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I'm starting a new segment on this website as the first of, hopefully, many to kick-start Catholic Thinker back to active status. Each week, perhaps more often depending on what liturgies I attend during the week, I'll comment on my experience of the Sunday's Mass. Sometimes it'll be retelling what happened at that Mass, or a commentary that is based, more or less, on the events of that liturgy.
God-willing, it'll be mostly positive. It'll be real, however. If the Mass was uninspiring, I'll say so and why. If it was me and not the liturgy, I'll say that too.
This Sunday, I was in The Woodlands attending the older of the two Catholic parishes in the community. This isn't my home parish and I don't know anything about the clergy who shepherd the community.
A non-participating deacon gave the homily. Non-participating is my way to describe the practice of a priest or deacon offering the homily, then heading straight out of the church when they're finished. I'd submit that this is irregular and should not be a common practice.
I'll start by saying that we were late to Mass. A weird traffic light that never turned green followed by a couple of missed turns led us to entering during the first reading. We were far, far from the last ones in the church.
The Gospel today was a beautiful story of Jesus stating a simple truth--the person who sinned much and has been forgiven that many times over realize the power of God to heal in much more personal way than someone whose sins aren't "as bad."
A personal pet peeve of mine, which perhaps is way off-base, is when the homily seemingly ignores the readings. It may try to convey the same lesson, but nevertheless, it never directly discusses the actual readings of that Mass.
Our readings are beautiful, time-tested stories of our religious history and religious present through the lessons taught. Why are we so afraid of them? Why do we proclaim these readings, then ignore them and share another story that is far from biblical? (I'm willing to reconsider this thought when the priest or deacon shares a personal story that is applicable to the readings/liturgy.)
