Beat the clock: welcome to the 15-minute mass (Catholic Caucus)

Beliefnet ^ | February 25, 2010

[AnAmericanMother]

We have Saturday afternoon Confession before the 5:30 Mass. They allow a good hour and a half, and sometimes (despite our priests regularly preaching on Confession) the priest is just sitting like the Maytag man. I have been some Saturdays when there were 30+ people waiting, other times I was the only person in the place. It seems to be completely unpredictable.

I asked our rector about adding another time, maybe a weekday evening, and he said that he and the other priests have way too much to do to just sit . . .

Monsignor does insist that ALL the priests and deacons be present in the narthex before and after ALL services, and unless they are out of town, there they all are. So you can always corner a priest before Mass and ask if he can hear your Confession. My daughter tends to blow in from college late on Saturday night, and the priests are happy to hear her Confession if she shows up a little early for Mass. (She hates going at college because the local Jesuit parish is so weird. If she can't get the 90-year-old old-fashioned Jesuit, she feels like she hasn't really been to Confession . . . .)

The numbers do tend to go up in Lent. And the Penance services in Advent and Lent (with a short service and homily beforehand and then individual confessions to a dozen or so priests gathered for the occasion) are always packed to the rafters.

[married21]

I remember hearing that in Ireland, under persecution, priests used to blitz through the service fast, so the congregation could get home safely. I think that tradition continues among some older Irish priests I have known.

[Coleus]

people have to maintain their one-hour fast to receive Holy Communion, attend mass, eat breakfast and commute to work and be on time. I wish they had something like this where I live. For some reason, most parishes do not have daily mass in the evening when everyone is home, I never figured that out. A mass at 6 pm, or 6:30 pm would be great and very-few to none have one.

[LadyDoc]

Fr Kenny decided to bring the time back to 7.30am and guarantee he would keep parishioners no longer than a quarter of a hour.

so it's a weekday mass at a convenient time...

When I lived in one town, I could go to 730 mass and get to work by 8 if I left after communion and the priest gave a very short sermon.

Then they said we had to get to work ten minutes early, and so I had to stop going to mass. Sigh.

So if it is a weekday mass for working folks, good.

[Cronos]

This is not good. The Church should not be “adapting” itself this way.

[John.Galt2012]

Firstly, I never said it was right or wrong (BTW we were at church at the time), I just gave him my opinion why the younger folks weren’t showing up.
Secondly, when I was growing up, us kids were allowed to have ONE extracurricular activity (money was tight) unless it was as church...then we could add in some more. Not long ago we sat down and did an “inventory” and we had fallen into the trap of over-scheduling our child: scouts, chess club, taekwondo, music lessons, swim team, astronomy club...it just starts to drain everyone. We didn’t cut our worship time.

[AnAmericanMother]

Daily Mass at our parish is held at 8:30 a.m. and 6:00 p.m.

The 8:30 is usually around 40-50 people, mostly older retired folks and mothers with young children because most folks have to be to work by 8:30 or 9:00. The 6:00 p.m. is the after-work crowd, and it's usually quite full -- maybe 100 people.

The parish has a weekly fellowship supper on Wednesday, and that moves to Friday during Lent for the Fish Fry. They conveniently schedule it for right after Mass!

[Campion]

I think this is talking about a 15-minute Mass on weekdays, not on Sundays. If the choice is between a 40 minute weekday Mass that people don’t go to and a 15 minute Mass they do, I’m not so sure I object to the 15 minute Mass.

[Coleus]

it’s too bad most parishes don’t do this, i live in a an area where there are about 50 churches within a 5 mile area and I can’t find one with a mass at night. At my church, we don’t even get 100 people at a sunday mass.