Sarah Baek - Church Visit #2

Church Name: St. Michael's Catholic Church

Church Address: 314 W Willow Ave, Wheaton, IL 60187

Date attended: 2/14/14

Church Category: Catholic (more liturgical than my regular context)

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

I went to a weekday morning mass. It was very different from my regular context. A friend of mine, one of the few Catholics on campus, was very eager to invite me to mass, and she did her best to talk me through a lot of the service. I’m very grateful, because the order of everything made me quite nervous. Because I was unfamiliar with the structure of the service, I was afraid of making a fool out of myself and accidentally irritating all the other congregants. When we walked into the sanctuary, my friend (also named Sarah) guided me towards the baptismal pool, where she instructed me to dip my fingers into the water and cross myself. She picked up two books, though I can’t remember what she had called them. They contained all the When we talked to sit in the pew, Sarah kneeled before entering the pew, a sign of reverence, which I imitated.

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

The sense experience of the service was so beautiful to me. It was both gentle to and demanding of all my senses. My eyes had a lot to look at: the stained glass, the high ceilings, the wideness of the sanctuary that lead me to look left and right (as opposed to just straight forward), and as someone who has never been to mass, I had a lot of things to read in order to follow along. The melodies of the responses echoed in the sanctuary. I had to use my body to partake in the service: dipping my fingers in the baptismal pool, kneeling before the pew, crossing myself, standing and sitting, etc.

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

As I mentioned earlier, I was very nervous. There was a very clear order of how to participate in mass, and I was very clearly being coached through the service. I was so worried that I would accidentally be disrespectful to the other worshippers, who had spent some time learning and habituating themselves to this liturgy. The other disorienting part of worship was how quickly the service seemed to move, especially since I wasn’t aware of the rhythm and flow of it. I felt like I was struggling to keep up.

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 think it made me recognize that in my regular, low-church context, I was able to slip into an episodic understanding of church, whereas daily mass demands consistent participation. The book that takes the congregation through what scriptural passages to read for the day encourages a daily engagement with the church body. I also felt that seeing the value in bodily experience connects me better with the incarnation. I’m already very inclined to appreciate bodies and senses, but using my body in a church service encourages a deeper appreciation for Jesus’ identity as a man. The son was a man! How beautiful is that?