Men in Mass

This is a copy of comment I made on a message board regarding why women outnumber men in most Catholic parishes, and why this trend doesn't hold true in Latin Mass parishes.

For what its worth, some of the reasons that I as a man prefer the Tridentine Rite.

--The Mass is unapologetically first and foremost ordered as a Holy Sacrifice for the expiation of our sins. Sacrifice as worship is worthy of a man. In the Old Covenant I’d get to watch bulls and goats slaughtered and burned. In the New Covenant I get to participate in Christ the King offering Himself up to the Father as a pure and spotless sacrifice for my many sins, and in remembrance His bloody sacrifice 2000 years ago. It is not primarily a “feast” or “banquet” with all of us hanging out talking about how great the food is.

--A Mass is offered that organically developed over more than a millenium. It is not something that was slopped together over a couple of years by a few people with enough hubris to think that they could “do it better”. The predominantly sacrificial nature of the Mass is not obscured almost into oblivion. The whole Mass reflects this.

--You are surrounded by your family and other families. The sanctuary is not primarily filled with adults who have surgically or chemically castrated themselves. Real men like families, big families.

--The priests act like men and don’t use their homilies to ramble on week after week about “being nice”, whatever that means. You also don’t see them in the local supermarket wearing a cashmere sweater.

--The iconic nature of the Priest as an “alter Christus” is not obscured. The priest isn’t like an extra-extra-ordinary minister of Holy Communion. Nor is he a banquet planner or facilitator. I can identify with this Priest who I am certain is trembling before the Presence that is before Him, and is before me. We are in the presence of Almighty and All-Holy God, and as a man I can do nothing but kneel and bow my head and feel my smallness in sharing in so great a mystery.

--Many of the boys and young men in the parish think of serving at the altar as being one of the greatest honors of their childhood. Many of them would consider that being a priest is as manly as being a cop.

--There is a general awareness and sobriety about what is taking place. There are not college-aged girls wearing short shorts with the word “juicy” written across the butt that you happen to notice just prior to the consecration. Lust is not one of the seven deadly sins that I have to guard against during the Holy Mass.

--The “otherworldliness” is palpable. The incense and chant. The reverent responses of the congregants in Latin during the Low Mass. The vestments. The long silences that allow me to pray the Mass with the priest. The Mass has not become a continuation of the hustle and bustle that I just left outside of these doors. There is actual participation without active participation.

--The consistency. I know what I’m getting. The Novus Ordo is terribly inconsistent from parish to parish. Some Masses feel almost unrelated to others, there are major discrepancies on how the Mass is offered and abuses often abound.

That’s a few off the top of my head. Some slightly tongue in cheek. I believe that the current culture in most dioceses and parishes is antagonistic to and at best poorly expresses much of what I love within the Tridentine rite. Most of the above relate to emphasis on the Sacrificial nature of the Mass, and how that effects how the Mass is ordered.