Does the Devil Come to Mass With You?

  • Thread starter Thread starter JamalChristophr
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
J

JamalChristophr

Guest
I just got back from mass and was thinking about recent threads in the past month that have been taking aim at things that aren’t quite right at mass. I fight with distractions too, like tonight, during mass, at least for a few moments at a time, I don’t very much like so and so, for reason x,y, and z, which I know are utterly ridiculous, but I feel what I feel nevertheless, than it’s all sorts of other things, like a,b,c,d,e. I won’t list them because they don’t really matter. But if I really wanted to, I’m’ pretty sure I could be completely distracted and annoyed all the way through mass if I let myself go. I think that is one reason that I am bothered here when this starts to happen here on the forum. (I am of the opinion that getting caught up in these things at mass are temptations to take us away from being recollected and putting our hearts and minds in the right place before God.)

So many things in life are completely outside our sphere of influence. We’re not the priest or the Bishop, though we might choose to voice our concerns to them. That’s fine, but don’t you think it’s better to try to focus a little more on worshiping God, focusing on our devout participation in the mass rather on Johnny, Sue, Tom, and Sally and thing x,y, and z, that is not to our liking or just plain not according to proper form? I’m sort of musing about the whole thing. Anyways, what do you think about this kind of thought and emotional pinball that one can fall into when going to mass or looking at things in the parish that seem to be wrong to us?
 
Last edited:
I literally have to shake thoughts out of my head at mass,recognise it and deal with it ,sometimes more constant than others.A very human thing to have all these outside influences distracting us,and I’m sure the
old d delights in our distracted thoughts at mass.
 
I think you make some very good points. If we could concentrate on Jesus, we wouldn’t be thinking about the guy we don’t like sitting right in front of us, or
oh, no, not that awful song again, or did Father just skip something . . .
I try to concentrate on Jesus. Sometimes less successfully than others.
 
Last edited:
We bring our imperfections and brokenness to Mass, just like we bring them everywhere.
I find it’s best to deal with distractions “in the moment”, rather then worry about distractions that may happen in the future
 
That’s the nice thing about going to Latin Mass. I have no idea if Father is saying the correct thing, and everyone usually dresses like they’re in church, and not at the beach or a sporting event.

LOL
 
Last edited:
The devil is nothing in comparison to St. Michael the Archangel. Pray his prayer and trust in Jesus. There is nothing like reflecting on Jesus’ sacrifice for us in the supernatural realm of the universe, with the exception of meditating on the holy trinity.
 
I suppose I don’t find it to be a well-defined distinction—as in always wrong or never wrong.

Always trying to focus on the Mass and not be distracted is good.

If you find there is something that tends to be a distraction, it might not just be you that is affected. So it could do great good to address it respectfully.

I don’t think it is wrong to try to keep distractions to a minimum, and therefore sometimes it becomes necessary for the faithful to point out what the issue is—not griping, but being legitimately concerned.
 
Last edited:
I honestly don’t notice “stuff in the parish that seems to be wrong” to me. I don’t think I’m so holy holy as much as I think I’m just self-centered. Unless a small child is pulling my hair or getting right in my face yelling, I just don’t see all this stuff that everybody else posts about all week.

I noticed the lady leading the hymns last Sunday sang a little too slow. She’s not my favorite hymn leader. It didn’t ruin my Mass or my day. I have too much to do to think about this longer than 2 min.
 
Just curious, are you the kind of person who notices typos and spelling errors? Maybe it’s a certain type of mind, or personality that notices mistakes or other deviations from the norm, and everyone else just sees the big picture.
 
There are two sides to this.

First, it is important not to let unimportant things distract one, or even to let important things distract one in the wrong way. You have to separate between “things which it is my duty to do something about” and “things that are not my business.” If it is your business, then it is better to decide on what to do and resolve to do it, than to sit and stew about it.

(And if something really bad and heretical is going on at Mass, or something that invalidates Mass is going on, there’s not really much to do beyond document it so as to report it to your pastor/bishop, or get up and leave.)

On the other hand, there have been a lot of cases in the past when Catholics did let things go and not worry about them, and it just meant things got a lot worse. I had a very trusting attitude as a kid.

When I was a kid in the 1970’s, our pastor was very solid and orthodox, and nothing weird ever happened at his Masses. It took me until adulthood to realize that that was why his Masses at the time were always standing room only, even though he spoke in a monotone and did not give exciting homilies. Occasionally we had to go to Masses said by other priests, and those always had strange things going on. Communion bread would be made of lumpy dough with honey and other ingredients. People would sing very strange hymns. Mass got rearranged in weird ways, and you never knew what would a priest or a lay minister would do or say next. Looking back on it, it was rather hair-raising. I suspect there were reasons why my mom would suddenly decide we all needed to go to the restroom, even when none of us needed to go.

You would hear people murmur, and sometimes the adults would say something cryptic about how things were worse for the Church than they used to be. But at the time, it was very difficult to do anything about it. Our archbishop was very progressive, and our seminary was very progressive. Most of the lay religious clubs and guilds had been dismantled in the Sixties. The Internet was not available to folks, and there wasn’t any alternative Catholic press to speak of. Our pastor was being very brave and stubborn and edgy, to just keep saying an Ordinary Form Mass the way the book said. But even he had very little control over his assistant pastors.
 
In the late Seventies and early Eighties, our parish was sent a lot of fairly liberal assistant pastors and seminarians. That’s when we were taught to start doing stuff like receiving Communion in the hand, holding our hands up in the orans position at the Lord’s Prayer, holding hands at the Lord’s Prayer, shaking hands with everybody in three counties at the Peace, bringing us up to the altar during every Liturgy of the Eucharist, and so on. It was always the new people teaching us these new things, and we kids in the parochial school obediently did as we were taught. Looking back, I think a lot of the adults were constantly biting their tongue, wanting to tell us that these things were weird and not terribly Catholic, or at least wanting us to know the background behind these trendy things.

But back then, there was still a feeling that you could never openly disagree with a priest or with someone sent down by the archdiocese. Not even in your own house, in private, or to instruct your kids.

So nobody told us that, “Hey, kids, you’re doing something that no Catholic in almost 2000 years has done. Maybe you shouldn’t start some crazy new habit.” They just bit their tongues harder, and trusted, and closed their eyes a lot at Mass so that they wouldn’t be distracted.

And then there was the mess when the adults found out that big parish donors’ kids at the parochial school were being allowed to torment the kids of normal parents, and to get good grades for nothing. Also, the younger nuns at the parochial school were allowing the older nuns who didn’t speak English well to get mistreated by these kids. At this point, parents finally spoke up and things got done – but again, nobody told us kids what was going on, when the nuns suddenly all went away, and nothing was said in the Bulletin.

And then, they started sending our parish some very sketchy young priests who did some very sketchy things; and our pastor started physically patrolling the grounds of our parish, making sure us kids never got close to any of the sketchy priests without plenty of trustworthy adults around. And some of the adults had suspicions which got voiced… but they kept them quiet around us kids, even though we were the ones who really needed to know. All we knew was that the pastor was suddenly all grumpy and mean. We didn’t find out what that was all about, until years and years later.

Of course our parents and the other adults couldn’t have told us everything, and we shouldn’t put stuff on kids that aren’t their responsibility. But at least we could have known there were different opinions on this stuff.

So yes, some people have been taught to be hyper-sensitive. They should turn it down a notch. But there were generations of Catholics who suffered in silence, and kept seeing things getting worse without doing much about them. Laypeople and clergy are supposed to help each other keep on track, and we laypeople failed in not asking questions or raising a stink when stinky things were going on. Even we kids could have done more. As adults, a lot of us do try to keep things from going terrible again.
 
Loud-living-dogma said:
Just curious, are you the kind of person who notices typos and spelling errors? Maybe it’s a certain type of mind, or personality that notices mistakes or other deviations from the norm, and everyone else just sees the big picture.
Click to expand...
I do notice them, but I don’t go as nuts about them as I’ve noticed some of my friends do. The last one I noticed was a huge error on the title line of a sign advertising breakfast at a chain restaurant, apparently done by the official art/ advertising department for the restaurant and sent out to all the outlets. I noticed it, thought, “Well that looks stupid, but that’s what you get nowadays when nobody proofreads” and went on with my day. I only remembered it now because you brought it up.

I also pray through distractions constantly because I think that’s an important skill to know how to be calm at the center of your being and pray no matter what was going on. Like I just came from the UPS store where there was a line out the door and chaos going on generally and I said 2 Rosary decades in the line. The more of that I can do, the better.
 
Mintaka said:
But back then, there was still a feeling that you could never openly disagree with a priest or with someone sent down by the archdiocese. Not even in your own house, in private, or to instruct your kids.
Click to expand...
My mom missed the memo. About every week in the 70s she’d come home from church and blow her stack over something church-oriented for 15 minutes. I definitely grew up with the idea that priests were gonna do what they want but we don’t have to like it.

At the same time, my mom spent a lot of time blowing off nervous energy about lots of things that I prefer to just let go by because I have the type of personality where I don’t want to be getting that fired up about stuff (including non-religious stuff) every hour and a half. Don’t sweat the small stuff, it’s all (mostly) small stuff.
 
Not every distraction is “the Devil”, not every idle thought is Satan. We are human beings, we have weaknesses and faults that are simply part of our nature.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top