Need advice dealing w/"social hall" atmosphere at Mass

[withwind]

Before Mass, people yak yak yak. During Mass, people yak. After Mass, people yak. I don’t understand how they can understand what’s going on and yet be so disrespectful and irreverent. I want to be able to pray and not have to hear about so-and-so’s ex-boyfriends cemetery plot or how much someone’s hip is bothering them or what grades someone’s kid got in school! And after Mass, Father hasn’t even started forward to kiss the altar and people turn into schoolkids in a cafeteria!

We are trying to figure out how to best handle it for us. I thought that we should seek some advice from all of you on how to deal with this. What do you do personally? What have you found works/doesn’t work? How do all of you deal with this issue?

It can be very distracting but I am learning to pray at anytime and anywhere … by taking everything surrounding me in a positive way into part of my prayer. For eg: if I am out at my apartment balcony, I take the sound of birds chirping as part of my prayer. At church, after mass, although people are loud, I think of how wonderful that they have come to worship the Lord…etc …I don’t really know how to explain it though, but it helps me focusing on my conversation with God.

It is just like when you have a conversation with a friend at a party, you keep focusing on the person you talk to despite of the noise of others’ conversation around you.

If irritation gets you, offer it to the Lord…tell Him about it…He’ll help you

 

[benedictgal]

I belong to a pretty chatty parish, and it used to bother me when I started going to Mass, but now I don’t mind so much.

Think of the Wedding Feast at Cana. Our Lord was present and so was Our Lady, and what were people talking about? The fact that they were low on wine Jesus didn’t chastise the wedding party for being irreverent, but rather He went and made more wine so people could continue to celebrate with each other.

I view much of the time at Church in the same way. It’s one thing to chat during the consecration, but before Mass even starts is another thing. People doing the former should be spoken to by the priest IMO, but I think people doing the latter should be cut some slack. If a person wants quiet prayer time, they get there early or go to the chapel afterward

When Jesus cast out the money changers and the vendors, He specifically stated that “My House is a house of prayer.” That is exactly what the church is. It is not a meeting room (although, granted, when a parish is starting --usually before the church building goes up-- the faithful meet in another space) nor a social hall. It is first and foremost a house of prayer.

People go into the church to pray (either publicly, as in the Mass or some other liturgical act) or privately (devotionals, meditation, etc). Especially, if the Tabernacle is located within the sanctuary, the presence of the Blessed Sacrament should be respected and not ignored. Socializing should wait until either after Mass or outside in the vestibule before Mass. It is as though we have lost a complete regard for the sacred and have allowed, as Archbishiop Ranjinth noted, Wall Street to move into the sanctuary.

 

[RosaryKindaGuy]

if I am out at my apartment balcony, I take the sound of birds chirping as part of my prayer. ** At church, after mass, although people are loud, I think of how wonderful that they have come to worship the Lord**…etc …I don’t really know how to explain it though, but it helps me focusing on my conversation with God.

It is just like when you have a conversation with a friend at a party, you keep focusing on the person you talk to despite of the noise of others’ conversation around you.

If irritation gets you, offer it to the Lord…tell Him about it…He’ll help you

i think its wonderful that your learning to make others a part of your prayer, i’m constantly praying at least 5 times a day i keep a rosary on me at all times and i pray for the people or nature around me. i pray during school ( i have it down to a science so it looks like i’m absorbed in schoolwork) and after school i pray during detentions as well. i keep up with all my work but yes.I think of the mass ending as the people rejoicing for our risen lord the king on high

 

[Appleby]

On the one month anniversary of my Daddy’s death I came early to church to pray before the Blessed Mother in silence. The people who came in after me seemed to be shouting to one another, banging the kneelers, and of course dealing with crying, fighting, pushing, shoving and misbehaving children. I went into the outer sacristy to pray and the CWL ladies were in there shouting at one another from one side of the room to the other.

I asked if there was anywhere quiet in the whole building where I could pray, explaining my circumstances. One of the ladies conducted me to the chapel – where the racket of altar boys and priests using their Soccer Stadium voices from the sacristy echoed around the room.

I started to cry and told her that if I had to go into the washroom to pray I might just as well not come to church at all. She stepped into the sacristy and shushed the hollering and yelling for me. Soon after that I changed parishes and now attend one where the sanctuary is as quiet as libraries used to be and all talking is done on the steps outside. People who come in talking find themselves the centre of all eyes and they stop short. It really is not that difficult to learn that the Mass is not all about You. But it does take cooperation and a willingness to recognize that there are other people in the world too.

I have come to the conclusion that there are a large percentage of people in todays’ world that (1) simply CANNOT be quiet, not even for a nanosecond and (2) bitterly resent anyone asking them to try, anywhere, ever, for any reason. I have had people settle down to read aloud to their children on airplanes, who were shocked when their seatmate asked to be moved because she wanted to concentrate on making notes on a book she was summarizing (it happened to be a Russian novel, which one cannot concentrate on while hearing the fifth reading of “Frog and Toad Together”). I said politely to Reading Daddy that this was not his living room at home, and that perhaps all 150 of us did not want to hear “Frog and Toad Together” even once. He was polite and agreed to stop, but he was totally bewildered. And that is not to mention the cell phone blabber-patrol in the movie theatre (especially the one who is telling somebody who is somewhere else everything that is happening in the movie), and those who refuse to take their screaming toddlers out of restaurants…and the little darling rhythmically slamming the pew door over and over and over and over…

I just think sometimes that somebody needs to stand up and just yell ‘SHUT UP!’ at the whole world.

 

[jmcrae]

I just think sometimes that somebody needs to stand up and just yell ‘SHUT UP!’ at the whole world.

I agree with this. I have felt like that for a really long time - as long as I can remember.

One time my father had a friend of his over for supper, and the man just kept talking and talking and talking all the way through supper - he kept quizzing me about my work, and my religion - it was even worse than a job interview or a thesis defense. I didn’t answer him much, and my Dad kept apologizing for me, saying “She’s the quiet one.”

After he left all I said to my Dad was, “Boy, he sure talks a lot, doesn’t he? That felt like the bloody Spanish Inquisition!” I think my Dad got the point, because I didn’t see that man again - my Dad asked him not to come over when I was there.

 

[Seatuck]

When the Bishop moved our tabernacle from a side chapel back to the reredros where it belonged we went through several weeks of educating the parish on sacred silence. We got signs made up on stanchions and placed in each aisle as you come into the church. There were articles in the bulletin and reminders during the announcements. It worked for a while . Now the noise is starting back up.

 

[Cat]

It can be very distracting but I am learning to pray at anytime and anywhere … by taking everything surrounding me in a positive way into part of my prayer. For eg: if I am out at my apartment balcony, I take the sound of birds chirping as part of my prayer. At church, after mass, although people are loud, I think of how wonderful that they have come to worship the Lord…etc …I don’t really know how to explain it though, but it helps me focusing on my conversation with God.

It is just like when you have a conversation with a friend at a party, you keep focusing on the person you talk to despite of the noise of others’ conversation around you.

If irritation gets you, offer it to the Lord…tell Him about it…He’ll help you

God bless you greatly! What a sweet spirit you have! I would like to be like you.

 

[Cat]

i think its wonderful that your learning to make others a part of your prayer, i’m constantly praying at least 5 times a day i keep a rosary on me at all times and i pray for the people or nature around me. i pray during school ( i have it down to a science so it looks like i’m absorbed in schoolwork) and after school i pray during detentions as well. i keep up with all my work but yes.I think of the mass ending as the people rejoicing for our risen lord the king on high

Wonderful! After spending a depressing 15 minutes in the Traditional section reading people’s gripes, it is so encouraging to read such a thoughtful and challenging post. The Bible says to “Pray without ceasing,” and that’s just what you are doing. I would like to be like you, too.

 

[Cat]

I agree with this. I have felt like that for a really long time - as long as I can remember.

One time my father had a friend of his over for supper, and the man just kept talking and talking and talking all the way through supper - he kept quizzing me about my work, and my religion - it was even worse than a job interview or a thesis defense. I didn’t answer him much, and my Dad kept apologizing for me, saying “She’s the quiet one.”

After he left all I said to my Dad was, “Boy, he sure talks a lot, doesn’t he? That felt like the bloody Spanish Inquisition!” I think my Dad got the point, because I didn’t see that man again - my Dad asked him not to come over when I was there.

It takes all kinds to make a world.

In our family, every family dinner was full of rapid-fire conversation, debates, arguments, jokes, questions and answers, and discussions about everything from the neighbors to the universe. (We’re a German-American/Irish-American family, in case you’re wondering.)

My husband started dating me when he was in high school, and he said that coming to one of our family affairs gave him a headache!

And when I went to his family affairs, I wanted to scream, “C’mon, everyone TALK, please! SAY SOMETHING!” To me, the silence (except for chewing food) made it seem like a wake.

It’s the way I was raised. I like silence at appropriate times (and times of prayers are those times), but I also love lots of lively discussion at the dinner table. To this day, my dad comes over and talks up a storm, and if we go out, he’ll say hi to everyone in the restaurant and find at least one person that he knows.

 

[Appleby]

At our house we were not permitted to talk at the table or in the car. Mama said she heard all the noise she wanted to hear at the factory and that when we were in the car she needed to concentrate on reading the map. I had one boyfriend who could not stand the fact that I would read in the car instead of talk to him on long trips. (Taking a long trip with someone is a good way to find out whether you are suited. We were certainly not.)

When we got older, we learned American Sign from a girl at my school and when my folks drove my college roommate down with us to Bible College, she was totally freaked out by that. It was very handy to know Sign, especially when my sister and I were at the front and back of the marching band and we could Sign to each other about who was staying after school and who was going home with the little kids.

Daddy had only three rules: Sit Still, Be Quiet, Hands Off. (Mama added Keep Your Dress Nice.) We taught the kids that people who could be quiet got to go lots more places. My proudest moment was when I took my two nephews (4 and 8) with me to choir rehearsal and they sat in the back and listened, and toward the end of the rehearsal the choirmaster suddenly noticed them and said Who are those children in the back? He praised them for being so quiet and they just beamed.

 

[Gertabelle]

Our parish can be loud at times, mostly after mass, but is not usually too loud at the mass I attend. I did notice one Sunday that there seemed to be a lot of talking, and it just happened to be at mass where I was filling in at the piano. There was a song that I had never played before, so I began to practice quietly at the piano for a few minutes. The congregation immediately became silent (as if I wanted them to listen to me practice! )

I’ve decided I’ll use this in the future if the congregation seems a little loud. Believe me, I can always use the practice, and if it helps people quiet their minds and mouths, so much the better.

Gertie