Forgot to mention the disoriented-looking woman who sits in the front row and holds her arms straight up in the air in supplication during the standing parts of the Mass.
“Church fauxs pas”
Gee, I hardly know where to begin. Some observations:
Whatever happened to sliding over toward the middle? People cling to that aisle seat like either they’re on an airplane or they’re claustrophobic. I slide over rather than get run over.
The “sign of peace”. I’ve endured it for four decades, it sucks. Nowadays the “most precious thing in the church besides the Eucharist” whips out the Purell & sanitizes the hand that just shook yours. What really gets me is people waving at those too far away to press the flesh.
Celebrants whose witty words or congratulations provoke either laughter or applause during the Mass. Not appropriate, IMO; I would rather hear after “the Mass is ended” the words, “Please take your seats, I have a few announcements.” Even that is an assumption that the parishioners are too dense to take a copy of the church bulletin.
Excessive reverences at the taking of Holy Communion. Matter of opinion, got it.
Catholics are the worst singers (I know, have to keep it low in case Henry VIII’s police are lurking nearby) but do we have to be the worst dressers as well? I throw on a sport coat over my dress shirt & dockers & I’m considered a fop! Meanwhile a few blocks away at the A.M.E. church the black folks are dressed to the nines, right down to the smallest children. Something about entering the House of the Lord.
(Rare) Aggressive ethnics. I was at Mass out of town; behind me was a woman pointedly saying the responses in Spanish even though there is a Missa en espanol on the schedule. Loud & proud.
What else? As for women in miniskirts or bikini coverups, I have learned to elevate my eyes & pray, “I thank Thee, Lord, for granting Thy humble servant this heavenly vision of some of the beautiful things which Thou hast made.”
;^)
We have a congregation that likes to clap at the end of the Mass for the choir as if they were doing a concert. Why can’t choirs just continue soft music as people follow the priest out of Mass??
I do not hold hands during the Our Father, although I get a lot of funny looks and nudges. The Our Father is a prayer between me and God; I don’t need to hold anyone’s hand to say it!
The lack of people praying after receiving Communion also bothers me. Why can’t the choir sisng at the beginning of Communion and be quiet at the end of it? (So that people have a time to pray in silence.)
Whatever happened to reverence for the Blessed Sacrament.