Only a couple of sleepy heads from our youth group went across the way at 10 a.m. to join in the Sunday morning mass during the first Sunday in the season of Lent. Hopefully their impressions will supplement these:
-Very busy: lots of people streaming in just before the start time.
-Many familiar faces from school, work and other settings around town.
-Very structured by Order of Service and supplemental guides (cards words to be recited; responsive reading)
-Impression of many rules about who is authorized to do each part of the mass; how and when.
So far much of this would be the same in other varieties of church, including the coordinated standing, sitting, kneeling.
What is much different to the Congregational Way is at the level of organizational structure and governance: that the many layers of authority and hierarchy constitute the Catholic church. And to someone accustomed to that perhaps such structures bind and give comfort of one's place in the overall body of Christ worldwide, but to someone not used to the many structures, this would seem to complicate the space that separates a person from the Trinity.
In sum, the vast history and the (human-made) grandeur are inspiring, but one imagines that some study and time is needed to encounter the Holy Spirit within the patterns and relationships of this large institution of great inertia that has proven capable of carrying people of all walks of life into the Word of God.
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