Leaving Mass "Early" Before Announcements!

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😃 At my parish we have the blessing of the ministers taking Communion to the sick, several announcements announcing various parish events done by different people, and birthday and anniversary blessings and an extra prayer. This too takes time but fifteen minutes seems excessive.

Perhaps the OP could discreetly time the announcements and then if they are fifteen minutes discuss with the pastor how this can be frustrating, and giving a good reason for it being too long. Or perhaps OP could try an early morning Mass where things are apt to go quicker.😉
 
MSSheBear said:
😃 At my parish we have the blessing of the ministers taking Communion to the sick, several announcements announcing various parish events done by different people, and birthday and anniversary blessings and an extra prayer. This too takes time but fifteen minutes seems excessive.

Perhaps the OP could discreetly time the announcements and then if they are fifteen minutes discuss with the pastor how this can be frustrating, and giving a good reason for it being too long. Or perhaps OP could try an early morning Mass where things are apt to go quicker.😉
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To be fair I think blessing of ministers taking Communion to the sick is important as the housebound are easily forgotten and it’s important to keep them in our prayers.
 
We don’t go to Mass to be entertained. You’ve just received the body, blood, soul, and divinity of the second person of the most Holy Trinity. Spend time in prayer. Ignore the announcements.
 
Boy_Wonder said:
We don’t go to Mass to be entertained. You’ve just received the body, blood, soul, and divinity of the second person of the most Holy Trinity. Spend time in prayer. Ignore the announcements.
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I know that for me, I can’t concentrate in prayer when there’s talking going on.
 
Casilda said:
I have heard it said here, over and over again, that the Mass is not a socializing event. It’s prayer, communion with God, etc. I sympathize with the OP who makes it sound chaotic with unprecedented amount of announcements (not in line with GIRM a. brief announcements, should they be necessary). Also we need quiet time to reflect with post communion prayers. I, too would leave upon receiving communion and go outside.
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Yes, but the Mass is also not our own private personal worship/prayer/gathering time–it is community prayer/worship time. It seems that many want to treat the Mass as a private adoration service. I will observe that only one apostle left the last supper early.

The peace of Christ,
Mark
 
MarkInOregon said:
Yes, but the Mass is also not our own private personal worship/prayer/gathering time–it is community prayer/worship time. It seems that many want to treat the Mass as a private adoration service. I will observe that only one apostle left the last supper early.

The peace of Christ,
Mark
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I agree - but there must have been some discussions after the last supper…“sp, where do we go to walk off this fine supper?” " Hey, Gesthemane is nice this time of year, and it’s right across the way…"
 
ConfusedLucy said:
It kind of backfires if it makes people grumble in the pews 😛
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Yeah, but if one spends anytime here at all they’ll quickly see that it doesn’t take much to make people grumble in the pews–at times it seems the only thing that could stop the grumbling would be to do away with the Mass altogether (not that I’m suggesting that). I wonder if they grumble about all the things we do in countries where participating in the Mass could get you jailed, expelled from the country, or possibly killed? I wonder what a catholic from a country like Saudi Arabia would think about our grumbling.

The peace of Christ,
Mark
 
Bookcat said:
Our Parish makes them just prior to Mass…perhaps to make sure everyone hears them and no one is tempted to leave…
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Oh, but don’t you see this leads to grumbling from those who will complain that they can’t properly get ready for Mass when someones up there making all that noise and distracting them by reading those blasted announcements. Our parish has done it both ways and it seems no one is happy either way.

The peace of Christ,
Mark
 
There was one holy day celebration where I counted over 70 stanzas and refrains. The Mass was visibly prolonged. The same priest says Mass in both churches and the Mass is 15 minutes longer in the church where there is this obsessive singing. Everything else being equal, my voice can’t hold out that long. Age is catching up with me and I have trouble breathing, get short of breath trying to sing all those stanzas and refrains.
 
Well…how could I forget the time this retired priest who came in for Mass was just obsessed with telling us an Adam and Eve joke.

I don’t like jokes anytime, that’s not what I come to church for in the first place, but for the priest to hold us up to tell us an Adam and Eve joke is over the top.

Nobody has the sense that we’re in the presence of the Sacred and Divine. Even the priest is yak, yak, yak and telling jokes instead of a homily.
 
Not sure what brought it on but sitting here reading I suddenly have this urge to have a glass of chardonnay or merlot 😃
 
The rubric allowing brief announcements before the end of Mass is one of those experiments from the 1970s that went wrong, terribly wrong.

The period between Communion and the final blessing is not (again not) supposed to be a parish social hour, nor an opportunity to throw-in all kinds of announcements and ceremonies and whatnots.

The rubric makes clear that there are 2 conditions.
  1. The announcements must be brief.
  2. They must be necessary.
The first one is self-explanatory, although it is often ignored. There is nothing brief about 15 minutes of announcements.

The second is problematic. What makes it “necessary” to place the announcements before the final blessing as opposed to after the final blessing? It makes no sense to place the announcements before the blessing. The word “necessary” means exactly that: necessary. So again, what makes an announcement so necessary that delaying it by 10 seconds would have a negative impact on the parish? I say nothing.

It’s part-and-parcel of the loss of a sense of the sacred that has permeated the Liturgy in the last 4 decades. What the Church calls “necessary” or “extraordinary” is transformed into the normative.

Announcements belong after the final blessing. There’s really no reason why they cannot be done there.

Having said that, the Missal does allow it; but only under those 2 conditions, brief and necessary.
 
We struggle with this. Our mass is one hour and a half. And we bring the baby, toddler, and all our little kids. It’s difficult.
Husband wants to leave after communion because the parking lot is so dangerous.

What to do?

And is 1.5 hours typical? We could go to a different parish I suppose. We go to the one near our house, and the homily is really, really long and uninspiring. It is what it is, but I feel like we are also a huge distraction to others with the little ones!
 
kc456 said:
We struggle with this. Our mass is one hour and a half. And we bring the baby, toddler, and all our little kids. It’s difficult.
Husband wants to leave after communion because the parking lot is so dangerous.

What to do?

And is 1.5 hours typical? We could go to a different parish I suppose. We go to the one near our house, and the homily is really, really long and uninspiring. It is what it is, but I feel like we are also a huge distraction to others with the little ones!
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I hear ya 🙂 I am at the age now where all of our children are grown and I don’t have to worry about handling the little ones. The little ones do not bother me a bit at Mass! Any noise from little ones goes in one ear and out the other. That is not the distractions at Mass that bother me most. But I do empathize with the parents of little ones who are acting up. At least we have good homilies on most occasions. But I know it can still be a struggle for parents to get through long Liturgies. Just keep it up. It is worth your struggle.
 
FrDavid96 said:
The rubric allowing brief announcements before the end of Mass is one of those experiments from the 1970s that went wrong, terribly wrong.

The period between Communion and the final blessing is not (again not) supposed to be a parish social hour, nor an opportunity to throw-in all kinds of announcements and ceremonies and whatnots.

The rubric makes clear that there are 2 conditions.
  1. The announcements must be brief.
  2. They must be necessary.
The first one is self-explanatory, although it is often ignored. There is nothing brief about 15 minutes of announcements.

The second is problematic. What makes it “necessary” to place the announcements before the final blessing as opposed to after the final blessing? It makes no sense to place the announcements before the blessing. The word “necessary” means exactly that: necessary. So again, what makes an announcement so necessary that delaying it by 10 seconds would have a negative impact on the parish? I say nothing.

It’s part-and-parcel of the loss of a sense of the sacred that has permeated the Liturgy in the last 4 decades. What the Church calls “necessary” or “extraordinary” is transformed into the normative.

Announcements belong after the final blessing. There’s really no reason why they cannot be done there.

Having said that, the Missal does allow it; but only under those 2 conditions, brief and necessary.
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Would that they actually happened where the rubrics allow them. Far too many parishes, including my own, have them before the Prayer after Communion.
 
Mass is over at the Blessing. I personally believe the Blessing should be given before any announcements are given or better yet the announcements be given by the priest at the Homily. While it’s not something I recommend, I have on occasion left during announcements before the blessing if I didn’t like what I heard or saw.
 
kc456 said:
We struggle with this. Our mass is one hour and a half. And we bring the baby, toddler, and all our little kids. It’s difficult.
Husband wants to leave after communion because the parking lot is so dangerous.

What to do?

And is 1.5 hours typical? We could go to a different parish I suppose. We go to the one near our house, and the homily is really, really long and uninspiring. It is what it is, but I feel like we are also a huge distraction to others with the little ones!
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Our Masses are usually about 50 minutes long.
 
Christmas, Palm Sunday, and Corpus Christi come to mind when I think of when the announcements were so long.
Christmas I can understand because it was a bilingual midnight mass and the priest also wished everyone a Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year (he had a little something prepared in both languages).
Palm Sunday-Understandable since he gave the schedule for all the liturgies and events for the Easter Triduum, since they aren’t on an Ordinary schedule. Likewise, there were extra confession times on the days before Holy Thursday and extra prayer events in the Parish that needed to be announced. So it kind of dragged on but it only happens once a year, so it’s not so bad 😛
Corpus Christi - there was a procession afterwards so not only did he have the usual brief announcements for the week but he also talked about the setup of the procession, where particular groups will stand and the route the procession will take. Surprisingly this takes longer than you think.

As per leaving mass early before announcements cant you pray inside the church, since you say that the announcements don’t pertain to you. Maybe read scripture? Pray the rosary? Re-read the readings from the mass and meditate upon them? I don’t think you should be believing before the final blessing and in my opinion its pretty rude to those around you (This is a pet peeve of mine, because I usually see people who swiftly walk towards the entrance the very second the priest says the final blessing. They’re already leaving before the priest even has a chance to kiss the altar and sometimes cut in front of cross being carried in the recessional).
 
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