… to involve yourself in RCIA. From the USCCB:
- Pray
- Listen
- Participate
- Attend the Easter Vigil
- Have a welcoming spirit
- Witness
- Invite
- Get Involved
- Ongoing Conversion
- Know Mystagogy is for all
Check the link for details, but I’ll put in a big plug for #4.
Bring the kids, too. If you want extra insurance on keeping your young people’s Catholic imagination engaged, bring the family to the Vigil every year. Make it a tradition. It’s the best liturgical piece in the Roman repertoire, and beats anything the TLM can throw up there.
Todd:
Hearing about the Vigil and attending my first one as eager young evangelical was a major turning point for me. It was simply stunning – in the beautiful, crumbling Gothic parish that would eventually becoming my parish home. All seven readings. And the Exultet. Oh my, the Exultet. This is the night. . .
After that, I dragged protesting Protestants with me to Easter Vigils around the world (I was traveling in those days too!).
All Masses in a language I don’t understand seem the same to me – Latin, Maori, Italian, Arabic, Indonesian, Spanish, German – whatever. A very different, zen-like experience. Interesting on an occasional basis but not sustaining long term.
In those situations, I tend to spend a lot of time meditating on the art (which in a place like the Gesu is certainly worth meditating upon!) and tune out the cascade of sounds I don’t comprehend. If I know some of the language (German, Arabic) I’m much more likely to listen for bits that I can understand. But I pray in English. (I have hopes of eventually praying in Spanish as I carve out the time to learn Spanish. But that’s quite a way in the future.)
But Mass in another language would never have the impact that Easter Vigil in English had on me. I’m an aural, language-centered person and language that i can easily understand is essential to prayer and worship for me.
I realize, of course, that is not true for everyone. I have no liturgical expertise of any kind. Which is probably why I thought the idea of making the TLM available to those who desired it to be great. There is a reason that the Church has 24 different rites.
But I probably wouldn’t be Catholic today if the “Ordinary” Latin Rite had not been available in the vernacular.