances and beauty, and at mass the engagement is to get the full spiritual value of the mass, firstly with the Eucharist, but also with all the other “nuances” within the mass, from the readings, the homily, the music. And most importantly your relationship with God. I think some people don’t realize that they also have a responsibility to work at being engaged at mass, not to just sit there and wait to be engaged. (Although, sometimes that works very well too. I wonder if things would be different for them if they changed their way of thinking in regards to this.

For the big festive masses, I’ve been there for 3 or 4 hours. I admit it can be tiring and draining sometimes, especially when I’m part of it as a music minister, but I like it. Those are usually very beautiful masses in so many ways because so much focus is put into it and I kind of fall into a trance almost so that I don’t even see or hear anyone around me except for the prayers, readings music and what it happening at the altar.

 

[curlycool89]

Out of 168 hours in the week, what’s sad is that so many people complain about having to be at Mass for a single hour.

There’s a site called Slashdot (it’s a tech/geek news site), and they’ve got a saying there: RTFA (read the ] article).

The article is about a daily mass, not Sunday mass. Out of 168 hours in a week, taking 1 minutes (1/60th of an hour, or 0.0167 hours) to read the story and then making a comment on it is better than reading a headline and assuming a story.

 

[AnotherVoice]

I am happy to see the response and that the parish is trying to make mass more available. I would encourage more parishes to give it a try.

Starting your day with the Lord before toddling of to the rat race; sounds like a good idea.

 

[CatholicBoy1957]

I’m trying hard to see where the news story is. Between 1980 and 1990, my parish had a priest that averaged weekday morning mass in 11 minutes, but I once clocked him at 9 minutes. He got a nice promotion after leaving our moderately small parish, and is still there.