So why DO people leave Mass early?

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To offer Mass you have to be present from the offetory till the Priest’s Communion- if you are present for that you have officially “offered” your Mass and the obligation is fulfilled, but no I don’t know why people leave early. In our Church it goes back to when the Mass was in Latin there were often as many as 3 or more Masses being said in the one Church (as Con-celebration wasn’t practiced ) and the Mass was in Latin, living in Spain for 5 months this is still very much the same- people come and go and often pray the rosary and other devotions during Mass- strictly speaking that isn’t correct, but at least people come I suppose. You must also be from a huge parish if 100 people came in after the first hymn started…in a weird way it wouldn’t be Catholic as we know it without the “freeness” and “Latin-ness” in our Churches- if you ever go to an Anglican Church it is so different, everyone is so stiff and still, it is such a different experience. I love being in a Roman Catholic church where there is a Priest saying Mass, another hearing Confessions and people praying and lighting candles etc. to me its wonderful and very beautiful. But I don’t know why people leave so early, everyone is free I suppose- I am a “the old ways are best” kind of guy- as you can see from my post haha but I personally go very early to Mass to say my prayers and often stay after to give a proper thanksgiving etc. (or attempt to).
 
Fraz94 said:
To offer Mass you have to be present from the offetory till the Priest’s Communion- if you are present for that you have officially “offered” your Mass and the obligation is fulfilled, but no I don’t know why people leave early.
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:confused:

Do you have any back up for that? Documentation?

Or is this your policy?
 
…my 83 year old Priest who was ordained before the Council and has a bachelor of Theology has said it. It does also say so in the 1962 Missal in the instructions and notes on the Mass- this Missal was reprinted at the Order of Pope Benedict in 2007, I have the reprint and it clearly says that in the introduction to offering Mass.
 
Just so there is no misunderstanding, some people leave early from the EF as well. I don’t know why as most travel great distances to get there and one would think they’d stick around as long as they could, at least for the blessing.
 
Hopey said:
And just one further thing, especially regarding the impact of divorce on children and society as a whole, the Church doesn’t wait to see IF it has a negative impact on the children, as she already knows in her wisdom the truth behind that (no-fault divorce), YOU DO NO HARM TO CHILDREN - THEY ARE NOT MEANT TO BE EXPERIMENTED WITH.

So, as gay marriage and unions are more accepted as normal in society, here, you will see as these children get old enough to speak for themselves, as with the casualties of divorce/remarriage/serial adulterers, her adjusting the stats and adding them to reflect this. This is also why it is underscored that there are some who in those households come out confused as to their sexuality.
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I posted this in the wrong forum. I apologize.

Happy Easter y’all. Sorry for the confusion if any.
 
Fraz94 said:
…my 83 year old Priest who was ordained before the Council and has a bachelor of Theology has said it. It does also say so in the 1962 Missal in the instructions and notes on the Mass- this Missal was reprinted at the Order of Pope Benedict in 2007, I have the reprint and it clearly says that in the introduction to offering Mass.
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That would be a very minimalist approach to the Liturgy.

I don’t have the references off-hand, but I do know that the Council encourages us to be present for the hearing of the Word of God, and that the opening and closing processions aren’t merely because the priest likes to follow the Altar Servers around the Church in his vestments - it is expected that we be present for those, as well.
 
I usually leave Mass after receiving because I have a poorly behaved 4 year-old daughter who goes bonkers during Mass.
 
I leave during the final hymn so I can catch the bus home or I have to wait for an hour at the bus stop.
 
There are as many reasons as there are people leaving early. I hope that most are for good reasons.

A parish in my area always has homilies in the twenty minutes plus or minus range, so it’s not at all odd for the mass to run well over an hour. The standard seems to be about an hour and ten minutes, though it sometimes goes longer.

When I am there, it’s normally for a mass that is heavily attended by older people. Their physical limitations make it difficult to sit there that long. Maybe their leaving early is not the right thing to do, but we should understand that they may be in pain.

On the other hand, while I am waiting in line to receive, it’s a little distracting to have other people just outside stopping to chat with those who also left after receiving.
 
I haven’t read all 15 pages yet, so maybe someone already mentioned this. I heard someone describe leaving early as no different and equally disrespectful as spitting on the crucifix.

We have just received Jesus into our bodies and at that moment, we should be quietly reflecting on how much Jesus loves us and how He died for us, but we, are more concerned with getting out the doors for whatever reason.

If you want to leave mass early, that is between you and God… I will not let it bother me nor will I judge you.

We currently have a pastor at our church who is a wonderful guy, but I was really taken aback one day when he was distributing communion on one of the side aisles, and was people were walking past him after receiving communion and were heading for the door, he would call out “Hey, where are you going?”. He did this a few times, and I thought he could have handled this better. Yes… he was right that is was not right for them to leave early, but maybe, just maybe there was a really good reason they were leaving. Again, that should be left up to God to judge. A better thing might have been to put something in the bulletin and use it as a teaching moment and then let people use their conscious to decide if leaving 5 minutes early really matters in the grand scheme of things. Breakfast will still be there, as will just about everything else. If Junior has a football game, maybe going earlier or on Saturday would help.

Anyhow, I don’t let it bother me as I’m more concerned with me being a good person and following God’s will… that’s a full time job for me.

God bless all…

John
 
ringil said:
I usually leave Mass after receiving because I have a poorly behaved 4 year-old daughter who goes bonkers during Mass.
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Similar to us because of our three year old twins.

There is a torrent of people leaving when Communion begins, trying to get past them to go to Communion is like swimming up white water rapids.
 
On rare occasions, I have to leave right after communion, because I have to be at work in a few minutes.

Other than that, my mom and I usually leave right after the priest leaves - assuming there aren’t some people in our row chatting or insisting on singing the hymn all of the way through to the end.
 
I’ve only left Mass early when I had to be at work by a certain time and was on a shift where I could not go to any Mass at any other time.

When I take my parents to see my grandmother, my mother taps me on the shoulder as she sits in the back seats with my grandmother where the older people often sit so I can go and bring the car to the door as both of my parents will be assisting her to the car as they leave her walker in my car. Normally, I am to make my exit as the final hymn begins, and this church likes to sing long songs at the start and finish of Mass.
 
acadiANNA said:
Please come to Mass
Early enough not to disrupt,
Worship reverently enough not to distract,
Dress respectfully enough not to offend,
Leave late enough not to insult.

Please prepare to enter into the celebration of Mass,
Participate fully to give God thanks,
Come humbly to receive the Lord,
Go forth renewed to take Christ to the world.
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I like this one : )
 
My wife, a Baptist, claims that she can always tell a Catholic church. It’s where the early leavers overlap with the late arrivals.

I used to work near a Greek Orthodox church and I used to slip out of the office every morning to have coffee at a café next door to the church. On those occasions when the Orthodox had a holiday and I was at work, there was always a steady stream of people taking time out from Liturgy to come and have coffee.
 
People leave Mass early for various reasons, as stated above. But, please stay in church until the dismissal. It would be a bit disrespectful or inappropriate. A custom here also is not to exit the church until the priest reverences the altar and withdraws. Remember that from the introductory rites up to the last Deo Gratias consists of the Mass.
 
GoGoDiego said:
People leave Mass early for various reasons, as stated above. But, please stay in church until the dismissal. It would be a bit disrespectful or inappropriate. A custom here also is not to exit the church until the priest reverences the altar and withdraws. Remember that from the introductory rites up to the last Deo Gratias consists of the Mass.
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Yes, I was also taught that Mass is over when the priest leaves the altar, and I may exit after he passes my pew (if he comes down the center aisle) or after he goes into the sacristy. What I object to is having to endure three more stanzas of the liturgist’s favorite hymn before I can leave. It’s bad enough having to listen to this music during Mass, but I refuse to remain captive for the encore.
 
savedbygrace71 said:
Yesterday my son was struggling with asthma and we sat in the narthex during Mass. It let us have a little more breathing room than if we sat in the pew with my husband. He counted the number of people who came in late, after the first hymn started, just to entertain himself. It was well over 100 people!

But what surprised me from our vantage point there by the door was just how many people left during communion. I knew that frequently others around us wouldn’t be there after they received, but I hadn’t realized that so.many.people. left the church immediately after receiving. It was many, many more. It was impossible to count but had to be more than double of how many he had counted on the way in, so easily 200 or more.

So why? Why do people like to leave early? Why not stay and hear the blessing and the actual words, “the Mass has ended…”? The Episcopal church I went to with my Dad as a child had a nice, formal exit system 😉 as the priest and the cross recessed, each pew would recess behind it from the front to the back. I don’t know if people dashed out ahead of time but certainly no one would have ever pushed ahead of the priest to get out the door first!

What’s the hurry!?
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Personally I figure that it really is none of my business.
 
savedbygrace71 said:
Yesterday my son was struggling with asthma and we sat in the narthex during Mass. It let us have a little more breathing room than if we sat in the pew with my husband. He counted the number of people who came in late, after the first hymn started, just to entertain himself. It was well over 100 people!

But what surprised me from our vantage point there by the door was just how many people left during communion. I knew that frequently others around us wouldn’t be there after they received, but I hadn’t realized that so.many.people. left the church immediately after receiving. It was many, many more. It was impossible to count but had to be more than double of how many he had counted on the way in, so easily 200 or more.

So why? Why do people like to leave early? Why not stay and hear the blessing and the actual words, “the Mass has ended…”? The Episcopal church I went to with my Dad as a child had a nice, formal exit system 😉 as the priest and the cross recessed, each pew would recess behind it from the front to the back. I don’t know if people dashed out ahead of time but certainly no one would have ever pushed ahead of the priest to get out the door first!

What’s the hurry!?
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I’m as baffled as you are. In the church I grew up in, the doors were locked from the time the minister ascended the pulpit until the last verse of the last hymn. No one went out and no one went in. (They had fire bars on them, and it would be easy, although noisy, to escape in an emergency. Nothing like that ever happened, though.)

It would not have occurred to anyone that they had anything more important to do than be in Church on Sunday morning. Shopping and errands were done on Saturdays, and work was done from Monday to Friday.

Our family always arrived half an hour early to get “our” seats, and we always hung around afterwards to chat with friends, play games in the hall, and explore the building.
 
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