When Catholics travel, we have the delight of experiencing the Sunday Eucharist in both its universality and its diversity. The essence of the liturgy is the same everywhere, especially within a particular country; yet, each bishop has some freedom to "customize" the liturgy for his particular diocese. Sometimes the differences are fairly significant; other times they are very subtle.
A case in point: on a recent weekend in Key West, I attended Sunday Mass at the local parish church. All was very familiar, until the priest began the Invitation to Communion ("This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. Happy are those who are called to his supper"). At this point, the assembly got down on their knees, and stayed there until the Communion ministers were in place for the Communion Procession. Although I had heard that some US dioceses had implemented this after the 2002 Roman Missal made it clear that a bishop could mandate this posture for his diocese, I hadn't personally experienced kneeling at this point in the liturgy since the 1970s. So I fumbled to get the kneeler down and did what everyone else in the assembly was doing: kneeling for the Invitation to Communion and the assembly's response.
And that's the point: we must respect the fact that our universal liturgy has local adaptations. Even though our home diocese might do things differently, we are obliged to follow the customs of the diocese in which we are worshipping. We best express our universal faith when we suspend our personal preferences in favor of the unity of the assembly. Doing so reflects our notion of who we are as a Church and what our worship is all about: a sacrifice of self for the good of the community.
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