Casey Balikian - Church Visit #2

Church Name: Holy Angels Church

Church Address: 180 S Russell Ave, Aurora IL 60506

Data Attended: March 20, 2016 (Palm Sunday)

Church Category: Catholic (Tridentine Mass)

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

The Tridentine service was relatively similar to what I am used to even though it was almost entirely in Latin.  I attend Church of the Resurrection so liturgy and symbolism is something that I have grown accustomed to since being at Wheaton.  In this service, there was a lot of symbolism associated with Palm Sunday and with the season of Lent that went into the way that the Eucharist was administered and in pretty much everything else.  The pamphlet that they passed out which led the congregation through the liturgy explained all of the things that the priest was doing and the symbolism behind them.  While I found this helpful and interesting, I also felt that it was weird that the one priest on the stage wasn't addressing us.  It was like we were watching him worship instead of worshiping with him.

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

The biggest thing that struck me was the huge contrast between the Orthodox Church and the Catholic Mass – between the traditions of the east and the west.  One of the things I noticed about the orthodox church is that there were many priests on stage who were leading the congregation through the liturgy.  None of them were the focus because they were all turned, together with the congregation, towards the icon of Mary and baby Jesus.  In this Mass, on the other hand, there was only one priest doing the liturgy and, for most of the service, he stood alone on stage as the “center of attention.”  While I did appreciate that the catholic church had a huge cross hanging in the middle of the sanctuary (thus illustrating their attempt to focus on Christ), it made me realize how greatly history plays into the day-to-day worship of western and eastern Christians.  In the east, there were a group of bishops who were in charge of the church; in the Orthodox church, there were several leaders of the liturgy.  In the west, the bishop of Rome was the head of the church by himself; in the catholic church, one man led the liturgy. 

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

I was much more comfortable with the emphases in the catholic church than I was with the Orthodox church.  While many of their icons were covered by black cloth (probably because of lent) and it is possible that I would have felt differently had this not been the case, I found that the Christocentric nature of western Christianity is something that I have grown so accustomed to that I am uncomfortable without it.   I really liked the cross as the center of attention because it drew my mind to what I view as far-and-away the most important aspect of my faith.  I have come to realize that it is hard for me to appreciate any part of Biblical truth without centering it on the work of Christ.  If there is any other thing which even distracts from that focus (e.g. Mary), I get very uncomfortable.