Oh, I assure you, many Southern Protestant weddings have PLENTY of booze. I was shocked that at some of those Yankee weddings there was a cash bar. I’d never heard of such a thing!
Cradle Catholic 60 years old. I don’t hold hands, I don’t raise hands (reminds me of playing London Bridge as a kid) and I dislike the sign of peace. It’s artificial and comes at a rather solemn part of the Mass.
Just sit when we kneel, stand when we stand, and don’t go to Communion. You may find some of the hymns are familiar, so go ahead and sing if you want. Catholics are very used to nonCatholics at weddings and funerals and won’t think a thing about it.
Hmm, I would recommend kneeling right before the communion (you do know you’re not supposed to take communion, right?) when the priest first takes out the host until communion starts. If I remember correctly, everyone is standing at the time, so if you’re short you might not notice what’s going on … Another approach is to kneel every time, for about 15 seconds, and then gracefully back up into the seat. This is 2.0, though.
The one thing you must never do - other than take communion - is lean all the way back in the pew when everyone else is kneeling.
My family is the only Protestant family in our extended family…the rest are Catholics, so I have lots of Catholic wedding experience. Stand when they stand, sit when they kneel, don’t plow ahead through the last words of the Lord’s Prayer (no “for thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, forever and ever”. They stop at “deliver us from Evil”.), don’t even THINK about taking Communion, and no genuflecting.
No, but it would still be appreciated if you do some gesture of extra respect. In your case, Sampiro, simply means being polite, but I’ve been in one funeral in which someone started texting while the priest was casting water on the bier… the cellphone didn’t get used as a proctology tool but it was seized by that ultimate authority, the culprit’s mother.
Catholics aren’t required to kneel or stand, either; you’re supposed to, but you do get a pass for medical reasons which may include anything from a bad hip to an ear infection which makes you woozy, so someone who remains seated isn’t any kind of scandal - or rather, anybody who finds it a scandal needs to go back to Sunday School 101.
Oh, baloney, a non-Catholic can genuflect. The Catholic Church doesn’t have a trademark or a copyright on that prayer.
~VOW
Some Protestants kneel. I had to kneel directly on the wooden floor with my elbows on a wooden chair every time some brother wanted to pray. That was like a dozen times in two hours. Prayer meetings meant an hour and a half on my knees. Of course my dad made me go each and every time.
So I had no problem kneeling on a padded plank at a Catholic wedding I once attended. Or it may have been an Anglican wedding.
A question: we genuflect to the Body of Christ. Why/when would someone who doesn’t believe the Body of Christ is present genuflect?
Exactly my experience. I was raised Protestant, and when Catholic friends did their first communion, got married, had their kids baptized, etc. I remained seated while the Catholics kneeled.
As for genuflecting, no. It is not a part of my tradition, so I never did it in a Catholic church (and never in my church either, whether we were taking Communion or not). Holy water and genuflecting have no part in my religious tradition, so when I enter a Catholic church, I ignore them. Of course, I do not get in the way of those who adhere to those religious requirements and traditions.
Still, that does not mean that I can disrespect the traditions of Catholic (or other Christian) churches. Typically, when it’s time to stand, I’ll stand; when it is time to sing a hymn, I’ll sing; and when there’s a responsive reading, I’ll read; but when (say) Catholics are kneeling, I won’t. My particular Christian sect (Presbyterian) did not kneel or genuflect to God.
The one and only Catholic mass I went to, no one kneeled. It was explained to me that it was because it was a small building and there wasn’t enough room with the folding chairs for kneeling. Everyone just sat down.
I did notice that, if you pay attention, you can actually arrive at a standing or sitting position at the same time as everyone else, even if you aren’t paying attention to the little schedule.
Robert A. Heinlein is such an insufferable, self-indulgent p*&#k. The locals are all :rolleyes: .
I used to kneel because, though a heretic, I did believe the Body of Christ was present. Now I don’t believe and I’d probably sit, just not to distract anyone.
To Nava:
Respect.
~VOW
Maybe it’s a cultural difference, but seeing someone who I know does not believe in transubstantiation genuflect would be as offensive to me as seeing someone who I know is not a Muslim get down on his knees behind a group of praying Muslims and imitate their gestures. A minipoll has produced similar responses from my mother and one of my brothers.
The reason Catholics genuflect on crossing the main aisle is that we’re passing in front of the Real Presence in the tabernacle. If one doesn’t believe that the Real Presence is in the consecrated elements, then genuflecting is inappropriate, not because that person is mocking Catholic belief, but because that person has no reason to genuflect. That it’s inappropriate doesn’t mean that it’s offensive, especially if it’s done out of ignorance rather than malice. I wouldn’t expect a non-Catholic who has not received a Catholic education to know WHY Catholics genuflect in the first place (why would they even know what or where the tabernacle WAS, let alone what’s in it?).
Similarly, you wouldn’t expect a non-Catholic to dip his hand in the holy water and make the sign of the cross upon entering the church.
I’d have knelt - it’s not as though kneeling for prayer is purely a Catholic thing. But Catholic masses are very confusing for the uninitiated, so I might have given up like you if others around me were doing the same. Doesn’t sound like anyone was offended, so it’s all good.
I wish someone had told me this when I was a kid. I took communion a few times then, despite not being Catholic - the first time I thought the communion line was the line for the door, and then it seemed to be expected of me to do it again - and I even went on a Catholic youth group retreat where I took communion from the Archbishop and just plucked the tiny wafer out of his fingers and said I’d save it for later. :smack:
Lapsed Catholic here. I’d say if you do not kneel, people will just assume you’re a non-Catholic attending the service as a friend or whatever - in other words, exactly what you are. Nobody will be offended.
However, from a logistical standpoint, if you’re sitting, the person kneeling behind you will not have any place to rest their folded hands; we typically will have our folded hands resting on the back of the pew in front of us when kneeling.
For that reason, it’d be nice to at least sit forward a little bit. You can also kneel, but not fully upright - i.e. with your backside resting against the front edge of your pew.
I generally do not kneel, partly because my knees aren’t as young as they used to be, partly because my feet are so big that there usually isn’t room for them, and mostly because I am in the choir, and just can’t sing from that position.
If you were CofE and depending on who you ask it would have been valid, but from your explanation it sounds as if you didn’t know what it was. Bad hosts, and I don’t mean the wafers…
Yep, just rude! And I’m from Illinois! Offer your guests what you can afford, they’re not paying customers! Or they shouldn’t be!
It’s a rare Catholic marriage that doesn’t have non-Catholics there, so as long as you’re respectful it’s all good.