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A New Priest
Jul. 10th, 2005 03:02 pmI'm 17 years old and I've had many struggles with faith and the church, but I've found that going by myself to Noon Mass at a church very near my house calms my mind and helps me cope with whatever else is going on. The mass is usually quiet and rarely well attended, and has become an important part of my life.
In the Archdiocese of Boston it's new priest season, and we lost a guy that I didn't like much but was loved by almost everyone else in the Parish. His replacement is a person who just got out of the Seminary, despite being older than the average newbie.
This man started by adding things to the Mass. It's the Roman Missle, the Pope can't change it without fighting with the Congregation for Divine Worship, but this man is adding any number of things that aren't in my copy, including a supplication after the petitions that ends with the whole congregation saying the Hail Mary.
He feels the need to sing everything even though there is no chior or deacon or cantor and the congregation has about 200 people in a 550 seat church, many of them old or from a home for the severely mentally handicapped, who cannot sing the responses at all, let alone sing them well.
His homily, on the day we read the parable of the sower, was about stem cell research, and while I tried to close my eyes, pray, and ignore him, I kept coming back to "You are turning my father's house into a den of thieves" and lamenting the fact I wasn't wearing a belt.
We used the Eucharistic Prayer I (The Roman Cannon) where you invoke the Saints, only he skipped that bit. He had the book there in front of him, but felt it was acceptable to not say the names of any actual Saints when they are clearly listed as part of the prayer.
He also yelled at the altar server. It was his first time (We only started the new ones a few weeks ago) and he had no older server with him, so the kid forgot a few things that shouldn't have been such a big deal and he got yelled at by a man who's been a priest for all of a week.
Phew. That was cathartic. The point is that by the time for communion I was so angry that I didn't go, and I lost my quiet little time to be with God.
So...what should I do?
In the Archdiocese of Boston it's new priest season, and we lost a guy that I didn't like much but was loved by almost everyone else in the Parish. His replacement is a person who just got out of the Seminary, despite being older than the average newbie.
This man started by adding things to the Mass. It's the Roman Missle, the Pope can't change it without fighting with the Congregation for Divine Worship, but this man is adding any number of things that aren't in my copy, including a supplication after the petitions that ends with the whole congregation saying the Hail Mary.
He feels the need to sing everything even though there is no chior or deacon or cantor and the congregation has about 200 people in a 550 seat church, many of them old or from a home for the severely mentally handicapped, who cannot sing the responses at all, let alone sing them well.
His homily, on the day we read the parable of the sower, was about stem cell research, and while I tried to close my eyes, pray, and ignore him, I kept coming back to "You are turning my father's house into a den of thieves" and lamenting the fact I wasn't wearing a belt.
We used the Eucharistic Prayer I (The Roman Cannon) where you invoke the Saints, only he skipped that bit. He had the book there in front of him, but felt it was acceptable to not say the names of any actual Saints when they are clearly listed as part of the prayer.
He also yelled at the altar server. It was his first time (We only started the new ones a few weeks ago) and he had no older server with him, so the kid forgot a few things that shouldn't have been such a big deal and he got yelled at by a man who's been a priest for all of a week.
Phew. That was cathartic. The point is that by the time for communion I was so angry that I didn't go, and I lost my quiet little time to be with God.
So...what should I do?
