Going to Mass for the first time

Most people who walk into a Catholic church for the first time are not there out of curiosity. They are going to a funeral, a wedding, a baptism, a school Mass, or they are going with somebody else and would rather not stand out. The worry is almost never theological. It is that everyone else knows when to stand up.

This page is about that hour. It covers what is in the Church’s own books, where those books say something definite, and says plainly where they do not.

Finding one

Mass times move, and they move for ordinary reasons. A parish loses a priest and its two Sunday Masses become one. A church closes for roof work. Our directory of churches and our Mass times by county hold what each parish or diocese has published, with the date we read it, but a schedule read some months ago is a schedule worth confirming. Where a church page carries the parish’s own website or phone number, that is the thing to check against before you set out.

Catholics are obliged to attend Mass on Sundays. What surprises visitors is that the obligation can be met on the Saturday evening. Canon 1248 of the Church’s Code says it is satisfied by attending Mass either on the holyday itself or on the evening of the day before, which is where the Saturday “vigil” Masses in the listings come from. If Sunday morning is impossible, Saturday at six is not a lesser option; it is the same one.

What to wear

No liturgical document in force in England, Wales or Scotland tells the congregation what to put on. There is no dress code to breach, and any rule you are told about is a local custom rather than a law of the Church.

In practice, British Catholic congregations dress across a wide range within a single church, and the range is wider at a Saturday evening Mass in a town parish than at eleven o’clock in a cathedral. Ordinary clean clothes are correct everywhere. A jacket at a funeral, a hat at nothing in particular. If you are going with somebody, ask them; they will know their own parish.

The shape of the hour

A Sunday Mass usually runs an hour, sometimes a little longer where there is a lot of singing. It falls into two halves with a short opening and a short close.

The first half is the Liturgy of the Word. There are readings, normally three on a Sunday, with a psalm sung or said between the first two. Everybody sits for these. The last reading is the Gospel, and the congregation stands for it. Then the priest or deacon preaches, and everybody sits again. The half ends with the Creed and a set of intercessions, both said standing.

The second half is the Liturgy of the Eucharist. Bread and wine are brought to the altar and prepared, the long Eucharistic Prayer is said over them, and Communion is distributed. Catholic teaching holds that in this prayer the bread and wine become the body and blood of Christ, which is why the mood of the room changes at that point and why the postures change with it.

The books, and the printed sheet many parishes hand out at the door, will tell you what to say back. Nobody expects a visitor to know the responses.

Standing, sitting and kneeling

This is the part people actually worry about, and it is written down. The General Instruction of the Roman Missal, in the edition used in England and Wales, sets it out in paragraph 43.

The congregation stands from the entrance chant until the end of the opening prayer, for the Alleluia and the Gospel, for the Creed and the intercessions, and from the invitation before the Prayer over the Offerings through to the end of Mass. It sits for the readings before the Gospel, for the psalm, for the homily, and while the gifts are prepared. It kneels at the Consecration.

Two things soften that. The Instruction excuses anyone from kneeling who is prevented by ill health, by lack of space, by the number of people present, or for any other reasonable cause, and asks those who stay standing to make a deep bow instead when the priest genuflects. And it says that for the sake of everyone moving together, the congregation should follow the instructions given by the deacon, a lay minister or the priest. In other words: the local practice wins, and a parish that stays kneeling from the Sanctus until Communion is doing something the Instruction itself calls laudable.

The practical answer for a visitor is simpler than any of this. Sit at the end of a pew, watch the row in front, and move half a beat after they do. You will be right every time.

Communion

Towards the end, people leave their seats row by row and walk up in a procession. In the dioceses of England and Wales, Holy Communion is received standing, though anyone who wishes to kneel may; the Instruction recommends that those receiving standing bow first. The minister says “The Body of Christ”, you answer “Amen”, and the host is placed either on the tongue or in the hand, the choice being the communicant’s. It is consumed straight away, before you turn to walk back.

If you are not Catholic

The Catholic Church does not practise open Communion, and this is the point at which a visitor most needs to know where they stand.

The three bishops’ conferences of England and Wales, Ireland and Scotland set out their common position in One Bread One Body in 1998. Baptised Christians of other traditions may be admitted to Holy Communion where there is danger of death or some other grave and pressing need, which the document says may at times include a unique occasion of joy or sorrow in the life of a family. It is for the diocesan bishop or his delegate to judge whether a situation qualifies, and the document is explicit that a grave and pressing need is more than a passing desire or the sadness of feeling left out at a particular celebration. The examples it gives are the once-only moments: a baptism, a confirmation, a first Communion, a marriage, an ordination, a funeral.

The ordinary answer for an ordinary Sunday is therefore no, and it is not personal.

What is offered instead is a blessing. The same document says that in many Catholic churches those who cannot receive are strongly encouraged to come forward at the same time as everyone else and join the same procession. If you want to do that, cross your arms over your chest as you reach the minister, and you will be given a blessing rather than the host. If you would rather stay where you are, stay where you are. Both are normal and neither is remarked on.

Arriving late, and leaving early

Arrive late and you walk in and sit down. There is no penalty and no ceremony about it, and in most British parishes a steady trickle continues through the first reading.

Leaving is looser than visitors expect too. A fair number of people go straight after Communion. The Mass has a formal ending, a blessing and a dismissal, and staying to the end is the ordinary thing, but the car park empties gradually rather than all at once.

Children

Catholic parishes are used to children and the noise they make, and the general British parish attitude to a crying baby is to ignore it. Many churches keep a porch or a side room where a parent can stand with a child and still hear what is happening, and a good number run a children’s liturgy during term time, where children go out after the opening prayers for readings pitched at them and come back before Communion. Children who have not yet made their First Communion are the other group the bishops’ document names as coming forward for a blessing.

Money

A collection is taken during the second half, usually in a basket passed along the pew or a bag on a pole. There is no expected amount and no obligation on a visitor to put anything in, and an increasing number of parishes now take card donations at a terminal by the door instead. Passing the basket on is unremarkable.

Afterwards

In many parishes the hall opens for tea afterwards, and this is where a visitor with a question gets a better answer than any page can give. If you want to know when the parish has confession, when it holds its holy day Masses, or whether the times we hold for it are still right, that is the place and those are the people. Our holy days of obligation page covers the days beyond Sunday when Mass is expected, and it differs between England and Wales and Scotland.

If a time on this site turns out to be wrong, tell us.