This is a most affecting account, and one that evokes memories in a person who was introduced to the Catholic Mass - "an initiation into refinement" (Joseph Joubert) - pre-Vatican II. The difference between "in this world but not of it" and in this world and no other, perhaps....I recently attended an Orthodox liturgy for the first time and doing so was as if I had gone back sixty years and experienced a Catholic service. The priests faced the tabernacle except when directly addressing the congregation; the prayers were chanted in another language (Greek in this instance rather than Latin), the petitions (cited more than once) were for the well-being of the sick, destitute and lonely, the safety of travelers on land, water and in the air, peace on the earth, the love of (all) humanity, etc. rather than with the politically-coded references to victims of racism, injustice, oppression, domestic violence and climate change and (dubious) refugees and (more dubious) asylum seekers heard in Catholic masses with a discouraging predictability. The reading of the Creed in the Greek church ended with the words "one holy, Catholic and Apostolic church." Amen.
Our parish mass is the opposite -- prolonged periods of uncomfortable silence. The mass is a prayer in itself, so what is the point of the add-on silence?
This is a most affecting account, and one that evokes memories in a person who was introduced to the Catholic Mass - "an initiation into refinement" (Joseph Joubert) - pre-Vatican II. The difference between "in this world but not of it" and in this world and no other, perhaps....I recently attended an Orthodox liturgy for the first time and doing so was as if I had gone back sixty years and experienced a Catholic service. The priests faced the tabernacle except when directly addressing the congregation; the prayers were chanted in another language (Greek in this instance rather than Latin), the petitions (cited more than once) were for the well-being of the sick, destitute and lonely, the safety of travelers on land, water and in the air, peace on the earth, the love of (all) humanity, etc. rather than with the politically-coded references to victims of racism, injustice, oppression, domestic violence and climate change and (dubious) refugees and (more dubious) asylum seekers heard in Catholic masses with a discouraging predictability. The reading of the Creed in the Greek church ended with the words "one holy, Catholic and Apostolic church." Amen.
Our parish mass is the opposite -- prolonged periods of uncomfortable silence. The mass is a prayer in itself, so what is the point of the add-on silence?