I (a Protestant) was leaving Mass once, shaking hands with the priest, yada yada. When my turn came, he shook my hand and said “Bless you, my child.” Not knowing what to say, I said the first thing that came to mind. “Right back at ya, padre!” :smack:
Just kidding!
As a Protestant, in Ireland, with a Catholic grandmother, I’ve done this A LOT.
As everyone else said, do what everyone else does and unless you have a real physical handicap, kneeling is the done thing.
If you don’t know the words, or don’t want to say them, either mumble or stay silent. No one will say anything.
As for blessing yourself, genuflecting etc, if you want to do it, no one will take offense, if you don’t, likewise.
Catholics tend to be quite happy with “I’m not Catholic” as an explanation for any weird behaviour, and are unlikely to try and convert you.
The one thing you MUST NOT do is to take Communion. It would be highly disrespectful of their beliefs for someone who was not a baptised or confirmed Catholic to take mass. You may believe it’s just bread and wine or a silly ritual, they don’t.
(Catholics are free to take Communion in Protestant churches, but the RCC would not approve if they did.)
The Holy water there is so that you dip in your fingers in and make the Sign of the Cross. Whatever you do, do NOT dip your entire hand in (like I used to when I was very little.)
Sign of the Corss: In the name of the Father (forehead), Son (chest), and the Holy (left shoulder), Spirit (right shoulder).
The Orthodox also do the Sign of the Cross, but they reverse the order of the shoulders.
For the love of God, don’t show up at the church with a list of 95 theses that you want to debate with the priest or anyone else in authority.
That’s been so overdone.
Well, I can’t agree there. That’d be like saying that scientific questions ought to be decided by popular vote.
How To Be A Perfect Stranger is a good book that covers this and similar questions.
Oh, and even if it is your birthday, don’t blow out the candles.
Behave respectfully wherever you are. Whether you understand or not, respect those who do.
Hope I’m not hijacking… I was riding a bus one day, and there was a Mexican (and presumably Catholic) woman sitting across from me. As the bus passed the local Catholic church building, this lady crossed herself. What’s up with that?
I don’t know whether this is a common practice, but I’ve been invited at my family’s church to be blessed in lieu of communion. Those who wish to are asked to stand in the line for communion and cross their arms in front of their chest when they get to the front. This gives the priest a cue to put down the sacrament and give a blessing instead.
This appears to be a new practice, at least around here. I’ve only started seeing people do this within the past year or two.
It’s intended as a sign of respect as you pass by the church, in the same way one is supposed to genuflect towards the altar before getting into a pew inside the church itself. In my heavily Irish neighborhood, a fair number of the older generation still do it.
Side note of interest: the reason we genuflect towards the altar is to show reverence to Christ, whose Real Presence is reserved in the tabernacle.
If the Blessed Sacrament is NOT reserved in a tabernacle on the altar, then you should NOT genuflect. I have seen people on Good Friday (when the tabernacle is empty) still make the habitual genuflection, and a good friend of mine observed wryly: “What are they revering? And if they don’t understand that the tabernacle being empty means they should not be genulfecting… then what have they been revering on all the other days, when it’s not empty?”
My Mexican wife does that every time we pass a Catholic church (or a church that looks Catholic!) or a cemetary. Just their custom, I guess. She does it before takeoff all the time, too.
When we go to Catholic church, I rise and sit with the crowd, but I do not get down on my knees. I just sit there on the pew feeling obvious. When communion starts, we wait until our row (usually towards the back) files out, and we head for the exit. She says we miss the blessing that way, though…
How to Be a Perfect Stranger: The Essential Religious Etiquette Handbook, 3rd Edition
((Yes they cover Each Christian Denomination))
Personally I hate it when you get to the Lords Prayer, or Nicene Creed, and other like parts in the service, and your timing and or word choice makes you stick out like a sore thumb. :eek: Sins, Transgressions, Debtors, … and is it forever… or forever and ever?
I’m Episcopal, and my Mom is a recent Catholic, along with my Stepdad. Given the similarities between those two denominations, I still don’t recite the Creeds and Prayers.
Drat Someone beat me to it. Oh well.
Perhaps the OP could take the radical step of asking the pastor some time before the service? Any pastor worth their salt should be entirely understanding and explain everything.
The only non-obvious thing to worry about is communion. You can sit (or stand or kneel, as appropriate) through Communion in your pew, you can go up in line and just stay away from the priest, you can approach the priest with your arms crossed for a blessing, but you should not actually take the bread or the wine. Especially do not take the bread and keep it (instead of eating it); this is very strongly frowned upon.
For the sit-stand-kneel calisthenics, just look for someone who knows what they’re doing, and follow their cues. This is what most Catholics do, and when exactly you do what varies somewhat from parish to parish anyway. Should there come a point when half the church is standing and half is kneeling (I’ve seen this happen), the priest will probably give a gentle reminder which it’s supposed to be, or there might be a mention in the liturgy sheets (papers you pick up going into church which say what the readings and songs are). Alternatively, you won’t be conspicuous if you just sit through the whole thing. One might argue that it’s more courteous to do as others around you are, but nobody will take you to task for it if you don’t.
For prayers, songs, and the like, if you know that particular one, feel free to join in, but many folks stay silent: Perhaps three quarters of the church typically joins in the prayers, and less than a quarter typically sing. Given that there are sometimes subtle differences between the Catholic and Protestant versions of a prayer or song, it might be prudent to refrain, but this isn’t a matter of manners so much as of not standing out when you say a different word.
Sneaking out of the church during or after Communion is exceedingly common, for Catholics as well. I think the idea is to get out of the parking lot before everyone else, but at my church, as many people sneak out as stay, so I can’t see that there’s much point. There’s only about five minutes left to the service at this point, so you’re not missing much (mostly just the closing blessing, announcements, and the closing song), but it’s still frowned upon. Many churches also have coffee and donuts or some similar social event (which, of course, you’re completely free to attend or not as you choose) immediately following after the service, and if you leave early, you’ll miss that, too.
Almost every hymnal I’ve ever seen has a copy of these prayers and the creed in it somewhere.
I always wished that more churches would make it welcoming for those who cannot participate in communion.
So instead of sitting alone like outcasts, they should go in line and merely recieve a blessing.