I was with a meeting with a group of young adults the other week. One of the young adults sought advice from the group,
‘How can we make Mass more appealing to young people? Our “Youth Mass” has a great band, great upbeat music. What can we do in the Mass to make it more appealing?’
Now as it turned out, there were very few suggestions given by the group. We suggested they have a shared meal and games after Mass in the hall, and maybe having a short religious video just before or after Mass…
…and that was about it. It turned out that this group of young people that didn’t really want to go and suggest that there be a dance during Mass…
… or that everyone should have to take off a shoe at the start of Mass to put by the altar, so that they would pick up a random shoe for which the owner must be found at the sign of peace…
… or that the priest should ad lib Mass to jazz it up…
…or that we can all stand in a circle around the altar holding hands…
Nope. None of that. But there wasn’t much advice given about what could be done. I felt sympathy for the inquirer, and promised I would get back to them if I heard of anything that can help teens and young adults at Mass.
So…I was sort of hoping Being Frankers would have some suggestions?
I think perhaps what is missing for these young people is catechesis, especially about the Real Presence of Our Lord in the Eucharist and about the sacraments. The problem I think is when the Mass for young people revolves around a band, the Mass then takes on a form of entertainment and the reality of what is actually taking place at Mass is overwhelmed by sound, by music. From experience, young adults attending the EF Latin Mass do not appear to be bored at Mass, and yet the Latin Mass is unchanging so you would think it would become boring to them. I think the reason it doesn’t is that they may have a better understanding of the Mass and consequently have a higher spiritual participation, which brings grace. Pope Benedict has said that young people should not be enticed by gimmicks. He said recently, “the Eucharist is the great school in which we learn to see the face of God, we enter into an intimate relationship with Him”. Those who enter into an intimate relationship with God, through the Mass, telling Him of their hopes, their joys, their needs, their day to day difficulties will be too busy communing with Him to be bored or want more novelty in the Mass, so I think more catechesis is needed to enable a greater spiritual participation in the Mass.
Perhaps the organisers of Hearts Aflame could you a few pointers. I for one am totally opposed to the term “youth masses.” The Mass is the Mass is the Mass. As Teresina says Catechesis is the answer – great bands and upbeat music are not.
I agree that Catechesis is so very important ( not just for the young ones who have been fortunate enough to spend those days at H A either) though I thought that this was covered in the talks given during those said days…
Sienna … that is the beauty of the Traditional Holy Mass… No bands,No upbeat music , No showmanship at all, just quiet worship of God.
Mrs Mac
A question! What would the organizers and/or the participants feel if Michael Voris was invited to be a guest speaker at a H A week and he gave a talk like he gives in this link? How do you feel ?
http://www.churchmilitant.tv/daily/?today=2013-01-30
Mrs Mac
I would love it,
however I don’t think the HA plaaning team would agree.
Perhaps for similar reasons as the eucharistic convention had for not accepting him as a guest speaker.
The hijinks described above belong to the profane, not the sacred. Hands up if anyone can agree that that which takes place at Mass must be sacred – apart from the profane – because a sacred and holy mystery is taking place? who first started the trend of the [insert demographic here] Mass? The restructuring after VII of the sancturary – i.e. basically getting rid of it – the bizarre preference for turning the priest away from God, the handshaking syndrome – worst – the priest shaking unconsecrated hands after the consecration? all these have replaced sacred with profane. Mass was supposed to be a solemn and sacred unbloody sacrifice raised to heaven from the true altar of Our Lord from the rising of the sun to the setting of the same throughout all time. Those who don’t embrace the ‘year zero’ mentallity, as one priest described post-VII innovation-mongers, have been good caretakers of what was vouchsafed to them. Here’s a contemporary example:
http://www.livemass.org/LiveMass/Daily.html
As the below author in his book, the Heresy of Formlessness wrote, “it is important to stretch children and make them deal with things that are as yet beyond them.”
“The collapse of the liturgy in the official Church has had one good result: the old rite is once again a real mystery, in the sense that it is celebrated in secret, as it was originally intended to be. The first grade of priestly ordination is that of the “doorkeeper”—it has since been abolished—whose duty was to make sure that the doors were closed to the unbaptized during the celebration of the mysteries. In the Orthodox Church, before the Offertory begins, the deacon still cries out: “Attend to the doors!” I am not going to describe how I first happened to come across the old liturgy; anyone who has had a similar experience will know how much chance—or providence—is necessary in order to come across this rite. I think, too, that anyone who attends the old rite for the first time without any preparation will be somewhat baffled by it all. He probably does not know Latin, and in any case the most important words are whispered; the priest’s vestments may be striking and beautiful, but the congregation sees nothing of what the priest does, since his own body obscures the view. There is a splendid old joke about the Jewish schoolboy who happens to find himself at a Mass and afterward tells his father about it. “A man came in with a little boy and gave the boy his hat. The boy took the hat and hid it. Then the man asked the congregation, ‘Where is my hat?’ and the congregation replied, ‘We don’t know.’ Then they collected money for a new hat. In the end the little boy gave the man his hat back, but they didn’t return the money.” As I have already explained, when I was a schoolboy my grasp of the Mass was only slightly better than the Jewish boy’s. Now, however, I came to see why it is important to stretch children and make them deal with things that are as yet beyond them. What was a puzzle to me then continued to hold an unconscious but firm place in my mind. The priest’s quiet movements to and fro at the altar, his bowing, genuflecting, and stretching out his hands, constituted an ancient tableau that, without knowing it, I had carried along with me ever since. The way the priest stood at the altar seemed to communicate a kind of tension. Above the altar in the church of my childhood there was a huge gray plaster crucifix in the Beuron style, and I saw this gigantic tree as an axis reaching up from the altar to heaven. But even if the crucifix on the altar is smaller, I still have this feeling of the axis, linked with a sense of undefined danger. Whenever the sacristan busied himself about the altar, bringing something or taking it away, I always watched him uneasily. Persons like this, with their busy and matter-of-fact way of handling things that, for the layman, are numinous and unapproachable, have always belonged to the Catholic world, with its “distribution of graces”.
Mosebach, Martin (2010-09-24). The Heresy Of Formlessness – Ignatius Press.
As a man who converted in my youth I think that anything that looks like a preschool is enough to send the youth running (away).
I think your team hit it on the head by having food and games afterwards. Food (particularly good food) and good company are drawcards. In fact I would go so far to say that they are more of a drawcard than anything that can be done at mass.
Also I can remember that I desperately desperately did not want to do anything. I hated being asked to do anything (reading, or any other service), this included the sign of peace. And this wasn’t for reason of being shy, just this wish not to be out of the crowd. And I doubt I was atypical. What I did like was routine.
And that last point, I think, is a very good way of approaching the issue with the priest. Say that you want to cater for the masses, and that they wish to be anonymous. Those who want to see before being asked to be committed.
Just my 2c
A really big thing that is important for a Mass where the participants will be mostly youth, is to not try and make it youthy! Most of the time all we do is just make it lame, cheesy, and silly. Youth pick that up immediately, when people are trying too hard to be “cool” or “relevant”. And that is not to mention that we often abuse the Mass when we try to insert our original ideas.
Just make Mass super reverent and said with immense love and seriousness by the priest, so that the young people see that this is his most important service. And that what he is praying, and living, and offering is very real, and very important to him and for the world. Let him celebrate Mass in such a way that the youth see and know that this is the greatest religious thing they have ever seen.
Sure, have him preach the truth in such a way that it reaches them, attracts them, and uses images that they can relate to.
But for the rest of the Mass, make it reverent, solemn, noble, and serious. If we jazz it up and try and make it lighthearted and cool, it totally undermines what it really is.
In seeing that it is important and serious, it will go a long way to helping them sit and listen! and begin to help them enter what it is!
Well said JimmyG.
Opthomistic, seriously, the best way we can serve the youth is to cut out the nonsense.
Get rid of the feel-good rubbish, it doesn’t work. Chuck out the drums and what-not, it doesn’t sustain them long-term.
Give them a Mass full of reverence, with chant and polyphony, beautifully offered by a priest who abhors liturgical abuse, with the right formation to prepare them…now that is something they’ll probably never have seen, or heard, or experienced, before.
Some years ago they used to have what they called healing Masses at the Cathedral. Father John Moss ran them. There was a guitar-based band as part of the Mass, so it was sort of a youth Mass.
The music was all right – good at times, not the best at others – but the wonderful thing I remember about it was that the whole thing was very reverent – and at the end, instead of just dismissing everyone, the Host was exposed, and adoration took place for a long time. People were adoring our Lord; some were prostrate. It was absolutely wonderful.
Later when Father John stopped (went back to England, I think, and died), another priest took over. The healing Masses did not continue long. They were not at all the same.
Youth need to love and adore our Lord, the same as us less youthful ones.
jj
Opthomistic,
Have just seen this link about what our Holy Father has told his priests and religious …if only we could hear more talks, homilies or sermons along the ilines that Pope Benedict suggests , be they given at H.A. or in our chuches.
http://www.courageouspriest.com/pope-priests-teach-truth-entirety
Shalom