Interesting Mass Sunday

[Bob_Aliano]

We were out of town and had to attend an OF Mass in Durango, Colorado.

Mass began with some guy asking every tourist to stand - much applause;
Then he asked where each was from - much applause after each;
Then we went through the list of every parishioner birthday and anniversary - much applause after each;
Finally the processional “hymn” - America the Beautiful;
Pretty typical OF Mass followed all that, except for the sign of Peace during which all the EMs, altar servers, choir members, deacon and priest went about greeting each other with hugs and many in the congregation followed suit, quite a love fest;
More announcements about RCIA and actually important this time, and then the recessional “hymn” - God Bless America.

The noise level before and after Mass was about like a middle school recess held in a tin shed.

Sound familiar or did I find a dilly of a parish?

 

[HCC]

They’re just mad “Show Time At The Apollo” got canceled.

 

[jpjd]

So, does your post have a point, other than to denigrate the OF?

 

[dreamingformore]

Some churches are more… friendly/time consuming with the Peace be with you. I don’t know if there are rules for applauding people…

We did America the Beautiful as our recessional. shrug

 

[Renko]

You found a dilly of a parish, run as fast as you can.

 

[didymus]

Some churches are more… friendly/time consuming with the Peace be with you. I don’t know if there are rules for applauding people…

We did America the Beautiful as our recessional. shrug

Ours did America the Beautiful as well & it always bugs me, it just doesn’t belong in church. Now The Battle Hymn of the Republic, though protestant, is at least a real hymn.

 

[Disciple96]

Sounds like a bad experience you had in Colorado. I wish I could say it couldn’t happen elsewhere but I know it can. I’m blessed to live near EWTN and regularly attend Mass there, so I only run into troubles like you mentioned when I have to go to a friend’s parish or when I’m out of town and have no idea what I’m getting into until it’s too late to drive somewhere else.

I hate to appear ignorant , but what is the OF Mass? Another name for Novus Ordo? Folk Mass?

 

[CatholicZ09]

Sounds like a bad experience you had in Colorado. I wish I could say it couldn’t happen elsewhere but I know it can. I’m blessed to live near EWTN and regularly attend Mass there, so I only run into troubles like you mentioned when I have to go to a friend’s parish or when I’m out of town and have no idea what I’m getting into until it’s too late to drive somewhere else.

I hate to appear ignorant , but what is the OF Mass? Another name for Novus Ordo? Folk Mass?

OF means “Ordinary Form” of the Mass. In other words, the Norvus Ordo.

 

[Vico]

EF = Extraordinary Form. (1962)
OF = Ordinary Form. (1970, 1975, 2002) novus Ordo Missae

 

[Disciple96]

Yep, I knew I was gonna feel stoopid for asking that. Thanks.

 

[bkayw]

“The noise level before…Mass was about like a middle school recess held in a tin shed.”

That’s the one thing that would tick me off.

 

[JHow]

…Now The Battle Hymn of the Republic, though protestant, is at least a real hymn.

Yes, I suppose, if you feel it is appropriate to equate the Northern cause with the return of Christ.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”

 

[Bob_Aliano]

So, does your post have a point, other than to denigrate the OF?

Absolutely nothing wrong with the OF, the problem is with the people who think it’s a big social hour. If the OF is celebrated with the reverence due the sacrifice it represents it would be a wonderful thing indeed, I just haven’t found many with any semblance of reverence and this one was particularly bad. I didn’t even mention the fact that no two people had the same sense of what posture they should assume; from the Offertory on it resembled a Whack-a-Mole game with people standing, sitting, kneeling and often going from one to the other to imitate the person in front. Total chaotic confusion!

 

[JHow]

Absolutely nothing wrong with the OF, the problem is with the people who think it’s a big social hour. If the OF is celebrated with the reverence due the sacrifice it represents it would be a wonderful thing indeed, I just haven’t found many with any semblance of reverence and this one was particularly bad. I didn’t even mention the fact that no two people had the same sense of what posture they should assume; from the Offertory on it resembled a Whack-a-Mole game with people standing, sitting, kneeling and often going from one to the other to imitate the person in front. Total chaotic confusion!

I don’t blame the people for the confusion. I am a convert, and have been catholic for just over 12 years, and have attended catholic mass for about 15 years. The inconsistency of practice was one thing that struck me right away - we do one thing at my parish, they do another thing five miles away at the parish where my kids go to school, and they were completely different in Warsaw, Poland, which is were I first started to regularly attend mass (I was not Catholic, then but I went regularly with my wife). At first, I chalked up the confusion to my own inexperience, but later realized that the confusion is general. I don’t get the sense that the people in the pews are particularly in favor of this situation, however.

 

[acadian]

I visited a church like this in Kentucky, once. A priest that dressed only in an alb with a rainbow colored stole. The “homily” was given by a nun on a mission appeal. I had to keep looking for a crucifix to see if I was in a Catholic church. But the place was packed to the rafters with families with young children and seemed to have many ministries and whatnot to choose from.

Visiting places like this makes me really appreciate what I have at home!

 

[didymus]

Yes, I suppose, if you feel it is appropriate to equate the Northern cause with the return of Christ.

I have read a fiery gospel writ in burnished rows of steel:
“As ye deal with my contemners, so with you my grace shall deal;
Let the Hero, born of woman, crush the serpent with his heel,
Since God is marching on.”

Well, it doesn’t specify whom the rows of steel are pointed at nor who the “contemners” are. The only line that makes it a clearly northern song is, “As He died to make men holy, let us dies to make men free.”
but I think now we can read it in a theological sense.

 

[Vico]

Well, it doesn’t specify whom the rows of steel are pointed at nor who the “contemners” are. The only line that makes it a clearly northern song is, “As He died to make men holy, let us dies to make men free.”
but I think now we can read it in a theological sense.

Also, Julia Howe, that wrote the lyrics had seen the Union Army camps on the Potomac as a guest of President Lincoln. Behold! verse two:

I have seen Him in the watch-fires of a hundred circling camps,
They have builded Him an altar in the evening dews and damps;
I can read His righteous sentence by the dim and flaring lamps:
His day is marching on.

 

[JHow]

Well, it doesn’t specify whom the rows of steel are pointed at nor who the “contemners” are. The only line that makes it a clearly northern song is, “As He died to make men holy, let us dies to make men free.”
but I think now we can read it in a theological sense.

I think it is hard to separate this song from its historical context. I personally view the civil war as great disaster, the worst episode in our history. While the stated goal of freeing slaves is noble, how this plan was carried out left a lot to be desired IMO. I am not comfortable equating Christ’s second coming and God’s judgement with the events of 1861-1865. I think it calls for a little more humility.

 

[bluerose]

Well, it doesn’t specify whom the rows of steel are pointed at nor who the “contemners” are. The only line that makes it a clearly northern song is, “As He died to make men holy, let us dies to make men free.”
but I think now we can read it in a theological sense.

Well, we don’t “die to make men free” anymore… now we “LIVE to make men free”. Sacrifice, apparently, is not high on the “to-do” list anymore (sorry, to hijack this, but I’ve loved this hymn since I was a kid and this change really bugs me!)

 

[Vico]

I think it is hard to separate this song from its historical context. I personally view the civil war as great disaster, the worst episode in our history. While the stated goal of freeing slaves is noble, how this plan was carried out left a lot to be desired IMO. I am not comfortable equating Christ’s second coming and God’s judgement with the events of 1861-1865. I think it calls for a little more humility.

The purpose of the war as proclaimed by Lincoln on March 4, 1861, was that it was his duty to maintain the Union. The slavery issue was added later with the Emancipation Proclamation on September 22, 1862, proposing to emancipate the slaves in all rebel areas on January 1, 1863, not the slaves in the Union areas. Actually the slaves in the Union controlled areas of the Confederacy were then freed as a war measure, not by making slavery illegal. The Confederate army surrendered about two years later April 18, 1865. The thirteenth ammendment prohibiting slavery did not come until December 18, 1865, eight months after the war ended.

CSA president Jefferson Davis received a letter from Pope Pius XI, after the war when he was in prison (and also during the war). Davis was found not guilty of treason or other charges since there was no law against succession in the U.S. Constitution.