““Pray with your heart, not like a parrot””
Catholic services are a bit disturbing because of the parroting of memorized lines at specific times during the service.
Pray like a socialist.
The the about mass is that it is a communal act of worship. We have memorized sections so that we are participating with our bodies together in the act of worship. Having said that one does need to actively participate- not just repeat the words without meaning them. But that is a problem for every soul, and has its cause in the weakness of the human condition, not because we have a specific form we follow in order to pray the same prayers and worship together before God as a community.
I also would be careful not to judge on whether someone is actively participating based on how their face looks. We Catholics all have at least 12 children you know-it tends to make us look tired!
Catholic services preserve the interactive call-and-response style of the Jewish services, which Jesus attended. Also, when his disciples asked him how to pray, he gave them a rote prayer— the Lord’s Prayer. Obviously, He didn’t use that one exclusively Himself (”My God, why have You forsaken me?”). But it wasn’t a bad idea.
It’s easy to pray rote prayer thoughtfully, without just babbling syllables. If people are doing otherwise, that’s on them, not on the content of the prayers or on the liturgical setting.