Things you'll never or should never hear at mass

• "Lettuce. Pray!"
• "Give us this day our daily spread and lead us not into temptation. Amen"

I heard this one at mass and it makes me want to puke.

• "Sweetheart, The body of Christ"

Come on guys. It's straightforward and simple don't add on "Honeybun", "Sweet stuff", "Hot Lips" or anything else. It's just "The body of Christ" or "The blood of Christ". Simple.

Instead of getting an Amen from Husband during mass you hear

• "ZZZZZZ!"

• "For our good and the good of all Her holy church"

Oh, you looney nuns on a bus. Yes God is beyond gender but we are limited. The church has prescribed the response to be "for the good of all His holy church" so just lump it. Be obedient and pray it so we can pray in unison and in community. Good grief! If everyone interjected their own philosophy on the mass it would be pandemonium. For the good of all things holy let's just please pray in communion.

For those times when mass runs especially late because not only did the homilist preach on today's scripture but also on a few others. Here is something you'll never hear at the end of mass:

• "We especially want to thank 'insert visiting priest's name here' for visiting and for those 3 homiles today.

Overheard at mass yesterday

We had a wedding during Sunday's mass. The toddler at one point said to her parents:
"When they gonna kiss?"
"When they gonna kiss?"

At the end of mass after the kiss, the toddler says:
"When's the baby coming?"

Finland, Finland, Finland

The country where I quite like to be.

It's quite beautiful in Finland. I am looking forward to another Finnish mass on Sunday to add to my collection of mass celebrations in other countries.

The mass is useless?

"Mom, the mass is so useless."

My response with a smile was: "Yep, sweetie. It sure is!"

It is absolutely useless. Here I quite agree with my atheist friends. You see there are goods that are pleasurable and there are goods that are good in themselves. We consider things useless when we can't derive any pleasure from them but a thing is eminently useful because it takes us to something for its own sake. 

Now granted one might have a mystical experience at mass but most of the time those never or rarely happen. We may not derive a pleasure from the whole mass experience. If you do, that's great but it's not for the sake of pleasure that the mass exists. It exists for itself and it is a good all on it's own. 

"So sweetie, the mass is indeed useless (in the sense that we may not derive pleasure from it) and because it is useless it is profoundly useful because it points to nothing more than itself, a good. The mass points to God. "

The new opinions of the new translation of the Roman Missal have gotten old

I got SO sick of reading everybody's stinking opinion of the implementation of the new translation of the Roman missal that I couldn't bear any more. Maybe my tipping point came when The New York Times weighed in noting that even the Monsignor lost his place during mass. Gasp! Horror! Shock! Oh the shame of it all!
Please spare me. I really can't take any more. Father Z has it perfectly:

(Even missal guides for the laity have the mass parts of bowing, kneeling, silence, etc written in red.) It's really that simple folks. 'Nuff said!
Perhaps instead I can address a few of the obstacles people face in returning to mass in general:

• I don't need to go to mass to get close to God.
• And I don't need to show any affection to my husband in order for him to know I love him, but is that really how I want to live out our marriage? Our behaviors matter! If I don't behave according to my beliefs, very soon I will belive in the way I behave. Go to mass. It'll reinforce your beliefs.
• I had a bad experience with the church.
• I had a bad experience with my son. At the moment he and I are not happy with each other but we both know we can't fix it by ignoring it or each other. Persevere!
• I don't like the Church's view on...
• I don't like sharing. I never have and probably never will, but it's so much easier when I just get out of my comfort zone, look at it from the other persons' perspective and just do it. Jesus loves everyone no matter what baggage you bring. He just asks we obey his commands and the teachings of the church. Note: He doesn't force us. We are always free to obey or disobey and He doesn't ask us to like any of it.
• I don't get anything out of mass.
• Sometimes I don't get anything out of sexual intimacy with my husband, nothing tangible anyway. I mean if we're not going to have a child, 'Why bother?' (note the dripping sarcasm) Any moment spent in intimacy with my husband is NEVER wasted. It's the same with prayer, and mass is the highest form of prayer.

Susan Boyle, I am not.

That having been said, it doesn't stop me from making a joyful noise during mass. I'm singing to my Lord and Savior with the voice that he gave me in gratitude for the things he's done for me. If you don't like it, well pick up the hymnal buddy and start singing. I promise you won't hear me over the off-keyness of you. Really and truly. 

This weekend I got the looks. Men turning around, to see who was singing like that. I like to think they were enraptured by my joyful melodic orations, but truth is I don't care. Mass is the highest form of prayer we have in our arsenal so I don't show up as a spectator!

I remember the time I told the kids that whoever sang the joyfullest (Is that a word? I'm playing it in Scrabble!) for the recessional hymn would get donuts. Oh, you should have seen those looks! (from husband) It turns out Peach couldn't quite read to keep up and Monkey boy didn't care what he sang, so they mostly made up the words as loud as they could. Now THAT was a spectacle! I was laughing so hard I couldn't sing, but I WAS making a joyful noise.

Every time mass ends I kind of have to restrain myself from making a truly joyful spectacle. Remember those Herbal Essence Shampoo commercials where the babe washes her hair and screams out 'Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!'? Well that certainly would make mens' heads turn to see what was happening. 

refrain: Sing it like you mean it and eventually you'll mean it when you sing it! (Repeat refrain)