My Mass Experience

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Orthodox_Guy

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Hey all,

I’m Orthodox Christian and I went to the Mary Queen of the Universe Shrine in Orlando, Florida this morning for Mass as I was not able to make it to my home church this weekend.

I have to say I enjoyed it. There were a ton of people, mostly tourists, there from around the world.
The priest was very nice and the sermon he gave was excellent and it was interesting seeing different church practices.

That being said, if I were the Pope, here are a few things I’d change:
  1. I’d ditch the Novus Ordo Mass and go back to the traditional Latin Mass but translate it into English (or whatever language of whatever country). I’ve seen videos of the Latin Mass and the services seem so much more… reverent… then what i went to. The service I went to, to me, seemed more “high Protestant” then Roman Catholic. I grew up in a sort of “high Protestant” church and I’m telling you, if I were still Protestant, I’d be perfectly comfortable with the service I went to.
There were what… three prayers to the Virgin Mary? Some people say that there are “too many prayers to Mary” at the Catholic Churches… I say there are too few. Where is the Hail Mary? Where is the Magnificent? Where are all these “Mary prayers” that Protestants constantly complain about?
  1. Integrate incense back into the services! I’ve been to several Catholic Churches in my life and all of them, including this one, did not use incense! And I know for a fact that most American Catholic churches do not use incense except on special occasions like Christmas and Easter… what happened? Why was incense taken out?
Now I know why every time my Catholic friends, who were also raised Catholic, go to church on Christmas Eve they are always choked out by the incense… it’s because they are simply not used to it because their churches never use it! If they used it more often, they wouldn’t get choked out my it 😉
Other then those two things, I enjoyed the service very much.
Here are a few questions about the service in general though:
  1. Why does the priest face the people and not the altar? I know for a fact that at one time the priest faced the altar. Why was this practice discontinued?
  2. Isn’t there usually a part where the priest comes out and blesses the people with Holy Water? I saw it in the Missal but the priest skipped it. Is there a reason why he skipped it? Is this practice only done on special days?
  3. What exactly is the Sacred Heart of Jesus? I know it’s a popular venerated image but where does the idea come from? It seems to be a solely Catholic thing.
God bless,

James 👍
 
Orthodox_Guy said:
Hey all,

Here are a few questions about the service in general though:
  1. Why does the priest face the people and not the altar? I know for a fact that at one time the priest faced the altar. Why was this practice discontinued?
  2. Isn’t there usually a part where the priest comes out and blesses the people with Holy Water? I saw it in the Missal but the priest skipped it. Is there a reason why he skipped it? Is this practice only done on special days?
  3. What exactly is the Sacred Heart of Jesus? I know it’s a popular venerated image but where does the idea come from? It seems to be a solely Catholic thing.
God bless,

James 👍
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  1. In the 60’s priests started to face the people without permission; gradually it was tolerated, and quickly became the norm.
  2. In the New Mass it’s not required; in the Old Mass it is required in High Mass
  3. What is a heart? We use the word “heart” all the time colloquially- to mean one’s feeling, one’s love, one’s deepest emotions, etc. In the sam way, we worship Jesus’ heart, His love, as God is Love, etc.
 
The Sacred Heart of Jesus is His Divine-Human Heart as the God-Man; His Divine Heart is the Holy Spirit, that is, the Love of God; His Human Heart is His Soul, as well as the Heart in His Chest. This isn’t to say His Soul and Heart are one, but rather, when we speak about His Human Heart, we mean His Soul (“heart” used spiritually) and His Heart (“heart” used literally). The Sacred Heart of Jesus, precisely because it is Divine and Human, is the Source of Love and and the Abyss of Mercy which separates the Creator from the creature (hence, in Jesus, man and God are now united). The Sacred Heart of Jesus, while a real heart, can be used symbolically to mean the Love and Mercy of Jesus.

Some would say that the heart (organ) in Jesus is just an organ, and the blood and water within it was just blood and water, but what is failed realized is that Jesus is not just man, He is also God, the God-Man, and He is the Revelation of the Father, the Image of God in the flesh; as such, His Heart is truly a Divine Heart and the Blood and Water, which gushed forth form Him, is truly a Fountain of Mercy, the Water purifying souls and the Blood giving them life. All things of old were prepared by God for His Son’s coming, and Jesus, far from being created in our image, is in fact the One in whom God has created us, for He is the Image and Likeness of the Father.
 
THe incense messes me up big time- but I LOVE it anyway! It is not used even close to enough!
 
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