First experience of a Mass

[Godith]

A couple of weeks ago on this thread, we were discussing visiting other churches. I mentioned that my Catholic friend was going to take me along to a Mass, and one of the posters asked me to write about how I found it. I thought here was more appropriate than the original thread, so here goes:

I thought it was all rather beautiful. We went to sung Mass at the local cathedral, so it was a large church, and pretty busy. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to find an order of service or anything, so parts were a little difficult to follow for me, although I have been to high church Anglican services before, and it wasn’t unlike those. Actually, I was surprised how comfortable I felt, even though I didn’t know the words, and had to watch carefully what others were doing to know when to kneel and when to stand and stuff. My home church is almost completely non-liturgical, but I liked the ceremonial of the Mass. You are engaged on lots of levels, because there is the smell of the incense, and the sound of the voices, and the colour and movement. At the consecration, I noticed a distinct change in the spiritual atmosphere. The Presence of God was ‘heavier’ then, and I was glad we were kneeling already, because I would certainly have wanted to do that anyway.

It was a bit hard to miss out on Communion, although I understand the reasons it’s not allowed. My prayer was for the day when we can all recieve Communion together, as the brothers and sisters in Christ that we are.

Overall, it was a very good experience, and I would certainly go again.

 

[FatHead]

A couple of weeks ago on this thread, we were discussing visiting other churches. I mentioned that my Catholic friend was going to take me along to a Mass, and one of the posters asked me to write about how I found it. I thought here was more appropriate than the original thread, so here goes:

I thought it was all rather beautiful. We went to sung Mass at the local cathedral, so it was a large church, and pretty busy. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to find an order of service or anything, so parts were a little difficult to follow for me, although I have been to high church Anglican services before, and it wasn’t unlike those. Actually, I was surprised how comfortable I felt, even though I didn’t know the words, and had to watch carefully what others were doing to know when to kneel and when to stand and stuff. My home church is almost completely non-liturgical, but I liked the ceremonial of the Mass. You are engaged on lots of levels, because there is the smell of the incense, and the sound of the voices, and the colour and movement. At the consecration, I noticed a distinct change in the spiritual atmosphere. The Presence of God was ‘heavier’ then, and I was glad we were kneeling already, because I would certainly have wanted to do that anyway.

It was a bit hard to miss out on Communion, although I understand the reasons it’s not allowed. My prayer was for the day when we can all recieve Communion together, as the brothers and sisters in Christ that we are.

Overall, it was a very good experience, and I would certainly go again.

cool! im glad you liked it

 

[Dorothy]

Thanks for sharing your experience!

 

[Monica4316]

Thanks for sharing that! God bless you!

(the presence you felt was the Blessed Sacrament )

 

[Jim_Dandy]

Godith wrote:

It was a bit hard to miss out on Communion, although I understand the reasons it’s not allowed. My prayer was for the day when we can all recieve Communion together, as the brothers and sisters in Christ that we are.

It was the prayer of Our Lord, that we all be one (John 17). Alas, as long as the “brothers and sisters in Christ” believe different things about him and his teachings, we will remain separate. There are an estimated five new Protestant denominations somewhere in the world each week (World Christian Encyclopedia). They now number in the thousands – and counting.

Thank you for sharing your experience at the Mass!

 

[At_Trent]

A couple of weeks ago on this thread, we were discussing visiting other churches. I mentioned that my Catholic friend was going to take me along to a Mass, and one of the posters asked me to write about how I found it. I thought here was more appropriate than the original thread, so here goes:

I thought it was all rather beautiful. We went to sung Mass at the local cathedral, so it was a large church, and pretty busy. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to find an order of service or anything, so parts were a little difficult to follow for me, although I have been to high church Anglican services before, and it wasn’t unlike those. Actually, I was surprised how comfortable I felt, even though I didn’t know the words, and had to watch carefully what others were doing to know when to kneel and when to stand and stuff. My home church is almost completely non-liturgical, but I liked the ceremonial of the Mass. You are engaged on lots of levels, because there is the smell of the incense, and the sound of the voices, and the colour and movement. At the consecration, I noticed a distinct change in the spiritual atmosphere. The Presence of God was ‘heavier’ then, and I was glad we were kneeling already, because I would certainly have wanted to do that anyway.

It was a bit hard to miss out on Communion, although I understand the reasons it’s not allowed. My prayer was for the day when we can all recieve Communion together, as the brothers and sisters in Christ that we are.

Overall, it was a very good experience, and I would certainly go again.

Thanks for sharing your experience !

Next time, you don’t have to miss out on Communion. We can do what is called a Spiritual Communion.

**Act of Spiritual Communion
by St. Alphonsus Liguori (A.D. 1696-1787)

My Jesus, I believe that Thou art present in the Blessed Sacrament. I love Thee above all things and I desire Thee in my soul. Since I cannot now receive Thee sacramentally, come at least spiritually into my heart. As though thou wert already there, I embrace Thee and unite myself wholly to Thee; permit not that I should ever be separated from Thee. **

You may pray your own personal one as well.

God Bless

 

[Godith]

Thank you for your suggestion, At Trent. That’s a lovely prayer.

It was the prayer of Our Lord, that we all be one (John 17). Alas, as long as the “brothers and sisters in Christ” believe different things about him and his teachings, we will remain separate. There are an estimated five new Protestant denominations somewhere in the world each week (World Christian Encyclopedia). They now number in the thousands – and counting.

Really? Those numbers seem very high to me. I wonder where they get their statistics from? I suppose it depends entirely what you count as a ‘demonination’. There are plenty of independent churches out there who don’t belong to any group or heirarchy, and if you count all those separately, you would get to those kind of numbers, I suppose.

 

[CEM5]

A couple of weeks ago on this thread, we were discussing visiting other churches. I mentioned that my Catholic friend was going to take me along to a Mass, and one of the posters asked me to write about how I found it. I thought here was more appropriate than the original thread, so here goes:

I thought it was all rather beautiful. We went to sung Mass at the local cathedral, so it was a large church, and pretty busy. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to find an order of service or anything, so parts were a little difficult to follow for me, although I have been to high church Anglican services before, and it wasn’t unlike those. Actually, I was surprised how comfortable I felt, even though I didn’t know the words, and had to watch carefully what others were doing to know when to kneel and when to stand and stuff. My home church is almost completely non-liturgical, but I liked the ceremonial of the Mass. You are engaged on lots of levels, because there is the smell of the incense, and the sound of the voices, and the colour and movement. At the consecration, I noticed a distinct change in the spiritual atmosphere. The Presence of God was ‘heavier’ then, and I was glad we were kneeling already, because I would certainly have wanted to do that anyway.

It was a bit hard to miss out on Communion, although I understand the reasons it’s not allowed. My prayer was for the day when we can all recieve Communion together, as the brothers and sisters in Christ that we are.

Overall, it was a very good experience, and I would certainly go again.

Hi Godith,

Thank you for sharing!

I felt your reverence and your comfort in your descriptive words. I am very happy for you that you found your first Mass a positive experience.

God bless you and perhaps one day you will be moved to join RCIA to learn more and perhaps become a Catholic as well. :grouphug:

 

[LoyalViews]

A couple of weeks ago on this thread, we were discussing visiting other churches. I mentioned that my Catholic friend was going to take me along to a Mass, and one of the posters asked me to write about how I found it. I thought here was more appropriate than the original thread, so here goes:

I thought it was all rather beautiful. We went to sung Mass at the local cathedral, so it was a large church, and pretty busy. Unfortunately we didn’t manage to find an order of service or anything, so parts were a little difficult to follow for me, although I have been to high church Anglican services before, and it wasn’t unlike those. Actually, I was surprised how comfortable I felt, even though I didn’t know the words, and had to watch carefully what others were doing to know when to kneel and when to stand and stuff. My home church is almost completely non-liturgical, but I liked the ceremonial of the Mass. You are engaged on lots of levels, because there is the smell of the incense, and the sound of the voices, and the colour and movement. At the consecration, I noticed a distinct change in the spiritual atmosphere. The Presence of God was ‘heavier’ then, and I was glad we were kneeling already, because I would certainly have wanted to do that anyway.

It was a bit hard to miss out on Communion, although I understand the reasons it’s not allowed. My prayer was for the day when we can all recieve Communion together, as the brothers and sisters in Christ that we are.

Overall, it was a very good experience, and I would certainly go again.

PERFECT example of how a TLM ot NO in Latin doesn’t rule out active participation, from a non-Catholic!

take that liberals…

 

[MarkThompson]

PERFECT example of how a TLM ot NO in Latin doesn’t rule out active participation, from a non-Catholic!

take that liberals…

I don’t get it . . . how is this an example of that, exactly?

 

[jesuspsr]

Thanks for sharing, glad you like’d it.

God bless

jesus g

 

[Cat]

PERFECT example of how a TLM ot NO in Latin doesn’t rule out active participation, from a non-Catholic!

take that liberals…

Yes, how is this an example of how Latin in the Mass doesn’t rule out active participation?

Did the OP state that the Mass they attended was in Latin or that the responses were in Latin? My apologies if I missed that.

I can attest that the first time my husband and I attended a very modern OF Mass in our own language (English) at our parish, we did NOT know any of the words of any of the responses. Even the Our Father was different than what we were used to. (For one thing, we didn’t call it the “Our Father.” it was “the Lord’s Prayer.”)

And even though Catholics would consider the Mass we attended “modern”, to us as evangelical Protestants, it was incredibly ancient and ritualistic. Honeslty, we had no clue what was going on and we felt that we had stepped back in time 2000 years. The only really familiar thing was the Bible–we had our Bibles with us and were able to follow the readings in our own Bibles.

As for the modern “Protestant” music, we had never heard any of the songs, and we would never consider them “modern” because most the music was written at least 40 years ago. We would consider that “oldies.” And we would never consider them “Protestant” because they contain multiple references to Catholic theology. So we had no idea when we attended the Mass and heard these hymns/songs that there are some Catholics who reject Haugen, Haas, and the St. Louis Jesuit music as “Protestant” and “modern.” To us, it was/is neither. It’s just pretty church music.

 

[Godith]

The Mass I was at was in English, as it happened. I didn’t know the words simply because I don’t know them. I do know the Our Father / Lord’s Prayer, but I can’t recite the creed by heart, or the Hail Mary. I am from a charismatic/evangelical church, and we very rarely use set words for anything that is not a song. Prayers in our church services come straight from a person’s heart, in their own words. I’m not against set words at all, but that’s just how I am used to doing things, hence my lack of a liturgical education.

I’m not sure how I would find the Mass in Latin. I have a little Latin, so it wouldn’t be totally incomprehensible to me. I may well get to find out. My friend that took me to the Mass usually attends the Latin Mass if she can, so I expect to experience it one day.

On the deepest level, for me, worship dosen’t require understanding of the words. It is beyond words. At this Mass, the indescribable Presence of God was tangible, and that for me was better than any words. When in my own church, or at home, I regularly pray in tongues, as well, and then only God knows what I am saying (and any to whom He gives an interpretation). We worship and pray spirit to Spirit, and although words are useful, they aren’t what it is all about. That’s how I understand and experience things, anyway.

 

[Jim_Dandy]

Really? Those numbers seem very high to me. I wonder where they get their statistics from? I suppose it depends entirely what you count as a ‘demonination’. There are plenty of independent churches out there who don’t belong to any group or heirarchy, and if you count all those separately, you would get to those kind of numbers, I suppose.

The World Christian Encyclopedia in two volumes is a statistical study of all the denominations in the world, not just the USA. It’s revised every five years. It may be available at your local library.

Newsweek’s religion editor (Kenneth L. Woodward) wrote a story in the April 15, 2001 issue, reporting that 1,200 new, unaffiliated organizations claiming the name “Christian” spring up in Africa each month. He also stated, “And as Christianity becomes a truly global religion, theologians from India and other parts of Asia are developing new and often controversial interpretations of the faith based on their contacts with Hindu and Buddhiust traditions.”

These new groups, in many countries, could be described as “nondenominational” organizations that have taken the Protestant doctrine of Sola Scriptura to its ultimate interpretation. That’s the legacy of Martin Luther. Oy veh!

 

[LoyalViews]

I don’t get it . . . how is this an example of that, exactly?

Oh, he said that he felt very involved. Anti-tradition people say that you can’t be an “active participant” in the TLM or NO said right.

But he said it was English, so my comment doesn’t count anymore

Yes, how is this an example of how Latin in the Mass doesn’t rule out active participation?

Did the OP state that the Mass they attended was in Latin or that the responses were in Latin? My apologies if I missed that.

I can attest that the first time my husband and I attended a very modern OF Mass in our own language (English) at our parish, we did NOT know any of the words of any of the responses. Even the Our Father was different than what we were used to. (For one thing, we didn’t call it the “Our Father.” it was “the Lord’s Prayer.”)

And even though Catholics would consider the Mass we attended “modern”, to us as evangelical Protestants, it was incredibly ancient and ritualistic. Honeslty, we had no clue what was going on and we felt that we had stepped back in time 2000 years. The only really familiar thing was the Bible–we had our Bibles with us and were able to follow the readings in our own Bibles.

As for the modern “Protestant” music, we had never heard any of the songs, and we would never consider them “modern” because most the music was written at least 40 years ago. We would consider that “oldies.” And we would never consider them “Protestant” because they contain multiple references to Catholic theology. So we had no idea when we attended the Mass and heard these hymns/songs that there are some Catholics who reject Haugen, Haas, and the St. Louis Jesuit music as “Protestant” and “modern.” To us, it was/is neither. It’s just pretty church music.