Stewardship Prayer?

[HeyMoe1287]

The church I attend has included a Stewardship “Prayer” (as I see it, more of a pledge) which we recite immediately following the Prayer after Communion and preceeding the Concluding Rite. More or less, it goes like this:

My parish is composed of people like me.
I help to make it what it is.
It will be friendly, if I am.
Its pews will be filled, if I help fill them.
It will do great work, if I work.
It will make generous gifts to many just causes,
If I am a generous giver.
It will welcome other people to our worship and fellowship
If I invite and bring them.
It will be a Church of loyalty and love, of fearlessness and faith,
of charity and hope,
If I am filled with these same things.
Therefore with the help of God,
I shall dedicate myself to the task
Of being all the things that I want my parish to be.

How nice . . .

Anyone else experience this or have any thoughts?

 

[CB_Catholic]

We have a very nice Stewardship prayer also which we say before Mass. It is quite different from yours, but I can’t post it, because I believe it is copyrighted. I do enjoy saying it, though because it reminds me that everything that I am and everything I have is a gift from God. That is a nice way to start Mass. Yours is a very lovely prayer.

 

[HeyMoe1287]

You really like it, CB? Doesn’t the Mass itself remind you of those things?

It’s all a little too touchy-feely for me. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with allegiance to a particular parish, but to add a pledge to be recited after Mass seems somehow out of place/in bad taste. I realize they want to sugarcoat it under the guise of a “prayer,” but I don’t buy it.

Doesn’t the GIRM state somewhere that things may not be added or taken away from the litrugy? This seems to qualify as an unnecessary addition to me.

 

[CB_Catholic]

You really like it, CB? Doesn’t the Mass itself remind you of those things?

It’s all a little too touchy-feely for me. I mean, there’s nothing wrong with allegiance to a particular parish, but to add a pledge to be recited after Mass seems somehow out of place/in bad taste. I realize they want to sugarcoat it under the guise of a “prayer,” but I don’t buy it.

Doesn’t the GIRM state somewhere that things may not be added or taken away from the litrugy? This seems to qualify as an unnecessary addition to me.

There is something wrong with me liking the prayer? I don’t think I need to defend myself here.

In any case, we recite ours before Mass, before the Processional, not part of the Liturgy. They apparently have theirs before the Concluding Rite, which probably is a little too soon, I agree, but that’s what they do, and I have no intention of turning this into another “liturgical abuse” thread. We have those ad nauseum. She wanted to know what others experienced, and I told her.

 

[HeyMoe1287]

No there’s nothing wrong with liking the prayer!

My concern is simply that it appears to be something added (unecessarily) to the liturgy (either to the Liturgy of the Word or Liturgy of the Eucharist… in your case, somewhere in between). By virtue of this, it does then seem to qualify as, at the very least, a form of liturgical, shall we say, misconduct. Does that make sense?

Though perhaps I’m looking too much into it. Anyone else care to help CB and me?