Theatrical Mass

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Does anyone here have any thoughts or concerns regarding theatrical styles of worship during or after mass?

For me the mass is a very spiritual and humble experience.

There are those that feel a need to add things to the mass such as “preach it” style songs and plays. These things remind me of some of the protestant styles.

Is this sort of thing wrong? I know many people that think it is ok and others who feel uncomfortable with it.

For me the catholic mass is very holy and I just don’t like it when theatrics are added.

Anyone else feel the same way?
 
There is a retired priest (we have a lot of those here in FL 😉 ) who celebrates Mass in different parishes that they call ‘the singing priest’ or ‘the Barney priest’. When he opens the Mass he says, ‘I love you’ and waits for the faithful to respond in kind, hence the ‘Barney priest’ connotation. Then as part of his ‘homily’ he includes some Broadway show tune and /or a joke. He concludes the Mass with another theatric of one kind or another. Drives me nuts! Consequently, we no longer belong to the parish where he is a regular celebrant.

These types of theatrics are not traditional and I believe they are abuses. From my understanding, nothing can be added to or omitted from the Mass.
 
what do you mean by “priech it” songs? as far as I know, there should be no dancing in mass or people acting out a play. the only excpetion to this I know if when we have the childrens mass at the school on fridays. each week, a different class gets up and presents something after the gospil. it doesn’t replace anything. usually, the children are honering the saint of that day with a poem or a poster. it’s usually about 2 minutes long and then the regular mass continues. anything outside of that, seems a little rediculus though. no adults should be up acting out the gospil or somethign silly like that. that seems a bit of a mockery of the mass to me.

as far as music goes, I think it depends. there is a time and a place for certain music. I think the closing hymn can be something really upbeat. but there shouldn’t really be any dancing. although, when I was a teenager, I would play the air drums in the pew sometimes! 😃
 
I don’t think you’re right about nothing being able to be added to the mass. There are rubrics, and they must be followed to the letter, but after the final prayer after communion and before the final blessing, I believe there is room for additional elements. We have a parish here in Chicago, St. Sabina’s that have 2 and 3 hour masses. I have never attended one, but I have heard others talk about how spiritual it is. The Cardinal has sent liturgists to study it and has attended himself and no one has ever found where so much as a single abuse is occurring.
 
those are probably healing masses or something. we have those here in Jacksonville. there is one that is very long. I don’t know if the whole thing is a mass though. they have a rosery and a time for healing. people can go up and get prayed over by the priest and stuff like that.

I think the OP was refering to doing things to try and make the mass more dramatic. like having interpratitve dancers during the music or something like that. am I right in that assumption?
 
I am so glad I do not have to put with theatrics. This Sunday at the end of the snow storm here in Northern VA I got up early (I did not plan to) before my wife and went to mass at church with 50 others (instead of the usual 1000) who showed up even without power at church. It was awesome the candles burning bright and the only light coming in was through the stained glass windows and the skylight above the alter.
 
this is off topic, but it reminds me of a funny story about going to mass with no elecricity. it was during one of the hurricanes in 2004 here in Jacksonville FL. there was like 1/2 of the usual crowd and the priest had a flash light on the alter to read with. what was so funny was that we got the lights back towards the end of mass. it was during the Eukarestic prayer when the priest says, “bring them and all the departed into the light of your presance” and boom, on came the lights! that proves that God has a wry sense of humor. 🙂 off topic, sorry, but that’s how my scatter brain works 🙂
 
As a general rule I do not like to see big displays of Theater at most Masses, however, for special Masses I think it can be most enlivening.
For instance, on Christmas Eve at the early family Mass, it was really joyous to have Rennaisance costumed jugglers and acrobats with period muscians come down the aisle before the angels and shepherds.
At Pentecost, we had members of the parish who spoke different languages stand at different point in the church and repeat a prayer in their language in the form of a musical round ending with Latin. VERY moving and effective.—mpeacock
 
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