Whispering in church!

[squirt]

Sorry folks, this isn’t going to be a negative post.

On the way into work, I usually pop into the Blessed Sacrament chapel at a church near my office.

This morning, when I got there, there was a man showing his young daughter around, and they were whispering back and forth as she asked questions and he answered them.

Although, I tend to like the usual silence when I’m there, I think that the whispering in the background actually enhanced my experience today.

 

[Mandi]

Whispering in Church out of respect for the Presence of God - that’s a good thing. Sometimes there are things that just have to be said in a Church. Even when we are putting up Christmas decorations or practicing for a special occassion a lowered tone should be used out of reverence for the Presence of our Lord.

Clapping, talking and socializing … bad thing!

 

[Dr.Colossus]

Clapping, talking and socializing … bad thing!

Bad thing indeed! I was at Mass this past weekend, and a woman behind me suddenly guffawed incredibly loud. I think she was incredibly embarrassed by the outburst (I didn’t hear a peep from her after that), but it was fairly obvious she had been paying more attention to those sitting and whispering next to her than the Mass.

One positive thing I remember about whispering in Church: When I was younger we would always sit very close to the sanctuary, and my dad would explain parts of the Mass that I didn’t understand. Once during the homily, the priest noticed this and actually stopped to thank my dad for being such an example, and to recommend that other fathers not be afraid to explain things while Mass was going on.

 

[ccav]

When I was a kid my mom and I would whisper. I remember how much of a sense of wonder the church inspired in me and by talking in whispers it just added to it. The sense of sacredness was immense and beautiful.

 

[ATeNumquam]

I saw a very edifying whispering session, or rather 3 or 4.

There’s a family of 5 kids and their parents who sit up the front of the church, and who are very prayerful and devout. The dad, especially, is lost in prayer after communion, and would be the very last person to talk at such a time. However, his youngest daughter was about 3 weeks away from her first Holy Communion, and for that period, after the dad came back from Communion, he would sit his daughter on his knee and lovingly and quietly explain to her about what it meant to receive Jesus. The look of wonder on her face was beautiful.

She may well have got more out of his words than from the instructions she was receiving.

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A Te numquam separari permittas - never let me be separated from You