Odd little Mass

I've been going to Daily Mass every day this week. It's been a nice break in the middle of the day, and it's always good to spend some time with the eucharist. The only problem is that there's two masses: 11:40a and 12:10p. I've been going to the earlier mass because the main Father of the chapel is the leader of the mass then. Bu today they had another father, Father Alex, and he did a couple of things that were a bit off kilter to me. First of all, after the homily, he did the Lord Hear Our Prayer part from the liturgy alter (instead of stepping off and reading from another area of the platform). Then after the sacrament ended, he left the cup and the eucharist dish up on the altar and finished the mass, then walked off with the dish and cup in hand, and left the little pitchers with the water and wine up on the altar as well as the book.

I found this to be rather unorthodox and discourteous to the reverence of the altar. As Fr. Celio said in RCIA class, the altar is not a table, and it is not a bookshelf. It is a sacred space to be used only as such.

It also didn't help that his accent was so thick that I had to watch other people during the mass to figure out when to stand up and sit down, because I could not tell what part of the mass he was preaching. I don't have a problem with priests who have an accent, but I get more out of the mass when I can understand it clearly. It really makes me appreciate Vatican II's stance of saying the Mass in the vernacular.