How do Catholics remember all those responses?

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Having been a cradle catholic, and just learning the whole of the
religion this past year and a half, and still learning, I kinda of chuckled when I read your post, not at you, but at me;)
It took me thirty years to learn all the prayers in Mass, and
up until then I used the missal, and just when I think I have it down,
the Father say’s go in peace the Mass has ended, and instead of
saying Thanks be to God, I yell Amen, hahaha, you’ll get them,
believe me when you say them over and over you memorize them,
just like anything else we study. Listening to catholic radio helped
me alot, like I know the Angelus, and others now by heart.:amen:
 
I think that the more you go to Mass and the more you listen to Mass when you’re there the easier the responses will be for you to remember. After awhile they just sink in. The advice to use a missalette is really good advice. As you follow along each time it will all start to come together for you. Welcome home, friend!
 
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rarndt01:
My question is, how did they get this proficient?

Ron from Ohio
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You think we all know these responses? Many, especially myself, follow the priest or the crowd. We are a couple of milliseconds behind. I also can’t remember the Psalm response between verses.

I always lose my place in the Gloria (which by the way is perfect for refuting claims of Mary worship, etc.)

Next time some smart alec know-it-all seems like they have it so together, challenge him on the Nicene Creed, Hail Holy Queen, or that other one… you know…I forget the name…
 
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jmm08:
Try this link.
“Why do Catholics bounce on one knee?”
“Why do Catholics scratch their foreheads before the Gospel Reading?”
“Why does the priest sniff the altar?”

By the way, I read somewhere that instead of using one knee we should sometimes use two knees (if for example Christ is exposed during Holy Hour).

text.grigaitis.net/?/articles/guide.html
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In general this is a good site for non-Catholics except it seems demeaning to the priest and not a good example to continually say “the priest mumbles” - what’s with that?
 
I can recite a lot of the prayers by heart when I’m at Mass as long as I don’t think about them. Same thing with the Pledge of Allegiance and the alphabet. 😃 But If I have to stop and think about the words, forget it! They’re just gone.

But the Nicene creed I always have to read along in the Missal. I don’t know if I ever memorized it when I was younger, but I’m thinking I probably didn’t because the 22 years away didn’t make me forget anything else.
 
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Marauder:
First off, don’t worry. Nobody cares if you don’t know all the responses. If your church has missaletes, all the responses are in there. Use them, eventually you will learn all the parts from memory.

I see people that have been in the Catholic faith for years, still use the books for the Nicene Creed and other prayers.

The reason a lot of people know the prayers by heart is that they have been using them for years. You begin to learn the prayers. Also it is much easier to say these prayers with a group. I bet if you take your average Catholic and ask him to say the Nicene Creed without anyone else around, they would mess up or not even be able to do it. But in a group they are fine. I know the Nicene Creed by heart but will occasionally mess up, especially if my mind starts to wander. Sometimes I even (by accident) merge the Apostles Creed and the Nicene Creed.
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Even though I pray the Rosary almost everyday, when I am with others and have to lead… I mess up. One time we were in the car and there were 8 of us. I was asked to lead the Rosary and I scrambled the decades and at the end I skipped the Hail Holy Queen and went on to pray for our Holy Fathers intentions, than the Hail Holy Queen. Not a big deal, people understand. But I felt horrible. A humbling experience.

As far as Mass goes…I’m a baby in my faith…oh about 3or 4 years now, and I was given the Magnificat for my birthday. I use it at every Mass not because I don’t know the words but it really helps me to hear the words and to focus on the Mass.
Sometimes I wonder if I should stop following along because when the Priest veers from the text it throws me off course.
 
Basically, the same way many protestants memorize those 20 or so Bible verses: repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition…

When we recite prayers and responses over and over again, we tend to memorize them; not because we are supposed to have them memorized, but just because it happens.

The missalettes and missals are always there to guide you through the Mass.

It is much more important to understand WHAT is happening at the Mass and why, than to memorize all of the faithful’s responses.

I suggest you study or read some of the saints’ writings about the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and you will find that your heart is so enraptured during Mass, you are fully participating whether you remember all the responses or not.

Pax Christi. <><
 
**You are not alone! **

The most important thing is that we come to worship and to join in the Eucaristic meal. I have bought myself a little prayerbook where the whole ritual for Mass is printed. That is of great help for me.

God Bless!

G.G.
 
DreamWanderer,

You said: "I keep forgetting to do the sign of the cross on my head, lips and mouth before the reading of the gospel. :o " (I think what you actually meant to say was “my head, lips, and heart” 😉 ).

I talked to my priest just a few months back about this very topic. He is a newly ordained and very devout priest. He informed me, “Although this practice is not discouraged, the mimicking of the priest is not actually in the rubrics of the Mass”. Since my conversation with Fr. Craig, I have stopped making the three-fold sign. I seem to be the only one who doesn’t do it, but I don’t let that worry me. What I *do *worry about (and pray about), is those who do make the sign and have no clue as to what it represents or why they are doing it.

For anyone else that has read this far:

Memorization of prayers is not necessarily a good thing (although not always a bad thing either). If I may be permitted to explain:

It never dawned on me how much “emphasis” and “personal meaning” something can lose when we recite it from rote. Last Christmas brought this whole notion home. On the Alan Jackson Christmas special, his daughter was supposed to “read” the scripture passages Luke 2:4-14. Well, the bible was right there on the podium, and she could have actually read what was written; instead, she recited what had been memorized. All warmth and beauty of the passage was lost. You could tell she was worried about messing up, so she just seemed to ramble the words off. So, in essence, the same thing could be said of prayers. When we recite by rote, our mouths are speaking the words, but our minds could be anywhere else. When we are “reading” them, we tend to concentrate more on what the actual words are saying and the meaning of them.

What really brought it all home to me (after the A.J. special) was when I made my first reconcilliation after the special. Fr. John asked me to say an Act of Contrition. Although I was truly sorry for my sins, I rambled off the words- “Oh my God I am heartily sorry for having offended thee…” I didn’t really think about what I was saying…the true impact of my ‘recitation’ didn’t hit me until later. I know I was more concerned with ‘messing up’ my Act of Contrition’ than on what I was actually saying and proclaiming.

So, the long and short of it (at least to me) is memorization is fine, as long as it doesn’t detract from the heartfelt sincerity of the prayer. I would rather be seen as ‘not knowing the prayer and having to use the missal’ than one who can recite the Nicene Creed (or any other prayer) from rote (but only saying it from memory, and not giving it a second thought).

Of course, the second half of my post is just my :twocents: worth.
 
All the advice already given is terrific.

I want to add that the prayers of the Mass are sort of a dialogue between God and man. The priest, acting as the head of the Body (Christ), speaks and we, the Body, respond. So, no matter how you say the prayers (from the Missal, from memory, etc.) try to enter into the dialogue and think of what is being said & how awesome it is to be in this wonderous & mysterious dialogue with our incredible God & Savior.
 
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SHJ-BVM:
DreamWanderer,

I talked to my priest just a few months back about this very topic. He is a newly ordained and very devout priest. He informed me, “Although this practice is not discouraged, the mimicking of the priest is not actually in the rubrics of the Mass”. Since my conversation with Fr. Craig, I have stopped making the three-fold sign. I seem to be the only one who doesn’t do it, but I don’t let that worry me. .
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I think I remember on of my RICA instructors say something along those lines…but that’s good news. I won’t get so worried about messing up in that part from now on.

dream wanderer
 
Music is what helped me learn all of the ordinaries and congregational responses. Mass VIII is perfect for learning the ordinaries, and I do think it’s a good idea to learn them in Latin before you attempt to learn them in any other language (Latin is easier to memorize than English because you can generally say a lot more with a lot less words) 🙂 And as for the rest of the responses, you might want to look into going to a parish where the Mass is sung from start to finish. We call it a Missa Cantata. Music makes things easy to remember, and it also makes this a bit more reverent… so then when you have a visiting priest at your regular parish who starts the Mass by singing, you won’t be totally lost like anyone else. lol
 
Let not your heart be troubled! It takes regular practice to learn it all. Next year will be 10 years since my conversion, but 13 years since I started investigating on my own through EWTN (Thank God for Mother Angelica!) and then RCIA classes. In no time you will know the creeds, prayers and responses! It really does get easier, the more you attend Mass and in your spare time, borrow a Misselette or buy for about $10.00 a small book that helped me called Catholic Book of Prayers. It has The Mass in it as well as common Catholic Prayers, The Stations of the Cross, The Rosary, Prayers before & after Communion and a Summary of The Catholic Faith. Don’t worry you are not alone! It just takes time, the more familiar something is, the easier it is to learn .

God Bless!
 
Might I also suggest, in addition to the great advice above, that you find a nearby church that is faithful to the magesterium, talk to the RCIA director there to see if you can attend their classes this year. There’ s no law against learning as much about your faith as you can!

Debbie
 
rarndt01 said:
I have just been a Ctholic now for a little over 2 years and it has been all uphill. I had a poor RCIA instructor. I was never instructed in the “mechanics” of what to say and do during the mass. I had to learn through total embarassment and scrambling through the pages of the church missal. I still am BEHIND. Why? Because most Catholics can recite ALL the responses from memory.
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                                    My question is, how did they get this proficient?  Most people can not remember all the words to the "pledge of Aligance" that we rattled off as a child. So how do they know all the responses, like the, Gloria,  Nicene creed and the Eucharist responses, etc? I do alright with the "Our Father", "amen", and "also with you". I even learned that your suppose to say "Peace to you" and not "how ya doin" when everyone greets one another.

                                      Has anyone else gone through this or am I the only Gomer Pyle? Just wondering if all these other Catholics took a Jerry Lucas memory corse some years back to remember all this? Thanks.

                                              Ron from Ohio
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Its all quite easy after awhile. I would suggest taking home a missal booklet and read next weeks readings and go over the responses. You will find its really not hard. God bless you.
 
greyfox65 said:
Its all quite easy after awhile. I would suggest taking home a missal booklet and read next weeks readings and go over the responses. You will find its really not hard. God bless you.
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Um - this thread is four years old and the OP is banned. :rolleyes:

~Liza
 
As has been said before, its all immersion. Its like little kids learning English(or Spanish, or Italian, or whatever their parents speak) - they just pick it up after being around it all the time. I’ve been Catholic since day one, am now in the eighth grade, and have been in Catholic school since kindergarten. My school has Mass twice a week. So, think about it. 14 years, Mass three times a week, it adds up after a while. Pretty soon it becomes second nature. So just keep at it, follow along in the missalette, and pretty soon you’ll be just peachy at it. And don’t worry about looking like you don’t know your stuff because you’re following along - I know people who have been Catholic for eighty years and still use the missalette for the Nicene creed.

Edit: Oh, um, wow. Did not notice the dates…

Sorry bout that, folks!
 
For those that bumped the topic up, thank you! I’d been wondering about this myself. 🙂 So, even if it didn’t help the OP, someone did get some good advice from it. 😃
 
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