Sunday Service
Originally written: April 5th of 2009, Sunday night.
This morning I went to church at St. Benedict’s. It was a Roman Catholic Church. It’s been a long time since I went to any service, Catholic or Christian. The difference between the two is enormous. Although I can say that today, it felt lovely to be able to acknowledge God in my life again. I’ve been pushing him away for some time now, as I have always intermittently done through the years.
Today marked a difference in my worship. Some of the songs were very familiar to me because they were the same songs I sang in my Christian church, but there the similarity ended. I knew no one in that church, save Julie who was singing in the choir and wasn’t even in my line of sight. So I had the freedom to simply do what I wished while following the routine that all Catholic churches religiously follow in every mass. It was the first time I was in a Catholic church as a grown-up and I could actually observe and understand what was going on. There were so many rules in a church like that. When everybody stood, you stood. When everybody kneeled, you did too. When everybody said something in a chorus, you had to say whatever it was as well or be silently marked ignorant or unreligious by those near you.
Of course, I felt no compulsion to say whatever it was they were saying. Most of it were memorized and meaningless to most of those people anyway. There was a rather past middle-aged couple to my left side. The woman, who was next to me, looked like the kind of matron who was rich and very concerned with appearances. She was one of those who had most of the verses you had to say memorized. I doubted whether she truly understood what she was saying. So many people there looked like rigid robots following a universal code of religiosity. There was no passion in most of them. They were probably there to see and be seen. Mainly to be seen. Church was simply a part of their reputation that they needed to keep intact.
However, there were still people there who were rather human and were truly believers in God. The other couple on my left side were Koreans. They were people from a different country but they seemed to be more sincere in being present in that church than the other couple. They never said a word through the entire mass, but somehow they listened and were less rigid in their postures.
Nevertheless, I was surprised when I heard the priest speak. He was a foreigner with a slightly British accent. I learned later that he was an Australian. Listening to him was uplifting. His voice was soothing and invited you to share in the humor of what he was saying. His homily was actually pretty simple and very short. He didn’t bore and he didn’t waste time. I doubt if the entire thing took ten minutes. He spoke of excitement and being so happy to see the Pope, likening this to the way Filipinos react when seeing an actor in person, and soon connecting the entire thought to the way the crowd received Jesus when he went to Jerusalem for the Passover during the last few days of his life on earth. He then described the way the same crowd would jeer and condemn him to crucifixion a few days later.
His message was very simple. But I don’t think the crowd got it. It ended too quickly before even I could grasp what he was trying to tell us. I’m not even sure if he intended any serious message in it at all. But he was funny and there were moments when I remembered just how Jesus died for the purpose of saving my skin and making me feel like a cad for being such a heartless child. I almost cried. Perhaps that was the priest’s message. Perhaps he simply just wanted us to remember what Jesus went through for love of us.
But the reaction of that crowd to that message was discouraging. Just like in any other Catholic mass, people showed no sign of understanding or acceptance. They all just stood there and followed those rigid codes ruling their every movement.
When the mass ended, there was no sign of a changed life, though I didn’t really expect anything like that.
But in some ways I liked that kind of service. It was peaceful and it demanded nothing from you but simple attentiveness. In being there, you were also meeting God halfway and allowing him to somehow replenish your spirit, especially a parched spirit like mine. Some people are probably destined for only that kind of worship. The kind of passion demanded by missions and by the true offering of one life to God is beyond most people.
People like me.
