May 31 Church Visit

This Sunday I travelled with Shawn H to a Catholic church in town. I won't say which one, and apparently it doesn't really matter because most services are pretty much the same. During my spiritual retreat time I got a taste of Catholic services, but did not attend a full mass, so this Sunday afforded me that opportunity. Shawn came along because he's more familiar with Catholic services and background, and I didn't want to make any mistakes. We entered the church and things were very quiet. Several people dipped their hands in holy water, or knelt near the cross as they entered and sat down. We attended a 9 am service. There were not many young people, or couples or families present during this service. Maybe more would be at the 11 am service. The bulletin of the church was impressive (though there was no order of worship in it). It looked like the church was busy with things. I noticed a yellow sheet of paper in the hymnal rack and pulled it out. It described what happens during the Eucharist and that any non Catholics were not to take it (apparently I shouldn't have taken the Eucharist in Weston Priory, but I didn't know that). I appreciated the information and the explanations of what was going to happen. The service took exactly 1 hour. I came away from it thinking that there was a lot of ritual about it. Shawn confirmed that that was the basis of most services in the Catholic church. I observed water, smoke, candles, singing by the Priest, singing by the choir, and the Eucharist being taken. It was very interesting to observe all that went on, and wonder. At times it seemed that the Priest was just going through the motions, speaking very fast (even faster than me : ) ) There was no order of worship so I didn't know what was coming next, or when to sit down or stand up, but pretty much everyone else seemed to. Shawn told me afterwards that you take Catholic member classes to find out about all that stuff if you want to become a Catholic. I also noticed (after the fact) that there were no Bibles in the pews, or anywhere for that matter, and no one took a Bible with them from home. Neither was the chapter and verse of the Scripture being read announced; Just the book. I found that interesting. The homily was about 12 minutes long, but it was very hard to understand the Priest. He spoke very fast, as if he was just trying to get through the service and move on to the next item of ritual. I noticed that during some of the singing and other elements that went on, he seemed very disengaged. I came away from this service wondering why people would come to a Catholic mass. I confess that I don't know a lot about Catholic history, but I do know some stuff. After talking about it with Shawn I confirmed that people come because they need to come because of the way that the theology of Catholicism is structured. I won't get into any deep discussions about all that. I'll just approach it from a visitor's standpoint. There was no church school that I'm aware of, or nursery, so it would have been difficult for children to be in church, but maybe they are in church to take Eucharist as children. There was no order of worship, so I didn't know what to expect, only that I was not allowed to take the Eucharist. There was lots of ceremony during the service, and all of it had meaning I know, but as a visitor, I had no clue as to what was going on. No one welcomed us, though we did pass the peace of Christ in the middle of the service, but didn't shake hands. So, from a visitor standpoint, I don't think I'd come back to that church. Again, it's that relationship, relationship, relationship element that bubbles to the surface. I got the feeling that this Catholic church just held services, and if people came, they came. If people didn't, well, then they didn't. No matter either way. That may not be the way it is for every Catholic church (and I hope it isn't), or every Catholic for that matter, but if I was interested in becoming Catholic, this church wouldn't have helped me to want to become one. : (