The Curt Jester Presents

Your first step is to find
a Catholic Church to go to.

In the past this was a simple procedure of driving around
your neighborhood until you spotted one.

If you live in Rome you can still use this tactic.

GIRM stands for the General Instruction of the Roman Missal.
The Roman Missal is made up of two parts: The Lectionary for Mass and
what we currently call the Sacramentary, the book with prayers and
directions (rubrics) for celebrating Mass.

While making the sign of the cross say "In the name of
the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. AMEN."

Do not be confused by those parishioners who are able to make this sign
and still only move their hand a couple of inches.

Some to prepare themselves for the greatest prayer on earth will talk and
gossip constantly to the person next to them.

If you notice the Cantor moving their arms about strangely or playing weird
instruments, do not be alarmed and call a psychiatric hospital. These are
considered normal behaviors for a cantor.

Cantors
also have the strange speech impediment where they are unable to say priest.
They will use words instead like presider to overcome this problem.

The Mass requires either a Priest or a Bishop to be celebrated.
The celebrant stands in the place of Christ for the Holy Sacrifice of
the Mass. The
priest/Bishop are issued in male models only. If you find the other
model- please refer to the "Emergency Church Exit Procedures"

Now if you wonder why the Latin "Et cum spiritu tuo"
wasn’t translated to "And with your spirit", we will come
to the wonderful world of ICEL
shortly

A time for
the priest and people to reflect on their sins and express repentance
for those sins. If the Confeitor prayer is used then strike your breast
when you say "through my own fault"

If you are without sin like most American Catholics who
don’t go to confession, then strike someone else’s breast

A litany of mercy:
"Lord, have mercy.
Christ, have mercy.
Lord, have mercy."

Sometimes The Kyrie actually uses Kyrie such as in:

"Kyrie
eleison.
Christe eleison.
Kyrie eleison."

If this happens, double check that you aren’t in an SSPX
chapel.

If you are wondering about the sub par biblical translations and all
the brother and sister inclusions, don’t worry about it.

Back in the 60s the Church saw the rising unemployment of incompetent
translators and out of charity gave them a job on the International Commission
on English in the Liturgy [ICEL].

You might ask "Hey I am following the postures you are specifying,
but I see nobody else doing them?"

To learn the answer to that, it is time to meet the Liturgist.

My suggestion if approached by a liturgist is to not listen and to nod
politely as they talk and then run at your first opportunity.

Someone will instruct you that the response is "Lord, hear our prayers!" We
must be reminded of this each week even though the response never changes.

Eucharist which means thanksgiving is the heart of the entire liturgical
celebration.

Pay attention, or more accurately pray attention. Unlike the apostles who
slept in that hour before Jesus was taken away, we are called to worship
during the hour of the Mass

The offering of ourselves is made symbolically by the presentation
of the bread and wine from the congregation. The presentation of the gifts
and the accompanying prayers of the priest, however, is not the offering
of the Mass. It is but the initial stage preparing the material for the
sacrifice, and the symbolic expression of uniting ourselves with the sacrifice
of Christ.

This highly symbolic act is done by coughing up a dollar bill.
The church exists outside of time and space and rules about currency inflation
don’t
seem to apply. If a dollar was good enough for our forebears 100 years ago
it is good enough for us now.

So the next time some Gallup Poll representative asks you a question about
the Eucharist, please answer correctly.

Contrary to what the Diocese of Cleveland has put out
this is not the correct posture during the Our Father.

After the Agnus Dei, who is not related to
AC/DC’s guitarist Agnus Young, and the breaking of the bread – the
faithful receive
Holy
Communion.

The Bishops have issued
guidelines on who can receive communion.

If you want to know if you can receive communion kneeling and you have
twenty hours to spare, then read the debate between Rerum
Novarum and
SecretAgentMan’s
Dossier.

This is the part of the Mass
where the great commission is announced "Go out into the whole world
and have coffee and donuts."

This part of the liturgy is also used to determine those who have birthdays,
anniversaries, and who are from out of town.