quality of catholic liturgy i would like the opinion of netters on a subject that has been bothering my wife and me lately liturgy in particular catholic liturgy in the last few years it seems that there are more and more ad hoc events during mass it s driving me crazy the most grace filled aspect of a liturgical tradition is that what happens is something we all do together because we all know how to do it led by the priest of course which makes it a kind of dialogue we present to god but the best masses i ve been to were participatory prayers lately i think the proportion of participation has fallen and the proportion of sitting there and watching or listening or generally being told what to do which is necessary because no one knows what s happening next is growing example last sunday palm sunday we went to the local church usually on palm sunday the congregation participates in reading the passion taking the role of the mob the theology behind this seems profound when we say crucify him we mean it we did it and if he came back today we d do it again it always gives me chills but last week we were invited to sit during the gospel passion and listen besides the orwellian invitation i was really saddened to have my and our little role taken away this seems typical of a shift of participation away from the people and toward the musicians readers and so on new things are introduced in the course of the liturgy and since no one knows what s happening the new things have to be explained and pretty soon instead of doing a lot of the mass we re just sitting there listening or spacing out in my case to how the mass is about to be done in my mind i lay the blame on liturgy committees made up of lay experts but that may not be just i do think that a liturgy committee has a bias toward doing something rather than nothing that s just a fact of bureaucratic life even though a simpler liturgy may in fact make it easier for people to be aware of the lord s presence so we ve been wondering are we the oddballs or is the quality of the mass going down i don t mean that facetiously we go to mass every thursday or friday and are reminded of the power of a very simple liturgy to make us aware of god s presence but as far as the obligatory sunday masses maybe i should just offer it up has anyone else noticed declining congregational participation in catholic masses lately john murray
