Virginia – Recent closer reading and investigation by LifeSiteNews investigators into the General Instruction of the Roman Missal (GIRM) uncovered the real reason why so many people leave immediately after Holy Communion.
Technically, they were actually following the rubrics, making “leaving Mass early actually the more proper and traditional thing to do than staying” according to Solomon Bakerson, head of the team investigating the rules to determine if there was some way to encourage greater retention for the rest of Mass.
“We’re a little shocked,” Solomon added, “But it’s all right there on page 55. Somehow people, a lot of people, must have been reading this and none of us did but it all makes sense now.” Here we show a screenshot of the GIRM illustrating what Bakerson’s team found:
“When one has received communion exit stage left.”
Why exactly it’s “stage left” in particular, and not “right”, or why “stage” is even mentioned at all is a little unclear, especially as the original drafters of the current version of the GIRM for the Novus Ordo Mass are unavailable to comment. Further, there “doesn’t seem to be any liturgical basis in tradition for Mass-goers to leave before the final blessing” according to IIT’s liturgy expert, the Average Muslim Liturgist.
The only thing LifeSiteNews’ investigators could come up with as an explanation for this discovery is that “leaving Mass early simply happened amongst a lot of Mass attendees for generations and then got passed down from parents to children and so on, making it sort of a tradition by default.”
LifeSiteNews has not decided what to do with their research, and while it is contacting various Vatican liturgical experts for clarification, explanation, and help. Since they were expecting something completely different from their research, they’re highly confused, as are we here at IIT, and if any of you could comment or explain as to why this rule was there and we never noticed it before, or anything, anything about its history, we’d be extremely, absolutely massively grateful.
PLEASE NOTE: This is not true! Please stay for the end of Mass.