Jenny Stein - Church Visit #2

Church name: St. Michael Catholic Church

Church address: 310 Southwest St. Wheaton, IL

Date attended: 10/12/14

Church category: Different Liturgical Church

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

This service was at 10:30 AM on a Sunday. I felt like the Catholic Mass setting was quite different than the usual service at my church. It had a much larger gathering of people than the one we usually have at my home church. It had similar elements to my normal church, with a similar layout including the sermon. However, the focus of much of the service appeared to be different, because being a Catholic church, it focused more on things like Mary and the Rosary. These were quite different from my regular church. The inside of the church was also much larger and more decorative.

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

I felt that much of the worship service involved the members of the church more than my regular church does normally. It also appeared to be a bit more organized for the service. One thing that was really interesting to me about this church (and the Catholic tradition) is that there were many services offered at different times for a Mass gathering. There were around five or six different times each day when Mass was held, compared to the two or three times my church has on Sunday. They even have weekday Mass. I think it was interesting how the service focused on Mary a lot more than I have heard before. The service overall was very appealing to me because it was much more formal than my own church.

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

Even though I liked the formal setup and organized layout of the entire Mass service, I felt a little disoriented by how strict the schedule seemed to be. At my own church, there are often changes in the schedule during the worship service in order to accommodate adding new prayer requests or other things. At this Mass, everything had been laid out perfectly for the service, and nothing was changed. It felt very strict compared to what I was used to. Since I am not familiar with Catholic tradition very much, I also felt a bit disoriented by some of what the father was saying.

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

I believe that the unity of the church (and the unity of Christ's body here on earth) are represented quite clearly in a Mass from this Catholic church. It is very important that the gathering of people respect the Lord and come together to worship and revere Him. I think this illuminates Scripture and theology for me because we often do not act unified as Christ's body, like he wants us to. I believe the Mass gathering shows that people should come together and be unified to worship the Lord. As Paul says in Ephesians 4:11-13, "It was he who gave some to be apostles, some to be prophets, some to be evangelists, and some to be pastors and teachers, to prepare God's people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ".