Catholics as Robots

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LOL …robots? Thats a new one.🤷

I never find Mass boring or repititious. I could be on my knees at the elevation of the Sacred Host forever and never get tired of thanking Our Lord for His sacrifice for us sinners.

Why would anyone go to Mass or service and have fun? I can go out for fun anytime. We keep sunday Holy Obligation just 1 hour of the week and the least we could do is show quiet reverence and particiation.

I just don’t get these people who make comments like that. Its a rude response to someone who is Catholic.
 
I breathe in and out and in and out and in … Does that make me a robot? No, it is the motion of life! The sun rises in the morning. Every day again! It is the motion of life!

I just remember that G.K. Chesterton has already answered the question. 😃 From Orthodoxy
All the towering materialism which dominates the modern mind rests ultimately upon one assumption; a false assumption. It is supposed that if a thing goes on repeating itself it is probably dead; a piece of clockwork. …] The sun rises every morning. I do not rise every morning; but the variation is due not to my activity, but to my inaction. [The sun’s] routine might be due, not to a lifelessness, but to a rush of life. The thing I mean can be seen, for instance, in children, when they find some game or joke that they specially enjoy. A child kicks his legs rhythmically through excess, not absence, of life. Because children have abounding vitality, because they are in spirit fierce and free, therefore they want things repeated and unchanged. They always say, “Do it again”; and the grown-up person does it again until he is nearly dead. For grown-up people are not strong enough to exult in monotony. But perhaps God is strong enough to exult in monotony. It is possible that God says every morning,
“Do it again” to the sun; and every evening, “Do it again” to the moon. It may not be automatic necessity that makes all daisies alike; it may be that God makes every daisy separately, but has never got tired of making them. It may be that He has the eternal appetite of infancy; for we have sinned and grown old, and our Father is younger than we. The repetition in Nature may not be a mere recurrence; it may be a theatrical ENCORE. Heaven may ENCORE the bird who laid an egg. If the human being conceives and brings forth a human child instead of bringing forth a fish, or a bat, or a griffin, the reason may not be that we are fixed in an animal fate without life or purpose. …] Repetition may go on for millions of years, by mere choice, and at any instant it may stop. Man may stand on the earth generation after generation, and yet each birth be his positively last appearance.
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“Like children”, joyful and “in spirit fierce and free”… Unless you become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven…
 
srferdave said:
Why do Catholics act like robots?
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the only way i can think of replying to such a statement is, we believe in worshipping solemnly because of our reverence and love for god who we believe is present in the church when we worship.

despite what she claims, every mass is different (different readings and homily, at the very least) and to assume everyone finds it boring and onerous to attend is a big and fairly obnoxious assumption to make.

i don’t feel that way, for example, and i think those people who do are only nominally catholic. they go because a family member requires them to but their heart isn’t really in it.

you can tell her all these things but by the tone of her comments i think she’s already predisposed to disliking catholicism and is unlikely to make an effort to see it on its own terms.
 
srferdave said:
My girlfriend is a baptist. And we have been talking about the reasons why she chose her religion and the differences with catholicism. One of the things she keeps saying is… Why do Catholics act like robots? Why do they do the same thing every mass? She says more people in her church have fun than in a catholic church. And that people only go to catholic church because they feel like they have to. How do I answer her questions?

Thanks
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I wonder if this comment is something she heard in her church or from someone in her church as a put down of the Catholic religion? She obviously is not knowledgable about our faith. I once asked a friend who is a baptist what Baptists believe and the crux of our conversation varies from one church to another. The church founded by Jesus Christ, on the other hand, is pretty much the same all over the world. You might point out who put the first bibles down on paper and which church can trace her history to the time of the apostles. And there is also the fact that all of the protestant churches broke away from the Catholic Church because someone wanted to live the way he wished instead of the way God wishes.

If her mind is made up, you probably can’t say anything to change it, but I always feel sorry for those who are “in the wrong pews” so to speak. The traditions and rich heritage of the Catholic Church impresses many.
 
srferdave said:
…She says more people in her church have fun than in a catholic church…
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“Excitement is not religion; if it was, an ‘Alleluia’ on Sunday could become a ‘Crucify’ on Friday.” – Fulton J. Sheen, “The Life of Christ,” Chapter 14.
 
I have little to add to what others have said in defense of our Catholic style of worship.

I am fortunate now to belong to a parish where the music is to my taste and beautifully done and where the pastor gives a homily that every time engages me from beginning to end.

However, I do not find myself attracted to mass primarily by the music or the preaching (or the beauty of the church or the fellowship of parishmates or …). What draws me are the words of the liturgy itself, the part that never changes from mass to mass, from priest to priest.

There is so much beauty, power, and love in those words… to which reverent, prayerful, awed silence is the most appropriate response.
 
nonsumd said:
I have little to add to what others have said in defense of our Catholic style of worship.

I am fortunate now to belong to a parish where the music is to my taste and beautifully done and where the pastor gives a homily that every time engages me from beginning to end.

However, I do not find myself attracted to mass primarily by the music or the preaching (or the beauty of the church or the fellowship of parishmates or …). What draws me are the words of the liturgy itself, the part that never changes from mass to mass, from priest to priest.

There is so much beauty, power, and love in those words… to which reverent, prayerful, awed silence is the most appropriate response.
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👍 I would like to add this: in a very real sense mass is the most exiting experience here on earth, because of the Eucharist, the Lamb’s Supper. As Saint Augustine exclaimed:
Although God is all powerful, He is unable to give more; though supremely wise, He knows not how to give more; though vastly rich, He has not more to give.
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Why not? It is Himself…

“We go to heaven when we go to Mass.” Scott Hahn
 
SemperTotusTuus said:
: I would like to add this: in a very real sense mass is the most exiting experience here on earth, because of the Eucharist, the Lamb’s Supper…

“We go to heaven when we go to Mass.” Scott Hahn
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Indeed, SemperTotusTuus, the words I was thinking of were precisely those of the liturgy of the Eucharist.

And, as you say, more important indeed than the words is the Word Made Flesh which comes to us under the appearances of bread and wine. He gives us Himself, no less and no more (for there could be no more).

In the Eucharist, we have a physical as well as a spiritual communion with Our Lord. Many Protestants seem to think of only a mental connection with God and so seem to need to make that link feel “more real” through lively, entertaining worship services.

Scott Hahn’s insights are marvelous, aren’t they?

Even though Our Lord warned the Apostles that “it was not for [them] to know the hour and day,” there are so many “Bible Christians” these days squeezing all the “end-times clues” they can out of Revelation. And yet here come Scott Hahn reminding us that the main point of the book is to give us a glimpse of the heavenly liturgy – so that we might have a model for our own earthly worship, for the Mass.
 
SemperTotusTuus said:
👍 I would like to add this: in a very real sense mass is the most exiting experience here on earth, because of the Eucharist, the Lamb’s Supper. As Saint Augustine exclaimed: Why not? It is Himself…

“We go to heaven when we go to Mass.” Scott Hahn
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As for an appealing style of worship, I say: If Jesus can show up at that altar, so can I.
 
I used to think the mass was monotonous and robot like, especially this part:

V. We lift up our hearts to the Lord.
R. It is right to give Him thanks and praise.

That was until I read The Mass of the Early Christians and learned that this dialogue was universal by the middle of the third century. We are repeating what has been spoken every day for 1800 years!

That blew me away and I’m unable to think of robots anymore. Now I think of all the countless brothers and sisters in Christ who are connected with me. They used those very same words when they participated in the mass at the beginning of Christianity and now we worship together for in the Mass we are taken up to heaven.

Also, when you are depressed you don’t want to have to “pretend” to feel happy just to fit in with everyone else. The mass offers a time with our Lord when we do have to think about putting on a happy face, when we can bring ourselves just as we are; happy, sad, or indifferent. God meets us wherever we are at and brings us his peace, often through that very monotony that so many dislike. There have been many times where the only thing that kept me going (despite my depression, anger, and self-imposed isolation from people) was the comfort in the ritual and the knowledge that I could hide in the back and participate.

While I don’t advocate hiding during every mass, I know I’ve personally needed it. I think I would have stopped attending church entirely at that point in my life had I needed to have fun at church in order for it to be worth while. Had I stopped going I may never have learned the beauty and joy which I experience today at mass.

side note:
SemperTotusTuus said:
I breathe in and out and in and out and in … Does that make me a robot? No, it is the motion of life! The sun rises in the morning. Every day again! It is the motion of life!

I just remember that G.K. Chesterton has already answered the question. 😃 From Orthodoxy

“Like children”, joyful and “in spirit fierce and free”… Unless you become like children, you will never enter the kingdom of heaven…
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I LOVE this quote from Chesterton! Every time I read it I get chills. I then walk around with a new sense of awe at the beauty of the world and find myself say “Lord, please do it again!” at a leaf blowing in the wind, a sunset, or even a shinny pebble on the ground.
 
Wow!! Such beautiful comments from my fellow Catholics.😃

I wish these posts could be put in an inspirational book so I could read them over and over. I also love the quotes from our dear Chesterton, Sheen, Hahn and St. Augustine.

It must be the gift of the Holy Spirit that allows you all to write so eloquently.👍

If I wasn’t already a Catholic, I would join the closest RCIA and become one.:blessyou:
 
We’re there to worship and participate in offering the sacrifice of His Son to the Father. We have the Eucharist - sadly, that’s something Baptists don’t have.
 
After all those lovely and uplifting comments, I don;t have much to offer except to say that as a Baptist she attends church with the same congregation each week, if it is large enough maybe more than one preacher who take turns. So what happens on the typical Baptist services I have observed? ( one of my sons and his family are Baptists) Ahh! Fellowship before the service begins, then an opening statement and prayer by the preacher, followed by a few praise songs, then maybe a short bit where the young children are dedicated to the Lord maybe a couple of times a year, now we get into the sermon which lasts at least 45 minutes and may all about one short verse from Scripture, next we have some more praise songs followed by spontaneous prayer, more praise songs and it is all over. Maybe some more fellowship. The Scripture verse and songs, maybe the particular instruments used may change from week to week, but the outline of the service does not. I would submit that in a Mass in addition to the Eucharist Catholics are exposed to at minimum 10 times the Scripture used in the Baptist services I have observed. Talk about robots and boring!
 
Buy her a copy of Scott Hahn’s The Lambs supper. Wanna follow the Bible, just go to Mass.
 
srferdave said:
My girlfriend is a baptist. And we have been talking about the reasons why she chose her religion and the differences with catholicism. One of the things she keeps saying is… Why do Catholics act like robots? Why do they do the same thing every mass? She says more people in her church have fun than in a catholic church. And that people only go to catholic church because they feel like they have to. How do I answer her questions?

Thanks
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I would feel rather excluded from the church of God if the priest kept inventing a new Mass every week. Even in my own Anglican Use parish (a departure from the norm of the Latin Church), the Mass is said from a book approved by the late Holy Father so that the people won’t have to reinvent worship every week…and be excluded. Henceforth, I feel included and worship is enhanced by the participation of the people in services they know. And yes, I look forward to the Mass very much…because I know I can expect to be fed with the Body and Blood of Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ…every week, week after week after week. This I can expect in every normal Catholic parish, Novus Ordo, Anglican Use, eastern Catholic, etc. Can your Baptist friend say that?
 
Lady_Cygnus said:
I used to think the mass was monotonous and robot like, especially this part:

V. We lift up our hearts to the Lord.
R. It is right to give Him thanks and praise.

That was until I read The Mass of the Early Christians and learned that this dialogue was universal by the middle of the third century. We are repeating what has been spoken every day for 1800 years!
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I went to an ELCA service over this past weekend.
It went like this:
Pastor: We lift up our hearts to the Lord.
Congregation: It is right to give OUR thanks and praise.

OP, I would point out to your gf that Catholics are not the only ones that follow the same form of worship week after week after week.

To my knowledge Lutheran and Anglicans/Episcopalians follow a certain pattern or form of worship week after week after week.
 
Guys, guys … you’re totally missing the point. Think how COOL it would be to be Catholic Robots! We could say our rosaries at a speed of five beads per second! We could download Summa Theologica instead of plodding through it page by page! And Mass would be a snap: kneel, stand, sit, kneel stand, sit … all without getting tired! We may really be on to something here!
 
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