Catholic and Loving it!

I couldn't help notice while glancing over the schedule for the visit of the relics of St Therese to Middlesbrough the following...

Young people will be leading the Mass?

Is it right and proper to speak of young people leading the Mass?

I know, I know... The person who wrote this didn't literally mean that young people would be putting on vestments and leading the Mass. Just that young people will be doing the readings and organising the music.

But that's exactly the problem - that those words can carry that meaning.

The fact that a person can write "Mass led by young people" and mean "young people will be doing the readings and organising the music" is troubling enough, but consider it the other way around. That doing the readings and organising the music has come to be synonymous with leading the Mass. Whowever reads and sings leads the Mass.

It's not hard to see why people think this way... In the minds of many Catholics reading and singing has come to be the essence of what Mass is. The readings and hymns set the theme, message and feel of the Mass and they decide whether the Mass will be somber and thoughtful or bouncy and jolly. People say things like "that was a great Mass, I loved the music and the readings were so inspirational".

Obviously Bishop Drainey will have a camero role giving the homily and then saying some stuff before everybody receives communion, but basically the stuff he does is secondary. He is seriously marginalised. He is not the headline act.

This is not the way things should be. The Liturgy of the Word is important and Music is very nice, but what Bishop Drainey does on the Altar is essentially what Mass is all about: Jesus Christ made truly present in the Eucharist. Where it says "Vigil Mass led by young people" it should actually read "Vigil Mass for young people". Done for them because they cannot do it themselves.

"Mass led by young people" should seem as ludicrous as "Car driven by jellyfish".