What is your favorite part of Mass?

Leaving the church building after Easter Sunday Mass, I overheard an exchange between a mother and her son, the latter perhaps 8 years old. The mother asked, “So, what was your favorite part of the Mass today?” Without missing a beat, the boy responded, “When the cellphone started ringing.”

This question-and-response set my thoughts in a couple of directions. First, I was reminded about how God’s awe, majesty, and love far exceed human attempts to express those things in words or to honor those things in worship. The most “flawless” liturgy we can offer still falls short (infinitely short!) of God. I do not condone letting cellphones ring during Mass and I will admit to a moment’s consternation when I heard the ringtone but perhaps sometimes a ringing cellphone is like the thorn in the flesh of St. Paul: a reminder of our limits.

I also thought about how I would answer the question: “What was your favorite part of Mass?” When I teach my liturgy courses, I tell my students about an advertising campaign years ago by NAPA Auto Parts. The firm sought to persuade customers to use and trust NAPA because “there are no unimportant parts” in their cars. Similarly, though all parts of the Mass are not created equal, there are no unimportant parts of the Mass. There is no part of the Mass that should be rushed or executed with irreverence. With a nod to Bruce Morrill’s recent posting, I would also add that no part of the Mass should be characterized by cumbersome or downright awkward prose.

To ask about “favorite parts” of Mass can be risky in a culture where US News ranks our colleges, the Associated Press ranks our college football and basketball teams, where many of our schools rank our students and so forth but perhaps the analogy does not entirely limp. Rankings of sports teams often change from week to week. So too can that part of Mass that most nourishes us or heals us where we need to be healed.

And as for my favorite part of Easter Mass, it was the homily. The homilist spoke about the need to spend time in the tombs of the world, the places of suffering, in order to bring Christ’s light, healing, and justice.

Timothy Brunk

Dr. Timothy Brunk is Associate Professor of Liturgical and Sacramental Theology in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies at Villanova University.  He holds a doctorate from Marquette University, a Master of Arts degree in pastoral studies from Seattle University, a Master of Arts in theology from Boston College, and a Bachelor’s degree from Amherst College.  He is the author of fifteen journal articles and two books, including The Sacraments and Consumer Culture (Liturgical Press, 2020), which the Catholic Media Association recognized at its annual meeting as the first-place winner in the category of books on the sacraments.

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Comments

13 responses to “What is your favorite part of Mass?”

  1. Jeff Rice

    Perhaps the better questions are more open-ended…. what did you see, what stood out to you, what did you hear, what do you remember… I try to do this with my 5 year old, and it’s usually both an amusing and formative exercise (for me at least). I look forward to doing the same with those in the RCIA regarding the entire Triduum.

    One thing from the last few days that really stood out to me was the Exsultet. For the second year in a row, we used the J. Michael Thompson setting of the chant, with the deacon and another cantor taking the solo parts. This year the deacon, cantor, and the entire choir circled around the paschal candle with only our individual candles to illuminate our scores. The deacon and soloist did a great job. As an entire ensemble, it felt like we were truly immersed in the prayer and chant together, and I think (I hope!) it came across that way to the entire assembly.

    Reply
  2. Todd Orbitz

    Without a doubt, hearing the Sequence chanted in something other than recto tono was perhaps my favorite part.

    Reply
  3. Scott Pluff

    For many people, their favorite part is when it’s over. We get a small but steady stream of requests for a “quiet Mass,” a “low Mass,” or a “shorter Mass,” always citing some parish that “gets people out in 30 minutes.” I try to resist the urge to suggest they just quit going to Mass entirely–there’s no quicker way to get it over with than to not go at all.

    Reply
    1. Jordan Zarembo

      @Scott Pluff – comment #3:

      I doubt that every person who asks for a quiet or low Mass wants a quick Mass. Some people are very introspective and find musical accompaniment or singing distracting. I have often wished that I could create absolute silence around me so I could say my rosary without distraction and meditate on the mysteries. Bose headsets would be too conspicuous, but I have thought about bringing them to church sometimes.

      Interestingly, an emphasis on sung or accompanied Masses is one place where progressive and traditionalist Catholicism intersect. Many trads like their version of the sung or solemn Mass just as must as progressives prefer their version of sung liturgy. As a traditionalist who prefers the “silent Mass”, I am very much in the minority of all Catholics.

      Reply
      1. John Kohanski

        @Jordan Zarembo – comment #10:
        I agree Jordan, sometimes I don’t want to go to Mass and be cantored at, and sung at, and talked at with a mic for 45 minutes or an hour. It’s not that I want it any shorter, I just want it less in my face. To use a phrase that Paul Inwood coined in comment #9 on the “Octave of Easter” thread: “a period of quiet joyfulness.” And my favorite part of Mass, when the celebrant holds up the Host and the Chalice after each of the words of consecration.

  4. Therese D Butler

    My favorite part of any Mass is when the priest prays, “look not on our sins but on the faith of your church”. That sums up alot for me. Happy Easter!

    Reply
  5. Claire Mathieu

    When you climb up a flight of stairs, which is your favorite step?

    The part with the greatest variability and the greatest potential either to lead into a wonderful Eucharist, or to distract and break the mood, is clearly the homily. It’s the best and the worst part of the Mass.

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  6. Ron Jones

    I always come to complete attention at the beginning of the dialog to the Eucharistic Prayer. “The Lord be with you. And with your spirit. Lift up your hearts. We lift them up to the Lord. Let us give thanks to the Lord, our God. It is right and just!”
    That last response, “It is right and just!” Fills me with an overwhelming sense of respect for our Lord… honor, pride in our faith, an evangelical zeal. I always want to shout it.

    Reply
  7. Donna Eschenauer

    While I certainly agree that every part of the Mass is vitally important, I have to say I love when during the Opening Prayers the presider says “Let us Pray.” When the proper silence is provided that is when I can tell God my own story. In other words, this is where my own humanity enters. I can think about the disposition, for better or for worse, I bring to the celebration at that moment; there is always the hope that in and through the celebration I will be changed.

    Reply
  8. Jay Edward

    Recieving Our Lord in Holy Communion, preferably at an altar rail. Other than that, when the Creed or Gloria is chanted. There is a Byzantine chant setting of the Creed I am particularly fond of. There is also a part in the Byzantine liturgy where the priest prays we live out our lives in peace and repentance.

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  9. Peter Rehwaldt

    The question posed here was posed to a child by a parent, using the best strategy to encourage young children to begin to think critically about the world. What the mother was saying, in language appropriate to an 8 year old, was this: “think about what you’ve just experienced, focus on the part that excited you the most, and then tell me why it was so great.”

    I’d love to know what was going on when the cell phone went off. Was it memorable because it was an unusual interruption, or because it somehow made some kind of fortuitous sense?

    For example . . .

    The eucharistic prayer used on Easter at the Lutheran church I serve ended with these words, which were interrupted at the asterisks below by a suddenly vocal infant:

    With your holy ones of all times and places,
    with the earth and all its creatures****,
    with sun and moon and stars,
    we praise you, O God,
    blessed and holy Trinity, now and forever.
    Amen.

    When that infant began to make its presence known, a smile went across the faces of more than a few of the parishioners I happened to be looking at, as if to say “yes, *all* God’s creatures give praise on Easter.”

    When I read the description of the parent’s interaction with the child, I didn’t hear this as trying to set one part of the liturgy above the others, but as a parent helping a child to better make sense of the event they had just experienced together.

    Reply
  10. Ed Nash

    “Welcome them in to the light of your face.”

    And the John Becker Litany of Saints if not song like a dirge.

    Reply
  11. Tim Brunk

    The cellphone went off during the Eucharistic Prayer so the ringing was quite noticeable. Also noticeable at the same Mass was the single voice of a pre-school girl who shouted out “YAY!” just after the conclusion of the Gospel Acclamation.

    Reply

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