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I belong to the Lost Generation of Catholics. I am 31 years old. I was born after the 1960's had had their heyday and all of the hippies had basically started having kids and settling down. They made a lot of changes in the Catholic Church and brought in the clap-your-hands-and-feel-good folky songs that have largely replaced the heavy Latin hymns. Which is sad because there's room for both so I don't see why the Latin hymns have had to basically disapear. The 60's generation is still around and nearly every Catholic parish is full of their music and their way of decorating the kirk and their way of doing things. (There's no sign of my generation to be had.)

Now it's the Youth Generation and the Catholic parishes and the Church at large are spending lots of time focusing on the Youth. Which is great! Pope John Paul II did a lot to get the Youth involved. The Youth need to have a place in the Church. They are not just mini-adults that need to stay silent until spoken to.

But...my generation seems to have been skipped over. We are invisible! We don't seem to exist.

There's nothing wrong with various generations being reached through their own particular style and context. But what happens when you've been skipped over and you don't have anything that reaches out and hits a chord within you? What happens if all you have to choose from is the Kumbaya Style of the 1960's or the "Let's deal with being a teenager!" style??

I've caught a wee glimmer of my generation shining through - in the music of bands such as "Crispin", "Critical Mass" and some of Father Stan Fortuna's songs. (He is geared more towards young Catholics but some of his songs reflect the funky jazzy style of my generation. All of his music is absolutely fantastic!!)

But...even with these glimmers peeping through I still feel as if my generation is invisible and we've been totally skipped over by the Church.

I would have to say that my generation is a mix of the Hippie era and the rock and roll era with a generous sprinking of the jazz and funk styles and a dash of the modern and sacred art genre. We are a great mix and have a lot to offer the Church! So...why are we so invisible??

It seems that many Catholics around my age still have a great love for Latin and for intense sacredness - but we are not caught up in that dark Victorian Catholic culture. From the gatherings I have attended where many of my generation have been present I have seen a great love of Eucharistic Adoration, public recitation of the Rosary, classic hymns, Marian devotion and many of the other practices you don't often see in post 1960's parishes. Why is this? Why can't we have both the fresh freedom style of the 1960's and the sacred devotions and practices? It all seems a bit greedy to expect that only one type of Catholic is allowed to be supported within the Church.

My generation seems to enjoy fresh music and we also enjoy having a voice in the Church - rather then being silent observers. We can thank the hard work of the folks in the 1960's that worked so hard to make a place for us lay-people in the Church. But from what I have seen we tend to keep the fresh music out of the Mass - we enjoy these things on the side at lively gatherings. We are not much into having a band performing beside the altar. We'd rather have the band perform in an extra-Mass event. We also seem to prefer to spend the minutes before Mass in silent preparation - rather then talking and visiting. These things we tend to save for after Mass. From what I've observed as I've traveled around the world is my generation likes to focus on Jesus at Mass and community after Mass. So things like having a coffee/tea social hour after Mass and having fun musical/artsy gatherings outside of Mass is right up our alley.

We also love churches that are decorated - we don't seem to be into the bare empty church thing. Give us statues! Give us stained glass windows, Stations of the Cross and side altars! We don't necessarily need to have *only* the old fashioned style of art. The modern art deffinately has it's place. But having an empty bare kirk with two token statues, miniature Stations of the Cross you can barely see and no high altar removes that sense of the sacred that we seem to crave. It feels more like a meeting hall then a Catholic church. We aren't Hippies - we don't need to "get back to bare basics" or find some kind of psuedo-Nirvana through emptiness.

The problem with being the Generation That Never Was is that there are very few parishes where my generation can find this mix of modern freshness, lots of beautiful art and yet a quiet sense of sacredness in the acctual church building. We basically have the choice of the Traditionalists who have broken from Rome or the 1960's generation who have gutted the kirks, filled the hymnbooks with folky clappy music and replaced the crucifix with some artist's interpretation of "what Jesus must have felt like at the resurection" because, as I've often been told, "The crucifix is disgusting and we don't like to look at it."

What about us? Where do we belong? Can't there be a compromise - can't the 1960's generation, who have had their fun for the past 47 years, move over and make some room for us late 20 through early 40-somethings??

You can have your Holy Waterfall bubbling merrily away in the entrance to the kirk. You can keep your artistic rendition of the Gospel played out in vivid color across all of the windows - it's beautiful! You can leave the orange metallic wallpaper behind the altar and have face-to-face confession in Father's office. You can have a generous mix of happy-clappy music in the books. But can we have the crucifix back? And the decorations?? And the confessional where we can indulge in anomnimity?? Can we save the band for after Mass - and have the organ returned to its place in the choir loft? (with a choir as well??) And the kneelers - I really enjoy kneeling when I pray and I don't feel that my self-esteem has been damaged by such a humble posture - If anything it's kept me from getting too full of my own liberated self importance!

Can we save the socializing for after Mass (Like my new parish here in Orkney...it's so refreshing!) Mass is a sacred time - and the half hour before Mass should be a quiet time to reflect and pray and prepare ourselves. Not all of us want to hear folks shouting into mobile phones and people discussing what Aunt Ethel did last week when she visited the Virgin Islands or how long your sister was in labor. These things are great to discuss and it will be fun discussinjg all sorts of things with everyone - after Mass.

I think that there are more then enough Catholic parishes dedicated to teenagers and the folks from the 1960's. Isn't it time to move over, make some room for us...and share??? I am tired of being invisible.