Hello all you non-existent readers. I've just come back from my fifth Sunday mass here in Nantes. Over the past few weeks I've been going to various churches in the centre and nearby. Is it ok to "shop around" for a parish, or should one just accept the nearest, whatever it's like? If so, it's going to be a tortuous five months of Mass here. The delightful church nearest to me just had the "Messe de la rentrée", which for some unknown reason meant lots of clapping, holding hands and skipping parts of the liturgy. There was no second reading, for example, and the psalm was replaced by a vaguely psalm-like hymn (a cheery, happy-clappy one too, of course). The whole time I was praying "please let the consecration be untouched - just let the consecration be ok". And it was, Deo gratias. The only "problem" is that people don't do kneeling in France, for some reason. The only Mass I've been to here where everybody knelt throughout the Canon was at an Extraordinary Form mass (don't worry, it was FSSP). Now, I'm fairly traditional, but I have been to "traditional" Ordinary Form masses, so I know they can be done. Just watch EWTN for example. But the mass today almost made me want to cry. You know that when there's an applause at the end of mass, it's generally not been great.
And we all HAD to hold hands at the Our Father (eyes rolling)...
(Post coming soon on my thoughts on the French translation of the Mass.)
I feel your pain!
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