quality of catholic liturgy jemurray magnus acs ohio state edu john e murray writes 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 fe 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 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 on the one hand there are advantages to having the liturgy stay the same john has described some of these on the other hand some people seem to start tuning out the same old words and pay attention better when things get changed around i think innovative priests and liturgy committees are trying to get our attention and make things more meaningful for us it drives me crazy too different people have differing preferences and needs in liturgy my local parish is innovative i prefer to go to mass at the next parish over sometimes we don t have the option of attending a mass in the style which best suits us john put a smiley on it but to just offer it up probably is the solution a related issue that it sounds like john does not have to deal with is that spouses may have different liturgical tastes my husband does like innovative litury it is a challenge to meet both of our spiritual needs without just going our separate ways when you include the factor of also trying to satisfy our children s needs things get pretty complicated one thing to remember is that even the most uncongenial mass is still mass jayne kulikauskas jayne mmalt guild org
