Johanna Depenthal – Church Visit #2

Church Name: Our Lady Immaculate Church

Church Address:

410 Washington Boulevard,

Oak Park, IL 60302

Date attended: Sunday 17 April 2016, 7:30 a.m.

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

Stepping from the sunny streets of Oak Park into Tridentine Mass at Our Lady Immaculate was like crossing the threshold to a more ancient world.  After I donned a lace head covering provided in the lobby, we stepped into the quiet sanctuary, where despite the early hour about 60 people were kneeling in silent adoration of the altar before the service.  The congregation was a diverse assortment of people of apparently Irish, Italian, Southeast Asian, and Hispanic descent.  While largely composed of older individuals or couples, there were also a number of families with young children.  Even youngest girls wore hats or lace head coverings.  The priest soon entered and began offering the Mass in such a low and mumbling voice that any hope of following along in the service was soon lost.  The sermon address was delivered by a different priest, who preached on the life of the good shepherd Bishop Marcel Lefebvre, founder of the Priestly Society of St. Pius X, on the occasion of the 25^th anniversary of his death.  The only music in the entire service was a single sung phrase during the recessional, and the only part of the service besides the sermon in English was a series of Hail Marys prayed at the end of the service.        

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

Unlike Mass at St. Michael’s Catholic Church, Tridentine Mass at Our Lady Immaculate clearly demonstrated that the Mass is directed not towards the congregation, but to the offering of the Eucharist.  Even at times when the priest was facing the congregation for the exchange of “Dominus vobiscum”/“Et cum spiritu tuo,” he avoided eye contact, remaining in an almost trance-like state of mysticism.  The hierarchical nature of the Church was highlighted by the congregation’s almost total lack of spoken response in the service: it seemed that the role of the congregation was almost not so much to directly participate, but rather to provide spiritual support for the priest as offered the Mass before God.  It was also interesting to note that the one part of the Mass deemed appropriate to translate into the presumably more accessible English was not the Lord’s Prayer, but the Hail Mary, highlighting again the importance of Marian adoration in the daily life of many conservative Catholic believers.   

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

Like nothing else, the service emphasized the crucial role of tradition in the Catholic Church.  The churches of the Society of St. Pius X are so concerned about maintaining the purity of tradition, specifically as expressed in the Tridentine Mass, that they are willing to condemn the entire Church hierarchy and sever themselves from the Church’s authority in an attempt to protect it.  After an extensive survey of Bishop Lefebvre’s life and work, the priest concluded his sermon by reading a November 21^st, 1974 address by Bishop Lefebvre.  In his address, Lefebvre quotes Galatians 1:8 in order to call an anathema upon the Pope for the accepting the “reforms” of the Second Vatican Council.  Interestingly, the priest had earlier praised Bishop Lefebvre for defending papal infallibility, a position apparently irreconcilable with the Society of St. Pius X’s subsequent decision to schism from the Catholic Church over pope-instituted reform.