Gwen Farber - Church Visit #2

Church name: Our Lady of the Holy Rosary Chapel 

Church address: 205 Fulton St. Elgin, IL 60177

Date attended: Sunday, March 20, 2016

Church category: Tridentine Mass 

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

The service I attended was very, very different from my regular context. It was held in a small room that had an altar and many icons and statues at the front which were covered in purple cloth for the Lenten season. The pries wore white robes with a purple and gold accent piece. There was lots of incense and bell-ringing throughout the service. The priest spoke in Latin and handed out palm branches to the congregation before we did a procession around the block. His back was turned away from us for a majority of the service, and many times he was speaking too quietly for us to even hear the words he was saying, much less understand him. Whenever someone passed the center altar area, they had to kneel quickly, as well as each time they came into or left the room. Women wore head coverings (which I grew up with in church, so that part wasn't super weird), but everyone sat in total silence the whole time, and the vibe was intensely conservative.

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

This class seemed to be the epitome of what the Catholic Church must have looked like before the Vatican II. The service was conservative, quiet, and somber. The priest faced away from the people except when he gave the homily, which was focused heavily on the importance of works. Honestly, I felt like I had gone back in time for the brief period we were there, surrounded by men and women sitting in silence and kneeling over and over again. The Eucharist was there in its incredibly special place of honor, surrounded by gold and handled with care. Compared to the Protestant Evangelical churches I’ve grown up in, this church felt like a step into the past as I was surrounded by smells, sights, and sounds that could not but draw me into a completely different sub-culture of Christianity. 

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

I felt so incredibly Protestant as I sat through this mass service. Even in the Orthodox church service that I attended, I did not feel so out of place as I did during my time at Our Lady of the Holy Rosary. It was off-putting to have the service spoken in Latin, as I found it very difficult to concentrate on the words that were actually being said while I frantically tried to follow along in the Latin. During the priest's long prayers, I found my mind drifting, and as he faced away from the congregation, I realized I missed the warmth that comes with a leader in the church who is a part of the people, not separate from them. The priest's homily was focused on the importance of works, not faith, and as I sat there listening to him and feeling like he was staring into my Protestant soul, I realized how thankful I was that I did not agree with him. My identity as a Christian is SO dependent on Christ's saving work in my life, and I was incredibly grateful that faith IS enough. My works are an out-flowing of the sanctifying work He is doing, but it is not necessary for the justification of my soul.