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You don't consider praying "participatory"? Do you attend Mass in order to be entertained or amused?

There are people out there who honestly feel like they have to be doing something in order to participate. That will eventually even out. There will be those that do and those that don't, just like now.

As an under -35 post Vatican II brat, what I see as encouraging is that in every parish I go, the EEMs are al gray and there are no new volunteers. The folk music is NOT sung by congregations, by contast the traditional songs and chant are. They're a lot easier to sing, anyway (and as someone who does Beethoven, Mozart and Puccini weekly I can say that with a fair amount of confidence).

What people who were are 15-40 years older than me don't like to hear is that the many of us who are younger are not interested in being progressive, but more conservative. We had a talk about it the other night and my mother was appalled that my grandmother likes EWTN, Mother Angelica and company. My mother also like liturgical dance and OCP. (we butt heads a lot)

That being said, here in St. Louis, where we have a conservative "cold fish" for an archbishop, who wasted no time cleaning house last year, we have over 50 seminarians. This is not a big archdiocese and there is only one Latin Mass. It's that the orthodoxy in teaching is there. That's what we young people want.

You don't consider praying "participatory"? Do you attend Mass in order to be entertained or amused?

Don't get me started! The Novus Ordo mass is built around participation by the congregation. In the Liturgy of the Word, it is the congregation that "prays" through the Responsorial Psalms.

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good,
for his mercy endures forever.
Let the house of Israel say,
"His mercy endure forever."

In the Tridentine Rite, the priest prays, the altar boys give the responses and the choir sings. It is so disconcerting to sit in a church where each congregant is doing his own thing ... some are following along in the missal, others are praying the rosary.

The mass should arouse our souls and lift them heavenward, reminding us of God's eternal promise. It has been said that the greatest form of prayer is song. My voice may not be the best, but I have been choked by emotions, at times, by the music WE sing at the mass.

Shepherd me, O God, beyond my wants, beyond my fears, from death into life.

God is my shepherd, so nothing shall I want. I rest in the meadows of faithfulnss and love. I walk by the quiet waters of peace.

Gently you raise me and heal my weary soul. You lead me by pathways of righteousness and truth, my spirit shall sing the music of your Name.

Though I should wander the valley of death, I fear no evil, for you are at my side, your rod and yur staff, my comfort and my hope.

I'll grant you that nothing surpasses the Midnight mass in the Latin vulgate especially the Litany of the Saints. Here again, the congregation "participates" through their response of "Ora Pro Nobis".

As for the entertainment aspect of the mass, that is a very crude suggestion on your part. If your soul is moved by watching a priest say a mass, then good for you. As for me, my spirit is moved by an active participation in the mass. It is enjoined with that of my Creator and lifted, for that hour, to a higher plane.

We can discuss this ad infinitum ... and never reach a consensus. I have found the mass the draws me closer to God and it is the one said in my parish at 11am each Sunday, with the choir. Still others find it in the more contemporary approach to music. Most importantly, we are following the REAL mass, as given by Christ through His vicar on earth, the pope.