Bellarmine Chapel @ Xavier Univ.

Two weeks in a row now, I’ve attended a Catholic Mass. This is pretty much the longest streak of Mass-going I’ve been on for a good long time, but I don’t really plan on it extending to three. The Motherhouse, the scene of some crazy existential crisis for myself, seemed so far away and so different from what Bellarmine Chapel seemed to offer, so I really didn’t mind going to the same kind of service two weeks straight.

To be honest, there really wasn’t all that much similar about the Motherhouse and Bellarmine. The Motherhouse was a very conservative service, just a priest preaching to a big group of retired nuns. The service on Sunday had a very open feel to it: there was some insane woman handing out fliers in a shark hat and crazy flashing glasses, a priest who cracked jokes, a roving band of guitar playing church-hippies, and of all the things to start Mass with, an introductory handshake. The difference between the two venues could be seen just by walking in: the Motherhouse chapel is a huge, expansive, breathtaking thing with opulent paintings, marble all over the place, and beautiful stained glass…which blows away Xavier’s hyperbolic parabola with a pretty cool looking cross and some tiny stained glass windows. The layouts were also very different. in the Motherhouse’s chapel, the pews and chairs are aligned in straight lines. You’re looking at the backs of people’s heads. The pews in Bellarmine were in an arc, and unless somebody was sitting behind you, you could see a good majority of the faces in the room. I found this much more open and welcoming than most Catholic churches I have stepped into and found it to reinforce the early Catholic focus on community, which was something I’ve found to be lacking elsewhere.

It’s kind of hard for me to explain how a Catholic Mass goes: part of me thinks that this is just the way a Celebration of the Lord is, and that explaining it really isn’t necessary. I know too much about it. I’ve been to way to many of these things. Basically, it starts off with opening prayers, the readings, the Gospel (which is more important than the Old Testamen/Letters/Acts that are read before), the homily, the presentation of Gifts, more prayer interspersed through all of this (including the Creed, Our Father, Amen, and some variation on Christ has died/risen/will come again…), Communion, and then you go home. There’s also singing. At this place, there was a lot of singing. There was too much singing, but that’s mostly because I don’t think the Our Father is meant to sound like a folk ballad. That’s just me.

Dr. Fisher cracked a joke during his presentation when I was talking about my guilt over the Catholic Church and my desire to leave it by saying that they raised me well, and after sitting through a real Mass, they really did. Within the first minute, I was reciting the audience’s part in prayer, singing the songs I knew (and I know a lot by heart), even saying the Creed (where you affirm your belief in the Catholic Church, in all its Apostolic Holiness), and holding hands to join in with the Our Father. What I didn’t do was go up for communion, which now kind of strikes me as odd. I know that actions are perceived to be more meaningful than words, and I know that old habits are kind of hard to break, but it seems as though there’s a kind of hypocrisy within me that allows me to say words that hold such gravity without really meaning them. I think this is where Abbie’s argument about people going through the motions during mass comes into play for me…and I guess I’ll attempt to defend myself against an observation that wasn’t really made about me.

The Catholic Church was, for me, home for a great number of years. I don’t mean home as in what church I celebrated at, but I mean home. It was comfort, security, safety; I thrived in the environment and soaked everything up that I could. There was a period of time in my life when there was absolutely nothing right, but Chruch/Sunday School centered me. I think it was a big reason why I chose to go to a Catholic high school an hour away from my home instead of going to school 10 minutes away with the friends I already had. I think it may have also had a very small part of why I chose to come to the Mount. I found solace in my beliefs, and I knew what I was doing. It got to the point where I silently mouthed the priest’s part of Mass and could recite my favorite passages from the Bible near verbatim. It was kinda scary, but it was a weekend gig. It centered me.

Going back for a full mass for the first time in a long time was like sending a recovering alcoholic to a bar: it wasn’t so much a question of how well I was going to hold up, but when I was going to fall back into old habits. I don’t really think it mattered though. I may be a slight hypocrite, but who isn’t?

Overall, I see where the observations of the Church being too constrained and conservative come from: going to Mass with a bunch of liberal Protestants (I never thought I’d type that) was more eye opening than visiting old roots. What I wasn’t prepared to see was the Anointing of the Sick, which I’d always thought was an extremely private service. It would have been beautiful, if not for the priest cracking an odd joke about having already read some passage and the loud, zombie like “THE LORD HEALS US IN OUR FAITH” that followed every pause. I think I would have preferred it to be a private thing, but the standing that this Chapel has is that the community is a part of the healing process, which is pretty liberal-minded and old school at the same time, so it was pretty cool.

I can’t really rate the experience, and I can’t really count this as an “outside” anything, I just figured that since I went, I may as well write two pages about the service instead of doing the other work I have. Still, I had about as good a time as one could when going to Mass. And Jim’s car is awesome. Just thought I’d throw that out there.

St. John's

At the very first meeting of this class, Jim(ster) imparted upon us the reason he became a Methodist: he was late for Unitarian service on the same day. Most of us laughed, and I know that I joked with Jim for a few days, telling him that his was the worst excuse ever.

After sitting through an hour and fifteen minutes of the craziest service ever, I’ve come to the conclusion that this must, in fact, be a very common excuse. Universal Unitarianism is about the most wishy-washy faith I’ve ever sat in on, and wound up being the complete and total opposite of my expectations.

Jim hyped the services of being arts-centric, and to a large degree, it is. Walking into their “sanctuary,” if you ignore the weird man assigned to be this week’s greeter, you notice an art gallery. Going into the actual gathering space, there isn’t any overbearing stained glass, just simple origami, some embroidery on an unused table, and some floral arrangements. A professional accompanist played “Funeral March of the Marionette.” Fantastic. Then the children came out and paraded around the seats in store bought Halloween costumes before being whisked back to the basement for Religious Exploration Class or some cultish thing. Less fantastic.

The leader, Rev. Frank Carpenter, asked us what our favorite costume was, and I noted how the quality of Darth Vader costumes had gone down since I was a kid. A few of the more friendly denizens of the gathering hunted Bill and I out, because we had nametags designating us as new. They all encouraged us to come back next week, and to stay after the service for cookies and coffee, one of them even emphatically stating that it sounded like a whole meal…and not just cookies.

If Bill and I had thought about staying, it was quickly dispelled. I have nothing against Alice Walker, nothing against the Earth Charter, and nothing against people asking me to send positive energy to cancer patients. It’s all well and good. More awesome music was played, and a good chunk of the Gospel of Mark was read.

Then we went to the psalms. I don’t remember both of them, suffice to say that one was influenced by Native American songs. Fitting, considering that the Hopi Indians were brought up several times, but it was hard not to laugh at a group of 45-55 year old white people chanting “hey-ya, hey-ya, ho-ya,” laughing themselves, and continuing as if they knew the whole exercise was futile.

The highlight of the morning was Rev. Carpenter’s speech, wherein we learn that the words of the Bible were cultural buzzwords. “THIS IS MY SON, WHOM I LOVE,” (typed in caps to convey the awesome power of God) really meant that “we’re in the midst of a really awesome paradigm shift.” The question was weather or not we would cling to the shore of familiarity or allow ourselves to be swept up in this awesome torrent of change. I think as somebody who used to give speeches, I found the correlation kind of funny: when caught in the awesome torrent of anything remotely close to water, clinging to the sides tends to be preferable to going with the flow and drowning.

I got his point though: humanity needs to change in order to survive. The ways of the world are changing, and we need to change with them. To punctuate this, Chopin’s “Marche Funebre” was played…the funeral march for those of you who are unfamiliar. The song finished and Bill and I scurried away before anybody could force us into eating cookies and drinking coffee until the Rapture.

I suppose you could say I was bitterly disappointed with the experience. I was really looking forward to going to this place, but was completely put off by the non-committal attitude of many of the members. Global warming was bad. Possible extinction was bad. But hey…we’re in the midst of a really awesome paradigm shift!

I was looking forward to an art-centric service, but I really fail to see what purpose it served in the end. I suppose that the term “Universal Unitarian” means that you accept all faith backgrounds, but when you try to squeeze it all in while stripping the overarching moral tones in favor of corporate buzzwords, something gets lost in translation.

I went in looking for a spiritual experience, but it just didn’t pan out.

Also, why is a Unitarian place of gathering named after a saint?

St. John's Unitarian Universalist

I recently had a three week fling with a non-practicing Unitarian Universalist and agreed with him for the most part on the subject of theology. Therefore, it seemed almost natural to want to attend a UU worship service. After much careful selection between the two UU churches that Jim offered for us to visit, Mr. Paul Rodgers and I selected St. John's Unitarian Universalist Church on the basis of it having 11:00 rather than 10:30 services.

We pulled up to the church at about 20 minutes early, took a deep breath, and went in. Upon entering the door we were greeted eagerly by Howard, the official greeter for the week. Howard gave us each a name tag to fill out and then wear. He also presented a brief orientation to the church and its services. We entered into the sanctuary and sat down. I noticed a long the outside wall there were beautiful peace cranes made out of all different colored and strung across the windows. The Order of Service revealed that these peace cranes are to serve as a reminder to all visitors on the necessity of promoting peace in the world.

The service began with announcements about the church that did not make it to the bulletin. Then a beautiful rendition of Gounod's “Funeral March of a Marionette” was played on the piano while the children of the church paraded around in Halloween costumes before heading downstairs for Religious Exploration classes. The minister than suggested to the congregation that they take the time to introduce themselves to someone knew and discuss what their favorite costume was. I was instantly greeted by some of the regulars and was told to keep coming.

The service proper than began with the lighting of a large chalice in the front of the sanctuary. A hymn was sung out of their hymnal Singing the Living Tradition. Then as an affirmation, the preamble to The Earth Charter was read in unison. At this point, the minister read “We Are The Ones We Have Been Waiting For” by Alice Walker. There was then an activity called “Wheel of Lie” which the order of service accurately describes as “A time to share a personal joy or sorrow from the past week.” It was at this point I learned that Unitarian Universalists have many different beliefs. Some ask for prayers to send to friends and family and others ask for positive thoughts to be sent their way.

At this point, the minister lead a meditation and suggested that congregation meditated on pure happiness. The point of this activity was to become purely happy. They then went into a traditional reading of Mark 1. The sermon that was delivered was entitled “Committing to the Future.” The main idea of it was that we need to commit to the future and fix the issue of global warming. He interpreted Jesus saying “The time is fulfilled, and the kingdom of God is at hand: repent ye, and believe the gospel” more as “We're in the midst of an awesome paradigm shift.” This helped him adapt the Gospel of Mark to talk about how religion is experiencing a paradigm shift back into focusing on nature.

The service than closed with a hmyn, benediction, postlude, and then extinguishing the flame. I wasn't really that impressed with their service and was very glad to be back at home in a Christian service at 9:00 mass on Sunday night. This experience did the impossible, it made a radical protestant like me feel at home during a Roman Catholic mass.