I finally made it!
Last week I slept in and missed Latin Mass. Which is kind of sad, since it’s at noon. Today I slept through my alarms and somehow woke up twenty minutes before the start of mass. I hurried to wash my face and put decent clothes on, then grabbed my veil and missal but failed to bring my directions to the church. I had a vague sense of what street it was on, but I don’t know that city well at all, and I was traveling there more or less blind. And late.
Somehow I made an accurate guess as to where to get off the highway, then made a left turn, scanned the skyline for a familiar-looking steeple, and found a sign pointing to the church. Yay! There I was, with other people toting missals heading in late, too. I felt bad, but not as bad as I would have if I had been the only one heading in then.
Using missals is completely foreign to my generation of liberal Catholics. I’ve never had one before, and even with bookmarking the Pentecost pages ahead of time, I got a little lost, gave up, and just sat there absorbing the atmosphere instead of following along. I felt sort of secluded in my veil, which added to the meditative feel.
Receiving communion kneeling at a rail was a first for me, too, and like most of what went on during the hour and a half that the Low Mass took (!!), felt foreign but also somehow “right.”
The parish has a luncheon for Latin Mass folks to socialize. I grabbed lunch and ran away, not really talking to anyone. I hate being shy sometimes.
Seminarian Matthew said,
June 12, 2007 at 3:51 pm
Glad to hear that you attended a Latin Low Mass! I’m a Catholic Seminarian and a person who greatly prefers the Latin Mass’s mystical nature and reverence.
God Bless!!!
Joan said,
June 19, 2007 at 8:22 am
Thank you for your comment. I’m growing to love the service more each time I attend.