CAPG's Blog 

When you enter the church, go to your place as quietly as possible. Some people make a great deal of noise in getting in their seats. This is calculated to disturb the congregation, and is exceedingly unbecoming. The church is the temple of the living God, not merely because it is dedicated to his service, but because he dwells therein. The very walls of is are sanctified. It is at all times holy, and is therefore always to be entered with the respect due to the house of God. "The Lord is in his holy temple; let all the earth keep silence before him." 

Do not walk up the aisles with an air of pride, such as the people of the world may put on in a ballroom. You may be regarded by the world as rich, intelligent, and accomplished; in the church, you are a poor, blind, and sinful being, and should come in all humility to implore the grace and mercy of God.

It is still more necessary to observe these rules, if you enter the church after Mass has commenced. If you happen to enter during the elevation or communion, kneel by the door, and remain there during the more solemn parts of the Mass; you can afterward retire quietly to your place.

You should assist with attention at the holy Sacrifice. When you are not reading your prayer-book, keep your eyes fixed on the altar on which that adorable Sacrifice is offered, and never gaze around in the church.

Do not leave the church until the priest is retiring from the altar to the sacristy. Those who are the last to come to it, and the first to rush out of the church, seldom derive any benefit from Mass, and often do not hear it properly. The practice of all pious Catholics is, to spend some time after Mass in thanksgiving.

Do not remain standing before the church, as if you had no other object in coming than to see and be seen. If you have time before Mass, say the Rosary, or the Stations of the Cross; employ the time in spiritual reading, or in adoring Jesus Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.

Remember what those who have gone before you in the faith endured that they might be present at the holy Sacrifice of the Mass, and reflect with what attention and piety they must have assisted at it. During the early persecutions, no churches could be built. The divine mysteries could not be celebrated anywhere in public. The faithful were compelled to go into subterranean vaults, called catacombs, where Mass was offered on the tombs of martyrs. The candles we burn on our altars remind us of those days, and of the brightness of faith that made them days, not of mourning, but of joy.

To assist properly at Mass is one of the most important acts of Christian life; and hence the Church declares it to be mortal sin to neglect to hear Mass on Sundays or Holydays.

Source: The Holy Family Manual by the Sisters of Notre Dame, 1883

Our Lady of Grace, Greensboro, NC

"Today, Christmas is celebrated without Christ in many quarters. Christmas is the season when God became man in the form of a child, and yet, unhappily, in how many homes, because Christ is uninvited, children, too, are no longer welcome. Christmas, like Emmanuel, means "God with us". If we celebrated Christmas without God, we have lost its meaning. If we refuse an inn to God's children as the fruit of marriage, we repeat the sad tale of Bethlehem that refused an inn to Mary and Joseph and the Child.

Christmas means Christ's Mass. But the protestant revolt has denied the true sacrifice of the Mass. It has uprooted His altar and replaced it with a pulpit. There are some who profess to be ministers of Christ and yet deny his Divinity.

The Real Presence of Christ in the Blessed Sacrament has been removed from their altars and the voice of man has usurped His place. The pivot and focal point of the Protestant Church is not the altar but the pulpit. Man's presence has replaced God's presence; private interpretation has taken the place of God's authority.

Christ is sacrificed in the Mass and the Mass is Christ present with us. Take away the tabernacle of God and, since nature abhors a vacuum, the pulpit of man is ushered in to replace it. Remove the Mass, where Christ is offered and adored, and the result is that man is dehumanized whereas he should be super-naturalized. Man exalts himself instead of humbling himself and adoring God. Without God man is not even himself. He is dehumanized. He is less than man. For man, as God made him, is just a little less than the angels.

Christmas today, for the average worldling, means feasting and food, a holiday, with tinsel and tree, and an exchange of gifts. It is externalized and made pagan in its concept.

It should mean attendance at Mass - at Christ's Mass on Christmas day. It should be a day of great dignity, of rejoicing as evidenced in a temperate use of food and drink and a meeting of loved ones under the star and spirit of Bethlehem. It should mean not so much a receiving as a giving to Christ's poor in imitation of God who gave Himself to the poor in the greatest gifts - His only-begotten Son.

(...)

In thinking of Christmas we always conjure up in our mind's eye the happy days of childhood, the memory of our parents who may have passed on to God's Judgment, and of our early home - all these are most joyous recollections. Certainly Advent should not be observed as a lugubrious or melancholy manner. Penance is a joy when it is performed for God. When imposed upon us for a selfish motive it is a drudgery.

These Advent days, then, can be most joyful, our recollection of former years can be most happy if we dedicate them to God. In simple terms, we can be happiest when all things are in harmony and in their proper place. This is the definition of health. This is the understanding of peace - the "tranquility of order."

Source: Preface of Spiritual Steps to Christmas, Very Rev. Msgr. Aloysius Coogan, MA 1953