Oh, jolly - democracy in the Catholic Church. Then we can have Latin Mass in the Tridentine style one week, and womyn “priests” fluttering about the Sanctuary the next - and what shall we vote for in the following week?
Flips through notepad while sipping coffee Well the following week we are going to just dabble in some Arianism, and for about a month, we are going to toss aside transubstantiation. I’m opposed to most of these, but people keep sending those petitions…Oh, jolly - democracy in the Catholic Church. Then we can have Latin Mass in the Tridentine style one week, and womyn “priests” fluttering about the Sanctuary the next - and what shall we vote for in the following week?
(I just escaped from a democratic church - please don’t make me have to go through that again!!)
Isn’t that the sad truth!
Your snide remarks about IHOP aside, I’m going to do some number crunching of my own.I/ve seen posters claim up to 15 and 16,000amilies. I’m sure its exagerration but hey, it;s the internet right, who can ever really knowt?
Well lets see, I once read of a parish that claimed 21,000 members of which they had a posted wekly Mass average attendance of 6,3000, or a little less than 33%. math is not my strong suit. So lets check your figure. 3500 families, good Catholic families so lets figure 5 to a family, umm 17,500 people sound about right? OK and lets use the same average of Mass attendance of 33% OK, just for argument. So we have a normal weekly Mass attendance of about oh lets say 5,000, because we know that a lot of people and I mean a whole lot only show up for Christmas and Easter. Using your quote of 6 weekend Masses that works out to about 850 per Mass. Lets say that 50 don’t receive. That leaves 800 to receive per mass. .Lets figure that it takes about 5 seconds, and that is a very liberal estimate believe me, to distribute in the hand, standing per person. Thats 12 per minute or 720 per hour per person distributing. My guess is your parish would need two people, a Priest and a Deacon to commune the faithful in less than 30 minutes.
Of course since speed is the issue in these things, you know Holy Communion has to be over quickly so we can make it over to IHOP before the crowds get there, or to the stadium before kick off, you may need to use more extraordinary ministers to get communion time down to 10 minutes or so which is probably what most churches aim for, and what is probably the real reason for the swarms for Extraordinary Ministers that normally appear.
We have about 400 elderly who canot be moved, but since most of them are Filipino, their families tend to bring the Host to them in most cases. Lucky I guess. The homebound figure fluctuates but I’d say an average of 15-20 per month. But Father takes care of those saying he feels it is his responsibility as the pastor. Again, I guess we’re lucky.
I can’t see how.
I can’t speak for the other poster, but maybe he means “protestant” because lay people actually touch the Sacred Body and “feminist” because there seems to be a lot of women who are EMsHC (at my parish, there are more women than men EMHC).
Um - they always have done. There was a period of time starting at Trent and up until the mid-1960s when lay people touched Him only with their tongues, but I’m not sure how you receive Holy Communion without any physical contact whatsoever. (In any case, I thought that was the whole point of Holy Communion - Jesus materially becoming joined to our bodies.)
Maybe it’s because more women than men can take time off from their work in the middle of the day to do hospital visits.
Yes, it is.My opinion about this is that if more men would heed the calling to enter the religious life, we wouldn’t have this problem. But many men won’t become a priest because of the sacrifices required. This is truly sad.
I am a Eucharisitic Minister. I take it seriously (so much so thatI sometimes feel ill with “nerves”), and I am very conscious that I don’t overstep the bounds of what is appropriate for a lay person to do. I have never seen anything done in an inappropriate manner in any Catholic Church I have attended (in regards to this particular issue). You seem to be calling for greater education of the Eucharisitc Ministers, which is certainly a great idea. I actually think that this service to the Church is an important one, however, and it is one with which I proceed always in reverence and respect.
Unless you are ordained with one of the major orders of Deacon, Priest or Bishop; you DID go too far by making the sign of the cross on a person’s forehead and saying a short prayer.
No, because as a parent you are allowed to bless your children, grandchildren, etc.
No, the bottom line is>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If perhaps my vocabulary is not 100% accurate, I would ask your pardon. We are called Eucahristic Ministers at our parish. I am the first to say that I am a new Catholic, so some of the vocabulary nuances may be lost on me. (My family joined a couple of Easters ago when we left the Protestant tradition for the Catholic Church.)
Without having numbers on Mass attendance averages, which are readily available from every parish and diocese, your analysis doesn’t stand up to any level of scrutiny. Your observations about there even being people standing in the back doesn’t cut it for analytical purposes.
No I;m not angry, I just get frustrated at the abysmal level of knowledge that people have about their faith, who then go and loudly proclaim their ignorance to the world.If perhaps my vocabulary is not 100% accurate, I would ask your pardon. We are called Eucahristic Ministers at our parish. I am the first to say that I am a new Catholic, so some of the vocabulary nuances may be lost on me. (My family joined a couple of Easters ago when we left the Protestant tradition for the Catholic Church.)
To answer the earlier post, the training that I received on the Eucharisitc Minister ministry was by an ordained deacon who is now finishing his doctorate in Rome. I have served under two priests since his departure–when our last priest was promoted to the Cathedral. The point that I recall in the training was that we were told that it was not appropriate for the ministers to make the sign of the cross in the air, but only on the forhead of the person coming to receive the sacrament. This is how we were told to do it, and this is how those of us in the ministry in our parish carry it out–when someone is not receiving the Body and requests only the blessing.
Unless I am mis-reading the post from Psalm85, you seem angry. I don’t know you, so this puzzles me. If you are indeed angry, the only explanation I can think of is that you are caught up in the legalism of your belief and perhaps have lost touch with the underlying meaning and truth of your faith. There is a Catholic priest who has written some interesting observations concerning the threat of legalism to Christians. If you want the reference, I can try to hunt up the book.
I will try to remember to bring this question up the next time an issue arises, but I think I will stick with the way my church authorities have conveyed and explained the process to me. Thank you for expressing your concerns, though. It is certainly appreciated!
I don’t know about other parishes, but Sunday afternoons are when we do Baptisms. We often have 5-6 baptisms on any given Sunday afternoon.
Most places I know of do the baptisms on Saturday afternoons.I don’t know about other parishes, but Sunday afternoons are when we do Baptisms. We often have 5-6 baptisms on any given Sunday afternoon.
We also have community events on Sunday afternoons, such as picnics, prayer and praise, etc. (We had our Back to School picnic last weekend.) Our pastor is really big on community building - it helps bring people out to Mass and gets them interested in learning about the Church. I would say that about 70% of our RCIA Inquirers first found out about us at a Sunday afternoon parish community event.
We have weddings on Saturdays - sometimes funerals, as well, although most of the time, funerals are done during the week.
Where do you think the Protestants learned it from?
As people in this thread keep pointing out, the Mass is the Solemn Sacrifice of Calvary. Lay people have very little role in it, other than to join their hearts with it in prayer.
Why would you look in the General Instruction of the Roman Missal for liturgies outside of Mass?
Can the sarcasm, please. We have six Masses every weekend, plus at least two every day of the week. Aren’t people ever allowed to do anything fun together? One fun thing during the week, and that’s it, they’re heretics?
Well, this particular terminology issue slipped by my radar. After doing some research on the issue, I contacted our parish for more clarification. In our case, it looks as if the term is used infrequently which may have led to my confusion. In regards to the other issues I raised, however, I see nothing suggesting any further change is necessary in how we perform our services. We were trained by a brilliant and remarkably conservative deacon whose explanations I take very seriously.