Jennifer Graham on Church Shopping on National Review Online

Church Shopping.

I can relate. I'm not a particularly devout person. I go to Mass as often as my 4 kids permit and I try to follow The Rules. When I was younger, the homily was usually something that was to be endured not considered. In college, the Priests were very good at tailoring their homilies for the students. There was plenty of issues to address and with a very homogenous population they could target those issues with laser like precision.

When I moved to Pencader, I had a few options and checked them out. Eventually, my current parish was founded and since then I've been attending there. I like the priest. He seems like a nice guy but he has that awful tendency to orate rather than speak. His homilies are filled with Shatner-esque pauses and some bizarre inflection that is so distracting I often lose track of whatever point he's trying to make. Is there any way to let him know? I doubt very much that he's going to change and don't even know if he's be receptive.

Some other oddities I've noticed:

People try to hold my hand when we're saying the Lord's Prayer. Um...no thanks. I've found that I can avoid this by either leaving enough seats between me and people around me or just holding a missal.

The cantor announces the celebrant as well as the deacon et al. before Mass begins. I find this truly odd. I'm pretty sure that's not anywhere in the GIRM.

The singers are dreadful. I can't sing either so I really shouldn't complain. However, I know better than to get in front of a mic.

The above list is not designed to be a list of gripes, just things that I find distracting. The new church is almost finished and may alleviate some of this (I'm hoping). One thing, the new place is going to be relatively huge compared to the current warehouse rental space.

Not to mention the pastor's name is John Hopkins which is entirely too close to the name of my alma mater's arch rival.

Comments

Paul Smith Jr. said…
Ah, I know where you go to Mass. Since you didn't mention it, I won't either.

The best pastor is at Holy Child on Naaman's Road: James T. Kirk

Another good name, from an Oblate of Saint Francis de Sales: Sean Connery. And he even looks like Connery.

Holding hands during the Our Father is not supposed to be done.
The Last Ephor said…
I know, yet they persist.

Thanks for commenting. I was hoping you'd have some suggestions for what to do about the priest's odd delivery.

If you don't mind me asking, what parish do you attend?

Popular posts from this blog

So....the autism thing

For Gerard