It\u2019s the kind of devil\u2019s advocate question that Roman Catholic priests discuss when no one else is listening.<\/p>\n\n
How short do you have to make a Mass to appeal to parishioners who don\u2019t want to get out of bed to go to Sunday Mass in the first place? Would more people attend if Mass was 40 minutes instead of 50?<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThere are priests who can do a weekday Mass in about 22 minutes and the people know that father has left his car running out back and his golf clubs are in the trunk,\u201d said Father John A. Valencheck of the Diocese of Cleveland.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cSunday Mass is supposed to be different. I have trouble getting it done \u2014 I hate those words \u2018getting it done\u2019 \u2014 in less than 50 or 55 minutes. I don\u2019t know how to do everything we\u2019re supposed to do in less than that. ? But all of this should lead us back to a crucial question: What are we doing at Mass in the first place?\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The people who really have to watch the clock are the priests and lay leaders in the giant suburban parishes that surround America\u2019s largest cities.<\/p>\n\n
This is especially true in the Bible Belt, where the children of northern Catholics kneel next to increasing numbers of Hispanics and many Protestants who have converted to the ancient faith. Thus, the pews and parking lots are crowded, while a declining number of priests struggle to offer services that please the old and welcome the new.<\/p>\n\n
But there\u2019s another reason that many American Catholics want to edit and tweak their ancient rites. They know that Protestant megachurches offer rock-concert-quality mass media, ample parking, free babysitting, health clubs and every conceivable form of special programs for people of all ages, but especially the young.<\/p>\n\n
Valencheck\u2019s parish office recently received a postcard \u2014 addressed \u201cOccupant\u201d \u2014 from a megachurch promoting its free Starbucks coffee and Krispy Kreme Donuts.<\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s hard for Catholics to compete in this marketplace, he noted, in an essay entitled \u201cMass Marketing Mass\u201d in the Adoremus Bulletin. The ultimate temptation is for priests to embrace the \u201cbedrock assumption that the Mass is a painful event\u201d and that they need to make major changes in order to survive.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cOne solution is to make the Mass pass as quickly as possible, apparently on the assumption that the people who are there do not want to be there, so the object is to get them in and out before they can register the full measure of their boredom,\u201d wrote Valencheck. \u201cThe focus of the Mass is now placed on those who do not want to be there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Then there are Catholics who are determined to make the Mass more entertaining. This can lead to sappy pop music, pseudo-megachurch media and priests who offer chatty sermonettes while presiding over liturgies that have been truncated until almost all of the ancient mysteries and traditions are gone.<\/p>\n\n
The problem, Valencheck noted, is that an \u201centertaining innovation can too quickly become grating and we are right back to the problem of being boring.\u201d And then there are efforts at popularization that veer close heresy, like the popular YouTube video of the Halloween costume Mass in a California parish that ended with the priest recessing out of the church \u2014 dressed as Barney the purple dinosaur.<\/p>\n\n
It\u2019s crucial, said Valencheck, that priests continue to have faith that parishioners and visitors will respond to an \u201cold school\u201d Mass that is offered with dignity, grace and, yes, a sense of quality. The details of the rite must be beautiful, so that they point to the mysteries that are beneath the surface.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThere is a way to carry a chalice that says, \u2018This is just a cup and it really doesn\u2019t matter if you pay attention or not,\u2019 \u201d he said. \u201cThen there is a way to carry it that says, \u2018This is a chalice. Get down on your knees and meditate on that.\u2019 \u2026<\/p>\n\n
\u201cIt\u2019s like when you tell someone that you love them. You can just say the words. But there\u2019s also a way to pause and look right in their eyes and tell them that you love them in a way that let\u2019s them know you really mean it. There\u2019s a way to give our words and our actions weight and gravitas. Priests have to remember that.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It\u2019s the kind of devil\u2019s advocate question that Roman Catholic priests discuss when no one else is listening. How short do you have to make a Mass to appeal to parishioners who don\u2019t want to get out of bed to go to Sunday Mass in the first place? Would more people attend if Mass was […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[102,1532,217,514,535,543],"class_list":["post-1412","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-barney","tag-catholics","tag-church-marketing","tag-liturgy","tag-mass","tag-megachurches"],"yoast_head":"\n