Liturgy turned into religious entertainment

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april32010 said:
i just want to say i have spent a fair amount of time since my first post reading french catholic’s blog,very well written and interesting.anyone reading this post who hasn’t linked to it yet is missing out.👍
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Thank you very much, April! :thankyou:
 
French_Catholic said:
Is there anything we can do to prevent such incidents to happen (again)? 😦
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Ultimately there is one individual who is clearly responsible for the reverent rendering of Mass - the celebrant / pastor.

I have known, in the post V-II era, priests who will literally stop in their tracks if they feel that the environment and atmosphere during the conduct of the Mass are anything less than appropriate. However, they seem many times to be an exception.

One such priest, who was known to be able to pray the Mass consistently in 30 minutes or less, would become incensed if people started leaving the Mass in droves right after receiving Holy Communion. He famously ordered a banner that read “Judas was the first to leave Mass early”, which hung for years right over the exit doors in the vestibule. Despite this, his congregation grew steadily over the years and is still among the largest parishes in the suburban NY metropolitan area.
 
fastenatingguy said:
We have a family friend who is a Franciscan brother. He is an Ohio native who spent all of his first 50 years in Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Indiana.

He was sent to Louisiana about twelve years ago. The culture there is unique and quite different compared to up north. Mostly rural, poor, black and French heritage.

My wife and her brother had the opportunity to experience their mass and said that it was “quite lively” with dancing and singing, but you still knew that it was a mass, albeit different.
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I’ve lived in Louisiana {and have been Catholic} for my whole life and have never experienced that in a mass before. Of course, I haven’t been to every single church in the state. xP

@thread topic; At my parish back home, we have a mass that is supposed to be geared toward the teens. I occasionally sing in the choir at that mass, and we had a meeting about music. The choir director played us a Gloria she found that was geared toward the younger population. It had a lot of instruments, including drums, and just felt very “Christian rock”-ish. {Now, I may be in the minority here, but I really don’t mind drums at mass – as long as they’re played tastefully and not in a “look at me” sort of way.} I made the suggestion that maybe that particular Gloria should be toned down so that it could be more appropriate for mass. I was bombarded with “But it’s supposed to be lively and energetic! It’s a teen mass, so the music should be fun!”

I mean…I don’t mind lively, upbeat music at mass; however, it should not be chosen based on how “fun” the congregation thinks it is.
{After the meeting, I was told by a handful of people there that they completely understood my position and tried to defend me but kept getting shut down.}
 
It’s funny when people try to use what King David did to defend dancing in the liturgy. Yet, when Catholics try to apply the worship style of the old testament to make the liturgy reverent they are told the the Old no longer applies because of Jesus. 🤷
 
archangel04 said:
It’s funny when people try to use what King David did to defend dancing in the liturgy. Yet, when Catholics try to apply the worship style of the old testament to make the liturgy reverent they are told the the Old no longer applies because of Jesus. 🤷
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Yeah! King David danced before the ark! Let’s not let women very far in the temple, but let men in further! Let’s set up a massive veil so no one can see inside! Let’s use incense every day! Let’s have even more ornate vestments then 99.99% of parishes use today!

Once we do those things, then yes, you can dance during a Eucharistic procession (to extend the analogy completely) once every couple years (maximum).

All these sola-scriptura types that think we need to worship exactly as the bible says because they don’t like the traditions of the Roman Rite make me go nuts!

And don’t forget, liberals: it is shameful for a woman to worship with an uncovered head, so says the holy scripture!!

G’night, y’all!
 
ByzCathCantor said:
Ultimately there is one individual who is clearly responsible for the reverent rendering of Mass - the celebrant / pastor.
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True!
ByzCathCantor said:
One such priest, who was known to be able to pray the Mass consistently in 30 minutes or less, would become incensed if people started leaving the Mass in droves right after receiving Holy Communion. He famously ordered a banner that read “Judas was the first to leave Mass early”, which hung for years right over the exit doors in the vestibule.
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Haha, amazing! There should be such a banner in every church where similar behaviors happen 👍

frenchandcatholic.wordpress.com/
 
I think it always a fine line for a priest between keeping the Mass reverent and not turning someone away from the Mass forever by stopping it to scold a musical style/clapping going on. I does sound like this wedding went way over the top. If the bride was going to bring a choir like that in, she should have given them more instructions on music that was/was not appropriate to a Catholic Mass. Gospel Choirs are more entertaining in nature than they are reverent. It’s one thing to go listen to one on a Friday night in an entertainment scenario. It’s another to use one in a Mass.
 
I guess people go down the “entertainment” route because they mistakenly think that our only goal is to fill churches to capacity. What does the marketing industry do to get people into stores, sales rooms or movie theatres or whatever? Free offers, entertainment, flashy, trashy promises of instant satisfaction. I think some people think this strategy will work to bring young people into church. In past times of hunger the bait was a bowl of soup, now it’s a rock band, vibrant singing and dancing.
The problem is, how to get people to see beyond the “bait” to recognise the true treasure.
Its not a new problem, even Jesus recognised this a long time ago.

‘I tell you most solemnly,
you are not looking for me because you have seen the signs
but because you had all the bread you wanted to eat.
Do not work for food that cannot last,
but work for food that endures to eternal life,
the kind of food the Son of Man is offering you,
for on him the Father, God himself, has set his seal.’ (John 6 …… I think?)

What can we, the people of God, do to make our parish communities welcoming places which give people the opportunity to truly “see the signs” and experience Christ. Christ is always there but sometimes our over-enthusiastic marketing, entertainment and razzmatazz become so overpowering that they become the main show and Christ is forgotten
 
Kopratic said:
I’ve lived in Louisiana {and have been Catholic} for my whole life and have never experienced that in a mass before. Of course, I haven’t been to every single church in the state. xP

@thread topic; At my parish back home, we have a mass that is supposed to be geared toward the teens. I occasionally sing in the choir at that mass, and we had a meeting about music. The choir director played us a Gloria she found that was geared toward the younger population. It had a lot of instruments, including drums, and just felt very “Christian rock”-ish. {Now, I may be in the minority here, but I really don’t mind drums at mass – as long as they’re played tastefully and not in a “look at me” sort of way.} I made the suggestion that maybe that particular Gloria should be toned down so that it could be more appropriate for mass. I was bombarded with “But it’s supposed to be lively and energetic! It’s a teen mass, so the music should be fun!”

I mean…I don’t mind lively, upbeat music at mass; however, it should not be chosen based on how “fun” the congregation thinks it is.
{After the meeting, I was told by a handful of people there that they completely understood my position and tried to defend me but kept getting shut down.}
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St. Paul the Apostle Church in Lafayette.
 
I’m 24, so the teen years weren’t too long ago. I don’t mind a little praise and worship music, but not during Mass. It just seems off-kilter to me. It’s distracting to worship with rock music going on.
 
april32010 said:
“Wherever applause breaks out in the liturgy because of some human achievement, it is a sure sign that the essence of liturgy has totally disappeared and been replaced by a kind of religious entertainment. Such attraction fades quickly – it cannot compete in the market of leisure pursuits, incorporating as it increasingly does various forms of religious titillation” this is the heart of the problem Liturgy can only attract people when it looks, not at itself, but at God, when it allows him to enter and act. Then something truly unique happens, beyond competition, and people have a sense that more has taken place than a recreational activity" Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger Excerpt from The Spirit of the Liturgy ,boy,the Holy Father has a way with words,does he not. thank you for posting this,i been have trying to remember where i had read something regarding applause at Mass for a while now.
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A nice graphic that goes with the above quote.



Feel free to use.
 
WingsOfEagles said:
I’m 24, so the teen years weren’t too long ago. I don’t mind a little praise and worship music, but not during Mass. It just seems off-kilter to me. It’s distracting to worship with rock music going on.
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Yeah! Expose the teens to both types of music done well, then ask them, for pete sake.

Not to brag or anything, but I’m 16 and I occasionally direct scholas and often chant for Masses, sometimes using the gregorian propers (ie, the complicated melismic latin ones).
 
superamazingman said:
Yeah! Expose the teens to both types of music done well, then ask them, for pete sake.

Not to brag or anything, but I’m 16 and I occasionally direct scholas and often chant for Masses, sometimes using the gregorian propers (ie, the complicated melismic latin ones).
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You must have a good voice and you’re lucky, getting gregorians. The most I ever get to do is to play my violin with the Youth Choir (this Youth Choir is in no way associated with the Teen Mass at my parish).

Playing with the Youth Choir has let me play many of the Contemporary Catholic Liturgy songs. Some I like, some I hate, and some I have no opinion.
 
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