My old Irish grandmother (God rest her soul) never missed mass, but had an interesting worldview: in her economy of salvation being a “holy roller” (her term) was about as bad as being an apostate. Remember the passage in the New T. about keeping your piety private? Bingo. (Hey, bingo — that’s another blog topic. File it under “liturgy.”)

I once had a holy roller turn around in his pew when my kid was acting up and tell me to leave, I was a disgrace to the church, etc. His poor wife looked like she was about to die of embarrassment. Luckily I escaped excommunication, but I’ve been VERY CAREFUL ever since, believe me — some people are just very holy, that’s all, and we slackers need to respect that.

There’s nothing mean spirited anywhere on your blog. Keep it up — people need to hear it!

The norm for reception of Holy Communion in the dioceses of the United States is standing. Communicants should not be denied Holy Communion because they kneel. Rather, such instances should be addressed pastorally, by providing the faithful with proper catechesis on the reasons for this norm.

When receiving Holy Communion standing, the communicant bows his or her head before the sacrament as a gesture of reverence and receives the Body of the Lord from the minister. The consecrated host may be received either on the tongue or in the hand at the discretion of each communicant. When Holy Communion is received under both kinds, the sign of reverence is also made before receiving the Precious Blood.

Go ahead and kneel if you want- just know that as the person who just tripped over you I find it just as annoying as you find the crying baby.

tongue-in-cheek and not taking ourselves quite so seriously — i need to take lessons on how to achieve this. work in progress! until then, i’ll continue to read your blogs.

Yes, we should all take Mass seriously. But we’re all called to be there, every week, unless we have a valid reason to stay home. The moms and dads with fussy babies are just as obligated to attend.

Those of us who’ve parented loud, active children felt mortified when their children made noise during Mass and disturbed others, but we had to come anyway. Not only that, we wanted to come, to be with Jesus in the Eucharist and to worship in community. But it’s hard to go to Mass faithfully when you know that not only will you not be able to pay close attention and worship as you’d like to, but also that you’ll be at the receiving end of glares, comments, snide remarks, etc. Talk about a test of faith!

AND I LOVED this post! It’s hysterical and an equal opportunity for all of us to snicker at ourselves. And maybe examine our behavior and motivation.

(Oh, and I used to be the one who glared at the babies. Then I had one. Man, are they hard to control!)

Shouldn’t we all be spending a lot of time kneeling in prayers (unless you happen to be wrestling your toddler, which I understand)? I dislike strongly how this post makes people who take the mass seriously seem bad. Honestly, I may seem to glare a little when I’m shaken out of prayer by a crying baby behind me, but it’s more my surprise. Most serious Catholics like kids and expect to hear that now and then. (Hey, they are probably the ones with the five kids in the pew!)

One caveat: People who blow their noses in church during the moments of silence during and after consecration. Now, I have had stuffy nose colds five months out of the year or more my entire life (yup, bad immune system), and I’ve never felt the need to do this. One should kindly duck into the vestibule or outside.

And anyone who says I can’t kneel to the Lord Jesus before receiving Him needs to check themselves. The only guidelines on bowing should be: “If you fell over, you bowed too far.” ^_^

Red Cardigan: Everything you wrote was on my mind reading this. Couldn’t say it better. I’m in the choir too. I’m happy at the moment because we are learning “Ave Verum Corpus”, but we will no doubt get complaints about the Latin.

yikes! ..well that pretty much describes me on some days — i am upping my bran intake at this time to alleviate the spiritual log in my … eye?