Worship Watching

For some if not many of us, watching mass on TV or attending in a church is different only in that you get communion in church.  Many of us simply watch mass when we attend.  We don’t sing.  We don’t care much for interacting with people around us, and might even prefer that there be no one around us.  I might start out praying, talking to God or listening, but soon I begin to simply watch, the people around me, what is going on around the alter, what people are wearing, along with my silent commentary on the whole scene.  And if the consecrated host is all you really came for, then you are not participating in what the church would call mass.  When the church called for renewal of worship back in the 1960s, it wanted to move the focus from private worship, you and Jesus in the host, to communal worship.  This would mean you would pray communal responses in your first language, listen to English readings to understand the challenge, sing as a group, greet one another before mass, the sign of peace to take some time, and so on.  I saw it happen in Houston in the late 70s and Boulder in the early 80s.  But gradually, with renewed clericalism in younger clergy and seminary teaching, the focus went back to the consecration of the host and private reception of communion.  Groups that used to lead singing turned into choirs and cantors to whom you listened, like in the old days.  It takes us back to a society of individualism, in which we talk to our friends, people like us, and ignore the stranger or visitor.