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Author Topic: Mass participation?  (Read 1167 times)

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Offline AnthonyPadua

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Mass participation?
« on: November 06, 2025, 06:15:41 PM »
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    • What does it truly mean to partake in the mass?

    Is it following along with the missal?

    Saying your own prayers and offering them up with the mass?

    Praying the Rosary during mass?

    How can one be paying attention to the mass and praying without those prayers being a distraction from the mass?

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    Online Mat183

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #1 on: November 06, 2025, 07:05:05 PM »
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    • The following is found on p. 2 of the article at St. Padre Pio – Our Lady of the Rosary Library:

    " Meditation aims at the love of God and neighbor. Love God with all your soul without reserve, and love your neighbor as yourself, and you will have accomplished half of your meditation.”

    The same holds for assisting at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: it is more concerned with making acts (of contrition, Faith, love …) than with intellectual reflections or considerations. To someone asking whether it is necessary to follow the Mass in a missal, Padre Pio answered that only the priest needs a missal. According to him, the best way to attend the Holy Sacrifice is by uniting oneself to the Virgin of Sorrows at the foot of the cross, in compassion and love. It is only in Paradise, he assures his interlocutor, that we will learn of all the benefits that we received by assisting at Holy Mass."
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    Offline Angelus

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #2 on: November 06, 2025, 07:26:26 PM »
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    • Praying the prayers in the Missal will give you the best understanding of what the Mass is about. You will begin to have a deeper love for what Jesus did for us if you pray them.

    Those prayers were chosen by the Holy Spirit to guide the priest in performing his perfect oblation to God. So if you can pray them, why not do it?
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    Offline St Giles

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #3 on: November 06, 2025, 08:36:27 PM »
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    • St. Pius X said to pray the Mass. I do like to follow along the prayers. I don't do it perfectly, some I pause on or modify if I'm recalling intentions to pray for or meditating on something. I try to follow the offertory prayers mainly, and the ones after the consecration, and of course the Collect, Secret, and Post Communion.

    There are books about how to attend Mass. Surely meditating on the Passion of Christ and the purpose of the Mass/sacrifice is a good thing to do. One short book to start with is The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass by Fr. Mateo Crawley-Boevey, SS.CC.
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    Offline SimonJude

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #4 on: November 06, 2025, 08:40:27 PM »
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    • Quote from: AnthonyPadua on November 06, 2025, 06:15:41 PM
    What does it truly mean to partake in the mass?

    Is it following along with the missal?

    Saying your own prayers and offering them up with the mass?

    Praying the Rosary during mass?

    How can one be paying attention to the mass and praying without those prayers being a distraction from the mass?
    Catholic teaching emphasizes "full, conscious, and active participation" in Mass, which is both an internal spiritual commitment and an external physical one.

    Saints emphasize that this involves the mind and heart being engaged, praying with the priest, and uniting with the communal liturgy through gestures, singing, and responding. It is not merely about performing external tasks, but about a conscious, full, and interior engagement with the sacrifice of the Mass and the grace it provides.

    "It is not a matter of saying one’s prayers at Mass, but of making the Mass one’s prayer." - Pope St Pius X

    “If you wish to participate in the Mass actively, you must follow with your eye, heart and mouth all that happens on the altar. Further, you must pray with the priest the holy words said by him in the Name of Christ”. - Pope St Pius X
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    Online Mat183

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #5 on: Today at 03:12:13 AM »
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    • Quote from: Mat183 on November 06, 2025, 07:05:05 PM
    The following is found on p. 2 of the article at St. Padre Pio – Our Lady of the Rosary Library:

    " Meditation aims at the love of God and neighbor. Love God with all your soul without reserve, and love your neighbor as yourself, and you will have accomplished half of your meditation.”

    The same holds for assisting at the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass: it is more concerned with making acts (of contrition, Faith, love …) than with intellectual reflections or considerations. To someone asking whether it is necessary to follow the Mass in a missal, Padre Pio answered that only the priest needs a missal. According to him, the best way to attend the Holy Sacrifice is by uniting oneself to the Virgin of Sorrows at the foot of the cross, in compassion and love. It is only in Paradise, he assures his interlocutor, that we will learn of all the benefits that we received by assisting at Holy Mass."

    Interesting juxtaposition when we place the reported counsel of the only priest in the history of the Catholic Church who was known for countless miracles and is said to have been the only one in the history of that same Church to ever have the full stigmata in the hands, feet and side alongside the reported words of Pope St. Pius X: "“If you wish to participate in the Mass actively, you must follow with your eye, heart and mouth all that happens on the altar. Further, you must pray with the priest the holy words said by him in the Name of Christ”. 

    Query as to whether we are somehow supposed to believe that vast numbers of Catholics just somehow gained a greater capacity to "participate in the Mass actively" only after the coming of the invention of the printing press that only came well over a 1,000 years after the Mass came into existence.
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    Offline Archkanzler

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #6 on: Today at 11:57:05 AM »
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    • The best way to assist at the Mass is whichever way helps a person to pray best. Missals are good because they help you to know what is occurring and being said during the Mass, but it profits you nothing to just mindlessly read along, becoming annoyed when you fall out of pace with the priest, not contemplating the mysteries. So yes, you can use a missal to pray during the Mass, but the key there is to pray, not just follow along. Countless prayerbooks have been published with good private devotions during the Mass, prayers to direct your intentions. There is also, of course, the pious custom of praying the Rosary during the Mass. These are all well and pious practices, but the key is to actually pray, whether that be following your missal, praying the Rosary, or some other pious set of devotions. So pray the Mass in whichever way benefits you most, but take care to actually pray.
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    Offline SimpleMan

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #7 on: Today at 12:15:27 PM »
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    • Quote from: Mat183 on Today at 03:12:13 AM
    Interesting juxtaposition when we place the reported counsel of the only priest in the history of the Catholic Church who was known for countless miracles and is said to have been the only one in the history of that same Church to ever have the full stigmata in the hands, feet and side alongside the reported words of Pope St. Pius X: "“If you wish to participate in the Mass actively, you must follow with your eye, heart and mouth all that happens on the altar. Further, you must pray with the priest the holy words said by him in the Name of Christ”.
    Holy as he was, Padre Pio was not the magisterium, and had no authority to bind people in conscience to his particular point of view on a matter such as this.

    This said, as of late, I have begun doing what he describes, except for the words of consecration and those words surrounding it.  It's up to the individual.
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    Offline HeidtXtreme

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #8 on: Today at 01:22:01 PM »
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    • Quote from: SimpleMan on Today at 12:15:27 PM
    Holy as he was, Padre Pio was not the magisterium, and had no authority to bind people in conscience to his particular point of view on a matter such as this.

    This said, as of late, I have begun doing what he describes, except for the words of consecration and those words surrounding it.  It's up to the individual.
    Is it wrong to silently say the words of Consecration and preceding/succeeding prayers when following in your missal?
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    Online Twice dyed

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #9 on: Today at 02:07:32 PM »
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    • Daily missals are in a sense "modern".  When the Church was at its greatest epoch( c.  XII - XIV Centuries) the faithful had no daily missals, and we are still bewildered seeing their Faith /accomplishments.
    The four Ends of the Sacrifice of the Mass are what is essential:
    Adoration, Thanksgiving,  Atonement, Impetration.

    A great secret re: Liturgical Services is this : only do one thing at a time.
    For example, when adoring Our Lord at the Consecration, don't strike your breast as a sort of sorrow for our sins etc...If it's time to adore, simply adore. Or refrain from praying the rosary when the Gospel is said. You stand for the Gospel because it is God's Word and you approve .
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    The measure of love is to love without measure.
                                     St. Augustine (354 - 430 AD)

    Online Mat183

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #10 on: Today at 04:41:20 PM »
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    • Quote from: HeidtXtreme on Today at 01:22:01 PM
    Is it wrong to silently say the words of Consecration and preceding/succeeding prayers when following in your missal?

    Of course, not!
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    Offline SimpleMan

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #11 on: Today at 04:58:39 PM »
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    • Quote from: HeidtXtreme on Today at 01:22:01 PM
    Is it wrong to silently say the words of Consecration and preceding/succeeding prayers when following in your missal?
    I wouldn't go so far as to say it is wrong, but as a matter of piety, I choose not to do it.  If others choose to do so, that is their business.  I know no one in the TLM universe would ever be under the impression that they somehow add something to the consecration, or even help to confer it, by so doing.  In Novus Ordo Land, I wouldn't be so sure.
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    Offline songbird

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #12 on: Today at 05:19:11 PM »
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    • I continue to see people using cell phones, not missals.  I do think this is nasty!
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    Offline SimpleMan

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #13 on: Today at 05:34:19 PM »
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    • Quote from: songbird on Today at 05:19:11 PM
    I continue to see people using cell phones, not missals.  I do think this is nasty!
    If it's a delivery system, if you will, for a missal, how is there a problem with that?  I've done that in a pinch.

    It's the same missal, just in a different format.   At one time, hand missals were a new thing too.
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    Online Twice dyed

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    Re: Mass participation?
    « Reply #14 on: Today at 05:41:39 PM »
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    • Ten years ago a neoSspx priest was praying almost all his breviary using an electronic tablet, ...you're right, songbird - electronics in official prayer probably ain't Trad. 
    At home I use  the computer for praying all those wonderful devotions posted on CI .
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    The measure of love is to love without measure.
                                     St. Augustine (354 - 430 AD)
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