How come Protestants are more emotional during their services, than Catholics who receive the Holy Eucharist?

[Contarini]

How come when I see them on tv, they are always yelling out praise, and lifting up their hands when a preacher says something exciting (why do they do that by the way?). They are really excited about the scriptures (and how it applies to them) and they have tears of joy.

Those are generally Pentecostals. Some Protestants are just as quiet as Catholics. And charismatic Catholics can be quite demonstrative, I understand.

Different Christian traditions embody different approaches to worship. You are treating the demonstrations you see on TV as spontaneous expressions of emotion. But there’s no such thing. Emotion is culturally constructed. People respond in certain ways (and I mean *genuinely *respond–I don’t mean that it’s fake) because their particular culture has trained them to feel certain things in response to certain stimuli and respond in certain ways. Catholics are generally trained to respond to the presence of Christ with quiet reverence. It doesn’t mean that they are less serious Christians or less worshipful than demonstrative Protestants. Nor is the reverse true. These are different kinds of responses, reflecting different cultures and different theologies.

Edwin

 

[jhcooper]

I converted to Catholicism almost 50 years ago, in part, because I admired the scholarly approach of Catholicism and I wanted to leave the emotionlism which can too easily take one down the wrong road.

 

[bpbasilphx]

Too many people confuse devotion with emotion, and judge their spiritual status on the basis of what they feel–or don’t feel.

 

[reteeks21]

Too many people confuse devotion with emotion, and judge their spiritual status on the basis of what they feel–or don’t feel.

Excellent point. I don’t ever recall Jesus making feelings the point. I couldn’t agree more.