Why do I have an urge to dance singing at Mass?

[ChemicalBean]

Yay for ProdigalSon! You get the star for today.

Why do you (the OP) have an urge to dance to the singing at Mass?

Because…
(drumroll please)
…
…
you are human and alive! Music is a physical art, as much as it is intellectual or emotional or anything else. If participating in music (producing it, and/or “consuming” it) does not engage your whole person in response (body/soul), you are doing it wrong. In MANY cultures, they have no separate words for “music” and “dance” - it would be preposterous to suggest that the two are different. Are the people of these cultures more “base”? More “animalistic” than the rest of us?

Or maybe they’re just more “in tune” with their full humanity.

P.S. - even animals have souls - that’s why they’re called ANIMA-ls

 

[tweetymom]

You are full of the Holy Spirit!!! Good for you don’t quench the Spirit. He will never have you do something embarassing because He is a gentleman:extrahappy:

 

[sharmin]

What you’re feeling is simply animal excitement caused by the meter and rhythm of the hymns.

It’s not a manifestation of the Holy Spirit at all.

How could you pretend to know this?

 

[tweetymom]

\I’m not inclined to any “Holy Spirit manifesting” stuff, and I think I would probably faint if I ever had the urge to speak in tongues, but this seems a bit definitive. I don’t see why the Holy Spirit might not occasionally manifest itself in such ways - I certainly wouldn’t say that it could never happen.\

++Thank you for the information. Can you tell me what authority you have to make such a definitive statement?++

**Oh. You can read minds?

You are the arbiter of what the Holy Spirit wills?**

You’d be surprised about how much an authority I am in these matters, but let me challenge you to find ONE EXAMPLE in Scripture or the Tradtion of the Church of the Holy Spirit moving people to sway during hymns in the Liturgy.

This, btw, is ONE reason why Gregorian chant is, for the most part, UNmetered–to suppress any such mere animal or emotional urge.

cluny your authority I can take or leave. Let me challenge you to find one example where it says not to. Christ is my authority.Thank you for the pm.:extrahappy::extrahappy::clapping: Thats me and The Holy Spirit

 

[puzzleannie]

I would disagree with this. Having sung chant in choirs as well as in congregation, there is still a natural inclination to move with the line of the music within the chant (even chant has a musical line, otherwise it would sound totally pendantic and not how chant is supposed to sound) - even though there is no written meter in the actual music.

To add: Just hearing this and reading the music, I can totally feel the line of the chant and my body/head at this moment is involuntarily moving along with how it is flowing.

youtube.com/watch?v=37q9zIznj2M&feature=related

I just watched an old show about monks which showed them walking in procession chanting, and yes, they were swaying, no hand-waving, no nylon drapery, and no tambourines, however.

 

[Sarabande]

I just watched an old show about monks which showed them walking in procession chanting, and yes, they were swaying, no hand-waving, no nylon drapery, and no tambourines, however.

Right. It does go to show that all music will induce one to move. Although it is a natural inclination, at the same time, various kinds of music will make one move in different ways. A musically-inclined person who is spiritually connected to the sacred music being sung/played either by another or by that person himself/herself may be inspired by God as well as by the natural drive created through the composition and rendering of it. I know that as a musician, it is both for me. You are automatically inspired, spiritually, to move along with chant or other types of sacred and secular music. YET, at the same time, you are also just drawn physically and naturally to move along with the flow and meter. It can stir emotion - good and bad.

It is also the same with music which personally does not provide any kind of spiritual fulfillment and depth of life. There is some music (especially certain secular music) which I find just totally “violent”, usually based on the rhythm and how it may be performed, that it produces such anxiety, stress and sometimes physical sickness in me. The so-called “driving beat” of certain music can make me move involuntarily - not because I feel inspired or spiritually in tune, but because I’m feeling so anxious and stressed that I have to move to free myself from the jarring rhythm and sound.

 

[thirdn6]

I sway.

Now let the others tell me how I’m sinning.

There are guidelines or instructions to follow during Mass. If you don’t see “swaying” or “dancing” or “clapping” in there it may be that it’s been considered and deemed unimportant or distracting.

It is not about who’s sinning or not by their actions during Mass. It’s more about reverence and sincerity.

You let someone who has an uncontrollable urge to dance in front of the congregation and I assure you that those who clapped will send someone who can do the same or better the next time. If one can do funny things during Mass then another can do it as well. And the problem goes on and on and on.

I see that someone mentioned that Filipinos are talented when it comes to singing and dancing. OK I admire them. But the church is not the proper venue to do the dancing and clapping especially during Mass.

I am new at my parish and this is what I observed during the two different times I attended Mass. Mostly Filipinos and Hispanics were in attendance even the Mass was in English. I heard a lot of clapping during Mass. The ‘choir’ used guitar and the volume was so amplified. If people do not know or do not care about any guidelines during Mass they tend to go with the motions and most of the time overdo it.

To those who think or has the urge to overdo anything during Mass please do it during your own private worships. There you can sing out loud, dance around, stoop, jump all you want.

It would probably help a lot if the Church guidelines be re-posted or included in the parish bulletin.

With just a very short time between Masses some ‘heavily-laden’ people use the time to a lot of praying and just don’t have the adrenaline to a cranked-up feeling of joyfulness to even dance and clap and be said to have fully participated during the celebration of the Mass. I am one of those…

Peace.

 

[Sarabande]

There are guidelines or instructions to follow during Mass. If you don’t see “swaying” or “dancing” or “clapping” in there it may be that it’s been considered and deemed unimportant or distracting.

There is a huge difference between “swaying” and actual “dancing”. Even people sway when they sing chant, as discussed in the earlier posts. Now, dancing, I personally don’t believe it is correct to do for mass, especially in specific cultures.

I was the one who mentioned that Filipinos are musically-minded, but I was talking about the parties that I always attended as a child and now. I wasn’t talking about mass, but because of their culture, I do see how they can be much more physical when they attend mass. Doesn’t mean I’m condoning it, though. Actually, my Filipina mother (although likes to dance) has never danced at mass and doesn’t believe it is appropriate. She left the Philippines for the US in the the late 1960s and when she left, she said that people weren’t doing that kind of thing at mass in her province. She does love to sing at mass, though.

 

[tweetymom]

I clap my hands at Mass when the Holy Spirit urges me to and also raise my hand in worship to our Lord. If there was anything wrong with any of that I know that I would be corrected by God.:dancing::clapping::extrahappy:

 

[LoveJesus]

Well…if a Congolese choir can sway, clap their hands, and use drums at the Opening Mass for the African Synod, it shouldn’t be so out of place.

news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8289188.stm

 

[Sailor_Kenshin]

There are guidelines or instructions to follow during Mass. If you don’t see “swaying” or “dancing” or “clapping” in there it may be that it’s been considered and deemed unimportant or distracting.

It is not about who’s sinning or not by their actions during Mass. It’s more about reverence and sincerity.

You let someone who has an uncontrollable urge to dance in front of the congregation and I assure you that those who clapped will send someone who can do the same or better the next time. If one can do funny things during Mass then another can do it as well. And the problem goes on and on and on.

I see that someone mentioned that Filipinos are talented when it comes to singing and dancing. OK I admire them. But the church is not the proper venue to do the dancing and clapping especially during Mass.

I am new at my parish and this is what I observed during the two different times I attended Mass. Mostly Filipinos and Hispanics were in attendance even the Mass was in English. I heard a lot of clapping during Mass. The ‘choir’ used guitar and the volume was so amplified. If people do not know or do not care about any guidelines during Mass they tend to go with the motions and most of the time overdo it.

To those who think or has the urge to overdo anything during Mass please do it during your own private worships. There you can sing out loud, dance around, stoop, jump all you want.

It would probably help a lot if the Church guidelines be re-posted or included in the parish bulletin.

With just a very short time between Masses some ‘heavily-laden’ people use the time to a lot of praying and just don’t have the adrenaline to a cranked-up feeling of joyfulness to even dance and clap and be said to have fully participated during the celebration of the Mass. I am one of those…

Peace.

Where are these guidelines written?

Is there a link?

I swayed during Alleluiah! Lock me up and throw away the key!

 

[nice2000]

Because you’re being tempted and need to remember to act like a mature adult in Church.

That statement was funny! I could’nt help but laugh out loud. It makes me wonder if the the Saints and Angels dance in heaven? My guess is that there is no dancing. Actually this reminds me of the story of Fatima, the little seer Jacinta sacrificed herself to God by giving up dancing.

[edited]

 

[Layman]

I think discernment should be used with all feelings that arise at Mass. Try ignoring them and see what happens.

I think Saints have refused even ecstacies, prefering to get their reward in Heaven and being suspicious of all fancies.

What are feelings? Bubbles floating upward in a pond.

I’d like independent, external confirmation from a wise old priest (or two!) that any sensations I had came from the Holy Ghost.

Now: simple, quiet, inner peace; that’s the real prize.

 

[recidite_plbs]

All the time all of a sudden, I have the urge to sing loud and dance in Mass (NOTE: I sing loud, but don’t dance, but want to BADLY) even with the songs like “Lift High the Cross” “Holy God We Praise Thy Name”…etc. Why do I want to just burst out dancing?

The medication isn’t working as it’s supposed to?

Just a though.

 

[ac_claire]

You keep using the phrase “animal urge” or the like. Who made us so that we have such urges?

Everything must be done with discernment and in prayer. We ought never to act on our instincts without first thinking about it. But emotions and “urges” can be, and often our, signs that our spirits are in tune with the Spirit of God. This is why we call the central moment of Christ’s story His passion, not His chore.

There are some churches in which swaying would require more discernment than others, and I certainly wouldn’t advocate swaying during the consecration. But the Bible speaks of angels shouting and the blare of trumpets! Do you really think that “base” emotions aren’t part of God’s plan for our worship?

What does this discernment look like? “Prayer and discernment,” in the context you’re using them, sounds a lot like buzzwords without much meaning behind them.

How much prayer and discernment is generally used in the more Charismatic parishes where people do indeed sing and dance and sway and link hands and cry and call out to their heart’s content during Mass? My family was heavily involved with one of these parishes for years and I used to attend Mass with them.

The whole point is you’re caught up in the spirit; you don’t analyze it! You don’t take time to sit and pray and “discern” whether or not the Spirit is moving you toward a valid expression of worship. It’s all about a “high” feeling and a comraderie with the other worshippers and an urge to do what they’re doing; express yourself in the same way they’re expressing themselves because it’s just such an exhilerating feeling.

 

[Layman]

Just make sure it’s the Holy Ghost moving you and not The Spirit.