Twelfth Sunday of Ordinary Time

    Last week, I commented on our (sometimes) DIY attitude towards Mass, and mused on whether we all might benefit from a How-To video to help us out. I’m not going to make any such videos, but I am going to continue my musing.

    What time does Mass start at Holy Family in New Albany? Saturday at 5p. Sunday at 8a, 10:30a, & 6p. 75% (or more) of us use our phones for our watch and 100% of cell towers transmit time based upon the National Time standards. That means we are all on the same time! The old excuse, “my watch must be slow” is as old as it is lame. In the entry to Holy Family church is a clock, which I use to start Mass. It is digitally fed by the same signal feeding your phone.

     Yes, you know where I’m going… or rather when! The first step in How-To Mass is to be here ‘on-time’. But what does that mean: on-time? Admittedly, I can’t give you an exact time. But I can give you several examples of what time it is not. When, in fact, you are not How-Toing Mass but DIY Mass, your arrival helps you to enter into the Mass & prayer. So does on-time mean showing up in the parking lot right at 5p, 8a, 10:30a, or 6p only to find the last parking space available is furthest away. Only if you plan to have Mass in your car – and that would be a DIY debacle. We celebrate Mass in a church building. So, that means for you to How-To Mass, you’d need to be IN the church building. Ok, you are in the vestibule at 5p, 8a, 10:30a, or 6p? Is that on time? Will you be standing there the whole Mass? I hope not. After all, we have provided the ever-so-comfortable location for the assembly to sit in pews. Yes, some parents spend (some) time in the vestibules with their little ones. Sometimes that is a perfectly great choice. The parents are attempting to make sure the DIY solo of their little one (wiggly dance or tear-filled oratory) from unnecessarily interrupting the greater assembly’s holy work. But if that’s not you, then you should probably How-To Mass from a pew, and that means being in the pew some time before the start time of Mass. As you know, it can take a minute or two to locate and enter a pew. From my observation and my past prior prayer life of How-Toing Mass from the pews, it can also take a few seconds to get settled once there. Taking off your coat, attending to your umbrella, setting down a purse or baby bag, etc. And if one is doing all those things while or after Mass has started, we have not yet started to How-To Mass. We have been attending to the DIY of getting here & settled.

    Ok, so, if I am sitting in my pew, settled, and calm prior to the bell ringing, am I on-time? Generally, yes. Yet, if we are really interested in How-Toing Mass as well as we can, we might want to get here early enough to attend a few other things to better aid our prayerful labor. Maybe you’d like to catch your breath – literally after running in from the parking lot or hurrying your spouse & children along. Maybe you’d like to make the transition from the hustle & bustle of attending to your everyday life to attending to God’s Life in you & for you. Maybe, you’d like a moment to settle your mind as well as your body, to think about what you are getting ready to do. I’m here to hear God’s Living Word and receive the Living Lord in the Eucharist. I’m here to praise God, to thank God, to petition God, to adore God, to be instructed by God, to be challenged by God, to respond to God. Maybe, we like to kneel or sit a few minutes to place ourselves in God’s presence mentally, emotionally & spiritually. It is more difficult to do that if the current of the Mass has already started flowing along in the opening hymn or introductory rites. If the assembly is singing, our How-To should include joining in, rather than the DIY of getting ourselves personally ready. That means being on-time long before the assembly begins its corporate work.

     I know some will read this and think Father is just on a tirade about people coming to Mass ‘late.’ I’m not. I’m honestly giving this advice because your experience of the Mass, your encounter with the Living God, will be truly better if you How-To Mass from a settled position long before 5p, 8a, 10:30a, or 6p. You will be better able to perform & participate in the holy work of the People as God has invited us, if you are here some time before the starting bells sound. It really will make your Mass prayer better.

Nothing Less than saints for the Holy Family of God.

Holy Family, who worshiped God, Pray for us.

~ Fr Jeremy M. Gries