I really don’t like holding hands during prayers, but in my parents’ church the other parishioners get offended if you don’t do it. Except for the time that I sneezed right before the Our Father. No one wanted to hold hands with me after that.
I’m not a churchgoer – I can count the masses I’ve attended in the last few years on one hand – but I’ve noticed that all of the altar attendants in my parents’ church are girls. I thought that was kind of cool.
Speaking of getting updated on innovations: I was on a Catholic thread on another message board and learned that a few years ago, JP2 added a whole new set of five Mysteries to the Rosary. Who knew? How do you Rosary practitioners feel about that? When I read the list, I was surprised. The new Mysteries are focused on Jesus rather than Mary, and in some of them Mary doesn’t appear at all. Especially considering he had a reputation as the most Mary-devoted pope in modern times, to see Mysteries of Mary that don’t even include her felt a bit odd and off-putting.
sunfish, the cool purple stoles and things in that Almy catalog you linked to are so gorgeous they are almost enough to make me rejoin the Church. If they let me wear that stole shown on the homepage and be one of the lectern ladies. I could liturgical dance too. My friend teaches a class in it. Umm… they’re cool with transsexuals, aren’t they? I’m afraid to ask.
Last year I was representing my coven at an ecumenical service for Pagan Pride Day, and the ritual circle was cast by members of a Pagan church all in elaborate ecclesiastical robes, I’m talking Full Catholic drag. They looked ready to concelebrate High Mass. You wouldn’t believe the number of ex-Protestant Pagans who have told me wistfully, “You were Catholic? I wished I could have been, for the rituals and all…” I can hardly believe all the ex-Catholics who predominate in my coven, even though we don’t do the robes and fancy stuff, we wear ordinary clothes and as for rituals we’re informal and like lots of drumming. When I got with them it was like a reunion of Catholic school kids grown up.
As for drumming during worship, I have read about the Ethiopians who rocked the Vatican with their drums at Mass. Any drumming Catholics around here? In Sicily there’s a folk custom of drummers going house to house on Easter and drumming outside the front door of anyone who had donated to the church during the year, as a public honor.
I was surprised to see the “Lumoinous Mysteries” when I went to the shrine bookstore on Easter. Here is the full list:
The Joyful Mysteries (Said on Mondays, Saturdays, Sundays of Advent, and Sundays from Epiphany until Lent)
The Luminous Mysteries
(Said on Thursdays throughout the year)
The Sorrowful Mysteries
(Said on Tuesdays, Fridays, and daily from Ash Wednesday until Easter Sunday)
The Glorious Mysteries
(Said on Wednesdays, and Sundays throughout the year)
So I guess the sorrowful mysteries always had more to do with Jesus, although Mary was present for the Crucifixion.
Luminous Mysteries? That’s a new one. I’ve never heard of it, but Korean Catholic churches a bit different (from American churches, anyway). Koreans still wear veils during Mass and would faint at the very idea of holding hands. They don’t even shake hands when they say “Peace be with you.”
I consider myself a fallen-away Catholic, but I still love going to Mass. The international church I go to here in Seoul is pretty small and is on the informal side, which I have mixed feelings about. I don’t mind holding hands during the Our Father, but what really bugs me is when the choir claps hands and plays the tambourine during hymns. Or when they select “bouncy” versions of certain prayers (the Gloria, the “Lamb of God…Have mercy on us” bit, etc). It annoys me to no end. I think it may be a cultural difference though - our choir director used to be Polish, and back then the songs were more solemn, but now the director and half our choir members are Filipino.