Is it rude to take notes during Mass?
It is during a church service and the pastor is delivering a sermon. You notice two teenage girls at the front using their mobile phones. What is your immediate thought?
On an exposure trip to a non-Catholic church, a diocesan seminarian Brother Terence Kesavan’s first thought was that the teenagers were playing with their mobile phones or sending SMS text messages. It was only when he observed them more closely that he noticed that the ‘text messages’ seemed to be rather long.
That’s when he realized that it was not SMS text messages they were typing out on their phones, but rather, they were taking notes on their pastor’s sermon. In fact, taking notes when the pastor is giving a sermon is quite a common practice among Christians from non-Catholic churches.
He shared this with a friend and then asked: Why is taking notes not part of our Catholic culture at Mass?
When we go to listen to a speaker give a talk, we do take notes. When we are at school and our lecturer is teaching us a lesson, we take notes… at least those of us who want to learn something do. But when our priest is giving a homily at Mass, we don’t take notes. Isn’t that strange?
When Brother Terence shared that story, I was immediately reminded of the time I got my first smartphone. The one thing I like very much about the phone, is that I was able to record digital notes as and when thoughts occurred to me. It made more sense than keeping pieces of paper around and jotting down notes that I would probably not read again.
When I first got the phone, I happily took down notes during a priest’s homily at my former parish. It must have been the rhythmic tapping of keys on the keypad that caused a fellow parishioner near me to glare angrily at me, and rudely ask me if I’d like to go up to the altar and do whatever it was I was doing.
From then on, I never took notes at Mass again. Not with my mobile phone anyway. And even when I did with a note pad, I was always conscious of people looking strangely at me.
So I ask the same question as Brother Terence asked: Why is taking notes not part of our Catholic culture at Mass?
Perhaps we don’t go to Mass for a lesson, but rather to worship the Lord. If that’s true, then why listen to the priest’s homily?
Maybe note-taking is something that younger people do, and with mobile phones. So maybe, next time when you see young people using their mobile phones while the priest is giving his homily at Mass, perhaps you can ask them softly: “Are you taking notes? Can you share them with me after Mass?”
(This post has been blogged from my mobile phone.)
UPDATE (5 Jul 09, 4.15am): Brother Terence has written a post in his blog in response to this.)
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I believe there are several reasons why we don’t usually associate note-taking at/for Masses. One major reason is that our Mass has a different dimension of worship and celebration that is different from that of other Christian denominations.
Our whole Mass setting is within a liturgical environment which would make ‘note-taking’ quite incongruous, even though you can still do so but with strange stares from people or a telling off by some (as you have described) :-)
A possible alternative to this would be to record the homily instead to avoid such unwanted attention.
More can be said or discuss/debated on this which this space to not allow, but it suffices to begin with this first… :-D
*fral*
July 2, 2009 at 11:58 am
Hi *fral*,
Hm, recording the homily certainly is one way, but unless we want to listen to the whole homily again, particularly if it’s a long one, I still think note-taking is a better way of jotting down points that we want to take home.
Speaking of which, *if* we do record homilies, are we allowed to post them up on our websites for others to listen to? Or do we have to ask the priest(s) for permission first?
Peace,
Daniel
Daniel
July 3, 2009 at 4:28 pm
Just some thoughts…
Think *fral* brought up an interesting pt abt Mass being set “within a liturgical environment” and that reminds me that Mass is Worship… can we then take notes in a reflective, prayful manner… like how we journal our reflections during retreat?
Well, just thinking outloud :)
Gerry
July 12, 2009 at 12:03 am
I think there’s a difference between public worship e.g. Mass, and private worship e.g. retreats. Fr. Rolheiser wrote a column about it recently. Here you go:
http://www.ronrolheiser.com/columnarchive/archive_display.php?rec_id=464
I found it to be rather insightful, and helped answer some of my questions.
Peace,
Daniel
Daniel
July 14, 2009 at 9:38 am