In doing these entries, I’ve realized that with balancing my
involvement with the UU every other week, I’m going to run out of churches and
places of worship to attend on Friday/Saturday nights. If anyone has any suggestions, let me know. This week, though, because I’m familiar with Catholicism, and
Saturday night mass is a mirror reflection of what one would experience on a
Sunday, a friend and I attended Holy Rosary Catholic Church.
This entry probably won't be as exciting as other entries. There are three reasons why. First, there’s not much of a novelty factor
for me when it comes to Catholic churches.
I remember the first time I entered into a Catholic church, I was
astounded by all the imagery, the statues, the stained-glass windows – it was
beautiful. Being raised in a Southern
Baptist background, that particular brand of Protestantism doesn’t really embrace
the iconography and art of their Catholic counterparts. Now that I’ve been to enough masses to know
what to expect, there’s very little novelty to write about.
Secondly, I am writing about a Catholic mass. The difference between a mass in parish A is
going to be minimal in relation to parish B.
Catholics, to their pride and chagrin, haven’t changed much in the past
few hundred years. They pride themselves
on tradition, and in embracing that tradition, most churches are in sync with
each other when it comes to keeping their masses homogenous.
Lastly, it’s difficult to describe a Catholic mass without
nit-picking every little minute detail.
There are entire books written on what every little symbolic act
committed within the typical mass represents.
I know enough to get by. I know
enough to recite the Lord’s Prayer, I can cross myself, I can genuflect – I can
pass for a laxed Catholic. Much of what
I can touch on would require me to copy and paste large chunks of text that
will probably bore the average reader, though there are some worth mentioning
and reading at least once in life (like the Nicene Creed or Lord’s Prayer). So much of the Catholic mass entails
call-and-response and chanting, so in terms of worship…there’s not much to say
either.
However, to begin our journey – my friend and I visited Holy
Rosary Catholic Church for Saturday night mass.
To give a little background: I
have been to a few Catholic churches before, but the one I’ve had experience
with is St. Boniface, the church my friend attends on the west side of Evansville. Since I’ve been there before, I declined to
review it as I would already have an inherent bias. However, I’ll be using my
previous experiences with St. Boniface as a reference point. St. Boniface, for those who have never been,
is the oldest Catholic church in Evansville (so I'm told), hence it has quite a bit more ritual,
tradition, and the appearance of age and majesty that one would attribute to a church of its age. The church was built in the 1800s, and looks
it. When one watches movies such as The
Exorcist or The Godfather, St. Boniface is comparable to the churches that
appear in those films, and that’s mostly due to the similarity in age. Holy Rosary, though, is quite new – probably not
much older than 30 years, if even that.
So, my friend and I arrived about ten minutes before
mass. Unlike my previous excursions into
the church world, one thing I highly dislike about the average Catholic church
is the lack of intimacy. If my friend
and I had been devout, practicing Catholics, we could have walked into this
church for the first time, celebrated mass, never came back, and no one would
notice. The larger churches suffer from
this problem, and large Catholic ones definitely are horrible about it. At St. Boniface, the other church I attended with
my friend (I brought this person as a reference), the only reason I felt
welcomed in that church was because this particular person’s family and friends
welcomed me as their guest. We did not
have that luxury here, so we spoke to no one except ourselves and the little
girl who gave us our missal. I’ll give
Holy Rosary points for at least having someone stationed at the door to give us
the information we needed to make it through mass, but aside from that, this
church lacked that welcoming feeling I’ve received at others on my visits.
Upon entering into the sanctuary, I was struck by the
relative simplicity of it all. The
church itself boasted a medium-sized sanctuary which probably seated about 300
people. I would say that we had about
200 show up; maybe 250. Compared to the
beautiful statues I’ve seen before at other churches, for a Catholic church, I
felt Holy Rosary was sparse on imagery.
There was one large cross at the back of the altar – probably about 20
feet – with a crucified Jesus upon it.
There was a smaller cross off to the side. The altar itself was wide-open, with only the
table (which comprises the actual alter), two candles with a green table/alter
clothe…and that was really it. It was beautiful, but simple. As a side
note, my friend informed me that Catholic tradition states that within the
altar itself, there is a small fragment of piece of a relic that dates back to
Biblical times. I found that to be a
very interesting fact, if not a little flawed in their reasoning. I mean…how many fingernails can St. Peter
have before we start seeing reproductions and frauds? If you’re familiar with the history of
relics, you’ll understand, but I found that to be an interesting nugget of
information nonetheless.
The stained glass windows were, to me, the highlight of the
sanctuary itself. They were tall – about
15-20 feet high, and thin with no art-work actually being depicted. Relative to everything else, they were the highlight,
but compared to stain glass that actually depicts Biblical scenes, they were
conservative in their appearance. The
first time I stepped into St. Boniface a few years ago, I was awestruck with
how much there was to just look at. Statues
of the Apostles, Mary, Jesus, stain glasses depicting Biblical scenes, the 12
Stations of the Cross. When I enter into
a Catholic church, I expect eye-candy. At
Holy Rosary, though, I was underwhelmed.
To be fair, this is, like I said, a newer Catholic church. My friend informed me that many of the newer
churches, relative to the ones that are over 50 years old, look very similar to
the one we were in, so my point of view was a bit skewed by assuming the older
Catholic church was the “accurate” representation of how they should be. In appearance, Catholic churches have the license
to differ more so than they can in their actual functions.
So, we began the mass, and I took notice of how the people
appeared. If you’ve ever been to a
Catholic church, you’ll probably notice that most people seem half-hearted in
their worship, with a few very devout Catholics giving it their all during
mass. That appeared to be so here. There was a pretty fair representation of all
age groups, with some of the older parishioners appearing more devout, while
some of the younger ones were fidgeting. It appeared these folks were very much in-tune with the routine,
and knowing how much mass does not change, there’s not a lot of free-form
worship allowed, and that sort of monotony reflected on their demeanor during worship. I very much believe that, looking at these
folks, this was ritual; routine…it was what they did every week because they
either are “supposed to” or “they grew up in it”. I can’t assume too much of the folks that
were there, but there were mostly couples and families, so I think my
assumptions may be justified. The only folks who appeared to be "into it" were the older ones over fifty. Again, these are just my observations.
The hymns we sang were old-fashioned – much more in tune with
what I grew up with. We sang the
Summons, How Great Thou Art, and we didn’t catch the third one because we left
as it was playing. The singing was
restrained, especially so for 200+ people attending. We took scriptural readings from Isaiah
50:4c-9a, St. James 2:14-18; Mark 8:27-35. We also stated the Nicene Creed (look it up
if you’re curious). The Priest then gave his “sermon”, which is always, to me, the most exciting part of the mass itself. I can’t really call it a “sermon” because of
its length. I remember taking my
Catholic friend to my old Baptist church at one time. The preacher there usually preached for about
half-an-hour; maybe forty-five minutes if he really got going (which was rare
from what I remember). My friend, about
twenty minutes into my old preacher’s sermon, elbowed me and asked “how long is
this going to go on?” I asked, “why?” The response:
“my priest never goes this long!”
Growing up listening to such sermons, I usually find what the priest has
to say a little short in substance compared to what I’m used to. I’m used to sermons that follow the classic
3-point speech method: point 1, point 2,
point 3, done -- but they take about half an hour to get through it. This priest, though, had
only one point: put your faith into
action.
The priest, I have to admit, was one of the best ones I’ve
heard. He spoke with no notes, no
prompts – he was going completely off the cuff.
He was quite animate and he was younger than what I was used to (30 to 40 years
of age, as opposed to 50, 60, or 70 years old).
Again, I’m used to preachers who at least use notes or some kind of
presentation aid. This guy did not,
which I have to respect. His sermon came
off as natural and he spoke with relative conviction. Format-wise, the priest began his mini-sermon
(as it appeared to me) with a joke about his camping experiences before moving
onto an anecdote that provided the jumping-off point for his sermon. He spoke of a couple in his old parish that
he greatly admired. The couple would, as
he told us, go exceptionally far out of their way to assist anyone in need, so
much so that this priest held them in great esteem. The moral of this lesson was that this couple
was a beacon of inspiration – they put their faith in action, as all devout
Catholics should. All Christians should take
up their cross, go out of the way to help the poor, and be willing to accept
the sacrifices that should be made in the name of their faith. That’s…really about it. He spoke for about
ten minutes, fifteen tops. It was a
fairly watered-down sermon, very light on using the Bible, and…well…it was meant to be family-friendly,
easily digestible, and inspirational to those who were already devout
Catholics.
We then ended the mass as most masses always end: communion.
Now, I did a sacrilegious thing here that I normally do not do. I took the communion. As an atheist walking up to take a Catholic
communion, that’s a pretty big act of blasphemy in the world of Catholicism. I did it for two reasons, though. The first was for immersion. Most other churches I go to, there’s the
opportunity to participate in worship, and it’s relatively exciting, if not
just for the novelty of doing something new.
I’ve been to mass before; I’ve done it all before. I never took communion, and I wanted to experience
part of mass as a parishioner might. I
normally abstain from communion from any church out of respect, but – and this
constitutes the second reason – I’ve abstained out of respect to the Catholic
church before. I don’t feel particularly
compelled to abstain out of respect this particular time when I’ve bowed out
the previous five to ten times before.
Plus…and I guess this is an additional mini-reason…I’ve always been
curious to taste the wafer. The wafer,
by the way, is dry, gritty, and as my friend stated: “that’s the taste of God
in your mouth – tastes like cardboard, huh?”
I didn’t drink the wine, mostly because I see it as an invitation to
catch the flu from the 200+ folks there, but I wasn’t struck down by God for
eating the wafer, and that’s one less novelty in life’s experience I have on my
to-do list.
So, that’s that – my review of Holy Rosary. Overall, it was a typical mass. It wasn't horrible, but it wasn't my best worship experience, and I got what I expected. Some fine points: there was no bulletin, no announcements, and
I couldn’t find anything on their community activities. However, I know they exist, because I pass
their sign just about every day, and there’s always something on it advertising
that they’re doing. They run a Catholic
school next door, there’s usually a social fair, they’ve raffled cars, they’ve
had book sales, bake sales – they’re involved and I would say proportionally so
for the number of folks there on a Saturday mass. That being said, this will probably be my
lowest review for a church, simply because these types of churches suffer so
much on the aspects of the experience I find to be important. While the priest's message was fairly good, one of the greatest parts about doing this is
meeting the people. I’ve met some exceptional
people, I’ve always attempted to be kind to them (if not being too revealing on my
ultimate purposes), but they’ve always been hospital to me. Not so much here. The topic was marginally interesting, if not
kind of bland, though I liked the presentation. There was little depth to
it, but it did have a bit of applicability; it never hurts to be told to be
good to others. Worship is something I
would dock points from as well because, as much as I respect tradition,
rigidity in worship doesn’t allow for full spiritual expression, and I usually
prefer spiritual freedom in a service as opposed to following such a fine
outline. About the only “interpretive”
part of the service was the silent prayer.
Everything else was highly structured.
There was no special music, and whereas some places you go to worship
you can feel the emotion and sincerity in the room, it was sorely lacking
here.
For your consideration, the final tally:
- Congregation
- Friendliness (.2/1)
- Message
- Topic Interest (.5/1)
- Inspirational/Educational Value (.6/1)
- Clarity (.7/1)
- Applicability (.7/1)
- Worship
- Content (.5/1)
- Audience Participation (.5/1)
- Outreach
- Community Involvement (.8/1)
- Variety of Activities (.8/1)
- Information
- Accessibility (.4/1)
Total = 5.7
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