Church name: Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church
Church Address: 36 N. Ellsworth, Naperville
Date Attended: Sunday, November 1, 2015
Church Category: Tridentine Mass
Describe the worship service you
attended. How was it similar to or different from your regular context?
The church that
I was going to was visible from blocks away. Its architecture was designed,
undoubtedly, with the view to point to God in all aspects—inside, there were
many arches that all converged at one high point on the ceiling and, outside,
there was a spire that stretched much higher than any of the surrounding
buildings. The inside was beautiful. The walls were not completely covered with
pictures and images, as the Orthodox Church I attended was, but there were
still many images on the walls. I noticed that this artwork was much more
Western in its form, and that the priests did not pause or bow before them on
their rounds around the room. The service itself felt much more familiar to me
than the Orthodox service had. Once again, everything was sung and the priests
walked around the room burning incense. They also chanted over the sacraments
on the altar in the front of the room, their backs toward us. But overall there
was much less expectation of participation from the congregation than in the
Orthodox service, which is more of what I am used to in my regular context. As
a congregation, we kneeled, sat, and stood for most of the service. The only
exception was when we lined up to take the Eucharist, which is also very
similar to my regular context. At the end of the service, we sang a song that I
was actually had sung before, except that it was in Latin. This service also
used an organ, exclusively.
How did the worship service illuminate
for you the history and contours of global Christianity?
There was one
point in the service where one of the priests was recognizing all of the
Catholic saints and explicitly said that these saints did not include those
that were canonized by the Eastern Orthodox Church after the Great Schism.
Although I did not know what was being said during most of the service except
for a brief interlude in English, I was surprised once again by this one
reference to the history and tradition of Christianity. Like the Eastern
Orthodox Church, they are both extremely important to the Catholic Church in a
way that is unfamiliar in Protestant Churches. This reference reminded of the
very real break between the Eastern and Western Churches that still exists
today. I could also very much see the roots of Protestantism in this service.
It felt much more familiar, but there were some big differences. During the
Mass, the whole of the attention seemed to be on the bread and the wine. The
priests were continuously hovering over it. It was clear that these were the
most important things in the room and the priests were focused on them, not the
congregation.
How did the worship service illuminate
for you your personal identity as a Christian?
This service was
a little hard for me to really feel like I was worshipping God, because I was
mostly trying to figure out where in the program we were and make sure that I
was kneeling and standing at the right times. Also because the service was in
Latin, I caught my thoughts wandering pretty often. But I liked the reverence that
they paid to the bread and the wine. Even if, as Protestants, we believe that
the elements are only symbols of the body and blood of Christ, we should still
treat them with the same reverence. I also liked how the main focus was on the
Lord and not on the congregation. It was evident that this service wasn’t about
what one could get out of it but solely to worship God.
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