Eric Friend - Church Visit 1

Church Name: Saints Peter and Paul Catholic Church

Church Address: 36 N Ellsworth St, Naperville, IL 60540
Date Attended: September 23, 2014
Church Category: Liturgical, Catholic Church

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

For my church visit, I went to a significantly more liturgical service than I usually attend. In stark contrast to my home church, Mission (which meets in a middle school gymnasium and claims to be "redefining church"), mass at Sts Peter and Paul Catholic Church was nearly shocking. Instead of redefining church, I was at an institution that has succumbed to the definition of church that has been around since the fourth century. The massive spire, the extravagant stained glass windows and the traditional attire worn by the priest were all foreign to me. The service moved like a cadence - standing, sitting, kneeling and speaking over and over again. At times it felt more like a performance that I had been dropped into the middle of than a church service. Everyone knew their lines and everyone had gone through these motions hundreds of times previously. This was far different than the non-liturgical service I grew up with and attend at Wheaton.

What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?

               The most interesting part of the service was nearly the same as the aforementioned contrasting elements. The preservation of tradition within the church was something I’ve never really experienced before (save one time at Church of the Resurrection), and this was rather inspiring. Where the calculated process made me wary, the explicit reverence married with it was encouraging and challenging. This is certainly a model Protestants would be well considering as they approach God through prayer and worship. For example, the rules surrounding taking communion and touching the holy water may seem superfluous for many Protestants (I thought this myself before going to mass) but it actually shows how serious Catholics understand the interaction with the almighty God. Although I do not know how much deviance the modern Catholic Church has from the first century church, I still felt a proximity to a time in the past that I had previously never experienced. The tradition of the service was the most appealing to me.

What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?

               Unfortunately for my future as a Catholic, what I found most disorienting in the service is rather inseparable from what I found appealing. Coupled with the tradition was a thin guild covering (what felt like) vanity and disingenuous worship. I know what you’re thinking; I’ve extrapolated my contemporary worship norm and projected that onto a traditional service. But in the defense of my objectivity, I think that my Protestant upbringing has wrongly favored the other end of the spectrum, relying too heavily on emotional response to catalyze spiritual movement. Also worth noting is that I went to a daily mass service in the week, not a Sunday service, which could be skewing my reactionary thought. Instead of having a heart felt message and response, it seemed as if the priest, and all in attendance, had a variant of muscle memory and could recite the entire service in their sleep. This was unsettling for me because it was seemingly airtight – there was little room for revelation or spiritual renewal, but rather just another box they were checking on their weekly schedule (or perhaps more cynically, another box they were checking on their check list for salvation).

What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in your regular context?

               Because this is my first church visit response, I can say the obvious thought that will likely hold true for all three visits: people worship in a different way than I do. This is still an important realization for me to recognize, though, because experiencing another form of interaction with God expands my mental faculties and hedges against religious narrow-mindedness. I always knew this was the case, I guess, but an abstract thought on the topic of religious diversity does much less good than experiencing it firsthand. It was interesting to worship with people who may feel slightly alienated at my church, just as I felt at theirs. This made me ask myself “should our churches be more accommodating to the individual from another background or should our churches just be true to the status quo and place the burden of adjustment on the individual?” Maybe this is a false dichotomy, but I believe it is a question every church should at least consider as they strive to be more like the perfect community intended for humanity before the fall.