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

Beliefnet ^ | February 25, 2010

[NYer]

And it's causing a small sensation in Ireland:

An Irish cleric's congregation has increased tenfold in a week -- thanks to a quickie Mass.

Despite the controversies which have rocked the church in recent years and the resulting fall-off in attendances at church services, Fr Michael Kenny has been packing them in at his Kilconly parish in Co Galway.

The popular priest started his 15-minute Mass as nothing more than an experiment at the start of Lent, just over a week ago. And he attributes the speed of the service to foregoing a sermon -- and having the help of a Eucharistic minister for communion.

The regular morning Mass at 9am had been drawing an attendance of just three or four up to the start of his no-frills experiment.

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.

Attendances at the small north Galway parish church have now soared to between 30 and 40, with Mass-goers walking out the door by 7.45am.

"The general view among parishioners is that the 9am Mass was totally unsuitable for people going to work.

"Now, more and more people are coming along to the Mass at 7.30am as they know they can be on their way to work or school 15 or 20 minutes later and it is far more suitable," said Fr Kenny.

You can find more about it at the link.

 

[Tax-chick]

I don’t think it’s the length of the Mass (under 30 minutes) that makes a difference, so much as having it at a time that parishioners can attend. That depends on the parish. When we were at the University of Oklahoma, daily Mass was at 4:30 pm most days, and generally had a good turnout. In a different parish, most people would have been at work at that hour.

[LisaFab]

Agree about the time of the Mass. Our parish is in a downtown area and a lot of the communicants walk over from work.

Not too many folks are happy about Stations of the Cross at 4:00 PM on Fridays but it is still well-attended.

[Tax-chick]

My parish, which isn’t near anything except the Interstate, has Stations at 4:00 p.m., too. I don’t know who they’re getting except the retirees. Middle schools don’t even let out until 4:00, and nobody can go there quickly from their home or business.

[LisaFab]

I hear you!

In general, I don't think it's the length of the Mass that matters, it's the reverence; especially for the True Presence.

[Ted Grant]

Midday masses at St Patty’s in NYC during the workweek usually run about 20 minutes or so.

I don’t mind the homily at all, but too many of the padres treat it like their opportunity to live out their stand-up comedian fantasies. It’s a huge turn off to me, and to many others, I am sure.

I think a 25-30 minute mass with a serious tone would draw well.

[J Edgar]

How tragically sad!
There greatest gift from God Himself, His Real Presence - and this is the response?
Please dear Lord, Have Mercy On Us, for we know not what we do.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Contemplating and participating in the Body of Christ is not a perfunctory practice.

[bronx2]

I have traveled extensively for my job during the last 15 years visiting such downtown areas as Dallas, Houston, New Orleans, OKC and Wichita. They all have noon day Mass and confessions 30 minutes before Mass. They all last 25 to 30 minutes. Standardization to the Nth degree.

[magisterium]

Awwwww...that’s nothing! Around about 1970, when the Novus Ordo was still a “New Thing,” I remember going to Boston’s South Station (sort of the local equivalent of Grand Central Station), and there was a sign on an easel in front of the small station chapel that said: “Catholic Mass, 12 Minutes or Less...Guaranteed!” My family needed to take them up with this promise once, and, being the little nudgenick that I was, I decided to time it. They made it! With something like a minute to spare!

I didn’t think it was possible for anyone to speak that quickly. I’ll bet the priest was an auctioneer or something before he was ordained.

[Melian]

We used to have a 15 minute lunchtime Mass at the Catholic High School I attended. I appreciated the chance to fit it in. I think it’s fine for those who work during the week. Save the long service for the weekend. When you hear some of the homilies these days, it’s a small loss to cut it out.

Some Masses are getting too long due to the songs. The cantor will do all 3 verses of a song. It gets to be a demonstration of talent rather than a nice addition to the Mass. Our Youth Mass is an hour and 15 minutes at the least because of all the music.

[AnAmericanMother]

Hence my father's expression when someone spoke very rapidly:

"Ya oughta hear him say Mass!"

[AnAmericanMother]

There's a 25-30 minute noon Mass downtown. It's just a short walk from my job so I sometimes attend at lunch (although they are a little loopy there. Very social justice, pro-homosexual rights, sometimes fast and loose with the rubrics . . . but considering that they draw most of their congregation from Midtown, not surprising.)

It's not because they're hurrying through the Mass though. With a relatively small congregation, no music, no offertory, no frills, and an extremely short homily, 25-30 minutes is about normal. A REAL quickie Mass would be 15 minutes.

[steve86]

When I compare it to our little Sunday Tridentine rite (Low Mass with no choir and 20 or so parisioners), which lasts around 70 minutes, something has got to be missing. I wouldn't trust any Novus Ordo rendition much less a 15 minute one.

[AnAmericanMother]

As my rector (who is an older Irishman who actually studied at seminary in Latin) pointed out when we were talking about this, there were plenty of abuses under the old TLM, especially Low Mass.

You had many priests who rattled off the Latin like a livestock auctioneer, as fast as they could go and under their breath so you couldn't tell if they were leaving anything out. I saw this myself, because even back when I was an Episcopalian we would go to Mass if we were in a Catholic country and no Anglican Mass was available.

I think what's going on here is that the priests who say the EF now are the most reverent, meditative priests going. They take their time and evidence devotion. There are reverent OF priests as well, and they take their time too. Our younger parochial vicar is a good example of that, his Masses always run a bit long but nobody minds because he's a good faithful priest and his homilies are dynamite.

Our Sunday Mass takes a little over an hour, we do have music and on First Sundays we chant the Ordinary in Latin, that takes a little more time (especially the Credo!).

Of course, our rector has to be mindful of keeping the time issues under control, because we have 3 Sunday morning Masses (all jam packed, even the 8 o'clocker) as well as Sunday School, and nothing can run too long because it will run into something else. We have 2,000 families (many with LOTS of kids) in our parish, and the church only holds about 800, so to an extent he has to run a tight ship.

I can appreciate both sides of this one. Reverence is a good thing, a very good thing, but in a busy parish one has to consider the time issues as well.

[steve86]

Good points. Our EF generally gets a late start because virtually everyone, to a person, lines up for Confession beforehand.

[Bigg Red]

...demands on their schedules, work, school, kids, soccer, ballet, cleaning the house, scouts, mow the lawn, karate, etc. etc. , they were just trying to recoup some of their time. A half day, when you throw in getting ready, getting there and getting back home again is a big chunk of basically your two days off.

&&&
Not seeing anything there that was not in my schedule when I was raising children.

[steve86]

I’m willing to bet the “auctioneer” priests were the ones who just couldn’t wait for the 2nd Vatican Council so they could proceed to abuse the new rite also. Glad we (Tridentine devotees) got rid of them.

[steve86]

and under their breath so you couldn't tell if they were leaving anything out

I'm sure you're aware that parts of the EF are said in a deliberately low voice or silently, so you definitely won't be able to hear all of it.

[AnAmericanMother]

Of course you can't hear the parts privately recited, but when they take a lot less time than usual, you can't help wondering if something has been left out!

My point was simply that any rite can be abused. It's harder to abuse the EF because it's so strictly choreographed and leaves little room for anything but raw speed. The OF in the right (reverent) hands is just fine, but it leaves too much opportunity for the liberal, the lazy, and the self-regarding to ad-lib, grandstand, etc. And that's more harmful in my opinion than just blazing through the Mass at warp speed.

But I haven't any problem with the OF as celebrated at our parish (I wouldn't be at the parish if I did!)

[AnAmericanMother]

Some of them were just old and tired.

The "theatrical" types who couldn't wait for 'the spirit of VCII' wouldn't speed through the old Mass. They would make it as much of a production as they could. Which thankfully wasn't much.