THE MASS ISN'T A SHOW - Fr. Ferdinand Santos
PROTESTANT: Why do you Catholics pray to statues?
CATHOLIC: Why do you Protestants pray to music?
PROTESTANT: We don't pray to music. Well, we do in the sense that we pray along with music. Music raises our hearts and minds to God.
CATHOLIC: You've just answered your question. Religious images are to vision what music is to hearing, something that raises our hearts and minds to God.
Perhaps one of the most profound things I've heard from one my professors at the seminary in Manila way back when we were young seminarians was this: "The Mass is eloquent enough, there is no need to embellish it." (Fr. Melchior Montalbo, Ph.D., God rest his soul).
The Mass isn't a variety show. The Mass is worship. We are meant to put something (everything in fact) into it, into worshiping God, not "getting something out of it". We do get something out of it, that is true; but only insofar as we put our whole selves into it.
No part of the Mass is meant to be …More