I shopped around until a found a place where the homilies were interesting. The place I go now, the 1st homily I heard from that priest was about justice and forgiveness being at odds. 1st time in a long time I've been going somewhere where the priest doesn't also serve the nearby university population. That's generally been my strategy.

wait, I remember one time now, only it wasn't a catholic mass.

this must've been 8 or 9 years ago. I visited my aunt (self-appointed "black sheep" of the family, who doesn't go to catholic mass anymore, but talks about jesus and god all the time now) and her husband in Cincinnati, and they took me to "their church" which was a non-denominational christian church held in a high school gym, with a pastor who was in his 30's and would play songs with his christian rock band in between prayers and what not. You can probably picture it now.

the pastor kept attacking traditional churches throughout the mass, claiming he was more chill, not as pushy as the guy on the street with a megaphone, the faith healer, the Pat Robertson clone, etc., talking about how it was all about jesus, not fancy cars, and money had nothing to do with it, and I just kept thinking "They're STILL going to ask for money. They're STILL going to ask for money. How are they going to do it? How can he say it with a straight face after all that?" that's the only thing that kept my attention.

and sure enough, near the end, he said "We need contributions in order to keep bringing you this message of christ bla bla bla... there's a tip jar going around..."

If there are drums or electric guitars, I'm out.

I always paid attention. Only time I really tuned out was when the singing started. Never saw the point in singing when prayer and study seemed more appropriate for church.

Gulo Blue said:

If there are drums or electric guitars, I'm out.

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I've been in a catholic mass with a drum set. this was at a church in Birmingham, MI too, so it's not like some weird area.

it was odd... the drummer seemed to believe he was like the Catholic Ginger Baker or something, and played these crazy blues beats on all the hymns. my brother and I were cracking up.

Monster said:

I always paid attention. ...

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michchamp said:

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I don't go to church anymore, but I used to.

I used to try....but Catholic Mass is sooo long it's pretty hard not to get bored and daydream a bit as a kid/teen.

When I was married I went to a few of my wife's family's Pentecostal services, and found I had to try really hard not to laugh at some of the gyrating and Elvis-style moves the preacher pulled off when the "Holy Spirit" came into him. Also everyone there cries during services for some reason.

you were married to a pentecostal... how did that happen?

Monster said:

I always paid attention. Only time I really tuned out was when the singing started. Never saw the point in singing when prayer and study seemed more appropriate for church.

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You should have been an Orthodox Jew in that case. Of course some prayers are meant to be sung, such as Psalms...but it honestly only seems to work when sung in Hebrew. I don't understand Hebrew, mind you...but it just flows when done correctly.

Still, the singing is done without any instruments. Only "instrument" played to my knowledge is when they blow the shofar (ram's horn) on the High Holidays, but it is not "musical", more like a Morse Code of sorts. LOOOONGG, short, short, short, short, short, short, short, short, short....LOOOOONNNNNGGGGGGG, short, short, short, short, short...and so on.

I'm not a fan of the Orthodoxy as it is almost all in Hebrew, and I just plain suck at English, let alone any other languages, so I'm always lost and just sit there thinking about whatever.
Then again, even when I went to the local Methodist Church where my mom played piano, I pretty much zoned out 90% of the time.

to be fair i have a hard time paying attention to anything that i'm not really interested in. I go to church a few times a year, easter and then maybe once when my kids are singing songs. we send them to a christian preschool, not out of any religious obligation but convenience of location and the fact that it's a good program.

i was there in the fall when the preschoolers sang and the pastor actually laid out some plans for the congregation to go into detroit and adopt a homeless shelter, help people get on their feet, etc. i was digging it, sounded like something jesus would do. i'd volunteer for something like that myself if i didn't have 3 small kids. i used to do stuff like that in Chicago but not as much anymore.

Thumb said:

I used to try....but Catholic Mass is sooo long it's pretty hard not to get bored and daydream a bit as a kid/teen.

When I was married I went to a few of my wife's family's Pentecostal services, and found I had to try really hard not to laugh at some of the gyrating and Elvis-style moves the preacher pulled off when the "Holy Spirit" came into him. Also everyone there cries during services for some reason.

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Pentacostal? Aren't they barely a step removed from snake handlers?

Spartanmack said:

Pentacostal? Aren't they barely a step removed from snake handlers?

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Probably. But in the same respect that all religion is only a step removed from Sun worshipers, it's kind of splitting hairs.

michchamp said:

you were married to a pentecostal... how did that happen?

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Her family was Pentecostal, she was more relaxed christian than anything, did not regularly attend church, didn't mention god often. In the end it only lasted 4.5 years anyways, and one of the issues was the fact I had no belief in god.

I looked forward to Mass when a certain priest celebrated it back in the early 70s, whose name was Father William Geary. His sermons were always about verbally insulting the parishioners due to his firm convictions that they all were racists.

At first some churchgoers would stand up in their pews and just leave the Mass, then they would become enraged and yell back at him. Eventually it got much worse and they began to whip their church missals [missiles...heh!!] at the priest in front of the altar.*

His last Mass before he was transferred out of our parish, was when he invited a black family to attend in an effort to further incite the lily white congregation. I didn't attend that Mass, but I heard that it got pretty ugly, although the family wasn't physically threatened or harmed, AFAIK.

I mentioned Father Geary on the Detroit Yes! website about 6 years ago, and another member who knew him posted a reply to me and I learned that he was later defrocked and still is an activist for black causes.

*Edit: Until the late 60s, the priests, bishops, archbishops, and cardinals would face the altar with their backs turned away from the congregation. It wasn't until Vatican II that the altars were moved forward so that the priests..ect..would then be facing the pews.

When I was a kid I passed the time by counting bald heads or how many people had a leather jacket on..

As I got older some priests were good to listen to and others were snoozefests.

I had the pleasure of going to church at Orchard Lake St Mary's in my youth. There was a father Chrobot there for a time, and he was an extremely good orator. All of his homily's were valid in today's world. He used to do the early Mass, and there was always standing room only when he said Mass.

As a former catholic, I didn't really mind the first half of church. The three readings and the homily usually held my interest and were sometimes quite engaging. The long lull during and after communion is where my attention span usually ran out, without that part I might've enjoyed going to church more.

I also hated the constant switch from sitting to standing to kneeling to standing etc. etc. etc.

Thumb said:

Probably. But in the same respect that all religion is only a step removed from Sun worshipers, it's kind of splitting hairs.

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it's actually not even a step removed - apparently, snake handlers are a subset of pentecostals. I've only seen pentecostal services on TV but I've attended Catholic services all my life and been to plenty of protestant and Jewish services as well. I would hardly describe the differences between any of them and pastors dancing themselves into trances, speaking in tongues, dancing around with snakes that can (and sometimes do) kill them and pretending to drink their venom as splitting hairs.