Quiet private prayer

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When you go to mass do you (are you able to) spend more time before or after in quiet prayer?
 
Greenfields said:
When you go to mass do you (are you able to) spend more time before or after in quiet prayer?
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Difficult at our parish Church. We have 10 Masses every Sunday to accommodate the 80% Mass attendance. There is only 15 minutes between each Mass and in that 15 minutes people have to get up and leave and then the next lot comes in. Not any quiet time.
 
On Sundays, neither. The musicians are warming up before Mass, and the congregation likes to socialize after Mass.
Weekday Mass is altogether different, however. I get to church 20 minutes early, and everyone else there seems to enjoy the quiet time for prayer, as do I.
 
I find that too 🙂 weekday mass’s are so peaceful and there’s as much time as you like to pray before and after
Times are a changing here with children growing up,
we used to rush to get to mass but were able to stay on for a little while afterwards.At the moment I seem to cut it fine getting to mass then have to leave soon after due to circumstances.Hopefully I can work it that I can spend more time afterwards praying but that depends which church is less loudly social afterwards.
 
Greenfields said:
That’s an amazing amount of Masses 🙂
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Monday to Saturday 3 Masses daily then 10 on Sundays and also 10 Masses on all other Holy Days of Obligation.
Our parish has approx 14,000 people and the average Mass attendance is 80% so that’s around 11,000 come to Mass every Sunday. The Church is not only full but lots of people have to stand outside so they follow the Mass listening to speakers set up outside.
 
I am always involving/on duty in the liturgy. We are asked to come at least twenty minutes before the mass to prepare ourselves (I usually be there half an hour before mass). We would be in the daily chapel which is at the back of the church with a thoroughfares through the sacristy.

Yes, we can have our own personal prayer time, which I do, until the mass starts.
 
I haven’t got any likes…but it helps:)
I do after Holy Communion
 
Not usually before or after Mass. Sometimes on weekdays I can manage it, especially before Mass, or in the gap between Masses if the church is fortunate enough to have two of them in a row (rare on a weekday). On Sundays, there will be people in the church in between the Masses, so it’s not very private and often not very quiet as not only do people chat, but also the staff is cleaning up, the musicians for the next Mass may be warming up, etc. I will still hang around and pray through the noise if I need to do that.

Some churches also have a recited group prayer going on before or after Mass, like Rosary or Divine Mercy, so you can either join in that or you would need to pray while ignoring it.

Whenever one is attending the last Mass of the day or the last Mass for a few hours, one has to be really careful not to get locked in the church as many churches will want to lock up pretty quickly after the service ends.

I find that Adoration chapels or other prayer chapels (colleges usually have one) are better places to spend extended amounts of quiet prayer time than in a church having Mass. Also, if I’m sparing an hour already to go to Mass, I may not have extra time to spend at the church, especially on a weekday.
 
Yes, for similar reasons as @Reuben_J. I just need to arrive earlier and/or stay later in order to get that quiet prayer time—I’m the one who opens and closes the church.
 
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