Christmas Midnight mass

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“Midnight” mass yesterday and 10am mass today. I got to do the first reading last night and to sing in the choir for both. What awesome presents from Jesus! Merry Christmas to all 🎅
 
Terrific homily delivered by the priest. Finding Christmas through others we meet in this world. Showing others love.
 
I used to go to Midnight Mass often when I was Roman Catholic. (I still miss it 😦 ) Back then they were all around midnight (11:30 was the earliest I believe). Now I notice a lot of parishes moving towards a 10 or 10:30 start time…not sure why. I’m Eastern Catholic now and we had our Vesperal Divine Liturgy at 8:00 pm. We also started with readings and carols from the Royal Hours. Being the Eve of the Nativity it was the Liturgy of St Basil which is longer so all in all about 2 hrs or so…2 of my kids fell asleep lol 🙂 Christ is born! Glorify Him! 🎄
 
I really wanted to go to midnight Mass, but went today instead. It is difficult for me to drive at night now. Next year, I’ll use Uber or Lyft.
 
Angel_Gabriel said:
I used to go to Midnight Mass often when I was Roman Catholic. (I still miss it 😦 ) Back then they were all around midnight (11:30 was the earliest I believe). Now I notice a lot of parishes moving towards a 10 or 10:30 start time…not sure why. I’m Eastern Catholic now and we had our Vesperal Divine Liturgy at 8:00 pm. We also started with readings and carols from the Royal Hours. Being the Eve of the Nativity it was the Liturgy of St Basil which is longer so all in all about 2 hrs or so…2 of my kids fell asleep lol 🙂 Christ is born! Glorify Him! 🎄
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I’ve occasionally had people who want to come for their first Divine Liturgy on Christmas. I always tell them not to come for the first time on Christmas, especially if they are used to midnight Mass.

I went to Vespers with Divine Liturgy yesterday afternoon/evening (we had ours early, at 3pm and it ended about 5:20). Then we went to Great Compline at 9:30. That was nice; Great Compline is my favorite Christmas service. Then again this morning.
 
babochka said:
I’ve occasionally had people who want to come for their first Divine Liturgy on Christmas. I always tell them not to come for the first time on Christmas, especially if they are used to midnight Mass.
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Yes, I agree…I always tell people to come to a normal Sunday or ,if they want a special feast, to Pascha instead…we do an early morning Liturgy beginning with Matins…it’s beautiful and honestly much shorter than Christmas. (and we always have a huge brunch following…with Christmas, everyone just kinda leaves and goes home lol)
 
I watched Cardinal Dolan on TV as well. I noticed during communion that a Eucharist was dropped, and recovered by the Cardinal, and promptly consumed by him. I’ve never seen this happen before, during a live televised mass. Anyone else happen to catch this?
 
Our Christmas Eve Mass was almost 2 hours long. It was beautiful.
 
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Angel_Gabriel said:
Now I notice a lot of parishes moving towards a 10 or 10:30 start time…not sure why.
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Many parishes try to have the “Midnight” Mass at a time when it will be night but people, especially elderly people, will still be reasonably awake and able to drive to and from the Mass or get some kind of transportation. Usually they want to be done no later than 11 or 12.

Also, if the neighborhood is not great, then churches often try to schedule Midnight Mass or an alternative big “Christmas Eve” Mass for a time early enough that people will feel comfortable coming out. Some of them also have to hire security just for that Mass if they can’t arrange for the local police to be paying special attention.
 
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Genuine question ok so the Catholic Church in Africa is apparently booming so why can’t we just have priests from there ?
 
halogirl - Back in the days of a more widespread faith, here in the UK, we provided enough clergy for our own needs, and some - since the 1950s we tended to rely more and more on Irish priests to make up the increasing shortfalls in vocations. And now, since Ireland has succumbed to ‘modernism’, and a declining faith, we have indeed turned to both Africa and India for priests. As far as these countries go, there are often issues over their knowledge and clarity of the English language, and increasingly they have their own needs for those priests.

As has been pointed out on a number of forum threads, the ‘West’ in particular now live in increasingly ‘dark and troubled’ times.
 
halogirl said:
ok so the Catholic Church in Africa is apparently booming so why can’t we just have priests from there ?
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The United States is getting a bunch from there.
And I don’t know if I’ve just been lucky in meeting the ones with good command of English, but I have not seen any language barriers with the African priests. If anything they speak English better than half the people they’re ministering to.

I haven’t seen so many from India in the US and when one does come over to visit, sometimes he is a little difficult to understand, which surprises me because many people from India who I’ve worked with in my technical professions or who are doctors or professors or even customer service phone representatives speak very good English.
 
Midnight mass gives me a drinkless hangover. Morning mass forever!
 
We went to the 8pm mass…would love to go to the midnight mass but it is packed to overflowing…we tried a few years ago…arrived at 10.30pm could not get anywhere near the church…my wife has had 2 back operations so cannot walk far…sadly it’s the same with the Easter vigil mass…but just the fact we were celebrating the birth of Christ still made the 8pm mass special…
 
Wife and I attended 10 PM mass, which is the closest to a midnight mass as we can get around here. It was a beautiful service. I wanted to do something more on Christmas night, so went to chapel with the dear wife and we spent an hour in prayer before the tabernacle. I’m grateful we had a place to go to, to be close to His physical presence. I wish there was even more we could do, but I understand most people are home with their families on the holiday. It kind of makes me sad that he was there by himself all alone on his birthday.
 
We have perpetual adoration in our chapel…we have the hour 7-8pm every Thursday…what a blessing it is to be in his presence
 
Like most years, we went to Christmas morning mass. It’s not crowded at all, and it’s at 10:30 so the kids have opened all their gifts by then. Then it’s off to see extended family.
 
We sang one verse of “Silent night” in 14 languages during the night Mass. Readings and prayers of the people in several languages as well. Mass was great and kids and youth choirs sang beautifully as always.

The 20 minute walk home made me a little sleepy but not very much.
 
We’re spending Christmas with our daughter and her family so hubby and I went to Midnight Mass at their parish. I was disappointed to discover that this was not the main Mass during the Night but had been assigned only a cantor and canned music. I suppose that’s not surprising considering Mass had already been celebrated at 4, 6, 8, and 10 p.m.

I normally go to Mass at that parish whenever we’re visiting because everything is in French, my mother tongue. But I must admit it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do that because of all the liberties they take with the text of the Ordinary. In fact, only the Mysterium Fidei had the proper text, albeit with some repetitions for the music.

Unfortunately, it seems the French parishes have the blessing of the CCCB to alter the texts. The official missalette doesn’t even include the proper Gloria but instead gives us a song which approximates it.
 
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