Rushed liturgy

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simongarrett

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As a recent convert to the Catholic Church from the Anglican church I am concerned about the pace priests celebrate liturgy. A recent Sunday mass I attended was 50 minutes long, including hymns, sung parts and sermon. Is this common and why?
 
simongarrett said:
As a recent convert to the Catholic Church from the Anglican church I am concerned about the pace priests celebrate liturgy. A recent Sunday mass I attended was 50 minutes long, including hymns, sung parts and sermon. Is this common and why?
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Ummm … depends on things like how many people attend and how much singing there is (there are more hymns for some Masses than others), and how frequently Masses are scheduled (some parishes actually have to hold them every hour of a Sunday just to cater for the number of parisioners). I’d say 50 minutes is just a little shorter than average though. Most go around or just above the one hour mark, in my experience.

You think 50 minutes is rushed, you don’t want to go to a daily Mass, that’s for sure, you’d be scandalised (but then there’s not often any singing, and usually way fewer people).

But take heart from Our Lord’s warning against those who ‘think they will be heard for their many prayers’. A short but sincere prayer is every bit as effective as a long one, and the same goes for Mass. Not like Our Lord specified a length it was supposed to take, after all! 🤷

I’ve been to longer Masses that were if anything less reverent than the shorter ones, the extra time simply being made up with lots of totally pointless padding and little substance.

How long did your Anglican Mass usually take? I once went to Anglican Mass - it was almost word for word same as a Catholic Mass and I didn’t notice any real difference in the length. What parts of the Anglican liturgy take longer? Was it the sermon, the communion? Did they do things like use incense that a lot of Catholic parishes don’t? Have extra prayers in the liturgy itself?
 
I have been to Eastern Rite liturgies that routinely last nearly two hours, with half-hour homilies that are so enlightening that you forget what time it is. I remember in the Episcopal church that, however long the service lasted, nobody would dream of walking out or complaining about it. If the recessional hymn had seven verses, everyone would sing them all loudly.

Unfortunately there are some Catholics who believe that it is written somewhere that a Sunday Mass cannot last for more than an hour. If it does, they will generally do one of these things: A. Get up and leave after Communion, usually in an manner obvious to the priest; B. Complain loudly to the priest when Mass is over; or C. Fire off a petty letter or email to the priest about his lack of consideration for letting his Mass “run over.”

One suggestion I have is to remove all clocks from the nave of the church and, if your church has clock bells, disable them until Mass is over. As for singing, on a Sunday Mass, everything should be sung, with the Mass parts (i.e. Gloria, Sanctus, etc.) having first priority. There should also be adequate periods of silence without “filler music.”
 
simongarrett said:
As a recent convert to the Catholic Church from the Anglican church I am concerned about the pace priests celebrate liturgy. A recent Sunday mass I attended was 50 minutes long, including hymns, sung parts and sermon. Is this common and why?
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Be charitable with your priest. Because of the priest shortage, priests have horrible constraints on their times and energies. Unlike in years past when there used to be two or more priests per parish, most parishes now have one priest (or worse, some parishes share a priest with one or more other parishes).

Father may have gotten a call that old Mrs. Jones is dying and could die any minute. Only he can hear her confession and give her the last rites. This is not something he can delegate to a deacon or to a lay minister.

It’s hard nowadays for priests. They have to make hard choices. Be charitable and pray for them and pray for vocations.
 
We have nearly 4000 families;the church seats 800. We have three masses Saturday evening, six during the day Sunday and two Sunday evening. To fit them in desired times they are scheduled at 90 minute intervals. If a mass runs much more than 60 minutes there is a huge traffic jam as the incoming traffic can find no parking spaces and blocks the outgoing.

This is a great improvement over the older times when all masses had to be before noon and on Sunday. Then masses were scheduled at 60 minute intervals which had to include the time to clear and refill the parking lot.
 
joe you need police direction like we have on Sundays. They direct the traffic flow and pedestrians, but they don’t do this for any other church (mennonites, episcapalians, prebyterians, etc.)in Fairfax City VA
 
simongarrett said:
As a recent convert to the Catholic Church from the Anglican church I am concerned about the pace priests celebrate liturgy. A recent Sunday mass I attended was 50 minutes long, including hymns, sung parts and sermon. Is this common and why?
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Sunday Mass can range from 30 min to an hour and a half, w/o anything being wrong or illicit on either end.

Some masses have lots of singing, hymns, Psalm w/ sung refrain, Gloria etc., a long homily, and they go over an hour.

I’ve been to others where the hymns are simple, the Gloria, Psalm, and Sanctus are simple read, the Priest preaches for 5-7 mins. and you done in 30-35 mins.

God Bless
 
Note that one is in Spanish, three in Vietnamese and six in English. We have been fined by the fire department a few times for having over 1000 in the building at a Vietnamese mass.
 
snhs said:
Wouldn’t you only need 5 Masses to fit everyone in then?
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With due consideration for building costs today, this is why new (and old) churches in Europe tend to be so much larger than in America. Larger capacity equals less Masses and closer community. We continually underestimate the size of new church buildings in America, and they are often outgrown as soon as they’re built.
 
japhy said:
While 11 Masses does sound excessive, Joe said 4000 families, not people.
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Sorry, I must have misread. It always seems a bit odd that we count a Parish in families then quantify seating capacity in people.
 
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