Have you Ever Walked-Out of Mass

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WanderAimlessly

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Reading all the antics that happens during Mass, I am wondering if anyone has seen something that made them get up and walk out on a Mass.

I have come close a couple of times (and actually walked out during communion only because I has already attended another Mass, but I was checking of other parishes).

On the one I walked out of, it has a touchdown Jesus instread of the Crucifix and maybe 50 people at the mid-morning Mass. The reason I looked for the exit was they has a substitute priest from the local University here and he made a joke about having someone else speak for the homily. If I could of gotten out sooner, I would of.

PF
 
One time there was no priest and ministrants tried to held it without a consecration of course, but it seemed for me as a blasphemy and I run out.
 
My husband had to physically restrain me from walking out on a homily in our old parish, when on Pentecost he kept referring to the Holy Spirit as “she.”
 
My wife had to chain me to the pew (sorry, it was a kneelerless chair) when a Lutheran priestess was allowed to give the “homily” as part of some inter-faith ecumenism exercise. After she spoke emptily about “unity through disunity”, she promptly departed parish property before the Liturgy of the Eucharist began.
 
I walked out of Mass once, when I witnessed so many abuses of the liturgy I got disgusted. The priest **actually told the congregation to sit down during the Credo!!! **
I thought to myself, “This is the last straw”, and just abruptly walked out! I couldn’t take Communion because, given the numerous abuses, it would be invalid.
 
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WanderAimlessly:
On the one I walked out of, it has a touchdown Jesus instread of the Crucifix…
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Our archdiocesan seminary is named St. Mary’s. As you turn off the main road onto the driveway and proceed toward the chapel, there is a large statue of Mary with arms outstretched.

My younger son attended a Mass/seminary tour/picnic for altar servers a couple of weeks ago. Afterward, he asked me to guess the name the seminarians have for the statue – I would never have guessed “St. Mary of the Fish That Got Away”!

(BTW, the chapel does have a crucifix.)
 
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stopthependulum:
I walked out of Mass once, when I witnessed so many abuses of the liturgy I got disgusted. The priest **actually told the congregation to sit down during the Credo!!! **
I thought to myself, “This is the last straw”, and just abruptly walked out! I couldn’t take Communion because, given the numerous abuses, it would be invalid.
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There are extraordinarily few liturgical abuses that would render the consecration invalid, and certainly none that would occur before the creed.

While leaving may on rare occasions be an appropriate way to register displeasure, like most protests, its pretty ineffective. First of all, unless people leave en masse, the priest doesn’t ususally notice. Secondly, if the priest is allowing the abuse to occur, walking out is only going to fuel his desire to dismiss you. I hate the phrase but, “meet Father where he’s at.” Slowly but surely indicate to him the way that you feel and how widespread concern is about these issues, and of course pray for him. Only in really, really rare cases (formal heresy from the pulpit) would it seem appropriate to walk out, though.
 
I voted yes. Just this past week-end by coincidence.

It was first Communion Sunday for the little ones and I guess to make the Gospel more digestible for them he “free formed it” so to speak. I didn’t realize it at first because I listen and don’t read along.

To paraphrase: One day Jesus was walking along teaching. He’d walk 3 miles to one town, then 4 miles to the next town. So He was pretty tired at the end of the day. You know how hot it is on the summer time and having walked all day he wanted to cool off so he found a nice big shade tree to lay under for awhile. Pretty soon the children of the town came up and were playing around Him. crawling on Him, poking Him, playing with His beard all bristly and curly, etc. when the apostles saw what was going on, they came over and chased the kids away saying, ‘Hey, cut it out’, ‘get off of him’, stuff like that. But then Jesus told them that the children were OK and it didn’t bother him at all…

I kept thinking to myself, is this the Gospel? yeah, I did the before Gospel reading crossing of head, lips, & heart. Maybe I got distracted and this is the homily? Hmm I don’t remember saying “Praise to you Lord Jesus Christ.”

Then I heard it… “This is the Gospel of the Lord.” WHAT!!! I know that’s not in the Bible. I steamed for about a minute deciding what to do. I checked the Missal. It wasn’t even the right passage.

I got up, crawled past a couple people on my way to the aisle, genuflected and walked out.

That was the final straw for this church. I can deal with a music director that prefers plinking out ‘tunes’ on a little piano when a perfectly good organ is a few feet away. I can tolerate the lack of a true crucifix in the church during Mass. They put the processional cross in the sacresty instead of displaying it. not that it’d matter, the Corpus on it is just a blob of polished metal the vaguely resembles a humanoid form. I can even deal with EM’s passing the chalice to each other for the taking of the Wine since I won’t accept the Eucharist from them anyway. we’ve had women missioinaries visiting from South America as a “guest speaker” instead of a proper homily. There is no purification of the vessals after the Communion, etc, etc.

GRRRRR!!!

Jeez!! How much is a person supposed to take?? is it even a valid Mass if the Liturgy of the Word is not done correctly?

If he wanted to give a cozy message to the kids that’s fine, he could have done it at the homily. At least it would have been instructive. and something we as parents could relate to for a change (tired and having the kids all over us). Unlike alot of the drivel that comes from his pulpit.

I came back into the rear vestibule after saying a Rosary in the car for Father Al. It never ends, I peeked in and saw the Communicants standing in front of the alter. singing a song about how “Jesus is my best friend”. complete with ‘Head, shoulders, knees & toes’ type dancing to the accompanyment of some rock-a-billy tune on a cheap cassette player. then the congregation applauded. AARGH!!! All I could do ws shake my head sadly and wait for my mother in law to come out.

I’ve already sent an email to Father expressing my “list of grievances” citing GIRM, and CCC references.

Excellent Poll and it saved me from starting my own thread on the topic.

Mike
 
I never walked out of a Mass, but I have changed my seat at least once.

What drives me up the wall are couples who can’t keep their hands off of each other during Mass. They must think it is a movie or something. I did say something to one of them once before I changed my seat.

It is EXTREMELY distracting.
 
No, but came very close to. The priest decided to use his homily to rail against an un-named parishoner who had genuflected before recieving the Eucharist. It happened at a recent Mass, he stated that despite the fact that there had been an announcement not to because the Mass was dimly lit (not sure why) and there was a danger of “getting tripped over and people could be injured”. He referred to this un-named woman as “this little lassie”. He continued to adamantly state that we stant to recieve communion. And gave some rediculous story about how genuflecting got started. He stated at a was Mass that a newspaper photographer was present and someone decided to genuflect for the camera and it ended up in the paper and then everyone started genuflecting after that.

I was so angry I was close to tears. I couldn’t believe a priest would use a homily to trash one of his parishoners and promote such a rediculous story about genuflecting. This church doesn’t have kneelers either so we knelt on the floor.

It isn’t our regular parish but it is closest to us and once in a while we attended there because the Mass time was convient. At a previous Mass they once started singing a song (with the words on their giant screens) about Jesus. Sometimes they referred to Jesus as a he and sometimes as a she. Even the people around us looked confused.

After this last incident with the genuflecting I told my husband unless we have to go there for a wedding or a funeral I waas never setting foot in that church again.
 
Ray Marshall:
I never walked out of a Mass, but I have changed my seat at least once.

What drives me up the wall are couples who can’t keep their hands off of each other during Mass. They must think it is a movie or something. I did say something to one of them once before I changed my seat.

It is EXTREMELY distracting.
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Could you elaborate? Sometimes I hold my husband’s hand during Mass , is that what you are referring to?
 
I’ve never walked out of Mass but I sure have felt like it a few times! Once was at a Life-teen Mass that was full of abuses, it was just awful. Another time was at another parish where there was no Crucifix and very casual behavior by the priest, talking to parishioners during Mass, etc. Terrible. And other times I have felt like moving away from other parishioners in my home parish, because they are so noisy and fidgety. Very irritating and distracting. Also when they come in late–that drives me bats! They come so late–it makes me wonder why they bother coming at all, as it is so distracting to others. Wonders never cease…
 
Once.

I was at a neighboring parish with a rather poor reputation for the Saturday Vigil Mass. It was cold and raining like cats and dogs out. A baby began to cry during the Gospel reading. A very quiet cry, no big deal – the kind that die-down quickly.

After he was through reading the priest stopped and glared at the woman and her baby. The baby was quiet by this time but she said “do you want me to leave?” The priest repiled “YES!” It was cold and raining outside but she still left, with tears in her eyes.

This shook the congregation and he sensed it. He then asked “didn’t I do the right thing?” (he was fishing for approval.) There was silence – until the brown-nosers began to speak their approval. I quietly suggested that he (the priest) needed to grow-up. That really inflamed the brown-nosers – they became very vocal and rude – in church!

I then said that I was going to make sure the woman was OK and that I would be more than happy to “talk” about my position withone anyone questioning it. I left quietly. The mother and her baby had already left and no one came outside for a “discussion…”
 
Yes, when the priest was attempting to confect the Eucharist using clearly invalid matter.

It was a beautiful old church from the outside. However, inside it had been wreckovated probably sometime in the 70’s. In place of the old high altar, they had a beautiful piece of brown painted plywood. :rolleyes:

That was the first time I ever visited that parish. And the last.
 
**Herbert May, a renegade priest in the Lake Charles Diocese of Louisiana on occasion uses baked bread that is sweet with honey. Wrong!
Uses Inclusive language, and he removed the tabernacle from the church.

Cant go to church there!
I never went back since I saw all these things the first time I attened.

PiusX**
 
Herbert May, a renegade priest in the Lake Charles Diocese of Louisiana on occasion uses baked bread that is sweet with honey. Wrong!
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I’m also in Louisiana, Shreveport Diocese, and when I moved in I found the converted-to-Catholicism pastor using that same leavened honey-bread. He insisted it was legitimate, just unleavened flour and water. He was sure it was approved because the parish ladies’ altar society made it. So I complimented him on the taste and asked for the recipe. :whistle:

Not long after that the honey-bread disappeared from the altar, never to return. Sometimes the charitable approach is the most effective.

Regarding walking out during mass, my dad took the whole family out the day the pastor preached on the evils of abortion, in graphic bloody detail, in front of a church full of young families and grade-school age children. I’m sure there were some people present who needed to hear the gory message, but the young kids were not among them.
 
Once when at Communion my mother and I were kneeling waiting for our row to go. All of a sudden everyone got up and stood in a circle passing the ciborium around and taking there own hosts.

But I must admit there have been many I needed to be restrained.
 
No, I never have but I have sat aghast before. Once in particular I took my brother to the Catholic Campus Ministries Mass at a nearby parish upon which the priest said he wanted to do a communal homily where everyone got to say what they thought about the Gospel. I was terribly embarassed bringing my brother there as to my knowledge this was the only time it happened with the visiting priest. Sad.:o Thanks and God Bless.
 
Thankfully I never have to sit and listen to a homily that’s filled with so much dissent here in the Philippines. May that day never happen! But even if it does, the Mass is more than just the homily, and as such it is sacred and must be kept so. Correcting a wrong by another wrong doesn’t make it right.
 
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