I disagree with your point of view.
Fellowship and friendship is always welcome and can change a bad attitude into a positive one.
Generally at Mass it is just a warm hello or Good Morning and a smile. If you don’t appreciate that, then you can be quiet and just enjoy your peace with God.
Sometimes at Mass, either just before or after is the only time I get to speak with the priest.
Yes Bible study and donut Sunday are very worthwhile, but many do not attend these functions.
Mass is not simply about “me and God,” and we do not put ourselves into the presence of God. God draws us to himself, and he usually does so through the mystical body of Christ—in other words, through his Church. That means that there is a communal aspect to the Mass.
“Fellowship and friendship is always welcome”
That may be true for you. It is most emphatically not true for some other people. Some people just want to be left alone.
“and can change a bad attitude into a positive one.”
There’s that “bad attitude” thing again. Tell you what, I’m going to claim that your attitude is the bad one and mine is the good one. When I jerk my hand back and tell you to get away, that is a good attitude. When you try to force your protestant goopy-goopy on me, that is a bad attitude.
“Generally at Mass it is just a warm hello or Good Morning and a smile.”
And that is *far* too much. The rule before Mass is silence.
“If you don’t appreciate that, then you can be quiet and just enjoy your peace with God.”
No, I can’t, because you’ve already irritated me by sliming me with Protestantism. Further, everyone is supposed to be quiet, not just me. Everybody.
“Sometimes at Mass, either just before or after is the only time I get to speak with the priest.”
And when you speak with him just before Mass, are you annoying people who are trying to pray? Or are you out of hearing of the pews?
“Yes Bible study and donut Sunday are very worthwhile, but many do not attend these functions.”
Part of the dignity of the Catholic faith was not crawling all over people.
“Mass is not simply about “me and God,”
Neither is it about “me and you and God.” Unless you are a priest, you stay out of my experience of the Mass.
“and we do not put ourselves into the presence of God.”
And neither do you put me into the presence of God. You have nothing to do with it. Leave me alone; maintain a reverent silence, and allow me to ignore you.
“God draws us to himself, and he usually does so through the mystical body of Christ—in other words, through his Church.”
Usually? Really? You’ve counted? God draws people to him any way He pleases, and in my experience greeters have driven more people away from the Church than they ever drew to it.
“That means that there is a communal aspect to the Mass.”
No, it doesn’t. Bad theology. Bad liturgy.
Thank-you for your sharing and God Bless.