1. Stay home if you are ill and contagious. Even on Sunday, you are excused from your Mass obligation if you are ill. Some criteria: if you suspect you are contagious, not only are you excused from your Mass obligation, you are obliged by justice and charity to stay home; if you are not contagious, you are excused from Mass whenever you are ill enough to reasonably call in sick to work (i.e. you need not be bedridden to be excused from Mass). Parents caring for a sick child are also excused from the Sunday Mass obligation.
2. Silence your cell phone. It is good to get in the habit of checking one’s phone on the way into the church, to make sure that it is silenced. The best means of this is probably to attach this activity to something else that is always done: for example, immediately upon closing the car door in the parking lot, or when passing through the gate, or when entering the vestibule. If all else fails, there is a reminder near the holy water font.
3. Avoid speaking in the church. If there is something that must be communicated to one of the priests or to a fellow parishioner, kindly ask the person in question to step outside into the vestibule. Any conversation beyond a simple (and necessary) question and response should be brought outside of the church.
4. Do not whisper prayers. You think you are being quiet, but you are mistaken! If you can hear yourself, you can presume that everyone in the church can hear you. Either recite your prayers mentally, or simply labialize the prayers (that is, mouth them, but without making any sound). Often these kind of whispered prayers can be more distracting to others even than speaking out loud.
5. Do not make the responses during Low Mass. We do not engage in the so-called dialogue Mass at the parish. When people make the responses from various parts of the church, it always ends up being a distracting cacophony.
6. Be of assistance to newcomers. If someone looks lost – he probably is. Feel free to ask someone, “Are you new here? Would you like some help?” If the person responds in the affirmative, then invite him to the vestibule. There, you can show him the Missalettes and help him navigate through them, tell him about the hand Missals that parishioners usually begin using after growing more comfortable with the traditional Mass, and ask him if he has any other questions. You can also introduce him to other parishioners, to parish staff, and to the priests, if any of those are reasonably available.
7. Allow priests to make a thanksgiving after Mass. I am directing the priests at their daily Masses (i.e. Monday to Saturday) to check outside the sacristy door for anyone that might want to speak with them. If someone is there, the priest will acknowledge him and then, provided it is not something urgent, tell him that he will return after a brief thanksgiving. The priest will go to the church for a few minutes and then return to speak with anyone waiting.
