In the comments of tomorrow's post, either share your church with us, or write about it on your blog, and leave me a link. :-)
I think this will be neat. I often wonder what other people's churches are like, and some of you may wonder what my church is like - so tomorrow we find out. :-)
A year ago Candy wrote this in reply to whether she had ever attended a Catholic mass:
: "A Yes. It was so sad and gut wrenching that it almost brought me to tears. I was the only one attending, that I could see, that brought a Bible, and even bothered looking up scriptures. The Bible ignorance in that crowd was astounding me as well. Most of them don't seem to read their Bible, they just follow what 'the church' teaches them. Everyone there looked to me like they were wearing masks with no eyes. :-( I suspect that there might have been more true reverence (as opposed to ritual) in a black mass (however they'd be worshiping the wrong guy, of course)."
Well it seems tomorrow she is inviting folks to share their church experience. I hope the Catholics who participate will be included. Tomorrow is the Feast of Corpus Christi or the Body of Christ, so that should make for interesting reading!
However, since we can't really be sure if Candy will post everyone's comments, feel free to leave a copy in the comment box below -just in case!
10 comments:
I just returned home from Mass. Our homily was about two topics that are related, the Real Presence of Christ in the Eucharist and vocations to the priesthood. Our pastor talked about how "most" Protestants take the Bible literally, except for the sixth chapter of John's Gospel, where Jesus says, "I am the bread of life. No one comes to the Father except through me," and how "most" Catholics don't take the Bible literally, except for the same verses! (Food for thought...)
I also just got home from Mass and our Homily was about why we should be at Mass and what we should be expecting from Mass and what we should not be asking from Mass such as "oh, the music doesn't do anything for me or I really don't like that Priest" also we heard about vocations and prayed over the two young men in our parish who will start seminary in the fall!! It was really good:)
Tracy, that is great to hear. Two new seminarians! I do think some people head to Mass with a "get from" instead of "give to" attitude. Being open to what the Bible's message offers and listening to the homily carefully can be so enriching.
Last night we traveled 9 hours to see a friend ordained to the priesthood today. It was an amazing, 2-hour long mass. Tomorrow my son will serve at our friend's First Mass as a priest. We are very excited! I hope to post about it on my xanga when we get home.
Our priest podcasts his Homilies, I'm tempted to post a link when he gets tomorrow's posted. I'm rather afraid of sending any harassment his way, though. What do you ladies' think?
We got a great homily last night about how we tend to think that the body of Christ is either in the tabernacle or hanging on the wall, and we forget that not only are we the Body of Christ as a people, but that we can't be Sunday-morning-Christians because if we receive communion, we literally carry Christ with us out into the world.
We entered the quiet sanctuary, where the congregation was recollecting themselves in prayer. We reminded ourselves of our baptism, and quietly joined those already present in prayer. There were about three hundred people in the congregation this morning. At 9:30, the church bells began to ring, and the priest and the servers began their procession, with the Cross of Christ held high at the front. We sang “We are One Body”, and began our worship in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. We examined our consciences, and confessed our failings throughout the week. We then offered glory to God in song.
We listed to the Scriptures, to hear God’s message for us today. We read from Deuteronomy 8: 2-16. God tests us with afflictions to train our hearts, and has provided us with manna, a food unknown to our fathers to provide us food for the journey. We praised God by singing Psalm 147, thanking Him for the statutes and ordinances He has given us to bring us closer to Him.
We learned from 1 Corinthians 10:16-17 and from John 6:51-58 about Christ, the very Bread come down from heaven. If we eat this real flesh and drink this real blood, we WILL have life eternal. Like your church, we stand at the words of the Gospel, in respect and awe and love.
Our pastor spoke to us about how so many ‘wish’ they could have been alive to see and hear Jesus in person, but that in reality we have an experience of GREATER intimacy with God through the Eucharist. We have Him in our midst every day, who strengthens and loves us to do His work on earth. Our lives are about intimacy, and Christ has promised that those who eat His flesh and drink His blood remain in Him, and He in us. It is the most profoundly intimate relationship we can have on this earth, and we are privileged to have it given to us.
Following the homily, together we professed our faith, and prayed for those in our community and our world in need, and asked for God’s help in our own lives. We gathered our gifts to the Lord, including the fruit of the fields and vines, and the work of our hands to be put to His use. We offered our praise in song, as we sang Psalm 34, “Taste and See the Goodness of the Lord.”
We then prayed in remembrance of the Last Supper, and greeted each other with a sign of peace before we partook of the Eucharist. The congregation meditated on these mysteries through prayer and song. We remained in prayer until we were dismissed to love and serve the Lord this week. Thanks be to God! We left the sanctuary while singing Shepherd of Souls.
Our Director of Religious Education is retiring after 25 years of service, so we went to the reception in the church hall to say thanks for the many years of service. This afternoon there is a city-wide prayer service being held at the major league baseball stadium in our city, which is expecting about 20,000 to 30,000 people. We are riding a bus from our church to save on gas
This morning, as I sometimes do, I attended Mass at the Cistercian Abbey.
What Unknown Anon so beautifully said, although there is no singing, just chant.
The Abbey grew from a foundation of Cistercian monks, who came to the U.S. from Hungary to escape the Communists in the early 1950's. Only a few of the original group are still alive, elderly priests in their seventies and eighties, who even today speak with a slight accent of their birth country. They teach at the local Catholic college and run a boy's prep school.
The Abbey church is a massive, simple structure of rough-cut sandstone designed after a Gothic church in Hungary. The stone was donated by an alumni's family from their West Texas quarry.
Their Mass is a oasis of reverence and dignity among some extremes of the 'spirit of Vatican II".
Unknown anon-
I am so happy to read your post here and especially at Candy's site. Beautifully written. Thanks for sharing.
I am rather surprised that it was allowed in. I tried to "speak Protestant" without watering down who we are and what we do. I did manage to leave out the part of the sentence about the processional which pointed out that the book of the Gospels is also carried right behind the crucifix. In our parish, the order is crucifix, servers with candles, book of the Gospels, priest.
I am sad, but not so surprised, to read about the missionaries going to Peru to 'minister' to the Roman Catholics.
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