They call this a Mission?

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Our Parish announced a weeklong mission that began last Sunday night.

I was so looking forward to this. Well, at the 5 PM Mass on Sunday, the Dominican Father and Nun
who are conducting the mission processed in for Mass together - seemed strange to me. This priest ad-libbed a bit at the beginning of Mass, then after the Gospel - the nun came forward, the priest placed his hands on her forehead - then she stepped up in front of the altar and gave the homily! There was no way what she said could have been understood as anything but a homily, it was based on the Gospel that had been read.

Ours is not a parish that is liberal in their liturgy - and this simply shocked me! Our Parish priest was out of town, and must not have known this would happening his absence.

After the “homily”, the priest continued to ad lib the rest of the mass. For the intentions, he asked those in the pews to call out their intentions – he kept prodding till a few complied.

After everyone received the Eucharist, the nun went back to the sanctuary to the pulpit and began speaking again, leading everyone in a prayer of thanksgiving for the Eucharist and giving an advertisement for the mission sessions.

This was very disturbing - I cried in the car on the way home. I will admit, I almost walked out of Mass.

For so long, I’d looked forward to a mission in our parish - needless to say, my family did NOT attend any of the mission sessions this week.
As a CCD teacher, we have a meeting on Saturday afternoon – and it the conversations should be interesting, to say the least…
 
Do you happen to know what group this team was from? Our parish is having a team from Isaiah Ministry to do a mission in two weeks, and the team will be a priest and a nun! :eek:

Peace,
Linda
 
I must have a mental block on the names 🙂 They were from Austin, TX if that helps…
 
I don’t know what to tell you. We have had nuns give retreats, but they spoke outside of Mass. The Regs. are specific about only a priest or deacon preaching the Gospel at Mass. We have had missionary nuns come to Mass and ask the people about helping their Missions. This is a special situation for a parish mission. Could a special indult be involved? You might want to check with the diocese office. For the past years all of our parish missions have been in Spanish. We can’t get any interest from non-Hispanics to attend. I admire your parish for wanting a mission.

Deacon Tony
 
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kage_ar:
I must have a mental block on the names 🙂 They were from Austin, TX if that helps…
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Thats too close to home. I’ve never heard of anything like this in our area.
maggiec
 
we just completed a terrific parish lenten mission, given by a Franciscan priest from a neighboring parish. This parish started perpetual adoration 24/7 five years ago, and conducts Life in the Spirit Seminars every two years. Their town is smaller and much poorer than ours, and their high school is much smaller, but they have 4 times as many teens active in CCD and youth group as we do, and their youth choir, who came to sing for the Holy Hour last night were fantastic. the theme was the year of the Eucharist, the Real Presence and Adoration, and it was absolutely wonderful. We had priests on hand for confession every evening. However, the results were predictable. Except for two CCD nights when we had all the youth and catechists there, less than 50 attended each evening (about 1000 attend Sunday Masses).

A beautiful, valuable free gift was offered and people passed it up. No wonder our pastor gets so discouraged about trying new things and offering such programs.
 
Personally, I would have walked out. Maybe everyone was waiting for someone to make the first move and you would’ve started a stampede. I wonder how the priestess-in-waiting and Father Night at the Improv would’ve liked being faced with a church that was suddenly 90% empty?

All that evil men (and women) require to succeed is for good men (and women) to do nothing.

I’ve walked out on an irregular Mass before (not my parish) when the priest attempted to confect the Eucharist using what looked like a big hunk of Rye bread. Shameful. :tsktsk:

On the other hand, I’ve stuck around thru some bad Masses too. Experience has taught me, however, that if it starts out bad, it will only get worse. Walk out while you can.

And you might want to say a prayer for that priest and nun as well.
 
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kage_ar:
Our Parish announced a weeklong mission that began last Sunday night.

I was so looking forward to this. Well, at the 5 PM Mass on Sunday, the Dominican Father and Nun
who are conducting the mission processed in for Mass together - seemed strange to me. This priest ad-libbed a bit at the beginning of Mass, then after the Gospel - the nun came forward, the priest placed his hands on her forehead - then she stepped up in front of the altar and gave the homily! There was no way what she said could have been understood as anything but a homily, it was based on the Gospel that had been read.

Ours is not a parish that is liberal in their liturgy - and this simply shocked me! Our Parish priest was out of town, and must not have known this would happening his absence.

After the “homily”, the priest continued to ad lib the rest of the mass. For the intentions, he asked those in the pews to call out their intentions – he kept prodding till a few complied.

After everyone received the Eucharist, the nun went back to the sanctuary to the pulpit and began speaking again, leading everyone in a prayer of thanksgiving for the Eucharist and giving an advertisement for the mission sessions.

This was very disturbing - I cried in the car on the way home. I will admit, I almost walked out of Mass.

For so long, I’d looked forward to a mission in our parish - needless to say, my family did NOT attend any of the mission sessions this week.
As a CCD teacher, we have a meeting on Saturday afternoon – and it the conversations should be interesting, to say the least…
Click to expand...
As long as the Mass is valid I would not leave. But as you I would not have attended the Mission sessions.
 
Is asking people in the pews to call out intentions a liturgical abuse? I’ve been to a Mass where this was done.
 
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Genesis315:
Is asking people in the pews to call out intentions a liturgical abuse? I’ve been to a Mass where this was done.
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No, it was the nun giving the homily.
 
My parish had a Mission this week. Other than the Sunday evening presentation. The normal evening Mass was held (only differnence was that 3 priests present) followed by a presentation by the visiting priest and his collaborator. The topics were:Sunday: The Presence of God in My Life

Monday: The Presence of Evil in My Life
Tuesday: The Presence of God in Prayer
Wednesday: The Presence of God in the Sacraments
Thursday: The Presence of God in Mary
Friday: The Presence of God in the Passion and Death of Jesus.

In all the sessions, the Basilica was about 3/4 full (even on Monday during the big snow this week).

The only thing out of the ordinary was that during the Sunday Masses. The homily was stopped for a few minutes for the Mission crucifixes to be passed out to the parisioners.

This mission has cemented my commitment to explore a new path in my life and may have given me another possible path in my exploration. I was not considering Religious Orders (specifically the Passionists) until this mission.

PF
 
we are in the same position in my parish. you should have walked out if that is what you felt. if it ever comes up again, you should remember that you have to walk back in too. when the outrageous part is over, you need to walk back in. do both while everyone is still sitting so people can see. walking out can mean various things, but when you come back, people will get the message more clearly.

as for other posts, an indult is not possible according the norms. mission appeals on world mission sunday is from the vatican, as far as i know. both the GIRM and RS are very clear on this issue.

your indignation is right. the ‘priest’ and ‘nun’ basically said ‘screw the Holy Spirit. we’re doing it our way.’ everything after that is just a band-aid over a gangrenous sore, in my opinion.
 
I am in a similar situation here. Last Sunday, our priest (a wonderful man who gives terrific sermons to which I look forward weekly) announced that a speaker from the diocese’s Catholic Formation would be speaking.

Lo and behold, Father said the gospel and walked back to his chair. A man came from the congregation, introduced himself by name (and he didn’t say, “Deacon”), and GAVE THE HOMILY. I mean, he talked about the gospel and the epistles, and not only that, it was the typical Protestant “health and wealth” approach! I was in shock–at first I just wanted to walk out of the church, but that would have meant climbing over a family to get out of the pew. . .so I grabbed my rosary beads and tried to focus on them (no, I don’t usually use them at Mass, but I always carry my rosary in my purse) instead.

Afterward, my mother dissuaded me from talking to the priest, because he was about to set out for the mission church and Mass there. She knows a layperson may never give a homily, but she told me I should just “let go”. (She thinks I’m too “legalistic” and rigid when it comes to liturgy, and she started in with, “you’re always looking for something to complain about” and out of charity I didn’t want to argue the point, because then “see, you’re arguing with me right now!”. . .we’ve played that game a little too often for my taste).

So here I am, knowing I witnessed an abuse. . .but, this guy is from the CATHOLIC FORMATION of the diocese. So, was it a diocesean abuse? Doubtful. A known pastoral abuse? Doubtful. An UNWITTING pastoral abuse? This seems the most likely scenario, as our priest is faithful but somewhat diffident in manner, and our parish had been rather notorious in the last couple of decades for abuse. If the pastoral council told Father to have the man speak, I think Father might not have realized that it was wrong.

So, do I speak up, and to whom? If I approach Father, I’ll easily be able to show him from documents that it was wrong. . .but then, what might the repercussions be? (A further complication is that I am in the middle of the annulment process and that, while one would LIKE to think that reprisals in that area would be unthinkable, most of us are pragmatic enough to realize that they are entirely possible.)

This will probably happen again, if at all, perhaps once in a year, or even less often. Am I bound to address this issue, or should I follow my mother’s near command to “let it be” or let OTHER people bring up the challenge?
 
It’s odd that a Formation spokesman would be a layman. Even in our diocese that does not have a lot of extra priests, we have a priest that does the Formation talks. Was he trying to encourage clergy or lay ministry formation?

Deacon Tony
 
All the people listed on the diocesean web site under Catholic Formation are laypeople, male and female. The one who gave the homily is listed as the Director.

He was also going to give a talk on Monday; not on Lay Ministry though. The last time the diocese had a lay ministry program was 2002-2004; nothing after that (it was supposed to be a two year program).

And we had already had (in January) meetings about parish consolidations; that’s over and done with and Bishop Angell is going to make decisions, probably later this fall when our new bishop elect goes from coadjutor to bishop (Msgr. Matano; he was just named by the Pope as our new bishop elect last week).

Part of me wonders if this is a last-ditch attempt before the “new broom” comes on the part of those with, shall we say, a “special” agenda for what they think “Church” should be.

God love us American Catholics. . .the extreme mods and the extreme trads, and the huge mass of us in the middle desperately trying to be Catholic and constantly being bludgeoned by the extremists telling us that we aren’t Catholic unless we do THIS or THAT. . .
 
Rural areas sometimes bear the burden of lack of vocations. A parrish near me had to go months without a regular priest and had a retired priest only on weekends. During the week, they had 2 deacons. The deacons did the baptisms, weddings, graveside funerals Etc. The people kept complaining and finally they got a priest from South America, which was fine because 90% of the parish is Spanish speaking. A bishop has to first focus on his larger parishes and the small ones usually have to take what’s left. However, this does not give permission to run a parish in conflict with the norms of the church.

May God bless you and your parish.
Deacon Tony
 
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