This happened during mass and I was upset

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QContinuum said:
rondirect, please understand I mean no offense, but I’m not interested in examining every possible outlier explanation to normalize an odd situation.
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QC: no offense taken at all. We are all sharing our viewpoints, speculations and opinions. I just had something to offer. The boy I speak about is kind and loving and his outbursts are not typical at every Mass. His mom is very well known in the parish and the thousands that know them, accept. He can get carried away at times, and all it takes is a stern look or talk to him from actually me or his mom and he calms down immediately. I can see a newcomer seeing this as rather strange not knowing his problems. Other than that, any other outbursts from someone else would be questionable and not “natural in my universe.”

QC: I must say that those who know him are loving to him. At Mass, the usher will stand next to him and let him help pass the collection basket. On a funny note, he knows when it’s time, but one time an usher was not there to help him! Well, that whole section of the church was passed by! They all knew what happened and took it in stride.

With that said, I have never known of an Episcopalian church to push the boundaries. But then again, if you look at all the denominations, some can be more charismatic than others. That’s why people look for a church that suits their comfort zone the best, especially when moving to a new town or state.

So, no worries. Sometimes I say something that is taken wrongly also. The written word does not include emotions or expression vs. a face to face conversation. Think nothing of it; feel free to speak frankly with me.
 
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SunSeeker said:
I have a hard time believing this particular man was having a real experience as I doubt the Holy Spirit would try to upstage the Son in the consecration and if this man really had come to an epiphany about it, he would likely have demonstrated more respect for the Eucharist.
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SunSeeker: We, IMO, should not doubt anything just because it does not seem right. The Holy Trinity of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit is One, so when you think about it, it is really impossible for one to “upstage” the other, I would think.
 
Reuben_J said:
It can be a few of these things:

It was staged.
They seek attention.
They just followed their feeling, which was too strong to surpressed.
They were unable to control themselves.

1 & 2 were obviously wrong.

3 & 4 probably not their fault that they should manifest.

If it is 4, their friends shoud just carry them away so that they did not disturb the others who wanted to worship.
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Staged? Why would they do that?

Anyway, “If it is 4, their friends should just carry them away so that they did not disturb the others who wanted to worship.” I look at this differently. We have heard many times through Gospel readings that Jesus while speaking to an assembly of people, would be distracted or disrupted by outbursts of people who wished for healing of themselves or others. Some persisted and persisted until Jesus gave them His attention. It was never noted that people carried this person away because he was a distraction or a disturbance to others.

This scenario is rather interesting. Is this person in the church a public disturbance to others and should be carried away or should we do what Jesus would do? Why didn’t the priest ask for assistance? Did he know something we don’t?

With all due respect to all: God was well away of this action. God is in charge and in control of all things and the possible actions of the Holy Spirit (fire), and for the most part we are all more concerned about our own feelings of right and wrong here that I think we are missing the big picture. Again, we can go on and on with this with speculations of what really happened. I was caught up in the speculations and the weirdness of it all myself; but, then I thought of the boy I spoke about and took a step back and thought of God’s omniscience.
 
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I mean it was kind of tounge-in-cheek on my part, but I have never heard of liturgical abuse occuring at the 7am Sunday Mass.

The ‘last call’, 7pm Mass in my diocese, OTOH… 😰😰😰
 
Hello. I was giving possibilities. I was not there, I don’t know what actually happened. It was on the narrative of the OP.

If it was not staged and seeking attention, then Good.

But do you think it is right to disrespect / interrupt the consecration?

Do you think the Holy Spirit would inspire that? Would you not discern whether it is right or not? And if you do, would you not try to make right the situation by calming the person down? What good is it if he disrupt the consecration?

Have you ever dealt with manifestation? Do you know the action of the Holy Spirit? Would you not respect the congregation that might be disturbed by such disruptive action?

Have you been in a position of leadership? And if you did, what would you do?

God bless.
 
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You should talk with your priest and ask who are they at least. And say you found that odd and see what the priest replies. Maybe they are nice quiet people and he likes them and they had a moment there so he let them do it. Just that once.
It’s normal to ask who is someone who makes such a fuss at being noticed (even if they believed they were channeling the voice of God like they said). It’s not mingling imho.
 
Yes, there is such a thing we call prophecy - when the Holy Spirit speaks to us in a tangible way. But a person is in control of himself, and he will not become disruptive. There is a time and a place to proclaim what the Holy Spirit inspires us with.

The Holy Spirit is a gentle Spirit, He does not possess us. The one that does is not the Holy Spirit.

If they were a group of people, there must be a leader there or a group of core leaders. These people should be able to control and give advice to their members and should know to be discreet to know what is appropriate and what is not.
 
I know this, but do they lol? Anyway I think it was far from being possessed in that case, my bet it was just a one time “show” that the priest allowed because he knows them and they’re not like that all the time. Otherwise what is to stop him from interrupting the service to address them and ask them to be quiet? I’ve seen this happening in liturgy and I don’t find anything wrong with it. Of course how he says it is up to the priest.
 
I’ve only seen that kind of thing in Pentecostal churches. But Catholic? Could they have been Charismatic Catholics?
 
Reuben_J said:
Hello. I was giving possibilities. I was not there, I don’t know what actually happened. It was on the narrative of the OP.

If it was not staged and seeking attention, then Good.

But do you think it is right to disrespect / interrupt the consecration?

Do you think the Holy Spirit would inspire that? Would you not discern whether it is right or not? And if you do, would you not try to make right the situation by calming the person down? What good is it if he disrupt the consecration?

Have you ever dealt with manifestation? Do you know the action of the Holy Spirit? Would you not respect the congregation that might be disturbed by such disruptive action?

Have you been in a position of leadership? And if you did, what would you do?
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Reubin, I, too, was just giving possibilities and I agree with you. Yes, they should have calmed him down unless the other guys were part of some retreat or Cursillo and felt it was OK. I just don’t understand why the ushers sat quietly and the priest did not stop and and ask for quiet and reverence please. Perhaps he was the leader of the retreat or whatever, and felt that this was OK. I am in a position of leadership in my church, but I really do not know what I would do; probably if no one else was doing anything, walk over to him and try to calm him down or walk him to a quiet place? But, would I face opposition from the others?

Blessings to you as well.
 
I mean, if a visible Eucharistic miracle had occurred, I suspect that people’s reactions (not to mention the priest’s!) would have interrupted the usual flow of the Mass, and right at the consecration as well. We shouldn’t be so concerned with decorum that a recognition of what is really happening on the altar is treated as a disruption.

Then again, practically speaking that was unexpected and not at all customary for Catholics at the most solemn moment of the Mass. If the priest suspected the possibility of any such thing, perhaps he should have arranged a private “come-down” Mass for the jazzed-up retreat group (as someone else mentioned).

So I am torn. If there was an element of showing off or playing up the group’s enhanced piety in a way they knew other people wouldn’t be expecting, that’s not great. But if there was an honest-to-God (heh) religious experience going on, suppressing that in the name of the rubrics is not a good look. And it could have been something in between — a lot of stage hypnosis, and even the behaviors people exhibit while intoxicated, are more a matter of fulfilling the expectations of the situation rather than literally not being in control of one’s behavior. If these guys had just come from an environment where such enthusiasm was encouraged, and were still in their defined group even in a larger crowd, they might have felt encouraged to act out in an unusual way without deliberately meaning to call attention to themselves. Having the “permission” of a group to behave in a certain way can have powerful effects on people, who might not even believe they are acting that way on purpose and could just stop. People have committed mob violence and accused others of attacking them with witchcraft because they had the backing of others.
 
He actually said, “Look at me! Look at me!” - I believe he wanted to disrupt the Mass.
 
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TheLittleLady said:
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Maximilian75:
There’s something about late Masses that just makes them crazy…
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Mass hysteria? 😎
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I feel safe in saying that, at some point, the outburst of laughing this produced will be called into question. 😆😆😆😆 Well played, LL. (applauds)
 
Ok then. . So it is staged.

Personally I have no issue with all of that. And if it is with the collaboration of the priest, then it gave some legitimacy to their action. Not saying whether it is right liturgically.

Don’t know who these guys are, other than what the OP said. There could be misunderstanding too as to what really happened.

Agreed to the suggestion here that it’s best to clarify with the priest to find out what it is all about.

God bless.
 
Perhaps I was misunderstood, and maybe it was harsh to use the word “upstage”. I just think it’s an outlier to how most real cases occur. Call me doubting Thomas. I suppose I should not close my mind to the fact that it could have been real, but I feel like we should look at the probabilities. Seems more likely to me to be a mistake on this guys part than an actual spiritual encounter, which happens, though its rare. We’d need the means to examine this guys behavior before and after to see if there’s been a change in what he believed.

Real, or a call for attention, I still feel it’s worth a call to the priest. Mass etiquette would dictate do not act in a way that not everyone could reasonably act in. Imagine if everyone had started doing this (yelling, sobbing, moving about). The congregation would have been in chaos. If it was real, or a mental situation, the priest will handle quietly accordingly, but if it was chosen behavior on this man’s part, it’s not appropriate and should be stopped.
 
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