No sense of community

[KS_Housewife]

*QUOTE
Posted by: Limoncello402 On: Aug 20, '17 6:06 pm

"As a long-time single, now approaching 60 years old, the loneliest I’ve ever felt is at Sunday Mass. Especially when at the sign of peace, everyone turns to hug and kiss their family members and completely ignore the solitary person next to them or behind them. For as long as I remember the parish activities have been: for youth; for young adults; for families; for widowed/divorced/separated persons. I am none of these. No activities, ever, for mature, healthy, active singles.

I gave up finding community at Mass a long time ago after multiple tries to fit in. Still, I go to Mass because I am a believer. I’ve learned to offer the bitter suffering of loneliness to God as what He has pleased to give me for my good and that of others."

Thanks Limoncello402, I am a few years behind you, kids will be out of school and it’ll be just me, nearing 60, in that pew. Only churches I ever saw with what you long for are big urban cathedral parishes (or gay friendly parishes heehee.)

What you say inspires me to keep going.*

 

[ConfusedLucy]

Limoncello I pray that I will be able to be as mature and accepting of my situation as you some day.

I don’t really think a lot of these issues are specifically Catholic, I think people in general prefer the company of similar people and naturally gravitate towards them. The difference is that Catholics are compelled to go to mass whereas if you were being blanked in something like a fitness class you could just stop going and work out at home if it bothered you.

 

[Rosebud77]

Sadly, more and more I think the future of the Mass will be similar to its past - a priest mumbling the Latin Mass with a group of people each in their own bubble, saying their own prayers privately, with very few of them who know anything at all about the faith, or who care to know.

Your interpretation of this is very dubious and uncharitable. You do not know what is in the hearts and minds of these people or what they are coping with in their lives.

And you deny the validity and power of the Mass?

I have thought a lot about this topic these last weeks.

Remembering conversations with others in my Anglican youth

We come together for Mass. a Holy Time and a Holy Place. Our lives and our prayers enrich and heal in ways we will never see … each of us has a life in the world, family, work
Mass is not a lonely hearts or social club and in the sense you mean, not a community, unless you live in a very small remote community where everyone knows each other anyways.

I once was at Mass in a small village. Chatted quietly to a lady afterwards and there was another lady devotedly praying Stations
My companion told me that she cares for an invalid husband and this is the only time she has to herself. She chooses to use it for prayer.

Sure we had social events in my childhood church. At certain times;eg Easter week and Christmas. But we each had families, work etc.Full and often taxing lives,

Strengthened by prayer

I went through many years feeling so alone;like someone walking a street and seeing families through windows… on the outside looking in…

But as I grew I understood what I have written above and learned also to give wherever I was.of time and skills and love, and loneliness turned to a meaningful solitide i still have and enjoy and am fulfilled in
I remember in the bad years feeling most lonely and desolate after eg Christmas midnight mass when everyone went off home.

 

[Rosebud77]

Limoncello I pray that I will be able to be as mature and accepting of my situation as you some day.

I don’t really think a lot of these issues are specifically Catholic, I think people in general prefer the company of similar people and naturally gravitate towards them. The difference is that Catholics are compelled to go to mass whereas if you were being blanked in something like a fitness class you could just stop going and work out at home if it bothered you.

Blanked?Is that what you see it as? Shaking my head here.