“When we think of Church, we think of a place that we can go into and find peace, solitude, hope, and a sense of the Presence of God. We do not go into the Church saying to ourselves we will have a vision and God will speak to us. Our innocent Faith tells us that He is Present in this place, and that as we stand in His Presence, He is aware of us, and we can speak to Him with no interference of other men hearing or other men even guessing what we are saying. It is not a feeling of secrecy, but a feeling of intimacy with God Who created us.
When there is turmoil in the administrative areas of the Church between men who decree and enforce their interpretation of their understandings on particular issues, their actions sometimes turn the Church into an arena whereby the flock, the body of the Church, become spectators and victims of the holocaust that is a destructive undercurrent of false piety, false beliefs, false understanding, and false exaggerations, plus a dominance of authority that is biased with self-esteem.
In some places and some times, Holy Mass has become an arena of disrespect to God, to man, to the faithful, attacking the orthodox beliefs of so many Roman Catholics.
Pettiness is not the way to Sainthood, nor is bickering, dickering or abusive innuendos; plus, such disrespectful shows of Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell plays on a paganistic atmosphere, and are sacrilegious when they portray the life of The Son of God in such carnival displays, disregarding the Importance and Meaning for which Holy Mass was established and instituted for the Salvation of our Souls.
A formal protocol should be established for all times that we have the privilege to enter God’s House on earth. This holds for the clergy as well as the laity.
At all times there should be a dignified reverence demanding that everyone uphold the respect due to this important place upon earth. People should understand that God’s House must be treated as the privilege it is, and that rules should be carried out showing dignity, respect, honor, reverence due such a special place.
Some of the demands of protocol should be spelled out and then someone there to carry them out so they will become common practice, replacing the carelessness, impudence, disrespect that is being practiced, disregarding the importance of this precious place.
1. Upon entering, one should stop talking and make The Sign of The Cross as an open act of Faith in respect to the Resident of this House.
2. Bowing in a genuflection, bending a knee in humility to God, The Creator of All Things, should not be something that men do or don’t do. It should be a form of positive action with only one exception to this rule, and that is physical disability, and this should be the only reason for it to not be carried out.
3. While in the Presence of God, there should be no chatter, no looking around, no undue gestures of distraction. The focus should be totally on The Blessed Sacrament, whether it be during Holy Mass, during special devotions, or a personal private visit with God.
It should be stressed at all times that each Church be spared any chance of vandalism, disrespect, or any indignity practiced.
It is true that at the establishment of Holy Mother Church two thousand years ago, the rustic manner from which it was founded and the deliberate choosing by Christ of all types of men, perhaps did not allow the beginning years to be years of graceful and dignified performance, but through time some men utilized many of their talents to paintings, statuary, and beautiful designs which in themselves expressed the Importance of the Church and emphasized that it was a place of Holiness in which God resided.
Today in Holy Mother Church, men have stripped the Church of expensive appointments that made God’s House feel more like His House would be expected to be. The strippings have not dignified the House of God, but have belittled It in manner, grace and dignity. God’s House should be gloriously beautiful, giving God the best we can to display His Greatness, paying Him Honor with many things that show His Importance to us.”
