Obedience Generation

I grew up as part of the “Obedience Generation.” To us you could say, “Go to mass on Sunday or burn.” We went to mass.  But the obedience generation is becoming extinct.  It might exist in Latino immigrants, but it won’t last into their children or grandchildren.  If a priest is still saying “you burn” then he is preaching to the dinosaurs.  The younger generation is more into the experience of mass.  If it is boring, irrelevant to their lives, lacks communal bonding, then they are more likely to drift away.  As John Paul II said, each generation is like a newly discovered continent.  This implies you cannot simply impose the old on the new and expect all to go well.  As a youth, when I went to mass I was surprised if there was a sermon and it was good or relevant to my life.  I had no expectations.  I went because that is what Catholics did.  It was how we related to God with Eucharist and all. It was enough experience for me with Holy Communion.  Mass was brief.  Singing minimal if at all.  You go early and get out soon enough to go to the bakery and butcher shop, get the funny comics in the newspaper and go home.  I am a dinosaur!