Traver Carlson - Church Visit #2

Church Name: Holy Angels Church

Church address: 180 S Russell Ave Aurora, Illinois 60506

Date attended: November 1, 2015

Church category: Tridentine Mass

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

Most noticeably different, aside from the language, was the movement of the Tridentine Mass. Throughout the whole Mass, each part was accompanied by a certain position: standing, sitting, or genuflecting. Sometimes the motion would be brief; usually genuflection was the only brief category. The motion of the entire mass was centered around the preparation of the blessing of the elements for transubstantiation. Hearing the Mass in Latin was an interesting experience as a student of Latin (I will speak of my experience as a Christian in the third section). Since I had the missal I was able to follow along, yet if I did not have the missal I would have been lost due to the pace at which the priest spoke—he even stumbled over the pronunciation of many words as he went along. The homily was also much shorter than it was at the Greek Orthodox church I attended, than the traditional Anglican services, and than the Orthodox Presbyterian services in which have participated. 

How did the worship service illuminate for you the history and contours of global Christianity? 

Hearing the Mass in Latin, following along as it went, made me feel connected to those throughout space and time—with Pope Gregory I in the 7th century, King Alfred of Wessex in the 9th, Dante and Aquinas in the 13th, Chaucer in the 14th, and Luther and Calvin in the 16th—with those who would have heard many of the same words composed and pronounced in the same way. Though, I also felt the distance: none of the above besides Pope Gregory I would have spoken Latin and, even though it may be understood and be cloaked in reverence, it was not the native language of the people after the disuse of Vulgar Latin. The Cathedral is a place to go to reflect upon God’s providence with the Saints and the work of Christ, the Mass a series of movements to reflect upon the approaching of God in the Eucharist—arguably, Dante illustrates this in his Divina Comedia—but preaching salvation and managing the structure of the Church in a language separated from and inaccessible to those without access to education understandably creates at least to some degree a difference between the clergy and the laity. 

How did the worship service illuminate for you your personal identity as a Christian?

I mentioned in the two sections above that I was not able to follow along without the text in the missal and that I felt that it bestowed upon the Mass a certain reverence. Something I have come to appreciate more is the majesty and awe of God as I read more about the Christians in Anglo-Saxon England (~600-1200 C.E.). Part of majesty, I believe, is recognizing the status of God as King above ourselves—another helpful Germanic concept called “comitatus”—which the motion of the Mass and conducting it in Latin aid. Yet, there are drawbacks. The Christianity expressed in the early Middle Ages is one centered on the relationship of God to the corporate body of Christ as opposed to focusing on the individual. From the vantage point of a hyper-individualism which began with the Enlightenment and Reformation, we may offer some critique concerning the degree to which there was separation of the laity from the Church and God by extension. Participating in this Mass in Latin with the brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers of the faith was a wonderful experience and a good catalyst for reflecting upon the majesty of God, the role of the clergy in the body of Christ, and the laity’s unity and relation to the clergy and to God.