Making Mass More Masculine

There are constant reports about how attendance at Mass continues to fall, and how this is mainly due to the disinterest of men. In one of the churches I attend, Sunday Mass attendance has fallen from over 6,000/Sunday in the 1980’s to about 4,000 today. The purpose of this article is address some of the things that may be causing this decline.

Sermons

Let’s face it. A lot of sermons given today are boring. Instead of rousing parishioners to their feet, some sermons occasionally put people into a somnambulist trance. The most popular feature of Protestant services, the Sunday sermon, is somehow the least stimulating in the Catholic Mass. This is the one time of the week that priests have their flock present to talk to them about Christ, and it should be the time that the laity is moved in their hearts and minds to give their lives more fully to Christ. Sadly, this is hardly ever the case. Homilies should be inspiring, and should not sound like a monotone college professor lecturing his class on the intricacies of statistics, calculus, or metallurgy.
Priests should give us the unvarnished holy truth, both the good and the bad, and in a stimulating way that it is interesting and moving. Most football coaches seem more inspiring in their talks about winning football games than the average priest sounds about our salvation. Maybe the Catholic Bishops could hire Urban Meyer from Ohio State or Nick Saban from Alabama to come to their seminaries and coach young priests on the art of inspiring their flock. It really is okay for priests in the pulpit to show some masculine emotion and to even get a little emotional while giving sermons. They know exactly what the problems are with their parishioners because they hear their sins in the confessional. After all, even Jesus got angry and cleared the temple. Jesus even once called Herod “a fox,” and the Pharisees a “brood of vipers!” Men respond well to this kind of sermonizing. Being insipid inspires no one; rather, it is only the bland leading the bland. And even if a few people get upset and leave because of an angry sermon, that’s okay, because being an inspiring homilist will definitely bring in more and more new parishioners eventually.
Reading some of the homilies of St. John Vianney, the patron saint of parish priests, would be helpful for young priests, as well as watching the style (not the content) of Protestant sermons on TV.

Be Masculine

Men respond well to other masculine men. Being masculine means sometimes showing real emotions during sermons, in the confessional, and during parish get-togethers. The masculinity of priests should always be front and center. Additionally, a lot of men do not like to hold hands with other men while reciting the Our Father, and this practice (which is not part of the official rubrics of the Mass) should be eliminated in the Mass, not encouraged.
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