Do Teens Understand Solemnity?

Okay, so I attended my very first Life Teen Mass yesterday by accident. Jennifer and I decided to go to Mass in the evening for the first time in awhile instead of our usual 11:00 am time. Since our parish doesn't have a Sunday evening Mass, we went to another parish we've been to a couple times before.

We arrived late, also be accident, and quickly took our seats with a friend in the very back. The Gospel was about to be read, so I was glad we weren't any later. We were thrown for a little bit of a loop though when we realized that the songs being sang were out of a paperback book we didn't have instead of the normal hymnals. We looked around and noticed that people were using Spirit Song, which I don't know anything about.

There were a lot of teens there, that I noticed, but I didn't put the two and two together. Jennifer and I were also a bit dazed when "Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again" was sung to an upbeat pop tune. It wasn't necessarily innapropriate, just different. The same occured with the Agnus Dei.

We left Mass and talked about it in the car. While I enjoyed Mass (the Priest is a great homilist at that parish), I just felt the need to address what I had noticed. And it was Jennifer who hit the nail on the head, the Mass was lacking solemnity. And it made me wonder, was Life Teen not teaching teens the importance and the beauty of Solemnity in Mass?

Solemnity is the beauty of the Church.

Of course that's my opinion, but I'd dare to suggest that it's probably the opinion of most clergy. I think it's important that teens understand that solemn doesn't mean sad or dark. It means serious, sacred, performed with full ceremony (high mass), etc. While I didn't mind the upbeat music most of the time, it just seemed unfitting to the more solemn of responses and chants.

On another note, that Mass did get me to check out www.lifeteen.com which I found to be a great resource and community builder for teens and parish priests. Please check it out, I'm very impressed with the Q&A about Jesus from a teen perspective especially.