Mass - in a variety of "styles"

We all know don't we that there are more than two types of Mass?

And I don't mean Low Mass, High Mass, Solemn High Mass and so on. 

I mean that you can visit virtually every Catholic Church in the land and have a unique one off experience of 'Holy' Mass.

You can have the warm welcome at the foot of the altar sort of Mass:

"Good morning class everyone and how are we today?"

You can have the 'informal' type of Mass where, every so often, the priest pauses to make an aside:

"I don't think that was very clever of St Basil was it?"

or, even:

"You wait till you hear this bit" nudge, nudge, wink, wink.

You can have a sort of half sung Mass where the priest lets rip with variations on Purcell, or is that Persil?

"Glory to God, glory to God, glory to Go-oood on the Hi-------gheeeest"

You can even experience a sort of a Latin Mass where the priest dodges and dives between the vernacular and the Latin (and if his Spanish Auntie is in the congregation you may even get a Beso of Paz or two.)


It's all so jolly....jolly....um.....crass?

When once we could travel the world and still participate and comprehend the Mass we now can't even travel from Birmingham to Bradford and understand the prancings and the poutings that take place.

St Joseph's church in New Malden, has got a very busy website, so busy, in fact, that it makes you feel a bit funny if you look at it for longer than 3 seconds.

One of the messages it puts across is as follows:-

"If you're new to the parish, or just interested in Catholicism, your best first step is to come to Sunday Mass and experience the varied "styles" at 9.30am, 11.30am and 5.30pm - you'll be handed our weekly Sunday Bulletin with reflections and news".

There you are. 

"Styles" of Mass. Unbelievable. And the text, in many parts, is just totally at sea as far as grammar goes.

That's Nu-Church for you, just not my style at all.