I have noticed in my temperament an increasing impatience with the almost complete disregard that my church manifests for such seemingly small issues as Mass starting on time, as sermons being spiritually uplifting exercises rather than solely fund-raising speeches, as well as the big issues which are too big for me to even mention in this small post. I had better stick with the small issues.
I had earlier complained about my parish’s endless thanksgivings and how those thanksgiving processions invariably stretch one Mass thirty or more minutes into the time that the next Mass should have started - and that this goes on from one Sunday to the next, as regular as clockwork.
Today, I am bitter about how, in addition to the fact that the 6:30AM Mass stretched to 10:25AM despite the fact that the next Mass was scheduled for 9:30AM, the priest who spoke during the time traditionally allotted for the homily gave a long speech that was anything but a homily. It was more like an assemblage of the Top 100 Reasons Why You Must Give More to God Today Than You Have Ever Done In Your Entire Life. Needless to say, I yawned my way through most of the sham “sermon”.
When I attend Mass, I do so in search of spiritual upliftment; I do so because I desire an ever closer union with God and I look to my priest for tips on how to make my love affair with God something that permeates the rest of my weekday life, whether on my workbench or on the beer roundtable. I do not attend Mass to be told to come forward multiple times to the front of the church to count my blessings and to do so by “thanking God” on each of those passes with cash stuffed in various envelopes and deposited in the offering box first as a youth, then as a man, then as a young Catholic professional, then as someone from the southeast, then as a Nigerian, then as someone who knows God has done something good for him, then as someone who wants God to continue to do something good for him...and so on.
I wouldn’t mind so much if the homily focused on the readings of the day and the lessons that one could draw from it, and thereafter, the flurry of thanksgivings began. I wouldn’t be bothered if they didn’t start passing offering bags round the congregation within the homily. I wouldn’t be complaining loudly if the 6:30AM Mass had finished in time for the 9:30AM Mass to begin.
The kind of Mass that was said in my parish today - mind me, today was harvestday but mind you, it was also Sunday - is the kind of Mass that got me thinking that in some parishes, as in mine, the Mass itself seems to be morphing into a commodity available for sale - to all bidders high and not-so-high; the priests and church officials involved are such happy vendors. I am almost sure that these days, when they meet at informal fora, they ask themselves that Idumota question, 'how market?'
Blessed be the work of their hands.