Chit Chat Before Mass, Proper Dress

[Northern_Nate]

I attended a parish where the lack of silence became an issue. The faithful Priest then had these cards printed for each pew.

(Please Note: This uploaded content is no longer available.)

 

[Margaret_Ann]

That is awesome! God bless that priest!

Will pm you re picture.

 

[Margaret_Ann]

Are you a Byzantine Franciscan?

 

[Peeps]

I know very well how wrath is stirred in the worldly, when they are called to zeal. Jesus was hard, but simple and true, when He taught of the radical divide between this world and the eternal one to come.

There is a great difference between being judgmental, and discerning - seeing and understanding the signs of the times, and the spirit that is at work in the world.

Mt 6:24 “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon.”

Mt 16:24 Then Jesus told his disciples, “If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.
Mt 16:25 For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.
Mt 16:26 For what will it profit a man, if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? Or what shall a man give in return for his life?”

Jn 5:44. “How can you believe, when you accept praise from one another and do not seek the praise that comes from the only God?”

Jn 15:18 “If the world hates you, know that it has hated me before it hated you.
Jn 15:19 If you were of the world, the world would love its own; but because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you.
Jn 15:20 Remember the word that I said to you, ‘A servant is not greater than his master.’ If they persecuted me, they will persecute you; if they kept my word, they will keep yours also.”

You can quote all the Bible verses you like (I’m a convert from Evangelical Protestantism)–I’m not impressed. I’ve seen Bible verses used out of context to justify all kinds of wrong doctrine and sinful behavior.

But you cannot judge the hearts of people that you do not know and haven’t ever met or talked to.

When you talk to one of those chatty people and they tell you that they really don’t believe in Jesus, they think that the Blessed Sacrament is a symbol, and they don’t think it matters how they behave in church because Jesus loves everyone and will bring everyone to heaven–well, then you can say that they are irreverent, worldly, and all the rest.

But until you know them personally, you cannot judge the heart unless you are God.

 

[stpurl]

Fides wasn’t judging the heart of these people, individually or collectively.

He or she was making an observation.

Tell me, are we now not permitted to make observations regarding objectively wrong actions about the action itself, lest we be accused of judging the ‘heart’ of the person?

Well then first, you’re judging Fides’ ‘heart’ yourself (that’s the irony I alluded to earlier). You have no idea what he or she has done, or not done, regarding any individual, and above all, you have not allowed for the simple judgment (it is not a bad word) that Christ Himself demands of us.

He does not say, “Well gee people, please don’t admonish sinners or counsel the doubtful unless you have gone to every single individual and discerned the state of their heart, because their actions, while objectively wrong, might not be ‘that bad’ to Me.” Because only God knows the heart. But He has not told us that we cannot comment upon troubling actions or find specific actions to be wrong (or right) in and of themselves.

I guess it’s easy to virtue-shame people. Come on, none of us is sinless so if the criterion to comment on a given action’s rightness or wrongness depended on our personal sanctity nobody could ever say a word about ANY action.

But if that were the case, then (as many have noticed has occurred in the last few decades) countless people engage in wrong actions without ever having the saving grace of a Christian to tell them, “This action is not good”. Oh God FORBID that we say “no” or “don’t” or 'wrong", lest we somehow frighten people away with our rigidity and judgmentalism.

Of course, while we don’t ‘frighten’ them by being complicit in letting them do wrong, we also don’t help them learn to do right either, now do we?

 

[Peeps]

word about ANY action.

But if that were the case, then (as many have noticed has occurred in the last few decades) countless people engage in wrong actions without ever having the saving grace of a Christian to tell them, “This action is not good”. Oh God FORBID that we say “no” or “don’t” or 'wrong", lest we somehow frighten people away with our rigidity and judgmentalism.

I have no problem at all with someone saying, “Chit chatting is disturbing me personally.”

I’m a little bothered when someone says, “The chit-chatting is disturbing to the one who is doing it.” Maybe

But I do have a big problem with someone saying that the chit chatting is occurring because someone is irreverent, worldly, or lukewarm. THAT is judging someone’s motives, not the action.

If my child is banging their fist against the wall, of course I must step in and tell him/her to stop because they will hurt their fist and the wall.

But I should not decide why the child is banging their fist against the wall without a lot of questioning and investigation. It could be because the child hates me and wants to hurt me, and that is frightening and could be sinful on the part of the child (or it might be due to a mental or emotional illness).

Or it could be because the child saw a superhero on TV bang through a wall with a fist, and now the child is imitating that fictional character, which is kind of cute, although it obviously can’t continue (I’ll get the child a big piece of Styrofoam to pretend with!).

It is very possible that someone chats loudly in the nave because they are hard of hearing and have no idea that they are talking loudly enough to disturb others.

 

[fide]

Peeps - irreverence and worldliness in people outside of the Church, who do not consider themselves religious or Christian/Catholic, are not those people acting that way in the Church. I am not accusing irreverent and worldly people in the Church, who attend Mass, as being non-believers - as being people who "really don’t believe in Jesus, or even that “they think that the Blessed Sacrament is [merely] a symbol.”

The problem with irreverence and worldliness IN the Church, IN active Catholics, comes from people who they say believe the Church AND love their lives in the world and all that the world has to offer - both at the same time. Such people are “double minded” - or in the Greek, “two-souled”. They want to love the Church AND the world. They want to love God AND Mammon. They want Jesus with no “take up your cross and follow Me.” But this is a contradiction of the only Jesus who IS.

Jesus says, “No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon,” but THEY say to themselves, and believe, “No, I can do both. I can love God AND this world AND the things of this world. I can believe God AND I can pretty much do what I like, as long as I don’t do anything really bad.”

Jesus says, ““If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.” They would say, “No, I certainly do NOT have to “deny myself”! I am a good person and I want to be the best version of myself that I can be. I want to fulfill myself, to live my life to the fullest, to grow and achieve and progress!”

Thus they think that God doesn’t mean it when He says, “You shall love the Lord your God with ALL your heart, and ALL your soul, and ALL your mind.” “That’s impossible,” they think. And thus they live a compromised, mixed life - a life of inner contradiction - a life of faith-but-not-“fanatically so”.

Jesus does not call anyone to part-time Christianity. He does not call anyone to even a 5-day 8-hours-a-day work-week Christianity. No, the call into Christ, into His Life, is into a complete commitment, 24/365 for life. Yes it is a narrow gate, a hard road that leads to life -and few find it. No it is not the wide gate and the broad path that leads to destruction, although MANY, Scripture says, are trying it out anyway. But Jesus says, it is one or the other; we can’t have both.

I urge you to spend some good quality time reading the Bible! Listen to it - to Him! It (He) really means what it (He) says, and truth is a very freeing reality.