There are those on the other side of the fence

Mass in a private home
December 20, 2007


Note - I am really, really going to catch up on these accounts of visiting a different church every Sunday in 2007-2008, the posting of which was the original reason for starting a blog! I'm hoping to be caught up to the current month (ie, posting April 2008 stories in April 2012) and then finish this project. If anyone wants to read them in order, just click on the Visiting Churches label at the bottom of each post and scroll to the beginning.
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Tonight I am going to attend Mass in a private home. I didn't even realize Catholics could do that!


We walk into the house, a modest ranch style home, and are greeted warmly. I am at once aware that this is simultaneously both the most Christmassy and the most Catholic home I’ve ever seen. There are lights and decorations on every wall and every surface. There is a Christmas tree in every room, except the bathroom, which features a Christmas shower curtain, Christmas throw rug, Santa Claus toilet seat cover, other Christmas decorations, and a huge picture of St. Therese, the Little Flower, holding a bouquet of roses and a crucifix.

A small table has been set up in the living room, next to the Christmas tree, for the altar. It is covered with a white cloth, and holds a book, candles, a cross, and some of the implements for the Eucharist. Pictures of saints seem to be on the walls of every room, and every room also has at least one crucifix. There is a holy water holder on the wall near the front door.


The tree topper on the main Christmas tree, in the living room, is a little lit-up Virgin Mary, which is something I have never seen before. She is cute – this is one of the few pudgy Virgins I have seen, although the plumpness may be partially a result of the fact that her skirts have to be really wide to encompass both the light bulb inside and the tip of the tree.


Chairs have been set up in rows in two adjoining rooms, the kitchen and a den that is a couple of steps down from the living room. There are about thirty people here for Mass, so it is fairly crowded. There is a nice mix of ages, and the young son of the host and hostess is serving as an altar boy.

 The priest enters the living room, wearing an elaborate maroon and gold patterned robe over some other garments, one of them being a sheer skirt with embroidery around the bottom, on top of another robe or skirt. The napkin covering the gold cup on the altar matches the priest’s robe. Very color coordinated!


We begin with prayers and hymns. The priest tells us the names of three or four people for whom this Mass is being said. One of them is Marie Therese, who I later learn is the daughter of the couple in whose home we are meeting, and he says that today is her birthday. So it's a kind of birthday mass, but the birthday girl is not present.

The priest is a tall young Irish man, with a lovely accent, and this is like some kind of movie set from the Bing Crosby era – the home filled with happy Catholic Christians, the Irish priest. He begins by talking about the passage in James that urges Christians to be patient in awaiting the Lord’s coming, and notes that the problem with many Christians today is that they are too patient – in fact, they would just as soon the Lord did not return, because they are having a fine time without Him.


He mentions that tradition tells us that Mary was praying for the coming of the Messiah when Gabriel appeared to her with the message that she would become the mother of the Lord. Then he says an interesting bit about how the innkeeper who refused to let Mary into his inn was (unknowingly) also refusing to let Jesus in. In the same way, anyone who rejects Mary rejects her Son. When Joseph was tempted to divorce Mary, he was (unknowingly) thinking of divorcing Jesus, in her womb.

Then he launches into a passionate defense of Catholicism, noting among other things that the only way to be saved is through the mass, and that no one can be saved apart from the Church. He seems to me to be preaching to the choir here – these must be some pretty hard-core Catholics, if they are willing to spend a hour or so attending a house Mass. I don’t think anyone here besides me is likely to dispute a word he says.

The priest tells us that we must believe in all seven sacraments, and urges us to be sure to make good confessions. He denounces abortion and birth control. He tells us that we must accept every teaching of the Church. He is quite concerned about the sad state of “those on the other side of the fence,” by which he means either non-Catholics, or lapsed Catholics, or perhaps both.


“Some on the other side of the fence think you can confess your sins directly to Jesus, without going to a priest,” he snorts. “Just trying telling that one to Jesus! Jesus, who breathed the Holy Spirit on Peter, and said, “Whatever sins you loose are loosed, etc.”


Everyone who is able kneels for the Eucharist. The priest dispenses the wafers by placing them on people’s tongues. (This is a crowd that is not partial to the reforms of Vatican II.) I am the only one who does not receive. I accidentally make a mistake about this, though. When the priest comes over to where I am kneeling, I hold up my hand like a stop sign. The priest looks disgusted. (I learn later that the correct form for people who are not receiving the host is to cross your arms over your chest.) Only the priest drinks the wine; this is one of those masses where it is not offered to the congregants.


After the service people are invited to come into the kitchen for food. There is a buffet set up with meatball sandwiches, salad, chips, and lots of really great desserts. The priest changes into his street clothes (normal clothing except for the clerical collar), and everyone visits. I talk to our hostess’ mother, and learn that she has six children. One is a nun and one a priest. The hostess's sister is also a nun.


It turns out that the daughter who is a nun is the one having a birthday today. Today is her eighteenth birthday, and she is not at home because she joined a Carmelite order in New York on her seventeenth birthday. Her family has not seen her or talked to her during the last year, and they will not be able to call her and wish her a happy birthday on the phone.

To say that Carmelites are strict is to put the matter lightly. Marie Therese has joined an enclosed order, which means that it is possible - probably, actually - that she will never leave the monastery for the rest of her life. Imagine agreeing to live in one building for the rest of your life at the age of 17!

Marie Therese has had no contact with the outside world for the past year, and I don't know when she will next have a visit or phone call. The idea is that the first year is a chance to acculturate oneself to the enclosed, isolated life of a contemplative nun, and get a good idea of what it is like before you take final vows. It's a hard life of little sleep, physical privations, and lots of prayer and religious rites. An enclosed nun does not leave at any time except for an extreme emergency, such as hospitalization. They have few visitors, or none - and even when they do have visitors, it is often under some kind of strict separation, such as being in different rooms, and seeing the visitors only through a screen, for a short time.

Frankly, I can totally understand a devout teen-age girl raised in an extremely Catholic house feeling an attraction to this heroic life of self-denial and submersion in the religious environment. I can understand that a year (or even a few months) of this kind of thing would cause lasting changes in one's personality and in one's ability to return to the outside world.

The hard thing for me to understand is saying good-by to your 17-year-old daughter, knowing that you will never see her or speak to her again for any length of time for the rest of your life.

There are those on the other side of the fence indeed.

This is the part where Holy Mother Church tells you to give each other a nice, big kiss

Saint Linus Roman Catholic Church
Natick, MA
November 4, 2007


We are in Massachusetts for a wedding this weekend – my nephew Nick was married yesterday at this church, and we are back again on Sunday morning for mass. This is a lot of Catholic churches in a row for me.

The priest, Monsignor Robert Giggi, conducted the wedding yesterday. He has a charming Boston accent. The wedding was quick – only about 30 minutes, no communion. The most memorable part of it was when Monsignor Giggi said, “This is the part of the service where Holy Mother Church tells you to give each other a nice big kiss.”

Saint Linus is a newer-looking (1950s? 1960s?) rectangular tan brick building. It looks as though it seats at least 600, and I estimate that there are perhaps 350-400 people here for the 11:00 am mass.

The front of the sanctuary looks like a bit of a hodge-podge to me. There are small modern stained glass windows on either side of an emaciated Christ on the cross, which is hung against red and gold wallpaper with a very large pattern. There are several other statues, the two flags (Vatican and American), flowers, felt banners, the altar table – lots of stuff up there.

Reading the bulletin while waiting for the service to begin, I notice a question-and-answer column, Dear Padre. Someone has asked if Catholics should take communion in Protestant churches, if they happen to be there for a wedding or some other service where it is offered. The Padre says that the answer is no, because “it implies a unity between our traditions that does not exist.” That seems fine to me. Then he says that “Protestants usually believe that any baptized Christian may receive communion,” which is a little off. Many Protestant churches have closed communion, and wouldn’t expect or want Catholics to participate.

The sermon, which is about twelve minutes long, is good. It’s about three types of brokenness: the broken Word, the broken bread, and broken people. We are encouraged to encounter Christ in all these situations.

At this church they offer only bread for the Eucharist, one of the those Catholic habits that still surprises me now and then. The service is finished in under an hour. Everyone is invited to the fellowship hall for coffee and refreshments, but we need to get back to the hotel to check out and meet relatives for lunch.

When I began this project I thought I would be drinking lots of coffee and eating lots of cookies after church with various groups, but it hasn’t turned out that way at all. Somehow I have managed to hit upon only a few churches that even have coffee hours, and now, on one of the few times I found one, I can’t stay.

Epilogue

I was curious about the name of the church – who was Saint Linus? I associate that name only with the thumbsucking philosopher of Peanuts fame. I began with Wikipedia, where I learned that Linus was the second pope. Some people think he is also the Linus mentioned in 2 Timothy, though there is nothing official about that opinion. Tertullian says that Clement was the second pope, but the Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) says that Tertullian was off base on that one.

Only a very few things are known about this Linus, and most of them are disputed. He seems to have been a Tuscan, which would indicate that the church began choosing Italian popes pretty early, after their first Palestinian Jewish pope. Some sources say that he decreed that women should cover their heads in church! Aha – so he’s the guy responsible for that one? Wait, no – the Catholic Encyclopedia says that this story is apocryphal. The same source that says he’s behind the headcovering decree also says that he was martyred, which the Encyclopedia pronounces “improbable. For between Nero and Domitian there is no mention of any persecution of the Roman Church.” For a while, some people thought Linus had been buried alongside Peter, but that view is no longer popular. At one point a letter concerning the martyrdom of Peter and Paul was attributed to Linus, but later this was also declared to be false.

It must be incredibly difficult to do early church history.

You know, some ministers worry about taking over a pulpit after an especially popular or charismatic or famous pastor has left or died, because they tend to suffer by comparison. They should think about poor Pope Linus. Just imagine having Peter as your predecessor!

Basically, it seems we know nothing about Pope Linus. In that respect he’s like most other people, of course – so two cheers for Linus, the unknown Pope!

Will we get to heaven because we are Catholic?

St. Andrew the Apostle Roman Catholic Church
Gibbsboro, NJ
October 28, 2007

I decided to attend this church because I had read in the Catholic Star Herald that they would be having a Mass of African Tradition and Celebration. Having just seen two very nice Ugandan priests, and having seen the video of the African mass that Father Grace loaned me, I thought that this sounded great.

Unfortunately, there was a typo in the article. It said the celebration would take place on “Sunday, October 27.” Since October 27 was a Saturday, I thought they meant Sunday, October 28. But the typo was the other way around – the celebration was on Saturday, October 27. I should have looked into this more carefully.

When I arrived on Sunday morning I heard African music coming out of the loudspeakers in the church – but it had been recorded the day before. Today was going to be an ordinary mass, albeit conducted by an African priest, because this church, like St. Thomas and the Stockton campus ministry, is served by a priest imported from overseas.

The building is one of those big modern structures, with a large skylight over the sanctuary, and lots of angular modern wooden carvings on one wall. There are about 250 congregants, in a sanctuary that would seat 500-600. The most notable thing to me is a holy water fountain in the lobby, which seems huge, and has water flowing on three levels. I had never even imagined that you could have a holy water fountain (I guess I had only seen little basins that people dip their fingers in), but why not?

Once again I find myself in the middle of a congregation that is 99% white, listening to an African priest.

His homily is interesting. It’s about self-righteousness, and follows the reading about the tax collector and the Pharisee. He asks the congregation if they think they are better than other people because they are Catholic, and if they think that being Catholic will get them into heaven. No, he answers. We are not justified by works, and being Catholic is a kind of work. He notes that we can easily assume superior attitudes about our faith – but that doing so is itself a sign of ignorance and lack of compassion. Like the Pharisee in today’s lesson, we can bring this attitude into our prayer life.

He asks us to consider a single mother with two jobs, trying to finish her education, who becomes pregnant. He notes that pregnancy is a far different thing for her than for most of the women sitting in the congregation. He asks us to be compassionate about her choice to turn to abortion – he’s not saying that abortion is okay in this situation, just urging us to avoid condemning the woman facing this difficult situation.

Well, that’s a homily I didn’t expect to hear in a Catholic church.

It’s a lovely day, and when I go outside I notice that they have set aside, rather sensibly, a smokers’ station for people who want a cigarette after church.

Later, looking through their bulletins and materials I see that this church is very active in compassionate ministry of various types. They visit men and women in prisons in Camden weekly, and have helped several women during their release and re-entry into society. Once a month they send people to mentor troubled teens in Camden. They collect household goods that people need, and visit the VA hospital. Seems like a nice group, and if I were a Catholic living near Gibbsboro, I would check them out.

We have to be an Acme, not a Wawa

Saint Thomas the Apostle Roman Catholic Church
Brigantine, New Jersey
October 21, 2007



Neil and I are spending a mini-vacation (5 days) on Brigantine, which is an island just off the New Jersey coast, a 10-minute drive across a bridge from Atlantic City. There are three churches on this little island, as well as lots of lovely shore homes and condos. The three churches are Saint Thomas Roman Catholic, Community Presbyterian, and Brigantine Bible Church. (There is also a synagogue, Temple Beth Shalom.) Brigantine is only a little over an hour from our home, and Neil needs to drive back to Collingswood on Sunday morning to pick up a priest who will be conducting the evening service at the Stockton College campus ministry that evening. Because I won’t have a car while he is gone, I need to attend a church that is within walking distance, which won’t be difficult. Both Community Presbyterian and Saint Thomas are within easy walking distance (I can see both from our hotel room window), and at first I planned to go to the Presbyterian church. But I slept later – hey, it’s a vacation – and so I needed to attend the Catholic church instead.

Saint Thomas meets in an attractive building constructed in a Spanish style, with yellow walls, red roof tiles, and two steeples at each side of the front entrance. A plaque near the front doors reads, “Please! No skateboarding! God is watching! (and He loves you).”

Churches have lots of trouble with skaters, because they tend to be good skating areas: parking lots, wide concrete steps, hard rails, walls, and interesting fences. Some churches seem to have been constructed with skaters in mind! This is a big irritation for lots of church folks, especially the ones who need to worry about liability. Another reason this bothers church folks is that skaters sometimes frighten and/or offend parishioners. They look dangerously nutty to people who aren’t comfortable with skating culture.

You might think it would be a simple matter to simply forbid skating, or just chase the kids away whenever you see them doing tricks on the church steps. However, another fear makes people hesitate to say something. Skaters have been known to come back later that night, after being chased off, and throw rocks at those extremely expensive church windows, or at the light fixtures. No one wants to encourage that. So it’s something of an intractable problem for now.

It would be nice if a church that attracts skaters could build a skate park somewhere on the property and hire a youth minister who enjoys skating, turning a problem into a ministry. But that wouldn’t be easy or cheap, and besides, the insurance would likely be astronomical. So at present lots of churches just have an uneasy relationship with local skaters, and pray for the best.

Inside, I find a seat about halfway up the sanctuary. It is a rectangular space, with seating for at least 500 people. The altar wall is red brick, and there is a large cross with a risen Christ affixed to the bricks, flanked by two large banners with wheat sheaves. To the left are statues of the Holy Family. (Mary is a blonde.) To the right is a mural featuring a dove flying over an ocean. On either side are brick alcoves with statues and candles.

The sanctuary is filling up rapidly. It’s not packed, but there must be at least 400 people. I’m always impressed with attendance at Catholic churches. This is one of five weekend masses. So I figure they might have 1,000 people or more in attendance each weekend. That would be a mega church by Protestant standards, but it seems typical for a Catholic church in New Jersey.

Most people are dressed quite casually, as you would expect on an island. It’s quite warm for October (mid-eighties today), and some adults are wearing shorts and flip-flops. Still, there is the occasional older woman wearing suit, nylons, heels, and hat – the stereotypical church lady costume, which is actually quite attractive on many women. They just have to avoid the sour Dana Carvey face.

For some reason there are stacks of church financial statements in the pews.

A middle-aged woman steps into the pulpit and says, “Good morning. My name is Karen and I will be your lector.” She runs through the announcements, then picks up a book, holds it up, and walks down the aisle toward the back of the church. Then, as the congregation sings the first hymn, the priest, in a green robe, processes up the aisle, along with three young boys wearing white roves and the lector, bringing the book back to the pulpit.

Hey – I think the priest might be another one of the New Jersey Ugandans! As soon as we finish the hymn he speaks, and then I’m pretty sure he is Ugandan. He sounds a lot like Father Grace. He asks the children to come forward for children’s church. A few kids go forward, but not very many. That’s odd, as I usually see lots of kids at a Catholic church. Maybe most of them have already left for children’s church. The priest tells us that in Uganda many children are missionaries to other children, and suffer danger for Christ’s sake, and that we should pray that our children will do likewise. I don’t think many Americans are comfortable with this idea, frankly.

There is a prayer, and a reading from Exodus – the story about Moses lifting his hands in supplication to the Lord while Joshua battled Amilech; Aaron and Levi held up his arms when they grew weary. Next we do a responsive chant. There is the usual half-hearted congregational singing. There is another reading, another chant, and a Gospel reading. The priest announces that there will be no homily today because someone from the parish financial council will be addressing the congregation – ah ha, that explains the financial statements in the pews.

A man steps into the pulpit. He gets right to the point – the church is looking at a projected deficit of about $100,000 next year. Offertory collections must increase by 20%.

He points out good things about the parish, that it has been very vibrant, especially in the last three years. But expenses have increased as well. He notes that they have added a full-time paid youth minister, and that the cost of maintaining their aging building has gone up, including the cost of insurance. Apparently this church has been “regionalized” with four other parishes within the last year, which for some reason means that their subsidy to the parish school has doubled (if I understand him correctly). The diocese is also looking into closing or merging some churches to save money.

Then he makes an interesting comparison. He says that some churches are like Wawas and some are like Acmes. (Wawas are convenience stores in the Northeast, and Acmes are supermarkets.) He explains that this means that some parishes offer just a few services and some offer full service. He says that Saint Thomas needs to offer everything possible to avoid being one of the churches that will be closed or merged within the next few years. They should strive to be an Acme.

(Actually, Wawas are doing great right now. It’s the big supermarket chains that are in trouble, but still I see what he means.)

It’s a little hard to hear the speaker at times, both because he is rather softspoken, and because the man sitting in the pew directly behind me is providing continuous disgruntled commentary – he is firmly convinced that the people in charge of parish finances are morons.

Next we stand for responsive prayer. Among other items, the priest urges us to remember when we go to the polls that the bishops are opposed to the New Jersey Stem Cell Research Bond Act. There is an offertory hymn, and the collection is taken.

When the congregation recites the Lord’s Prayer, what a difference! Everyone knows this one, and suddenly you hear all four or five hundred voices speaking loudly and confidently. It highlights the difference between this and all the other prayers and songs.

The priest celebrates the Eucharist, and as I watch the people going forward, I suddenly realize that everyone in church is white except for the priest. Also, almost no one takes the wine.

Then there is a final hymn, and everyone leaves quickly. It’s a beautiful day to go to the beach!

Epilogue

I did not know this at the time, but the financial situation of the Diocese of South Jersey would come to be very significant for me personally, as Neil was laid off in 2009 when the Diocese offered severance packages to lots of employees, warning them that if they didn’t take the offer now they would likely get much less later. Things seemed to turn out okay for St. Thomas, which was not closed or merged, but lots of churches were affected. Catholic churches throughout the United States have been closing or merging in recent years, especially in the Northeast, and the Diocese of South Jersey tried a rather novel approach – make all the changes at once, rather than closing a few churches every year or so. The approach was controversial, but anything they did would have been controversial. You can read more about the the plan here.

My mother walks five miles each Sunday to attend church

Catholic Campus Ministry
Stockton College
Pomona, New Jersey
October 7, 2007


Tonight I am attending a Sunday evening mass at my husband’s workplace – after he left the Presbyterian ministry to become Catholic, he was offered a job at the campus ministry center at Stockton College. He facilitates a Newman Club on campus, and assists the priest assigned to the center, who presides at a mass on Sunday evenings.

The Catholic Campus Ministry is housed in a very attractive new building on the outskirts of the Stockton campus. When Neil first came to work there, the priest was an older man who had multiple health issues and was in a wheelchair. Not, you might think, the most obvious choice for campus ministry. He was quite energetic in spite of his physical limitations, though, and was especially interested in redecorating the building. Even though it was almost new, he had lots of stuff done – repainting, new furniture, and quite a bit of new art on the walls. The services are held in a largish room with folding chairs, seating about 50-75 people. Father Pat ordered lots of framed pictures of the Virgin and Child for this room, in addition to a good bit of other religious art. The interesting thing about the Virgin pictures is that each depicts Mary as of a different nationality – there’s a Vietnamese Virgin, an African Virgin, a Mexican Virgin, a Native American Virgin, etc. There’s a Jewish Virgin fleeing World War II concentration camps, attempting to save a little endangered Holy Child from the ovens.

I think these pictures are really interesting, and most of them are quite lovely. The Vietnamese Mary is stunning. Neil doesn’t like them as much as I do, because he says that they make it seem as though Mary is just a general idea of Motherhood rather than a particular, real person of a particular place and time. Actually, this seems to me like another version of the common tension between the Jesus of history and the Jesus of people’s actual experience.

At any rate, Father Pat eventually became too ill to continue, and the Diocese of South Jersey brought in an African priest, Father Grace, to take over his duties. This is another thing I’ve been noticing a lot about the American Catholic Church. In many of the churches I have attended the priest is a foreigner – often Vietnamese, Filipino, or African. It seems as though the Catholic Church in this country has at least one thing in common with some other employers – they have to bring in foreigners to do the work Americans don’t want to do.

Father Grace is Ugandan, and very, very nice. He tells me about his mother, who walks five hours each Sunday to attend mass – two and a half hours each way. It seems there is a shortage of priests in Uganda, too. (Do you know of any Americans who would walk five hours each Sunday if that were the only way they could attend mass? There must be some, but I bet there aren’t very many.) Father Grace is eager to see snow for the first time, and I think he will get his wish this winter.

The mass is attended by some local folks, a few faculty members, and a small number of students. It’s very quick; the sermon is good but quite brief (about 5 minutes), and it doesn’t take long to administer the sacraments to 70-75 people.

Later Father Grace loaned me a videotape of a service in Uganda. It was a big gathering – I think for the installation of a bishop. The service took hours – much longer than the three hours or so they got on videotape, and included lots and lots of singing and dancing. The participants seem to be having an absolutely fantastic time.

I’m sure it’s not a typical African service, but even if normal African masses are just one-sixteenth as enthusiastic as the one on the tape, Father Grace must think that we Americans are the dullest people on earth.

What do we do with the fraud lasting for 28 years now?

Byzantine Rambler has a post on something that hasn't been well covered in the mainstream press, the Medjugorge Marian apparitions. I'm glad to see that the Pope has spoken out on this. The political ramifications are complex and fascinating; I had no idea that massacres of Jews, Gypsies, Serbs, and Croats were so closely connected to the area of the so-called apparition. This reminds me a bit of George Fox's "Woe to bloody Litchfield" vision, which I wrote about in this post. Perhaps there is a connection between "supernatural" phenomena and unresolved guilt and anger. I cannot presume to understand the complex interactions of sorrow, guilt, and spiritual desire involved. This Pope is courageous in addressing the issue.

Photo courtesy Flickruser C1ssou

Pearls before swine

Our Lady of the Snows Church
Woodstock, Vermont
June 26, 2007

One interesting thing I’ve learned about Roman Catholic priests since Neil became Catholic is that they are encouraged to celebrate mass every day. This means that Catholics usually have the opportunity to attend mass every day, and often have a choice of multiple daily services – a big difference from what Protestants are used to. Most devout Protestants attend church once a week, on Sunday mornings, and some have the option of attending an additional Sunday night service, and a mid-week (usually Wednesday night) prayer meeting or Bible study. In addition, lots of Protestants are members of some kind of “small group” – a weekly or monthly meeting, sometimes at a church member’s home, for prayer and Bible study and getting to know each other. But almost no Protestant goes to church every day, and some Catholics do – or at least they have the option.

Since Neil has become a Catholic he tries to go to church every day. Leslie and I attended this service with him. Still on vacation, I didn’t read or do anything to prepare.

Our Lady of the Snows is a very pretty little building with a very pretty name in a town that is billed in the tourist information as “the prettiest small town in Vermont.” So that’s a lot of pretty!

The sanctuary has white walls and lots of wood, stained glass windows, and a lovely barrel ceiling ornamented with gilt. There is a domed ceiling over the altar, and a small painted blue sky and dove within that dome.

The crucifix on the back wall shows a twisted, agonized Christ. To one side is a statue of Mary holding the infant Jesus, and on the other side what looked to me like a golden coffee maker in a niche (I later realized this was where they keep the elements for the Eucharist).

The sanctuary seats about 100 people; today 18 people plus our group of three are present, which seems to me like a very good turnout for a Tuesday morning.

The priest, wearing a white robe with a green garment over it, walks to the altar area, along with a man wearing ordinary street clothes. I assume the priest is Rev. Thomas Mosher, who is listed on the front of the bulletin as the pastor of Our Lady of the Snows.

A woman reads the Old Testament passage, which is about Abram and Lot dividing the land between them, and then leads us in a responsive Psalm.

The priest then reads the New Testament lesson. He is preaching through the instructional sayings of Jesus that week (Sermon on the Mount), and today’s passage is the one about not throwing your pearls before swine. He notes an interesting similarity in the etymology of the words pearl and holy, and makes the point that argument and dialogue are not the best ways to win souls – a better evangelistic technique is simply to lead a good and holy life. We do not evangelize through erudite arguments (casting pearls before swine), but through the witness of our lives. He speaks very well, and packs a surprising number of ideas into an extremely brief (about three minutes long!) sermon.

There is a moment of silence, and then Communion. Then another moment of silence, and the benediction.

It‘s a very nice, short service. Leslie and I discuss later how good it would be if Protestant churches were to make available brief daily services like that for people who want them. I suppose it will never happen, but it certainly seems like a great idea.

Joys and concerns, part three

After vacation I was able to do a little more research about the churches I had visited in Vermont. St Francis of Assisi is staffed by the missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette, of whom I had never heard, so I started there.

La Salette is a small village in France where two children saw a vision of the Virgin Mary in 1846. First they spotted a beautiful lady sitting on a rock, crying. She wore a rather unusual crucifix: it featured, in addition to the body of Christ, a hammer, a pincer, and a skull and crossbones. She was also wearing a yellow pinafore, “more brilliant than several suns put together.” I love that pinafore! It made me wonder, for the first time, about the possibility of fashion in heaven.

The lady stood up and gave the children a message to deliver to the world. It mostly consisted of warning them against sin and threatening them with punishment if they persisted in evil. She told them that she was trying hard to hold back her Son’s arm, but it is very heavy and she might not be able to protect them much longer. (By the way, I dislike these depictions of the Holy Dysfunctional Family.)

In addition, the Virgin predicted that the next harvest would fail, which it did (European famine in 1847 led to the death of more than one million people). Finally, she confided a secret to each child before she disappeared.

One thing that always puzzles me about Marian visions is that Mary seems to be the only unhappy person in Paradise. These visions often feature a sobbing Virgin, which seems unfair. She suffered enough during her earthly existence, and ought to be enjoying some beatific peace now.

News of the apparition spread quickly, and pilgrims began trekking to the spot. People began to report miraculous healings. In 1847, only one year later, 50,000 pilgrims celebrated the anniversary of the vision. An investigative commission was set up to look into the situation.
The children wrote down their accounts of everything they had seen and heard, including the secrets Mary had communicated, and these documents were sent to the Pope. In 1851 the vision was officially approved by the church. A sanctuary was erected at La Salette, and in 1852 the Missionaries of Our Lady of La Salette were established.

However, there were doubters. Some French priests and bishops denounced the vision as a hoax. The controversy became entangled in French politics, and following the ins and outs of the controversy is quite difficult unless you understand a lot more about French religious and political history than I do.

In the meantime, Melanie, one of the two children who had had the vision, grew up and became a Carmelite nun. She lived for a while in a convent in England, where she wrote down the secret given to her by the Virgin, and sent a copy to Pope Pius IX. Unfortunately, the text seems to have become lost in the Vatican archives, and has not yet been rediscovered. However, that doesn’t seem to matter, as other written versions of her secret were circulating. In fact, gradually various accounts of the secret(s) proliferated.

The secret given to the other child who had the vision, Maximin, was that England would convert to Catholicism during the final phase of the apocalypse. But the real bombshell was Melanie’s secret. After the First Vatican Council, in the late 1960s, Melanie revealed the secret once more. I guess either she expressed it more clearly than in the past, or else it was the first time a version was made public, because this time the response was more heated. She said her secret was that “Rome will lose the Faith and become the seat of the Antichrist.” As you might imagine, this was disheartening news for lots of Catholics. There ensued a kind of war of the secrets, in which people began to investigate all the stories about the secrets, as well as the various versions that had been printed over the years. (There are at least ten different editions of the secret, nine preserved and one lost in the Vatican archives.)

The Superior General of the Missionaries of La Salette wrote to the Pope about this latest publication of the secret. He noted, in a tremendous example of understatement, that “it has not pleased the Holy See that the above mentioned work has been released to the public,” and asked that every copy be withdrawn from the hands of the faithful. The Vatican agreed, and put the secret on the Index of Prohibited Books. However, recently many of the documents related to the vision were released from the Vatican Secret Archives.

When I read that, I was momentarily taken aback. Secret Archives? On the one hand, that sounds incredibly cool. On the other hand – huh?

The rationale behind the Secret Archives is actually pretty mundane. Plenty of organizations have time restrictions on when their documents may be read by the public. The Vatican has a general policy of not making any documents available until 75 years have passed.
The Archives are enormous – more than 52 miles of shelving – and the oldest document goes back to the 8th century. (By the way, there are special, more secret archives within the Secret Archive, including the Apostolic Penitentiary, which contains records of indulgences, absolutions, and excommunications. These are never released to the public, of course. It is interesting to think about old files containing the sensational confessions of kings, queens, and emperors – a kind of repository of really, really good historical gossip.

Well, I didn’t expect my first visit to a Roman Catholic church during this year of church visiting to open up such a fascinating bit of history. The story of Our Lady of La Salette seems to me a cautionary tale about endorsing visions of young children who might grow up to become troublesome adults.

Of course, belief in visions are not required of Catholics; they can believe or not, as they choose. I should mention that many notable Catholics have been devoted to Our Lady of La Salette, including Jacques Maritain and at least six popes, so even though this story doesn’t seem particularly edifying to my Protestant sensibilities, there is likely something here that I’m not getting. (A whole lot that I’m not getting, I’m sure Catholics would say.)

The fact is that you could pick out a piece of the history of any denomination that sounds just as odd as this bit of history about Our Lady of La Salette sounds to me. I’d hate to have to defend the entire history of any church group, and the Catholic Church happens to have a whole lot more history, in terms of years and numbers of adherents, than anyone else in the church business – so it makes sense that they would have more wild and colorful stories, like these Marian visions, than anyone else. But peculiarities are probably fairly evenly distributed, per capita and over time, among the entire church. Heck, last week I visited a group that believes that an angel named Moroni appeared to a nineteenth-century New Yorker and told him where to dig up golden tablets full of prophecy, and then visited a group that is responsible for the Left Behind books.

Next I tried to learn a little more about the Congregational Church.

The distinctive belief of congregational churches is that each church runs its own affairs independently, which would seem to make it difficult to make blanket statements about the denomination.

Congregationalists tend to believe that the church operated as local congregations without central authority for roughly the first thousand years of Christendom, although bishops in Rome, Antioch, Alexandria, Byzantium, and Jerusalem constantly tried to bring local congregations under their influence. At some point around 1000 AD the bishop of Rome had gained control of most of the western churches, and the Patriarch of Constantinople had gained control of most of the rest of the world’s churches, according to this line of thought.

By the 16th century, though, reform movements in Europe championed by people like Martin Luther, John Hus, John Calvin, and John Wycliffe (were most men named John at that time?) gained momentum, and independent, congregational-style churches were once again, gradually, able to survive – although many of them had to operate as underground, semi-secret societies, and suffered quite a bit of persecution (from both Catholics and Protestants).

Congregationalists are very important in American history. About 35 of the 102 passengers on the Mayflower were Congregationalists fleeing persecution, and this group became known as the Pilgrim Fathers. Jonathan Edwards, often thought to be the most influential theologian in American history, was a Congregationalist (I found this surprising; I had assumed he was Presbyterian, possibly because one of the first things Neil and I did when he entered Princeton Theological Seminary was visit Jonathan Edwards’ grave in the Princeton cemetery).

In 1931 groups came together to form the Congregational Christian Church. They had various styles of worship and some differences in belief, but were united in a belief in local autonomy and rejection of creedal authority. It seems a shaky basis for union, to me – let’s unite as people who agree not to have to agree on anything!

There were a few other shifts in organization; a more conservative group of churches set up their own organization in 1948. In 1957, the Congregational Christian Church merged with the Evangelical and Reformed Church to form a new group, the United Church of Christ.

In the United States today the United Church of Christ has a little over a million members, and about 5,500 congregations. It emphasizes freedom of individual conscience and local church autonomy. Although it doesn’t require belief in the traditional creeds, the United Church of Christ “looks to” confessions such as the Apostles’ Creed, Nicene Creed, the Heidelberg Catechism, and Luther’s Small Catechism.

The denomination gained a little bit of notoriety in 2004, when it aired (or tried to air) some commercials that showed a “bouncer” admitting a white family into a church but refusing entrance to an African American woman, a Latino man, a gay couple, and a person using a wheelchair. After this, the text on the screen read “Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do we.” There was also a commercial in which people are shown being shot out of church pews equipped with ejector seats: an African-American woman with a crying baby, two men holding hands, an Arab-American man, and a man using a walker. The tag line for that commercial was “Jesus didn’t turn people away. Neither do we.” (UPDATED: The commercial is on YouTube.)

I don’t remember ever seeing these commercials. They sound a little silly to me, though, because I’ve never seen a church refuse entrance to anyone (such places may very well exist, but I’ve never encountered them). It would take something awfully extreme to get churches to refuse to let someone in the door – brandishing a knife and shouting obscenities might do the trick, but short of that there’s not much you could do to get kicked out. I know of more than one urban congregation that welcomes some bad-smelling, delusional street people into their High Church liturgical services week after week, even though these people are disruptive and sometimes downright alarming. And yet every week the regular members greet them, talk to them after the service, and sit near them. (True, the nearness is precautionary, so that someone will be at hand to intervene should the visitor lose control of his or her shaky hold on reality.)

Of course, the ads were designed to illustrate churches metaphorically turning people away, but even then I’m skeptical. I’ve read that old saying about Sunday morning being the most segregated hour in America, but it doesn’t seem to be so true anymore – at least, not in the churches I’ve seen, and certainly not in the ones I’ve been visiting over the past few weeks.
And though I’m sure there are churches where openly gay couples aren’t welcome, there are also quite a few where they are more than welcome. As for churches turning away people with crying babies – most churches positively cater to young families (even if they prefer that you take noisy kids to the well-equipped nursery during the service). And refusing entrance to people who use walkers – good grief, that group forms quite a substantial bloc in most churches!

There’s one other thing about the Congregational Church that I noticed after my visit. Barack Obama was, until the big controversy over his pastor’s statements in mid-2008, a member of Trinity United Church of Christ. That church was established in 1961 (only four years after the denomination itself had been created). Trinity first met in a school gymnasium, with the goal of founding an integrated urban church – they planned to later merge with a white church, and have two co-pastors, one black and one white. However, this never happened (because of disinterest on the part of local white congregations, according to most observers). Trinity’s congregation languished, reaching a low point of about 250 members (100 of them active) in 1972.

At that time Chicago was a center for militant black religious groups such as The Nation of Islam and the Black Hebrew Israelites (many members of this group considered themselves the only authentic Jews, another surprising take on religious identity). Militant groups tended to argue that Christianity is “the white man’s religion,” and that proud black people should have no part of it. Trinity’s leaders felt that their quest to be a black church within a mainline white denomination was rather quixotic in this environment. Also, they wanted to let people know that it was okay to be both black and Christian.

The interim pastor in 1972, Rev. Reuben A. Sheares II, coined a new motto for the congregation: Unashamedly Black and Unapologetically Christian. (Again with the church slogans! But this one is pretty interesting.) Theologian Martin Marty has weighed in on this slogan, noting that being “unashamedly black” does not mean being “anti-white.” Rather, it is a repudiation of the debilitating legacy and shame of slavery and of segregation in church and society.

Jeremiah Wright interviewed for the position of pastor on December 31, 1971, and got the job. Church historians report that he saw a main part of his job as convincing people that Christianity is not inherently racist, and not for whites only. He wanted to adopt some of the positive aspects of the Black Power message that was attracting so many adherents at the time, but at the same time reject its ideas of separation and of black superiority. The church flourished with Wright as pastor, growing to more than 8,000 members.

It’s a fascinating story. Like most white Christians, I’m not sure how a person gets from trying to show that Christianity is not inherently racist to proclaiming “God damn America” from the pulpit (the video clip that was shown repeatedly when the Jeremiah Wright story broke during the 2008 primary season). But I don’t know the whole story.

What I have been thinking about, though, while doing this little bit of poking around into the history of Our Lady of La Salette and the Congregational Church, is how weirdly often people start out with one goal in mind and end up doing something, or proclaiming something, that seems utterly at odds with their original intention. Those pious children in the French countryside and their supporters surely wished to strengthen and promote the Church, not to create a public relations nightmare for it. And a church founded with the explicit purpose of promoting racial harmony became a symbol of racial strife.

It’s almost enough to make a person believe in some version of those French literary theories about how there is a layer of meaning under each text that runs contrary to the author’s conscious intention. Every text contains its own opposite, and every sign points to its negative doppelganger.

Churches are certainly heavily loaded with signs and significations. Most of us see or hear these signs every Sunday in a sort of uncomprehending fog, partly because there is so much going on there that we just can’t take it all in. According to some theorists, we would also be absorbing the reverse messages at the same time.

Hey - applying this half-formed half-thought to myself, are my efforts to visit and understand and empathize with many strains of Christianity a sign that I’m not very tolerant?

Nah – that’s crazy talk. Couldn’t happen. I’m the most open-minded person in the world.

I just like some ideas and places more than others.

Really.

No prejudice here. Nothing to see on that score.

Let’s just move along.

Photo courtesy Flickr user cogdogblog

Joys and concerns, part one

St. Francis of Assisi
and
Old South Church
Windsor, Vermont
June 24, 2007

We vacationed in Vermont the last week of June – me, Neil, and Neil’s sister, Leslie. So this turned into another two-church Sunday. First we all attended the 9:00 mass at St. Francis of Assisi, and then Leslie and I went to the 10:30 service at Old South Church. I wasn’t able to do any preparatory study before going to these churches (no Internet connection where we were staying), so I just walked through the doors and worshipped with some Vermonters.

St. Francis of Assisi is a modern red brick building. Inside the sanctuary, folding chairs are arranged to seat about 200-250 people and there are probably at least 175 people present. There are few windows, but a large skylight admits light directly over the altar, which is a lovely, dramatic touch. An organ and piano sit to the left. The large crucifix affixed to the back wall features a fully robed, risen Christ holding up his arms in blessing. As is often the case with depictions of Christ, this one is really skinny; he would stand about 7 feet tall and weigh about 130 pounds if he came to life.

The priest, in a white robe with thin black stripes, processes up the aisle at the beginning of the service, along with two sweet young girls wearing white robes and flip-flops, and three women in ordinary clothing. I assume the man is Father Paul Belhumeur, listed on the front of the bulletin as the pastor of this church. A pianist, along with two men and two women, leads the congregational singing. I have my usual trouble finding hymns and readings in Catholic services, but I am not the only person who isn’t singing, and the other people who are not singing seem comfortable just standing there listening.

The priest reads the passage from Luke about the birth of John the Baptist, and tells us that today is the Feast of John the Baptist. He points out that this day comes immediately after the summer solstice, and that Christmas is the Sunday after the winter solstice. Thus, the yearly cycle of the sun and the ministries of John and Jesus correspond to John’s saying, “I must decrease, but he must increase.” Neat.

The priest reads a quotation from Patricia Sanchez, and says that today is a good day to reflect upon our own vocations – like John, we are called to announce Jesus. (Hey, I’m thinking about vocation on vacation!) His 12-15 minute sermon is very Christ-centered and clear.
People bring their children to the front with them when they go forward for Communion, and the priest lays hands on and blesses the children who are too young to partake, a very nice custom.

There is a closing prayer and then a closing hymn, but most people walk out in the middle of the hymn. (I later noticed an article in the parish newsletter titled “Why do some people leave Mass early?” Apparently there are Catholic churches in which large numbers of people arrive late and then exit immediately after taking Communion. The article said that this habit arose out of a misunderstanding of pre-Vatican II teaching, and that people should stay until the recessional hymn.) There is a small area in the rear of the sanctuary set up for coffee and refreshments, and I pick up a quick mini-muffin and some literature before leaving.

Photo courtesy Flickr user PhilipC.