Why haven't i learned a single thing in Mass

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You go to Mass to be a witness at a ritual, and to partake of Communion.

It’s not a tutorial.
 
falisrm said:
The last thing is you don’t believe in the need for the baptism of remission of sins. Since you baptize babies who have no sin whatsoever, babies aren’t remitting anything.
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Original Sin.
 
Catholics understanding of origional sin is incorrect.

Am i the only one paying attention to the prayers?
 
falisrm said:
I’m saying they don’t teach you a single thing about the gospel. You can go for a hundred years and they would never have taught you they believe in the Resurrection or the doctrine of the resurrection. Meaning, we will all be resurrected just like Christ was and we’ll all have eternal, physical bodies in heaven. With the same body we have right now. They don’t teach those kind of doctrines or principles in mass.
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I’m guessing you attend a pretty bad church which used the Ordinary form.

I have atteneded churches that make me completely agree with you. I have also atteneded churches which make me want to scream about how wrong you are.

I would suggest a few things:
  1. Try to approach mass with a new perspective. Ask what God gets out of it, instead of what you get out of it. From the way you describe the mass you attend, you may very well still come away with the same problems.
  2. Learn the meanings of the mass – Yes, there are prayers and actions that are always the same, and there are parts that change day to day. Each is set down by the Church for a speciic reason, and each has a meaning going back hundreds if not thousands of years into the past. These traditions connect us with the saints who came before us, and which the entire Catholic Church around the world, which prays the same prayers all around the world in any given day. We are the largest family there is. Think of this next time you attend mass, and you may begin to see things a little differently.
3). Switch masses or visit other parishes. If your church offers something like a “solemn mass” or a “high mass” (whatever they call it), try it out. They usually better embody what i explained above. If not, try more traditional parishes. If you want, make a thread saying whichc diocese you live in, and ask the people here to reccomend churches in that diocese which they have found reverent, worshipful, and educational.
  1. The fact that you are concenred about not being educated during your mass shows that you are, at the very least, an intelligent Catholic who cares about what you see and hear at the mass. This is very good! Mass is, when celebrated correctly, everything you are looking for. Mass is the most intellectual thing I’ve ever come across; it contains prayers with deep theological points which have been prayed for hundreds of years. It is rich with historic and theological symbolism, which can take years to fully understand and appreciate (thats one reason seminary takes so long!) It also sounds like a lot of what you complain about may be because of your priest. I have had priests just talk about being good and helping people. I have also found other priests who preach about the lives of saints and Catholic teachings every homily! I have even had priests who read from and explain canon law, or the rubrics of the mass.
Remember, Mass CAN and SHOULD be everything you are complaining that it is not. If it isnt, there are two sources of problems you should address: 1) in the way you approach it, and 2) in the way it is presented. If you follow my advice above, i believe you will find what you are looking for.

I also reccommend you check out the differences between the Ordinary (new) Form and the Extraordinary Form (Traditional Latin Mass, Tridentine Mass, Gregorian Mass, etc). The more traditional Extraordinary form is freer from the shortcoming you have complained about by a considerable degree.

Good luck! I will pray for you.

Explanation of Mass (new form): holyspiritinteractive.net/features/theexplanatorymass/
americancatholic.org/Newsletters/CU/ac0889.asp

Explanation of Mass (traditional):
thinking-catholic-strategic-center.com/Traditional-Latin-Tridentine-Mass.html

History of some parts of Mass: classicalmusic.about.com/od/texthistoryofthemass/Text_History_of_the_Mass_Ordinary.htm

Some other good sites:
The Catholic Mass Revealed (website for DVD explaining the mass. Look around it, theres some nice tidbits even without buying the film) catholicmass.org/english.html

liturgica.com/

A site devoted to the history of the worship of Christians. It goes very deep into the history of the liturgy, starting with judaism, and focusing on the entire history of Eastern Orthodox and Western Catholic liturgics, and gives a small treatment of some protestant sects as well. It is very unbiased and factual, though it is staffed mainly by Eastern Orthodox priests and faithful. Also includes tons of music samples and a store. I love this site.
 
Why Go To Church?

A Church goer wrote a letter to the editor of a newspaper and complained that it made no sense to go to church every Sunday.‘I’ve gone for 30 years now,’ he wrote,
‘and in that time I have heard something like 3,000 sermons. But for the life of me, I can’t remember a single one of them. So, I think I’m wasting my time and the pastors are wasting theirs by giving sermons at all.’
This started a real controversy in the ‘Letters to the Editor’ column, much to the delight of the editor.
It went on for weeks until someone wrote this clincher:
‘I’ve been married for 30 years now. In that time my wife has cooked some 32,000 meals. But, for the life of me, I cannot recall the entire menu for a single one of those meals. But I do know this… They all nourished me and gave me the strength I needed to do my work. If my wife had not given me these meals, I would be physically dead today. Likewise, if I had not gone to church for nourishment, I would be spiritually dead today!’
When you are DOWN to nothing… God is UP to something! Faith sees the invisible, believes the incredible and receives the impossible! Thank God for our physical AND our spiritual nourishment!
All right, now that you’re done reading, send it on!
I think everyone should read this!
When Satan is knocking at your door, simply say,
'Jesus, could you get that for me
 
strngrnrth said:
Falisrm, were you brought up UPC?
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Failisrm is a Mormon.

falisrm, the Mass is correct according to our understanding of God. If you’re going to Mass and trying to have it make sense according to a Mormon worldview, you’re going to continue to be out of luck. If you make an effort to understand the Mass the way Catholics understand it, then you may find it comes together a little better for you.
 
ic, so next time i’ll try and get some meaning out of their scripture reading and sermon. It was kinda hard last week. The priest was cussing.
 
As one said above, each priest will offer up his own homily. As for learning something at each mass, i would suggest reading up on the Gospel reading for that week before mass, or reading up on the feast day of a saint celebrated that week. A lot of learning needs to happen inbetween the weekly masses.
 
falisrm said:
ic, so next time i’ll try and get some meaning out of their scripture reading and sermon. It was kinda hard last week. The priest was cussing.
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Yeah, OK. I’ve never heard a priest cuss in the homily, but then I’m a pretty new Catholic so what do I know? If the priest was cussing in his homily, go to a different parish next time. Cussing during mass isn’t something normal or accepted.
 
I also have a hard time hearing the scripture reading. They just read the entire thing and don’t give any explaination or information about it. Even if there’s several doctrines or principles in the verse.

I couldn’t believe it. i can re quote it for you if you want. I don’t know i got my last thread deleted because i said a bad word in it. So i need to show clarity in my words here.
 
falisrm said:
Mass has to be one of the least interlectural meetings in existance. The sermons the priest gives is quite frankly, a joke. Half the time he just begs people to be “good” and to make an attempt to come to church. The words have no substance or value.

The rest of the mass is tradition of sitting down, standing up, sitting down, standing up. It took me 2 times to memorize the entire thing. After the sermon is the “peace be with you” peace be with you". sit down, stand up. It the mass some sort of ordinance of memorized meanings?
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Do you learn anything in the temple?

Sit down, stand up, sit down,s tand up, robes on, change them around…
 
Funny Nebula, considering the entire thing is an “ordinance” just like baptism is. Mass obviously isn’t.
 
falisrm said:
Funny Nebula, considering the entire thing is an “ordinance” just like baptism is. Mass obviously isn’t.
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Mass is a sacrament, which is the closest parallel to the MOrmon notion of ordinance there is. You seem to be objecting to mass being a ceremony, but you fail to take into account how very ritualistic Mormonism is.
 
The entire mass isn’t a ordinance, only the communion part is.
 
falisrm said:
The entire mass isn’t a ordinance, only the communion part is.
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falis, You really make no sense. So what you’re objecting to is the quality of ‘talks’ given by the priest? Then why mention the standing up, sitting down etc which is so obviously part of the ritual?

If I were to be honest, I’d have to say there hasn’t been a single Mormon sacrament meeting talk in which I walked away thinking “wow, I really learned something”, never in my years as a Mormon. I also think the music is terrible. Now you could argue “that’s just a bad attitude” (which would be untrue, since I was loyal to Mormonism, but hey…) but that exactly same thing could be thrown at you.
 
So your saying that the entire mass is the ordinance or sacrament and not just the communion. So that would mean the the Catholic church just piled everything else on to the communion as what, icing? extra credit? None of the catholic ordinance was developed by christ except for the communion.
 
falisrm said:
I’m saying they don’t teach you a single thing about the gospel. You can go for a hundred years and they would never have taught you they believe in the Resurrection or the doctrine of the resurrection. Meaning, we will all be resurrected just like Christ was and we’ll all have eternal, physical bodies in heaven. With the same body we have right now. They don’t teach those kind of doctrines or principles in mass.
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“Come not to learn, but to be transformed.” These words from a Charismatic Conference I once attended can be equally applied to every Mass. I come to Mass to receive the Body and Blood of Jesue Christ in the Eucharist.
As Catholics, we believe in the Trinity, in the Triune God. There are three persons in one God. If you expect me to explain this mystery, then I cannot. Faith involves embracing the mystery, those things which cannot be explained through human intellect.
There is the story of St. Augustine coming upon a young child gathering water into a hole on the beach. In the same way, that the small child could never empty the ocean, neither can we explain the Trinity. We can only use images such as a clover, Neapolitan Ice Cream, or the workings of the human body (Brain, Nervous System, and Body) to touch on the reality.
While many complain of the homily at Mass, I remember few in which the preaching has not touched me personally in some way.
 
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