I go to Mass tonight alone because K has already been in an effort to keep our sick son in the house as much as possible. The entrance processional is a rousing hymn complete with drum accompaniment. The tell-tale “tat-tat-tat” of the high-hat cymbal gives it away before the full beat begins, and I realize what has happened: I’ve inadvertently come to a youth Mass. Sure enough, when the lector approaches, he’s wearing jeans and a tee-shirt. The rat-tat-tat of drums continues at times when it seems it really shouldn’t, like the Sanctus and the Agnus Dei. During the consecration of the host, I begin to wonder if the altar boy will ring the altar bell: “Perhaps the percussionist will give three good crashes on the cymbal” I think. Mercifully, that doesn’t happen, but by then, it’s too late. Despite my best efforts to focus on why I’m at Mass, I’m irritated and feeling that I’m almost physically having to resist the urge to march over to the drummer, rip the drumsticks out of her hands, and walk back to my seat. I feel I’m at some Benny Hinn camp meeting rather than Catholic Mass, and that eats at me.

Back at home, K and I talk about that. “If that’s what it takes to get the kids interested,” she suggests, “if it helps, then I don’t have a problem with it. I don’t like it, but I understand.”

But what does it help? Attendance? Perhaps. But do we really want kids coming to Mass because it’s fun, because it’s entertaining because it has just enough of a whiff of popular culture that they feel “at home”?

Shouldn’t Mass feel decidedly different? Shouldn’t we have the feeling that all of the every-day concerns and reality have drifted away for a short time? Isn’t that, at some level, the purpose of Mass? Should we be teaching our kids that, at some level, there’s not a heck of a lot of difference between Mass and a Justin Bieber show?

It makes me long for one more All Saints Day in Poland.