In some pilgrim churches, I believe they also used a gentler "feather tickling stick" to wake up snoozers.
Posted on 08/27/2015 1:31:50 PM PDT by NYer
Ping!
Very interesting. I assume he’s suggesting that most of the congregation should stand, when they are not kneeling.
I can see my teenagers’ insisting on bringing lawn chairs to Mass.
Ivy on walls and such is destructible. Better it stays on the ground or structures meant for it.
Pews - how can one ‘slide over’ to allow others to sit if the pew is upholstered - ??
Always a pleasure to read anything by Fr. Rutler.
I can see a lot of teenagers simply staying in bed.
I am very happy to have a swivel chair to sit in during Sunday service when I run the church sound system. If I had to stand, I would end up bending over at nearly 90 degrees for the service.
Our church has names on the back of the pews. There are small plaques listing who paid (donated funds) for the pew when the church was built many decades ago. These are not to indicated who “owned” the pew and was allowed to sit there, but just a little memorial of who provided a sitting place instead of having to stand in church because there were no seats.
We usually don’t go to Mass until 1:00 p.m. I’m the leader of the Spanish choir.
Fr. Rutler seems to be envisioning quite a bit of milling about. I can see some advantages: you could just let your 3-year-old wander ... either she’d come back on her own, or someone would hand her back before you drove off after church.
I may offer this as a suggestion to our Building Planning committee. It would certainly be different!
Perhaps one reason why pews were a Protestant “innovation” is that Sunday services in many of the denominations, like the non-conformists in 17th century England and Puritans in America, went on for hours on a Sunday. It wasn’t show up, genuflect, hear a couple hymns, a homily, take communion, and you’re gone. Most of the Sunday was spent in the church. So in those circumstances having the congregation seated was advisable. Although a downside, besides those listed by this author, may have been the occasional sound of a snoring miscreant who enjoyed his Saturday evening a bit too well to make it through the next day’s marathon.
I need to not agree in regards to the above article.
When you pray, you can knee, or stand, or even sit. The pews are a needed blessing.
The puritan church service was a all day affair...with a break for lunch...
They had a assigned deacon to walk down the aisles during service and take a gourd on the end of a long stick to knock you in the head if you fell asleep...
Isn't that what they already do?
Especially for us 'seniors' ;-)
Pews are a decidedly Western innovation and are rare to unknown in many Orthodox countries. Here in the United States one will often find them in Orthodox churches purchased from Protestants or Catholics. Also the Greek Archdiocese and the Antiochians seem to have adopted their use. But the Russians Serbs and Jerusalem patriarchate generally shy away from them, though it is not uncommon to find a few chairs or benches near the church walls for the elderly and infirm. Pews are often criticized as being contrary to the Orthodox Praxis because the ordinary posture for worship is standing. Prostrations are also very difficult in a church with pews though I note that kneeling is a penitential act and prohibited by church canons on Sundays and during the forty days following Easter. See the below link for a pewless church.
http://orthodox360.com/tours/stnicholas-dc/
It would be worth studying to become a deacon to get that job.
“It wasn’t show up, genuflect, hear a couple hymns, a homily, take communion, and you’re gone. Most of the Sunday was spent in the church.”
Catholics in ages gone by spent “Most of...Sunday...in...church”. They just did it on their knees on the hard floor or standing. Churches were the center of life in villages, towns and cities. People were in the all day and into the night often for hours at a time. When you read of people praying the rosary in church that was often a full rosary. That alone took about 45 minutes. Add Mass - the OLD MASS - to that and you’re talking about well over two hours right there is the sermon was relatively short. The Melkite liturgy is often three hours long. No pews.
In some pilgrim churches, I believe they also used a gentler "feather tickling stick" to wake up snoozers.
When Pope Francis goes to Philadelphia in September, I guess he will do what Pope John Paul II did when he went to Philadelphia many years ago, and celebrate an outdoor Mass along "Ben Franklin Parkway", where most people present will be standing for the whole Mass (other than some people in wheel chairs, and maybe some people in folding chairs they carry there, if they can find a space to use them).
And that’s after six hard days working in the fields. Point taken :-) Good to also recall that until the sixteenth century all our ancestors, if we’re of European stock, were either Catholic or Orthodox. I attended an Easter service at a Coptic church in Cairo once. All standing and kneeling on the stone floor. And I did enjoy the good Friar’s article. The great cathedrals in Europe are magnificent, with not a permanent pew in sight. Pity is except for the tourists and on holidays they’re usually all but empty.
However, I think I come down on the "Like" side of the pew question!
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