Genny Austin--Church Visit #1

 

Church name: Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church

Church address: 36 N. Ellsworth St., Naperville, IL 60540 

Date Visited: April 3, 2016

 

Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?

 

           From the outside, Saints Peter and Paul Catholic church in downtown Naperville looked similar to many Anglican churches I’ve worshiped at throughout my life. From the Gothic cathedral spires, to the enormous stained-glass windows, to the families trickling in silently and slowly as the service began, it compared in many ways to countless Protestant churches. However, once the Tridentine Mass began, familiarity seemed to cease, and I felt nervous for much of the service. The processional and recessional hymns, as well as the sermon, were the only parts of the service where the congregation was acknowledged as actually existing in the space in addition to the clergy and the Eucharistic Elements. Equally striking was the fact that everyone playing any part in the service—the cantors, the priest’s assistants, the acolytes, the ushers, and the priest—was a man.

           Though I grew up in a fairly high-church, conservative Anglican context, where hymns were the norm and singing the liturgy was commonplace, the Latin Mass struck me as a great impediment to the congregational sense of worship, for there really did seem to be an act taking place at the altar that didn’t need to involve anyone but the seven men attending to it. The Latin was sung rapidly by the priest, and often the prayers were given silently or in a whisper-tone. The rapid speed of Latin was only surpassed by how quickly the priest read his five-minute sermon—it took much energy to follow along with his English words, even as a native speaker. Watching the worshipers around me, I sensed their longing for spiritual connection, as well as their desire to participate in the worship…but in the end I wondered how parishioners can commune with God in a service of which they understand less than 5%. As someone who has great respect for the Catholic Church, I felt saddened and perplexed by my experience. 

What aspects of Roman Catholic theology did you notice expressed in the service?

         As I mentioned above, the entire leadership ‘team’ was male, including the ushers collecting the offertory, the acolytes carrying the cross and the candles to and from the altar, and the choir. This struck me, but perhaps it truly was a conscious choice grounded in theology. As a minister standing in for his people as Christ does for the Church, the priest necessarily was male, which I expected; perhaps in the Tridentine tradition this male-only leadership carries over into all other areas of the service. 

        Particularly in the preparation of the Eucharist, I noticed the Catholic theological conviction that the priest renews a sacrifice on God’s altar in Christ’s name; many prayers (which I read along in the booklet because the priest says them silently) were said in the first person, the priest being the one to pray for blessing as the one standing in for his congregation. There is an underlying conviction here that the priest is standing in between the congregation and God and that there is therefore no direct line from ordinary Christian to God. Not only is the priest facing away from the people and speaking in a foreign language, but he is also praying for individual blessing, acting as the special ‘mediator’ who asks for grace and eternal life on behalf of his church. The action speaks for itself.

What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?

       Although I have grown up kneeling often in church and bowing to the Cross as it processes in at the beginning of the service, I gained a new appreciation for just how reverently and seriously Catholic Christians take the Mass. The priest and his two assistants were bowing, kneeling, or kissing the altar every other moment, it seemed. At the beginning of the service, the priest walked down the center aisle and sprinkled water on the congregation, reminding us of our baptisms into the life and death of Christ. Incense was present pretty much constantly,  symbolizing the multitude of prayers being sent to God and the fragrant offering of His presence with those who worship Him. 

       I very much appreciated in a new and profound way the idea that God is wholly 'other' and that He deserves reverence and submission. At the same time, I felt strengthened in my Protestant convictions that while liturgy and high church can be and are very good things, they are ultimately only vehicles through which the Church communes with God, and are not to become rote rituals. I worried that the Latin Mass was serving as more as a historical remembrance service than a worship service. 

       Attending the Tridentine Mass made me wonder what role 'participation' plays in our worship of God and partaking of the Eucharistic Sacrament. Does it matter if a congregation 'feels' included in the worship? Catholic Churches are not typically 'seeker-focused' congregations, and this is something that many overly seeker-focused Protestant churches could learn from. However, the people of God do matter, and their participation in worship is necessary in a beautiful way. I don't know that that is something that Christians of any tradition would want to deny.