Latecomers to Mass

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cargopilot:
When Father became aware of this practice, he just laughed and said with a wink that we really shouldn’t do that.http://forums.catholic-questions.org/images/icons/icon12.gif
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I like your attitude. It seems you have found a balance between preserving the order of the Mass, and just letting whatever happens, happen.

I third the argument about families. I don’t care how much in advance you start out, there are things that happen at the last minute that get in the way. So you might be tempted to say, “well then start out earlier.”

For myself, I’m pretty sure I’ve been late to Mass exactly twice in one year – once at St. Anthony’s and once at All Saints, in consecutive weeks no less. When I’m late everybody knows it, because they have no music to sing the opening hymn.

For years I have been going to the 4 pm Mass on Saturdays and the 8 am Mass Sundays. When our family started getting large, we just started splitting forces. I cannot afford to be late even for a good reason, so I go ahead and if the others can’t get ready they go to a later Mass.

I also find leaving early to be disturbing, especially when we are still singing. I try to time it as best I can so once the priest is gone we can finish up quickly so people won’t have to insult me (personally of course) by leaving during the hymn.

One priest in particular gets very annoyed when I do play extra, because once the Mass is over he wants to let the people go. Fair enough, but I explained to him that sometimes I am between verses and have to make a decision – he realized that and began to notice where we were in the song so that we can work together to make his exit and the end of singing coincide better.

This one priest, though, seems to time it perfectly so that no matter what hymn we are singing, the procession hangs around the altar until right after the first verse is over, then quickly processes out (they have a very short distance) right at the beginning of the second verse. If I play a second verse, then I end up accompanying a thundering herd. A few weeks ago I finally decided I wasn’t going to play a second verse, as they were just about to do it again. I just abruptly stopped after the first verse with the procession maybe five feet fro the altar and ten seconds from being out of the way. OMG you should have seen the altar servers trying to make it back to the sachristy with their lit candles! 😃

I doubt the priest even noticed.

BTW, I think the whole set of arguments like “what if you were invited to dinner for a king” is kind of overused, and ineffective. The issue is for them to believe they actually are coming to dinner with a King. If they believed that, and that they really are all King’s kids in addition to being miserable sinners who MUST show up on Sunday, maybe that line of reasoning would work. Then again we wouldn’t need it.

We don’t treat ourselves and each other like King’s children, so why expect others to believe there is anything important at all going on at Mass other than the fulfillment of a behavioral obligation?

Alan
 
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AlanFromWichita:
I third the argument about families. I don’t care how much in advance you start out, there are things that happen at the last minute that get in the way. So you might be tempted to say, “well then start out earlier.”
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As I said below, starting out earlier doesn’t seem to help with young babies as the things that hold us up can’t be planned for. Babies do what they have to do when they decide it’s right! lol.

As for, would I be late if it was a dinner for a king or whatever … I can honestly say, yes, I would! For the same reasons. And I would expect the king to understand that I am getting a baby/young child ready and that unexpected things can occur.
 
If that’s the biggest worry your parish council has…then consider yourselves very lucky.

Some parishes are worried about how to pay for the actual sacred space upon which to worship in.

Some parishes don’t have anyone showing up for mass, period, late or not.

I also think that “confronting” these people personally would do FAR more damage than good.

I remember last Christmas, at mass, I was sitting with my family. I had a 102 degree fever, though I didn’t know it at the time, just knew I felt lousy and was dying of thirst. I excused myself to go to the bathroom, came back and was standing at the back, waiting for the congregation to stand up so I could make myself as unnoticed as possible in order to slip back into the pew. The man standing next to me was dressed in rugged jeans, scuffed boots, a plaid flannel shirt and puffy coat over it. He had a ski hat atop his head. He was clearly nervous and kept shifting his weight from side to side and looking around, probably feeling out of place. The self-important usher came right up and said, “Excuse me, but you are in the House of God. It is extremely disrespectful to wear a hat in the presence of the Lord. Remove it.” (No, not “will you remove it?” Just, “Remove it.”) This poor man was soooooooooooo mortified. He blushed a deep crimson, took off his fuzzy hat, and then turned around and walked out the door. I felt sooo bad for him, and I wished I would have followed him out and said something to him.

Even a friendlier tone would have been nice, like, “Hey there, sir, Merry Christmas to you! I’m sure you forgot, but would you mind taking off your hat? We just want to give Jesus the respect He’s due!” Or something like that–or, nothing at all. I just can’t fathom that Jesus was looking down from heaven and “offended” that this man was wearing a ski hat to mass, when it looked to me like he probably did not have nice clothes to wear.

I just can’t stand the self-righteous attitude sometimes.

And as for the poster whose wife wanted to post “The first person to leave the Church was Judas”…that is just so beyond anything charitable I don’t think I can comment further.
 
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Princess_Abby:
The man standing next to me was dressed in rugged jeans, scuffed boots, a plaid flannel shirt and puffy coat over it. He had a ski hat atop his head. He was clearly nervous and kept shifting his weight from side to side and looking around, probably feeling out of place. The self-important usher came right up and said, “Excuse me, but you are in the House of God. It is extremely disrespectful to wear a hat in the presence of the Lord. Remove it.” (No, not “will you remove it?” Just, “Remove it.”) This poor man was soooooooooooo mortified. He blushed a deep crimson, took off his fuzzy hat, and then turned around and walked out the door. I felt sooo bad for him, and I wished I would have followed him out and said something to him.
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This is such a sad story 😦 I don’t blame that man for leaving. I hope he didn’t give up and found a more welcoming church.
 
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Princess_Abby:
I just can’t stand the self-righteous attitude sometimes.

And as for the poster whose wife wanted to post “The first person to leave the Church was Judas”…that is just so beyond anything charitable I don’t think I can comment further.
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[edit] yes, people tend to see nonconformists and read bad intentions into them. For the usher, the hat was disrespectful. For the “bum” that may never have occurred to him. Literally, by judging the “bum” the usher was judging himself – because he imagined that if he had done it, it would have been disrespectful. This is how I think the plank in our own eye works. We can’t see the splinter in our friends eye because eveyone else’s sins all look just like our own.

Technically we owe Judas our salvation in a strange sort of way. Without his role, Christ could not have fulfilled prophecy. Should we be hateful toward Judas for disrespecting Our Savior whom we all harm every time we sin, or should we be thankful that he risked his eternal life – even if for selfish reasons – and played his role in prophecy?
 
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AlanFromWichita:
Technically we owe Judas our salvation in a strange sort of way. Without his role, Christ could not have fulfilled prophecy. Should we be hateful toward Judas for disrespecting Our Savior whom we all harm every time we sin, or should we be thankful that he risked his eternal life – even if for selfish reasons – and played his role in prophecy?
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I just don’t think placing a sign out in the vestibule that reads, “The first person to leave the Church was Judas” is in an appropriate way to chastise latecomers and early leavers of mass. I think it’s rude and condescending and smacks of self-righteousness.
 
I have often been late to Mass.

I used to be late all of the time but I have really been making an effort and now it is only some of the time. Many think being late is rude, and I am not completely disagreeing with you. All we ask is for your prayers for our faults as we are very aware of them. 😦

Also, to those who wont budge from the end seat as we move our family, including our children (complete with a baby carrier), thank you for bringing us to the attention of those in Mass.:o I know you got to Mass first, but please consider “sliding down” next time.

Praying for you too!
LynnieLew
 
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LynnieLew:
I have often been late to Mass.

I used to be late all of the time but I have really been making an effort and now it is only some of the time. Many think being late is rude, and I am not completely disagreeing with you. All we ask is for your prayers for our faults as we are very aware of them. 😦

Also, to those who wont budge from the end seat as we move our family, including our children (complete with a baby carrier), thank you for bringing us to the attention of those in Mass.:o I know you got to Mass first, but please consider “sliding down” next time.

Praying for you too!
LynnieLew
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I agree with you. Not so much for myself, as it’s just my husband and I, and we can slip in pretty quickly if needed.

But for families…

Last week this adorable family with six kids was very late to mass–showed up mid-gospel, and the mother looked exhausted, like she had probably just dealt with some mini-crisis. Anyway, the couple with one teenager, two rows ahead of us, apparently were very attached to their aisle seat and made a big show of being uncomfortable about the trampling of several children over them, as they tried to get to the empty spot in the pew. I just thought it was so rude to make eight people climb over them. Yes, I know they shouldn’t have been late, but what an act of charity if when those of us who get there first could just automatically sit in the center of the pew. (And yes, I know there are some exceptions–disabled, young children who need to be taken out or to the potty, etc., but that wasn’t the case here.) The father of the big family kind of paused before directing his kids in the pew, giving the couple and their teenager a chance to scoot down, but they just stared straight ahead and did not move until little feet started stampeding across them.
 
Perhaps the regular late comer is looking after somebody sick and has to wait for their friend to come and sit with the sick person. Perhaps the friend is not a churchgoer and just will not understand how important it is to be at Mass on time.

Perhaps the persistent latecomer finishes work fifteen minutes before Mass and it takes twenty minutes to get to the church.

Perhaps the late comer has one big problem with an anti Catholic spouse who gets awkward about evrything on Sunday morning to try to stop them going to Mass at all.

I think we should all concentrate on our own consciences and thank God the other people are there even if they are late.
 
If you can sufficiently focus on the Mass, you won’t notice latecomers.

If someone climbs over you because they are late or because you get there before them and prefer the end, let them get through and focus back on the Mass or whatever you were doing to prepare for Mass.
 
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AlanFromWichita:
If you can sufficiently focus on the Mass, you won’t notice latecomers.

If someone climbs over you because they are late or because you get there before them and prefer the end, let them get through and focus back on the Mass or whatever you were doing to prepare for Mass.
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um, except when the trampling is happening right in front of you.
 
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MrS:
For those that leave early, my wife wanted to hang a sign at the back of the church “The first person to leave the Church early was Judas”
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I can’t believe it!! My parish had those signs at the doors for awhile. Apparently the priest we had a couple of priests back had a huge issue with people ducking out early, to the point that he would track them down in the parking lot. The next couple of priests just left the signs up. Fortunately, our current priest had them taken down; I always thought they were a bit tacky.
 
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aurora77:
I can’t believe it!! My parish had those signs at the doors for awhile. Apparently the priest we had a couple of priests back had a huge issue with people ducking out early, to the point that he would track them down in the parking lot. The next couple of priests just left the signs up. Fortunately, our current priest had them taken down; I always thought they were a bit tacky.
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They should station security guards at the door with Tazers.
 
I am a member of a Frassati Society (this is a young adult group, ages apx 18-35, single or married), and last spring we had a table set up to draw attention to us before and after mass, signup, etc.

So I was there through several Masses that Sunday.

What I found ironic and actually humorous is that there were more latecomers to the 12:15pm Mass than for any other.

Just to set the scene, I attend a HUGE parish and on Sundays we have Mass at 7:15, 8:45, 10:30 and 12:15 pm.

At each Mass, there were more and more latecomers, but for the 12:15 Mass, peple were actually still POURING in late even after 12:30 pm. I saw people arriving after the gospel, sauntering in as though this were actually a social event and they were fashionably late. They did not look harried at all.

Although I was laughing, I was actually deeply disturbed. I remember as we were growing up that whenever we were late Mom was deeply mortified and it was always a situation where there was an occurance beyond our control. We all arrived breathless. We did not saunter…we walked into Mass with our proverbial tails between our legs, humbled by the Lord we were potentially offending, humbled by the people we were disturbing.

This is not just an issue of people not understanding the Mass and what it is about…our culture (in America) is one of disregard for others.

But I’m still surprised that people could not even make it on time to 12:15 PM Mass. How very sad for them. It is clear that their priorities do not lie where they should.

(( Disclaimer:; I am not speaking about those who have suffered a rare setback, a tire change,…etc. on the way to Mass.)

I don’t think this is something a parish council can or should handle.
 
This is one of my “pet peeves” at Mass, too. People come so late in my church that the not only miss the reading of the Scripture, they come in halfway through the Homily (maybe 20 minutes into a 55 minute Mass). And instead if sitting in the nearest pew, they walk halfway up the aisle, going “clack clack clack” in hard-soled shoes. Our pastor talked, often, in the pulpit, about this, in the probably 8 years he has been here. And nothing changes.

On a (maybe) aside, a few of our ushers take communion first, and then stand by the doors, and offer their hand to the people who walk out. And the people who walk out during communion do have to walk right by them and shake their hands, or not. And I am sure that they say nothing of a rebuke to anyone, but it does seem to me that we have less people leaving during communion because of that. However, it is not the people leaving early, during communion, that are distracting to the rest of the congregation. It is the people who come late, and really the multitudes who come late, and keep filing in for at least the first 20 minutes of the Mass, or so, who really annoy me.
 
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JCPhoenix:
What I found ironic and actually humorous is that there were more latecomers to the 12:15pm Mass than for any other.
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Why is that ironic? If they are late for an earlier Mass they have an option to go later. If they are late for the last Mass they have no choices but to go late or miss entirely.

Try going to the earliest Mass. The opposite phenomenon happens there. At 8 am Mass for which I’ve played the music for 15 years, there are almost no late arrivers. If you go to the Mass in the middle of the day, you’re going to be there with people who are just getting up and around then.

Alan
 
The thing is, it doesn’t matter what time of day the Mass is. It could be at 3pm and if the baby explodes out of it’s diaper as you’re about to walk out the door or decides it needs a last minute feed to avoid yelling all the way in the car, as opposed to travelling contently, you’re going to be late anyway. It’s pot luck with a little one like that.
 
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mumto5:
The thing is, it doesn’t matter what time of day the Mass is. It could be at 3pm and if the baby explodes out of it’s diaper as you’re about to walk out the door or decides it needs a last minute feed to avoid yelling all the way in the car, as opposed to travelling contently, you’re going to be late anyway. It’s pot luck with a little one like that.
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That is pretty much the situation over here.
Today we were only 2 minutes late. (As I mentioned in an earlier post, we are really trying). If we are later than the second reading, we go to a later Mass.

A work in progress.
LynnieLew
 
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cargopilot:
… we ushers conveniently post ourselves in front of the doors immediately after Holy Communion, transfixing our gaze toward the altar, forcing the early-leavers to excuse themselves by pushing us aside. I’m big and don’t move too easily. …’

LOL :rotfl:
hey cargopilot, I know an older Msgr. that told me this story, years ago, way prior to Vatican II, a Bishop was very dismayed and asked the Priest to please position themselves at each door of the Cathedral in order to stem the flow of people leaving after Holy Communion, this Msgr. was a young Priest then, he held out his arms to try to keep the people from leaving early, he said that they pushed his arms aside like he was a turn-style. Eventually even the Bishop gave up.
Come late, leave early, strange, do they ever speak to God during the week do you think??
Plus, I do have to say one thing, I think those with children, no matter when they get there, are to be commended for even showing up, I know how difficult it is to get 9 children out the door, I are one, I remember that my mother and father looked like they were sweating when we all got into the car and were backing out of the driveway.
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