Holy Week

I couldn’t have asked for a better start to Holy Week.

I had the wonderful opportunity to drive with a friend to an AMAZING Church for confession yesterday. Is there any better feeling than exiting the Confessional after hearing the words of absolution? To kneel in the Church afterwards and just KNOW, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that all those sins have been washed away, never to be remembered again? I don’t think there is…

And afterwards, the Mass. I’m not sure I can put it into words. I guess to explain fully you have to understand that my friend and I both are parishoners of a small Church in our town… rather liberal… full of inclusive language songs that just break my heart… and totally devoid of anything beautiful — no Tabernacle (it’s in the chapel next door), stained glass, no statues, no stations of the cross, nothing. The people there are wonderful, but everything else is sad, sad, sad. (Why do we go there, then? Well, being down south, we don’t have the luxury of a Church on every street corner…. Well, we do, but they’re not Catholic! *grin* This is the parish for our area, period.) Going into this magnificent Church last night, however, my soul hungrily drank in every bit of beauty in great gulps. We are created beings, made with our senses, and those senses need to be fed as well. True, we can meet with God in the most squalid of places, but when we have the ability, shouldn’t our place of worship be filled with the best of what we have to offer? The Israelites in the desert were commanded to make the Tent of Meeting out of the best they had, designed by their finest craftsmen, and set up to certain specifications. Why does our culture think, then, that meeting with God in a concrete building, dressed in sweats and flip flops, is an appropriate way to worship? But I digress….

Back to the Mass. The procession in was slow and regal… the songs were beautiful and full of praise to Our Lord… the vestments were gorgeous… and there were altar boys (!) in cassocks and surplices… and the Creed was recited slowly and reverently. All of that was amazing, but the best part was yet to come.

In this parish the priests face ad orientem. I had no idea what we have lost as a Church when the priest turned and faced the people, but what I experienced last night gave me a clue. As he turned away from the congregation and to the altar, my first thought was absolute reverence with a bit of holy fear thrown in for good measure. Here was the man, chosen by God, to lead His people forward to Him in worship. I’m finding it hard to put into words, but there was an overpowering sense of going forward, with him in front. Then, as the priest started chanting the Eucharistic prayers, I felt immediately connected to the Church that has gone on for centuries, as something so obviously “unmodern” was going on… and when the priest sang the words of Consecration, the altar boys and the deacon prostrated themselves, and I was literally brought to tears. THIS is how you honor the Lord… THIS is how you remind yourself, week after week, of the amazing miracle that is taking place before us… THIS is what our souls cry out to do in worship. Don’t get me wrong — I wasn’t flooded with warm fuzzy “feelings” at that moment… instead, it was just an overwhelming sense of being in the presence of God, and THIS IS RIGHT. His majesty, His holiness, and His absolute right to be worshipped — that’s the sense that I got out of last night’s Mass.

I am so thankful I got a chance to go to Mass at this parish last night. I couldn’t have asked for a better start to Holy Week.