Just a quick post today. Everyone seems to have gone barmy with the up-and-coming royal wedding. Personally, I couldn’t care less. In my opinion, they’re just another couple of celebs, nothing really that special. Although, I’m interested in the dress but don’t tell, ok? In the view of staying up-to-date with current events, I watched a couple of short videos and read a couple of articles on the “wedding of the year”. I stumbled across an interesting article on the etiquette one should employ when dealing with the royals, particularly if you’re a royal subject.

Human speaking, we are very quick to talk about etiquette – what one should do when they meet the Queen, what one might wear if they were to go to the royal wedding but I find it surprising that many Catholics are rather shabby with their Mass/ Church etiquette.

I propose a number of reasons:
- They’ve never been told that Our Lord actually resides in the tabernacle of most Catholic Churches. This is a common one. I definitely wasn’t taught this in preparation for reception of the Blessed Sacrament for the first time and I had to wait a good 3 years before I stumbled across the truth.

-They’ve never been taught proper etiquette when entering a church. One non-judgmental observation I have made in the many years of attending Mass is that if a child goes to mass with their parents and their genuflection, let say, is rather sloppy, the child’s is worse (if they genuflect at all).

As a whole (humanly speaking) we have lost a sense of etiquette in day-to-day life as acts of charity to those around us. Out of love, of course, not out of an over zealous need for self-perfection and displays of social status. I suppose it make sense that if we don’t understand the concept of refinement in our dealings with others that we also don’t understand refinement when it comes to sacred things. And vise versa. It’s a perpetuating cycles really.

Another observation I have made, is that in a variety of churches in the central city region have not really adopted the bodily poses advocated in the new translation of the missal – beating of the chest at the Confiteor, bowing during the Creed, and an act of reverence directly before receiving communion.

This puzzles me. I did wonder if there might be a connection between the two things.

These aren’t the only examples and I’m sure we could all think of a few cringe worthy moments when Our Lord was ‘despised and rejected by men’ in the context of the Mass. It’s the cross all over (pun totally intended).