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DeniseNY
Guest
The daily mass that I attend is about 30 minutes. The Parish is in the busy financial district, and it caters to a lot of people who want to attend Mass during lunch time.
While on vacation, the local church priest conducts daily mass in 17 minutes and Sunday Mass lasted 37!
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Jegudiel
Guest
I think a lot of this quite frankly stems from two sources. First, the EF Masses used to be burned-through in many parishes because people didn’t follow it too well and because of the strict midnight fast – they wanted to eat. Even today people in my parish past about age 60-65 often critique priests based on how long their Masses last. Short = good to them.
Second I think a lot of it had to do with a parish’s culture. Around here priests arrive 5 minutes before Mass, celebrate the Mass and then clear of the sacristy, 3-4 minutes after Mass. After awhile you can see the urgency on their faces to get the Mass over with and it’s a huge turn-off. I don’t have breakfast with the “in-crowd” who usually takes the different celebrants to breakfast after Mass anymore because of this turn-off feeling. It’s sad to watch new pastors and parochial vicars fall into this process.
I think one thing that’s fostered this environment is that it’s often taboo to criticize priests. Show concern about a 43 minute Sunday Mass and people will start singing the plethora of excuses for the priests. There is always an excuse. Oddly enough when I travel, I actually experience priests who don’t see to be in such a hurry and they even take a few minutes to be with their flocks before and after Mass.
I guess it boils down to expectations.
Second I think a lot of it had to do with a parish’s culture. Around here priests arrive 5 minutes before Mass, celebrate the Mass and then clear of the sacristy, 3-4 minutes after Mass. After awhile you can see the urgency on their faces to get the Mass over with and it’s a huge turn-off. I don’t have breakfast with the “in-crowd” who usually takes the different celebrants to breakfast after Mass anymore because of this turn-off feeling. It’s sad to watch new pastors and parochial vicars fall into this process.
I think one thing that’s fostered this environment is that it’s often taboo to criticize priests. Show concern about a 43 minute Sunday Mass and people will start singing the plethora of excuses for the priests. There is always an excuse. Oddly enough when I travel, I actually experience priests who don’t see to be in such a hurry and they even take a few minutes to be with their flocks before and after Mass.
I guess it boils down to expectations.
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Jegudiel
Guest
I have felt that way many times myself. Be careful about thinking out loud though. There will always be a parade of people ready to make excuses for the priest no matter what in many locations.
I took a good friend of mine to Mass about a month ago. She’s a devout Lutheran, an educated theologian. She was left drop-jawed at how utilitarian/fast our Masses are. She said it appeared that reverence has been stripped-away from the Mass on purpose. What was left was just an fast (but valid) process to dispense grace. I couldn’t have agreed more with her.
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domandcarols
Guest
Lol that’s crazy
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Splagchnizomai
Guest
I know what you mean! If only my parish priest would follow my personal preferences for saying Mass, I would never need to criticize him.
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Jegudiel
Guest
Your sarcasm might make you feel good about yourself but it’s just another mechanism to keep one from honestly evaluating the truth. Just another form of an excuse.
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Jegudiel
Guest
Sarcasm aside, this is not a matter of “personal preferences.” It’s a matter of getting the Mass done as soon as possible.
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armywife
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edward_george
Guest
I’d say err on the side of charity and give the priest the benefit of the doubt. He may well think he has better things to do, but unless he flat out says that it’s probably not wise to presume on his motives. Some priests have multiple parishes to attend to or a lot of people to make communion visits to, and thus are very crunched for time. Maybe you just happened to catch Father on a bad day or bad week or bad month for whatever reason.
That said, 17 minutes, while seeming a bit quick, is not entirely unreasonable for a daily Mass. If it’s a ferial day (i.e. not a feast), the Gloria and Credo are not said or sung. The entrance and communion antiphons can (and should, really) be used, rather than a hymn in those places. There likely will not be a lengthy procession. If there are only a handful of communicants, then that’s another 5-10 minutes you knock off there. So even a priest who says Mass slowly and reverently can get through daily Mass on a ferial day in under 20 minutes. I’ve attended Mass on a Lenten weekday that was only 13 minutes long–two communicants, no singing, brief homily. The priest was saying Mass at a reasonable pace. A 37 minute Sunday Mass also seems like a pretty good clip, but still, also not entirely unreasonable. I would worry more about uniting myself to the sacrifice of the Mass than about seeing how short Father makes Mass today.
Not trying to be overly harsh or critical, but try to see things from Father’s perspective.
-ACEGC
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Cathryn
Guest
It is natural for a Protestant to respond to a Mass as being very deficient if there is not a lengthy homily, since this is what they are used to. What is actually left is Calvary on earth, and yes an access to grace if we join ourselves with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. This is true of any valid Mass.
I hope you explained to your Lutheran theologian friend that the Catholic priest during the Mass in persona Christi is just a tool of Jesus Christ. He is human and full of faults, yet it is really Jesus Christ being the High Priest and Victim. It hardly matter how long the Mass is.
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marci
Guest
At our parish it all depends on the music ministry. Week day Mass is under 30. 8:00 Sunday is less than 45. 10:00 is 1 hour, and life teen at 4:00 is one hour and 15 to 20 minutes long. The only difference at any of the Sunday Masses is the music.
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SaintPatrick333
Guest
That’s beautiful if you ask me. I wish us westerners celebrated Mass in a more communal way. Though to be more specific, the Mass itself is fine, but I wish more western parishes did more to act like a community (not bashing my parish as I feel it is one of the better parishes in northern illinois, that I’ve experienced personally anyways)When I was an altarboy, we had a retired Msgr who lived in our parish. He said Mass everyday at 8:00am, which was interesting, as a parish had a regularly scheduled 8:30am daily Mass.
Msgr was done in about 12-15 minutes.
And this was the OF Mass.
Contrast that with the Masses I went to in rural Tanzania. A regular Sunday Mass was about 3 hours long. 4 Hours long if the bishop said it.
One Mass was 6 hours long, but that was the dedication of a new parish church, and a lot happens at those Masses.
Most of the people walk to Mass, some from up to 7 miles away. They carry their chairs too and whatever produce they are giving for the offetory, or donating for lunch afterward. So if they don’t get several hours of preaching for the homily, they feel ‘jipped’
They will then spend the next 3 hours cooking and having a communal lunch and socializing…and then walk home. Sunday Mass is an all day affair
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Jegudiel
Guest
No. Lutherans are liturgical. Their liturgy is very much like the Mass in terms of mechanics (please no diatribes about validity – that goes without saying.) They don’t pass-out trays of grape juice shots. She was in a good position not to judge the conformity to the rubrics but on how people comported themselves during the Mass. As an outsider looking in, she was appalled. The Mass at my parish when my pastor celebrates is difficult. It really does appear that he is in a great hurry even though he goes out to breakfast right after. The Mass is pretty much as stripped-down as possible at my parish.
A retired priest I respect told me to always remember that the grace stemming from the Mass is always the same so long as it’s a valid Mass. While that’s certainly true I firmly believe that a person’s ability to absorb that grace is strongly influenced in part by their entire experience at the Mass.
As I said, there will always be excuses. There is absolutely no desire or urgency by many priests to improve their celebratory skills (preaching, etc.) and it’s largely due to the excuses. That’s why many parishes never improve.
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Jegudiel
Guest
So true. Sometimes it seems like we are making just another stop on our busy schedules to pick-up a quickly dispensed carton of grace. I don’t think that’s very healthy.
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1AugustSon7
Guest
Re: while on vacation, the local church priest conducts daily mass in 17 minutes and Sunday Mass lasted 37!
Did you call Guiness?
Did you call Guiness?
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Cathryn
Guest
It’s the will of God and our own dispositions in hearing the Mass that profoundly affect the measure of grace we actually receive. All the graces of Calvary are available at every valid Mass.
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rhiannonh
Guest
Yeh,
I wouldn’t like to be a priest for being criticised for taking too long or short for the satisfactory of who they are leading it for.
He may well have said it that many times that day/every day in his various visits and could be just another long list of masses for him. You go to that one and think it needs to be special and exactly right for you.
As for sermons an interegnum priest said his sermons in about three lines. Very to the point and didn’t miss anything out. Just was able to get things said precisely. I personally didn’t like that because it gave me no achorage in the week. Our new priest now takes average time each week and yes I like that more because shamefully, I do drift away and come back in my thoughts but not missed his message for the week. Sometimes my thoughts are triggered by what he said.
But for priests, fo rthe avarage priest, the one mass they say in church each day could well be a long list of many masses they’ve had to say that day and yeh sometimes justs gets all too much and am sorry its inconvienated you
I wouldn’t like to be a priest for being criticised for taking too long or short for the satisfactory of who they are leading it for.
He may well have said it that many times that day/every day in his various visits and could be just another long list of masses for him. You go to that one and think it needs to be special and exactly right for you.
As for sermons an interegnum priest said his sermons in about three lines. Very to the point and didn’t miss anything out. Just was able to get things said precisely. I personally didn’t like that because it gave me no achorage in the week. Our new priest now takes average time each week and yes I like that more because shamefully, I do drift away and come back in my thoughts but not missed his message for the week. Sometimes my thoughts are triggered by what he said.
But for priests, fo rthe avarage priest, the one mass they say in church each day could well be a long list of many masses they’ve had to say that day and yeh sometimes justs gets all too much and am sorry its inconvienated you
Nothing at all wrong with the picture.
In fact, it is a great idea in some places.
My own parish has a daily Mass that lasts no more than 20 minutes.
It is followed by a lunch in the church hall.
There is a great deal of attendence from those that work and have only an hour for lunch.
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promethius
Guest
Nonetheless, while she might be an “educated” theologian, her education is flawed insofar as she hews to the protestant sect of Lutheranism. If she were TRULY educated and properly catechized, she would understand that the least reverent Catholic mass by FAR exceeds the most reverent “service” the lutherans have ever put on in their man made ministry.
I take the opinions of “educated” protestants on the mass with a grain of salt.
That is impressive… I have never been able to look at a priest and determine that he joined the priesthood for a paycheck and is just sitting back fat and lazy with no concern to give glory to God or move peoples’ souls… somewhere along the line I thought that the priesthood was a pretty good organization of men who have sacrificed A LOT.
I wonder how you developed this ability to determine peoples’ private intentions, however, as I see no mention of such an ability included in any charisms anywhere…
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insideitall
Guest
the parish I grew up in had sunday mass in 45 minutes.
I’ve lived in and traveled to several different areas of the country since then, and I’ve never come across a mass lasting less than an hour. drives me absolutely batty, because the two things that make it so long are 1) the insistence on singing all verses of every song, and often having a “song of praise” after communion but before the recessional, and 2) homilies that are either ten minutes of repetition or of disjointed rambling. at least ten minutes of an engaging, relevant homily doesn’t feel that long…
I’ve only been at one weekend mass that was over in 30 minutes flat. the priest was a fast talker and the communion line wasn’t very long.
I’ve lived in and traveled to several different areas of the country since then, and I’ve never come across a mass lasting less than an hour. drives me absolutely batty, because the two things that make it so long are 1) the insistence on singing all verses of every song, and often having a “song of praise” after communion but before the recessional, and 2) homilies that are either ten minutes of repetition or of disjointed rambling. at least ten minutes of an engaging, relevant homily doesn’t feel that long…
I’ve only been at one weekend mass that was over in 30 minutes flat. the priest was a fast talker and the communion line wasn’t very long.
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