When I speak to young adults about why they have left the Church, they often say something about the homily. The preaching is boring. It's unrelatable. It's long. It's like listening to insider baseball. It's like a terrible essay with no organizational structure.
Wedged between the First Reading and Second Reading at Sunday Mass (or between the First Reading and Gospel at daily Mass) is a small reading known as the Responsorial Psalm. If you attend Mass today, for example, you will hear:
And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host, praising God and saying, “Glory to God in the highest and on earth peace to those on whom his favor rests.” (Lk 2: 13–14)
In the celebration of the liturgy, the Glory to God occupies a unique place. On the one hand, it is a response: we have just participated in the Penitential Act by recalling and confessing our sinfulness ...
Silence is not a common feature in my life. As a musician I am rarely without a song in my head, and this song can find its way out of my mind even with the slightest prompting—if a word, phrase, or chord progression resembles something in a song I love, I begin a full rendition. I’ve been known to accidentally hum in class absentmindedly, much to the dismay of my teachers. Heck, I even talk in my...
“In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.”
The people have already come into the church (well, most of them have arrived). Individual practices are everywhere. Some genuflect before taking their pew. Some bow solemnly before the altar, then sit. Others wave to friends and family and start to make small talk while mindlessly half-genuflecting and then sitting to make a cursory prayer. In just a few moments, however, these people will be rec...
At the heart of Catholic life is the celebration of the Mass. This does not mean that Catholics' only purpose in the world is to attend Mass regularly. Catholics serve the poor. They join together with one another in informal prayer. They hang out at bars and talk about theology.
