Christmas

Christmas, oh excuse me, the Holiday season (I don't want to offend anyone). Yeah, right.

Christmas is 12 days and is coming to a close. The celebration of the birth of our Lord and Saviour has 4 more days for us to celebrate. No I don't mean dancing around the Altar with a monstrance, nor do I mean a praise dance in the sanctuary with big puppets. I mean adoration of our most Blessed Lord in the Holy Eucharist, attending Mass, prayer, fasting and visiting with our love'd ones. This leads me to something now!

This Christmas, the Sisters of Mercy's Chapel, which is where the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the Extraordinary Form is prayed, was being renovated, no one would have them, so I attended the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in the vernacular. This time I witnessed one of the first Masses I have attended in the vernacular, where the black was said and the red was done...in a while. Though, a few things kept bugging me. Now, the church was packed full and this was probably the most the church will be filled until next Christmas now, but...a few things bother me when people bring their children to Mass. Now, I love to see children at Mass, and I think every parent should bring their child to Mass - it's worth the effort, BUT, Mass is not  a fast-food resteraunt, nor is it a lavatory. The bathroom in the church is in the sacristy--what a wonderful place to put it, eh? The sacristy is past where the altar-rail used to be (why it was removed is beyond me), so it is partially in the sanctuary. Children kept running up and down, back and forth from the bathroom, sometimes twice or thrice. I don't blame the children. Where are the parents? Are they asleep? Keep your kids focuses at the Holy Sacrifice! The Priest, God Bless his soul, was an elderly man. He was retired. I could see his anger in his face. The Priest was doing an absolutely lovely job, and was obviously a very devout man. But, the poor little children were driving him crackers. He didn't say anything about it though. Another thing is this: LEAVE the FOOD AT HOME. THERE IS NO, absolutely NO NEED for food at the Holy Sacrifice! Do you need something to keep your lovely children quite? Bring along a nice little book about the Mass or a childrens Missal! Maybe a pair of Rosary beads! Children are the future of our church, and if parents don;t teach them right and proper manners at the Holy Sacrifice, what will they do when they're older! This is why I don't attend the vernacular too often because some people who go to it just go, to go to Mass with no devotion, or nothing. Now this is just where I live and I know that not all the people who go to the vernacular go, just to go. But, the people who go to the Latin Mass go out of true love and devotion of Our Lord and Saviour! Because, they want to get to heaven! Let me repeat I am not making a generalisation about the people who attend the vernacular, because there is absolutely nothing wrong at all with the vernacular! At all! I even go now and then! Though, I do have a preference for the Tridentine Rite, but the vernacular said by the book can be absolutely mystifying! Like how His Holiness says it: with true devotion and purpose! God Bless!