What will make more younger people come to mass?

[cecilia97]

Even though these young people are coming back to the Church through the “back door,” so to speak, through charitable outreaches or parties, hopefully, eventually, these young people might decide to go back to Mass as they observe the love of the mature Christians around them and realize that they, too, need the Savior.

I hope this all makes sense and seems wise.

As much as I hate to get caught at a Life Teen Mass when it’s my only chance to attend on a Sunday, I think I get your point here, Cat. It seems smart to me. You’re not saying that we should water down the subtance of our faith or the Mass, you’re saying it should be presented in a form that’s more palatable to those young people who might be drawn to the fellowship and pop-culture worship aspects of some Protestant groups. The music and social aspects are the “bait” that could hook young people back into learning a deeper understand of Catholicism…which they often have not been taught by our own Catholic failures at catechesis.

Is this ideal? I don’t think so and I don’t think you’re claiming that. Ideally, all our young people would be fully and properly catechized and love the Mass in any form. But that’s not the situation we have to work with.

 

[Heather07]

The truth is, unfortunately, that we can’t please everyone, no matter what we do…Life Teen Mass or not. So why not just keep the Mass the way it has always been? Teenagers have always been around, and they never needed a special Mass to make them more interested, so why now?

The question is, is Life Teen drawing in more teens than before its existence? I don’t know. If so, great, but if the contemporary stuff is what drew them in in the first place, then aren’t some going to prefer this form of Mass to the more reverent form thus loose any hope of becoming a well informed, reverent Catholic in the future simply because they were not fed the right information, enough information, or a watered down version of the information? Catholic Mass is not Protestant and shouldn’t become more Protestant just to attract other people…they won’t become attracted to pure Catholicism, only a more Protestant version of it. That just seems to be doing them a disservice. Can’t we just have a hip contemporary teen gathering after Mass instead of during Mass? That makes more sense to me, personally.

If you want more teens at Mass, then present the Mass for what it truely is and not minimize it or change it in any way shape or form, otherwise, its simply not good enough, in my opinion.

P.S. No offense or disrespect intended to those whom the Life Teen Mass has helped or influenced positively. I am aware that what I say does not apply to all, and I respect any alternate opinions, but hold firm to my own, respectively.

 

[agapewolf]

The truth is, unfortunately, that we can’t please everyone, no matter what we do…Life Teen Mass or not. So why not just keep the Mass the way it has always been? Teenagers have always been around, and they never needed a special Mass to make them more interested, so why now?

The question is, is Life Teen drawing in more teens than before its existence? I don’t know. If so, great, but if the contemporary stuff is what drew them in in the first place, then aren’t some going to prefer this form of Mass to the more reverent form thus loose any hope of becoming a well informed, reverent Catholic in the future simply because they were not fed the right information, enough information, or a watered down version of the information? Catholic Mass is not Protestant and shouldn’t become more Protestant just to attract other people…they won’t become attracted to pure Catholicism, only a more Protestant version of it. That just seems to be doing them a disservice. Can’t we just have a hip contemporary teen gathering after Mass instead of during Mass? That makes more sense to me, personally.

If you want more teens at Mass, then present the Mass for what it truely is and not minimize it or change it in any way shape or form, otherwise, its simply not good enough, in my opinion.

P.S. No offense or disrespect intended to those whom the Life Teen Mass has helped or influenced positively. I am aware that what I say does not apply to all, and I respect any alternate opinions, but hold firm to my own, respectively.

This is addressed in the Lifeteen thread.

Your infering that a Lifeteen mass is irreverant, it shouldn’t be, and in my experience is very reverent. And yes, it will draw teens into an orthodox Catholicism. I see them come in droves. Please see Lifeteen thread.

 

[VAC]

What will make more younger people come to Mass?

How about their parents?

– Mark L. Chance.

OK, next question… What will make them come willingly, and what will make them want to come once they are out of the house and self-supporting?

 

[Heather07]

This is addressed in the Lifeteen thread.

Your infering that a Lifeteen mass is irreverant, it shouldn’t be, and in my experience is very reverent. And yes, it will draw teens into an orthodox Catholicism. I see them come in droves. Please see Lifeteen thread.

I don’t think that all Lifeteen Masses are irreverent, and I am not suggesting that they should be done away with, I just think that some are more reverent than others. If the more reverent ones are bringing teens into orthodox Catholicism in droves, I think thats great and I am happy that God is bringing so much good out of it.

I just think that better, more orthodox Catechism study and maybe some contemporary flavor but solid teaching outside of the Mass would bring in just as many, if not more. If they could only understand the beautiful truth about their Catholic Faith, they won’t need something “extra” to draw them in. All I am saying is that there is more than one way to draw us young ones in. The rest I leave in God’s hands.

 

[4unborn]

Quote:
Originally Posted by 4unborn
If we see more Latin Masses, we will see more young people at Mass.

How do you figure that?

I figure that the more Latin Masses are offered, the more chance that young people will see its beauty and richness.

 

[4unborn]

The Latin, I think, is more appealing to those who already go to Church regularly, like me. It’s not a bad thing, but charismatic is more likely to bring in those who aren’t going already.

I believe that the charismatic is more likely to bring in those who aren’t going already, but those who experience the beauty and richness of the Latin will keep coming back.

 

[anniemart]

All these posts have led me to want to pose this question in relation to the OP:

Out of every 10 catholic teens, how many do you truly believe have either left the Church or will leave because mass is just not enough for them?

And I wonder aloud to myself; is my teen in danger? is yours?

 

[4unborn]

All these posts have led me to want to pose this question in relation to the OP:

Out of every 10 catholic teens, how many do you truly believe have either left the Church or will leave because mass is just not enough for them?

I truly believe that more catholic teens have either left the Church or will leave because they do not bring enough to Mass, and therefore cannot give enough of themselves at Mass. The more that one is able to give at Mass, the more one will receive and keep coming back.

 

[anniemart]

I truly believe that more catholic teens have either left the Church or will leave because they do not bring enough to Mass, and therefore cannot give enough of themselves at Mass. The more that one is able to give at Mass, the more one will receive and keep coming back.

So would you venture to guess maybe **7 out of every 10 catholic teens **will leave?

 

[4unborn]

So would you venture to guess maybe **7 out of every 10 catholic teens **will leave?

I believe that none will leave because Mass is not enough for them. How many out of every 10 catholic teens do you believe do not bring enough to Mass?

 

[anniemart]

I believe that none will leave because Mass is not enough for them. How many out of every 10 catholic teens do you believe do not bring enough to Mass?

Forgive me but your post #109 and the one above seem to be at odds with each other…could you clarify your thoughts for me? thank you for indulging me…

I don’t believe there are more than 2 catholic teens out of every 10 that will leave the Church. I do believe that reverence is something that grows with age just like wisdom; and just like maturity. I also believe that many more catholic parents will succeed in gearing their children in the right direction so that when these children become teens they won’t easily be swayed to go for the glitter and glamour that many secular religions offer.

 

[FrankLawrence]

All I’m hearing is do this to the Mass, do that to the Mass. Trying to keep our children in the Catholic Church by focusing on the Mass is BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE!!!
The reason our children are leaving the Catholic Church in droves is that they are not experiencing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The catechisis they are receiving is placing such heavy stress on the Mass, the Sacraments, and the small t. traditions(ie. don’t eat meat on lenten Fridays) and doing so at the expense of failing to bring the children into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Our separated brethren, on the other hand, are putting Jesus Christ at the center. It’s not about the music of their worship services, its about the fact that they are EXPERIENCING the love and presence of Jesus Christ in their lives, inside and outside of their worship services.
We brag about having the real Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ present on the altar every Sunday Morning, but the Protestants are experiencing an active vibrant personal relationship with Jesus Christ that they don’t have to wait until Sunday mornings to experience. Their Christianity is a 24/7 relationship. While Catholics enter Mass anticipating the Real Presence of Jesus Christ on the altar, Protestants enter worship with the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in their hearts. The bait we need to fish with is not the language or music of the Mass, but rather Jesus Christ, and not as present in the Sacraments, but as present in our hearts and our lives inside and outside the four walls of the church building. The reason our Catholic children are not experiencing this personal relationship is because they are never taught that such a personal relationship even exists, but are instead given the faulty implication that all aspects of their Christianity must be explicitly through the Church, and that the idea of a life devoted to Jesus Christ is limited to clergy. As Marcus Grodi of The Journey Home would say, we are not, “closing the deal.”
Some of the most venomous anti-Catholics were people who were raised Catholic, and then became Protestant when a Protestant finally presented the concept of a lay person having a life surrendered to Jesus, with a personal relationship with Him. Then, this former Catholic ends up resenting the Catholic Church for placing so much stress on traditions and ritual, yet never presenting Jesus Christ to them in a real and tangible way. (Don’t argue this point by mentioning the Eucharist, because one who has not FIRST loved the person of Jesus Christ will not have any love for the Eucharist, either.) Why, among evangelical protestants is the phrase, “I was raised Catholic” synonymous with, “I was told who Jesus was, but never truly experienced a life-changing faith or love for Him?” The answer is simply that we catechize our children by putting the cart before the horse. Love for Jesus will bring a Catholic towards love for the Mass and Sacraments. Attempting to get a child to love the Mass and Sacraments without first getting them to love Jesus Christ will only lead to…well, the present state of the Catholic Church, U.S.A.

 

[4unborn]

Forgive me but your post #109 and the one above seem to be at odds with each other…could you clarify your thoughts for me? thank you for indulging me…

I don’t believe there are more than 2 catholic teens out of every 10 that will leave the Church.

Why do you think that they are at odds with each other?

My question in post #111 was, “How many out of every 10 catholic teens do you believe do not bring enough to Mass?” You reply, “I don’t believe that more than 2 catholic teens out of every 10 leave the Church.” What is your answer to my question in post #111??

 

[kedera]

my :twocents: …I am in RCIA right now, and love the Mass! Being 25, I still feel young . The first thing that interested me in the Church was other people that I met, who were young as well, who were educated in what they believed as Catholics, and were passionate about their faith. Their passion and ability to be knowledgable as well as charitable witnesses of that faith was contagious. Not only were they educated and passionate, but loved the Churched tradtion and history, and are very orthodox in their views and practices. If these elements are presented to people, anyone young or old cannot help but love the Mass. Thats just how i feel.

 

[Cat]

All I’m hearing is do this to the Mass, do that to the Mass. Trying to keep our children in the Catholic Church by focusing on the Mass is BARKING UP THE WRONG TREE!!!
The reason our children are leaving the Catholic Church in droves is that they are not experiencing a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. The catechisis they are receiving is placing such heavy stress on the Mass, the Sacraments, and the small t. traditions(ie. don’t eat meat on lenten Fridays) and doing so at the expense of failing to bring the children into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Our separated brethren, on the other hand, are putting Jesus Christ at the center. It’s not about the music of their worship services, its about the fact that they are EXPERIENCING the love and presence of Jesus Christ in their lives, inside and outside of their worship services.
We brag about having the real Body, Blood, Soul, and Divinity of Jesus Christ present on the altar every Sunday Morning, but the Protestants are experiencing an active vibrant personal relationship with Jesus Christ that they don’t have to wait until Sunday mornings to experience. Their Christianity is a 24/7 relationship. While Catholics enter Mass anticipating the Real Presence of Jesus Christ on the altar, Protestants enter worship with the Real Presence of Jesus Christ in their hearts. The bait we need to fish with is not the language or music of the Mass, but rather Jesus Christ, and not as present in the Sacraments, but as present in our hearts and our lives inside and outside the four walls of the church building. The reason our Catholic children are not experiencing this personal relationship is because they are never taught that such a personal relationship even exists, but are instead given the faulty implication that all aspects of their Christianity must be explicitly through the Church, and that the idea of a life devoted to Jesus Christ is limited to clergy. As Marcus Grodi of The Journey Home would say, we are not, “closing the deal.”
Some of the most venomous anti-Catholics were people who were raised Catholic, and then became Protestant when a Protestant finally presented the concept of a lay person having a life surrendered to Jesus, with a personal relationship with Him. Then, this former Catholic ends up resenting the Catholic Church for placing so much stress on traditions and ritual, yet never presenting Jesus Christ to them in a real and tangible way. (Don’t argue this point by mentioning the Eucharist, because one who has not FIRST loved the person of Jesus Christ will not have any love for the Eucharist, either.) Why, among evangelical protestants is the phrase, “I was raised Catholic” synonymous with, “I was told who Jesus was, but never truly experienced a life-changing faith or love for Him?” The answer is simply that we catechize our children by putting the cart before the horse. Love for Jesus will bring a Catholic towards love for the Mass and Sacraments. Attempting to get a child to love the Mass and Sacraments without first getting them to love Jesus Christ will only lead to…well, the present state of the Catholic Church, U.S.A.

I agree very much with this post. I honestly don’t think a lot of Catholics know WHO they have in their Church. They get caught up in music and traditions and rules, but they don’t really understand that this is all about a Person, Jesus Christ.

Our parish does a “Kyrios” retreat for young people that is designed to help them to know Jesus personally. The retreat doesn’t down-grade the importance of the Sacraments; quite the opposite. But what it tries to do is teach the young people that Jesus is a real Person all the time, not just for one hour at Mass.

This retreat has fantastic results. It is the starting place for a lot of teenagers to grow up into maturity in their faith in Jesus and their Church.

Again, I think that young people need to see Jesus in all the rest of us OUTSIDE of the Mass, and then they will be interested in seeing Him INSIDE at the Mass. But if the Mass doesn’t seem to make a difference in the grownups that they know and see everyday, then why on earth would the teen be interested? Mass SHOULD be making a difference in all of us who attend and communicate. We should be becoming more like Jesus.

 

[PatienceAndLove]

I agree with Frank Lawrence- in a way.

However, a properly catechized Catholic knows that because we receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus every Sunday (sometimes EVERY DAY)- we already have a personal relationship with Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
The Sacraments are our celebration of this relationship.

It all comes back to Catechism, and proper instruction.

 

[FrankLawrence]

I agree with Frank Lawrence- in a way.

However, a properly catechized Catholic knows that because we receive the Body, Blood, Soul and Divinity of Jesus every Sunday (sometimes EVERY DAY)- we already have a personal relationship with Our Lord, Jesus Christ.
The Sacraments are our celebration of this relationship.

It all comes back to Catechism, and proper instruction.

No, you see, this is the very problem. There is presumptuousness on the part of many properly catechized adults that just because they have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ that they celebrate in the Sacraments, that this is the case with all other people who celebrate the Sacraments, too. Reality is, that receiving the Sacraments does NOT in and of itself guarantee a personal relationship with Christ for all who receive them. The Sacraments enhance an already existing personal relationship with Christ, but they do NOT in and of themselves create one. If we try to teach children that they do, when the children are experiencing that they don’t, we do the children a horrible injustice, and push them away from the Church. We have to teach the children about the type of personal relationship with Christ that exists outside the four walls of the Church, not the type that they have to depend strictly on the Church for, which is actually not a personal relationship at all, but the Church acting as a middle man, if and only if one is depending STRICTLY on the Mass and Sacraments to create a personal relationship with Christ. Many former Catholics who have become Protestants make the complaint that the Church tries to put walls between us and Jesus. This is an invalid complaint, but when we place so much stress on what takes place inside the four walls of the Church, at the expense of the living vibrant relationship with Jesus Christ that we can have outside of the four walls of the Church, it is easy to see where people can come up with the erroneous idea that the Catholic Church tries to place walls between us and God.

 

[kedera]

I agree very much with this post. I honestly don’t think a lot of Catholics know WHO they have in their Church. They get caught up in music and traditions and rules, but they don’t really understand that this is all about a Person, Jesus Christ.

Our parish does a “Kyrios” retreat for young people that is designed to help them to know Jesus personally. The retreat doesn’t down-grade the importance of the Sacraments; quite the opposite. But what it tries to do is teach the young people that Jesus is a real Person all the time, not just for one hour at Mass.

This retreat has fantastic results. It is the starting place for a lot of teenagers to grow up into maturity in their faith in Jesus and their Church.

Again, I think that young people need to see Jesus in all the rest of us OUTSIDE of the Mass, and then they will be interested in seeing Him INSIDE at the Mass. But if the Mass doesn’t seem to make a difference in the grownups that they know and see everyday, then why on earth would the teen be interested? Mass SHOULD be making a difference in all of us who attend and communicate. We should be becoming more like Jesus.

I totally agree. I’m coming from a Southern Baptist background where having a real relationship with him is what we all seek first, and above all, and there really is no tradition or Sacraments to consider. This way of being a Christian is all I have ever known until now, and really took root in my early teen years. Years ago I remember thinking, that many Catholics (many that I knew) just go to Mass and then go home and eat cheese pizza on friday, and that was the extent of it. When I started looking closer at the Catholic faith, I don’t think I would have really seen or appreciated all that the Catholic faith has to offer, if it were not for the faith I had when approching Catholicism.

Now, when I go to Mass, I actully think to myself during the consecration, “Jesus, you *really *are here” and about what he gave for me, and try to consider how much he loves me. I don’t know what other people in Mass are thinking, but sometimes I being to get a little choked up. I think that I’m coming to love Catholicism through my faith gained in the Baptist Church really

 

[PatienceAndLove]

I guess I just have a hard time articulating what I am thinking. Once I get my thoughts together, I will post