Leaving a "bad" mass

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OraProNobis

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Scenerio:

You’re on travel, its Sunday and you’ve got to go to Mass. You find the nearest parish to your hotel in the phone book and head on over. You go in, mass starts and lo’ and behold, here comes immodestly attired liturgical dancers, or a “clown priest,” or some other type of rubish.

What do you do?
 
I stay, pray for them, and take Communion since no matter what, Jesus is present body and blood, soul and divinity, even if the Mass is as you described.

JELane
 
I guess I would stay to fullfill my obligation, and make sure I never went back there again.
 
I once walked out of a mass when the first “song” was “Sing a New Church” and there were chairs and no kneelers provided. However, I knew where to go to find a more correctly celebrated mass so I did have a choice. If it was definitely the only one available I guess I would have to stay and offer it up.
 
JElane:
I stay, pray for them, and take Communion since no matter what, Jesus is present body and blood, soul and divinity, even if the Mass is as you described.

JELane
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I agree. The sumit of our Sunday obligation is the Eucharists! You need that to continue to pray for this type of horrific behavior in Parishes.
 
I’d leave immediately and find another Mass. (Especially if my kids were with me! They must learn the True Faith, and not have it mocked.)

No doubt, if all these abuses and acts of disobedience were occurring at the onset, who knows what desecrations would take place by the time Holy Communion rolled around? Would the Eucharist even be confected validly? Who knows? Better to find and attend, and support the parish which serves Christ as He instructed, through His apostles and their successors.

(Just think, if everyone walked out on such abuses, they might just stop committing them!)

Pax Christi. <><
 
This has happened to me, more than once sadly. The most “memorable” was while I was on a business trip to San Francisco. The interpretive dancers were, uh, distracting to say the least. I would have laughed my head off if I had not been so upset. Having said all that, yes, I stayed. And I’ve stayed through bad priests, crazy music (including rock bands on the altar), uncontrolled crying children, and the whole panolply of distractions. As the others have said, the key is the Eucharist and the Word. Never go back to a bad parish if you can avoid it, to be sure, but a little practice in patience and prayerful acceptance of the situation is not such a bad thing.
 
I had a dream that I walked out of a mass, the reason was that they had a band playing Iron Maiden as the entrance hymn.( I love heavy metal music!) But the point was its not the proper place to be rocking out. I kindly excused my self by genufecting at the Tabernacle.
 
I haven’t walked out, but I’ve come close to it. One time the priest said in the homily that Mary had not remained a virgin & had other children after Jesus. At another Mass the priest offered the elements (can’t remember now if it was before or after the Consecration) to the spirits of the 4 winds. Not being certain if the Mass was valid, I didn’t recieve.
 
A good family friend of mine stated that after giving an anti-abortion Homily, many so called Catholics walked out of this particular service. So, a “bad” Mass for them would be a normal Mass for the true believers of the faith.
 
If there was another parish that you could go to, then I would leave and try the other parish. If not, it would be necessary to stay as long as nothing was done that would invalidate the Mass.
 
I would stay.

I once attended a Mass that started with some horrid song mangled by a pop-oriented modern choir. The whole church looked like a protestant church. Mass went along. The priest stepped up and gave an extremely good homily making reference to St. Thomas Aquinas and St. Augustine on severl points. Sometimes, good things come when you least expect it.
 
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OraProNobis:
Scenerio:

You’re on travel, its Sunday and you’ve got to go to Mass. You find the nearest parish to your hotel in the phone book and head on over. You go in, mass starts and lo’ and behold, here comes immodestly attired liturgical dancers, or a “clown priest,” or some other type of rubish.

What do you do?
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Been there, done that. One, you leave, immediately. Two, you find out who the Bishop is, and send him a letter of concern, and ask for a reply. Three, you call 1-800-MassTimes and find another Sunday Mass to attend that day. Four, you pray.

We walked out once when a lay woman was invited to come and give the homily. Not a presentation or a short speech after the homily: the homily itself. Also walked out of a Mass when the priest said during the Homily that “Mary was nobody special” and we needed to “get her down off her pedestal” and it “did not matter if she remained Virgin or not”. :eek: We were not the only ones leaving, either, thank God. We actually ended up contacting the Vatican over that particular priest.
 
I once attended a church in which a woman gave the homily…and I was shocked. There was also another layperson who gave the homily. I can’t remember what this woman’s position was in the church, but I was there when she gave a “goodbye” speech afther the mass as she was moving to a different church. But she said she’d come back and give the homily from time to time if they would like her to do so.

The congregation ERUPTED in applause! And there, through the speech, I had been thanking God she was leaving so maybe the Pastor would have to take the pulpit back! Guess not!

I didn’t realize at the time how awful it was or I would have left, also.

I also once went to a Good Friday service at a Catholic church I’d never attended…but I knew someone who did so I thought it would be a good church. There was no mass advertised, but due to some scheduling conflict this was the only Good Friday service of any kind that I could attend. (Dont’ remember why)

Well, I went in, genuflected, knelt in the pew with my rosary and prayed the Divine Mercy while we waited. People actually stared at me as though I were some kind of alien! I looked around to be sure I was in a Catholic Church…had I gone to the wrong place???

So I stubbornly continued to kneel, and finally a woman came in and called us to attention. ANd she didn’t leave. There was no priest, not even a deacon! They asked for some prayer intentions and some other stuff…and then wanted us to come forward with candles which were handed out and place them in various sand buckets at the foot of a large wooden cross erected on the altar for the purpose.

Rather than returning to my pew, I went to the back of the church, genuflected, and looked around in the vestibule for pamphlets, a bulletin…anythign to confirm I had not entered the wrong place! All I found was stuff pointing to the fact that yes, this was a Catholic Church. I apologized to Jesus as I walked out and I never returned.

For those of you in the Twin Cities area, this was a church on 50th in either Minneapolis or Edina, and it’s near another church…but I never attended the other. I think it might have been Assumption?
 
I eventually got so fed up with the Christian folk rock bands, nuns giving the Homily, high masses that last only 35 minutes, and irreverant behavior by the congregation that I ran for the nearest church that said the Tridentine Latin Mass and never looked back!!
I did have to go to a couple of Novus Ordo masses recently and it seems that some churches have cleaned up their act. But after spending some time in a traditional mass, going back to the NO mass is like going from beef tenderloin to bologna.
 
😃 In a “bad” Mass, I get up, and LEAVE. If asked WHY by the priest etc. I just say, “I want to go to a real catholic Mass, not the priests own little private mass agenda.”:rolleyes:
 
JElane:
I stay, pray for them, and take Communion since no matter what, Jesus is present body and blood, soul and divinity, even if the Mass is as you described.

JELane
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I agree with this, although it would be very hard for me if
I witnessed the things described in this thread. I would
not want my children exposed to this type of stuff. I know
I would be very distracted and upset.
 
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OraProNobis:
Scenerio:

You’re on travel, its Sunday and you’ve got to go to Mass. You find the nearest parish to your hotel in the phone book and head on over. You go in, mass starts and lo’ and behold, here comes immodestly attired liturgical dancers, or a “clown priest,” or some other type of rubish.

What do you do?
Click to expand...
Have you ever been to a spring lamb slaughter in Britain? The most remarkable thing about it is that the sheep just go along. If you know a thing to be wrong you must declare it to be wrong. Immediately notify the bishop (lots of luck), then the Vatican. Besiege the priest who is guilty of leading his flock to to its eternal demise. But whatever you decide to do, never, never go along with it: “qui tacet, nutat.”
 
Glory to Jesus Christ!

I went to an Eastern rite liturgy today at a different parish (I am Eastern). It was awful! I wanted to leave, there was no chanting and nobody would sing until “God Bless America” at the end. I wanted to leave but I knew it was valid and I had no other choices late in the morning. You see, the Roman Church doesn’t have a monopoly on bad liturgies!

While I know there have been some pretty bad Masses at times. I have never witnessed immodestly dressed liturgical dancers or priests dressed like clowns.

I don’t believe it happens that often. People keep repeating these stories so often that one gets the impression that it is a rampant universal problem. It’s not.

I did see liturgical dancers once, it was beautiful. They were not immodestly dressed, but it’s just not to my taste. I could see it more as an evening prayer session, outside of the liturgy, but I would not imply that it is immoral or anything like that.

We need to lighten up a little, these people have gifts and they bring them to God.

In Christ Always,
Michael
 
We had a retired priest “in residence”. He preached heresy. I started to keep track of what he said to turn over to the bishop. However, he got in trouble (yep, that trouble) and cannot ever say Mass in public again.

One thing that bothers me is that the parish I attend is the parish in which I was baptised. It is my parish and I don’t want some stupid priest to drive me away. Besides, if you leave, you can’t annoy them anymore. My pastor calls me the Liturgy Police. I accept that title proudly.
 
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