Advice Request: A Protestent's First Mass : Extraordinary or Ordinary?

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I say attend the Mass you usually attend which happens to be the TLM, that is why I voted that way.

Since I attend a fairly reverent NO this is what I would take a similar Cousin to;).

Brenda V.
 
Another thought would be to let her have one of those red booklet missals if you take her to the TLM. You could let her keep it and read some of the prayers before and/or after.
 
Whichever you can explicate better.

Because, as a tool for conversion, the inviting individual’s ability to explain what is going on is a vital part of the process.
 
I think Cat makes good points about why Protestants, particularly Evangelicals, would probably choose to go to an NO, but I fundamentally disagree that this should be the primary factor in the decision. We’ve had plenty of former Protestants give testimonial here that they were profoundly affected by the TLM, even though they would not have expected this. The choice should be made based on what will work best, not what the individual would have chosen for him-/herself. We don’t always know what is best for us.

I wouldn’t take a one-size-fits-all approach when trying to lead people to the faith, so sometimes I would choose TLM, others perhaps NO, but in this particular case I would recommend the TLM because, in addition to its other merits, that is your regular worship. So by taking the cousin there you are not just showing an example of Catholic worship but sharing your own personal faith life and community.
 
(only partially kidding here)
😃

Since one of your choices is Blessed Sacrament in KCK, go there.

The joking part: I made my First Communion there, it is my favorite Church building in the whole US and I am very biased. I would go there even if they were the ones with drum and guitar.

The non-joking part. Since your NC relations are going to experience the Mass with all their senses, a visually beautiful Church is a good choice, IMO.
 
(only partially kidding here)
😃

Since one of your choices is Blessed Sacrament in KCK, go there.

The joking part: I made my First Communion there, it is my favorite Church building in the whole US and I am very biased. I would go there even if they were the ones with drum and guitar.

The non-joking part. Since your NC relations are going to experience the Mass with all their senses, a visually beautiful Church is a good choice, IMO.
Yes Blessed Sacrament is where we would be going, the 11am Missa Cantata is Beautiful, we are blessed here in Kansas City to have two WONDERFUL options to worship God either with the FSSP or ICRSS.

I think Extraordinary Mass is where we will be
 
If the Protestant is from a mainline denomination, you might be OK taking them to the TLM. It will be familiar to them, just kind of “quaint” because it is in Latin instead of English.
Actually it may shock them more, in a way. Evangelicals who don’t know much about contemporary Catholicism expect Latin, incense, chanting, etc. Mainliners typically use liturgies that are very similar to the Novus Ordo. Many of the more high-church mainliners see themselves as not that different from Catholics, and the TLM really sets them back on their heels. Even some of the more conservative liturgical pronouncements from the Vatican can do that.
Definitely true. That’s my big beef with the TLM as I’ve experienced it. I don’t have a problem with the Latin, largely because I understand Latin quite well. My problem is with the lack of Latin, or any other language.
3… Evangelicals often reject “experiences” and “feelings” and are very suspicious of “experiences” that create “feelings.” They will check it out in detail to make sure that it is “genuine.” One of the posters mentioned a friend who had tears streaming down her face during TLM–notice she she was from a Pentecostal
Protestant background, a group that is very much into feelings. But an evangelical Protestant would reject these feelings and concentrate on hearing and understanding the pure Word of God in the Mass. He/she will strive to avoid getting caught up in the “majesty” of the Mass, and claim that it is the same as being impressed at Disneyworld. According to evangelical Protestant teaching, It’s not the feelings, it’s the FACTS and FAITH that make a Christian.

Here you are overgeneralizing based on your own experience, or perhaps you are simply defining “evangelical” very narrowly. By most definitions, Pentecostals are evangelicals. A certain kind of quasi-Reformed evangelical does have the attitude you describe. But I think most evangelicals today go a lot by experience.

Other than that, I agree with everything you have said!

Edwin
[/QUOTE]
 
I definitely agree with the poster who said to try to discern where the Protestant is on their faith journey.

One comment that I would like to add is that the Holy Spirit will bless whatever you do! Perhaps everything will go wrong and you will feel like you have blundered horribly and destroyed the cuz’s faith. Don’t worry about it! The Holy Spirit will work anyway!

My daughter is a modern gal, 24 years old, a theater professional, and she had totally forsaken church after our family was kicked out of our evangelical Protestant church.

Whenever we visited her, we attended Mass at the “modern” Catholic parish in her city. She took us there, and seemed to like it.

But it was at the very ancient Polish (she isn’t Polish!) cathedral in one of the poorest sections of the city (close to her apartment!) that she made a decision to become Catholic.

Not a TLM, but an NO, and a priest who used his homilies to teach the history of the Church and the background of various feast days and holidays in the Church. This appealed to her. I’m sure many Catholics in the congregation yawn their way through his homilies because they literally sound like history lectures. But she loves it.

Also, the organist is a professional who plays classical, and everyone claps for him after each Mass. She LOVES this, because she is a theater professional, and to her, it is “normal” to clap. Again, I’m sure that traditionalists are cringing, but remember, there are people like my daughter sitting in that Mass with you.

She started RCIA in September. She wasn’t able to attend at that parish because they do evening RCIA, and she is almost always working in the evenings. But the diocese found a parish that does Sunday morning RCIA. Amazingly, the class consists of mainly people her age and mainly ex-Protestants like her!

And even more amazingly, the patron saint of the Church is St. Alphonsus, the founder of the Redemptorists, whose major focus is evangelism–and her name is Evangeline.

She cried when she told us this. She said it is a miracle from God that He placed her in this particular parish under the protection of this particular saint.

God’s ways are mysterious, and they are not our ways!

So pray to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to use the Mass, whichever Mass you end up at, to work in the life of your visitors!
 
I definitely agree with the poster who said to try to discern where the Protestant is on their faith journey.

One comment that I would like to add is that the Holy Spirit will bless whatever you do! Perhaps everything will go wrong and you will feel like you have blundered horribly and destroyed the cuz’s faith. Don’t worry about it! The Holy Spirit will work anyway!

My daughter is a modern gal, 24 years old, a theater professional, and she had totally forsaken church after our family was kicked out of our evangelical Protestant church.

Whenever we visited her, we attended Mass at the “modern” Catholic parish in her city. She took us there, and seemed to like it.

But it was at the very ancient Polish (she isn’t Polish!) cathedral in one of the poorest sections of the city (close to her apartment!) that she made a decision to become Catholic.

Not a TLM, but an NO, and a priest who used his homilies to teach the history of the Church and the background of various feast days and holidays in the Church. This appealed to her. I’m sure many Catholics in the congregation yawn their way through his homilies because they literally sound like history lectures. But she loves it.

Also, the organist is a professional who plays classical, and everyone claps for him after each Mass. She LOVES this, because she is a theater professional, and to her, it is “normal” to clap. Again, I’m sure that traditionalists are cringing, but remember, there are people like my daughter sitting in that Mass with you.

She started RCIA in September. She wasn’t able to attend at that parish because they do evening RCIA, and she is almost always working in the evenings. But the diocese found a parish that does Sunday morning RCIA. Amazingly, the class consists of mainly people her age and mainly ex-Protestants like her!

And even more amazingly, the patron saint of the Church is St. Alphonsus, the founder of the Redemptorists, whose major focus is evangelism–and her name is Evangeline.

She cried when she told us this. She said it is a miracle from God that He placed her in this particular parish under the protection of this particular saint.

God’s ways are mysterious, and they are not our ways!

So pray to the Holy Spirit and ask Him to use the Mass, whichever Mass you end up at, to work in the life of your visitors!
Do keep in mind, Cat, that not all of us traditionalists are hard line immobilists who reject the Vatican II liturgy constitution or don’t want a credible liturgy allowing for some vernacular. Our problem is that the ‘Reform’ seemed to go out of control during the sixties and seventies.
 
Do keep in mind, Cat, that not all of us traditionalists are hard line immobilists who reject the Vatican II liturgy constitution or don’t want a credible liturgy allowing for some vernacular. Our problem is that the ‘Reform’ seemed to go out of control during the sixties and seventies.
The reform seemed to be more of a revolution and many Protestants (as well as Orthodox) were sympathetic to those that were hurt by the liturgical overthrow.
 
Hello everyone -

I have come here seeking some advise, This may be in the wrong forum, but please move if nessacary.

to make a long story short my Wife’s Non Catholic Cousin will attend mass with us this sunday as long as my wife’s Grandmother (who was raised Catholic but has stopped practicing) goes with us.

Our Family reguarlly attends Mass in the Extraordinary form every Sunday at one of the Two Vatican Approved Apostolates here in Kansas City ( see: kansascitylatinmass.org)

Now… The delima…

Would it be better for my Protestant Cousin to attend Mass in the Ordinary form where she could follow along in the Vernacular, There are no Solemn or very reverent Ordinary Form Mass’ Near by…

or

is it better for her to experience the Beauty of a Solemn Missa Cantata with Insense, the Aspereges Me , Gregorian Chant etc…

If there are any former protestants out there please I highly value your Opinion.

Thanks

Christopher
the traditional latin Mass. if i was in your situation, i’d take the cousin to the TLM. but, that is me.
 
It seems that most here are thinking in the ways of men instead of in the ways of God. This goes to silly statement that many have made that the young people will turn away from the TLM. The graces of the TLM go beyond mans reason. If there was something special or attractive about the NO, the Church would not have had so many leave the Church in the last forty years, to include young people, not to mention the decline of all that is true and good in the Church. i.e. belief in Presence, confession, etc. The Mass of Ages, for all.
 
Well heres the update

My Wife’s Cousin had made the promise that if Her Grandmother (and my Wife’s Grandmother) went to Chruch with us she would go… now her grandmother had not been to chruch in YEARS, but she went with us on sunday,

Alas My wifes cousin did not keep her promise, she chose to spend the night at her friends house and not return until late the next day.

So it looks as if we will have to try again another time
 
Well, at least her grandmother went!
👍

Did she have any comments regarding the Mass after so many years of being away?
 
Hello, I am a Protestant who is married to a Catholic. We go to eachother’s church together every Sunday. The first time I went to his Church, it was the traditanol Catholic mass. It was fine for me. If that is what you usually do I think that is where you should go. Grandma would probably enjoy it more, too.
 
I’d say go wherever you normally go. If that happens to be the TLM, then you should go there. But definitely prepare the person ahead of time for what to expect, and help them follow along in the Missal.
 
Just my humble opinion… I’m a new convert (Easter 2007). I visited a Catholic Mass with a cousin when I was 14 or 15 years old. All was in Latin. I felt like I had entered a “Cult” like atmosphere. It scared me, and I never went back…

At age 43, I decided to visit our local parish and maybe learn something about the Catholic faith. My husband is Catholic, wasn’t practicing, and told me that if he ever did decide to go back
to church, it would be the Catholic church.

Thank God, It was in english! Thank God that the person who sat beside me was showing me how to follow along in the book.

I’m Catholic now! Thanks to all of that and then followed by RCIA!
:amen: :blessyou:

Sometimes I feel like people who would take a first time visitor to a TLM are more interested in their own agendas, than attracting others to our Faith.

🤷
 
My father (who was Protestant) married my mother in the sacristy of church in 1947. My father seldom attended Mass with us until 1970. A reverent NO would be the way to go.
“Dear” Brother,
This is very bad advice! Where are this “reverent Novus Ordo” to be found? I post on other thread that “reverent Novus Ordo” is like Ancient Chinese Dragon, A fable, nothing more…If Ancient Mass can attract, convert, infidels for centuries. Why not today? Tradition is very important in my culture.

God Bless
Mao
 
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