"What a Marvel!"
Nice phrase hunh? Ok so now that I've proved that I've learned something in my language classes in Torino (Turin) thus far, on to the story of the aforementioned marvel.
I was at the 6:30 mass this evening at my parish church of Santa Giulia. It was nice. There was adoration and benediction for the hour before hand, which I was excited about. I stumbled through the rosary in Italian with the old ladies before mass. I'm starting to be able to partially understand readings and homilies. Tutto bene (All good). Before I go any further I should mention that this is a beautiful church. If I had to guess I think its a newer construction, a neo-gothic (aka, built in the last 150 years but imitation of the gothic style (which was much older)). This means its tall, has large windows, and beautiful stained glass behind the altar. In Italian churches you can often tell if they're being used for something more than just a museum, there are shrines of recent saints like JPII or Padre Pio, etc. You can tell this church is cared for and prayed in. (I would just upload pictures but while I remembered to bring my camera to Torino, I forgot the cord to connect it to the computer. So those will have to wait two more weeks.)
Anyhow, so mass finished and I stayed to pray a bit as the meager congregation trickled out. After a little while I went to look at a lectionary that was in the main isle in the middle of the church. As I'm standing there trying to piece together what I thought I heard during the readings with what I was seeing on the page people started walking by me up to the front pews of the church. These people were followed by even more people. I was confused. By the time I finished trying to decipher the lectionary there were more people in the church than there had been for the whole mass and they were all in about the first quarter of the pews. This was strange, so before leaving I sat down at the back to see what was going on. As I watched more and more people poured in. Even stranger still was that they weren't all old (which is the vast majority of who you see in Italian churches. For context its not unusual if I'm the only male at a daily mass and probably the only one under 60.) In fact many of them were young, like my age, but there was the whole gamete from parents with young children to senior citizens. I was speculating to myself what could be going on, maybe a concert or a lecture or something certainly not a mass because we'd just finished mass and as I mentioned this was not the demographic you get at an Italian mass. Plus there were so many people. Within about 10 minutes the church had almost completely filled from the front back, to the point that several people joined me in my pew which was second to the last in the church. People were literally rushing in now and I was almost bewildered because it definitely looked like the altar was being set for mass. I thought maybe it was for a different Chrisitan denomination, or different Catholic rite or congregation, because it was unlike anything I'd ever seen in Italy - or in the US for that matter. As the Liturgy started it was clear that it was definitely Catholic and as the priest began the opening prayer it was apparent that it was in Italian. By this time the church was literally standing room only, and there were plenty of people standing, FOR A THURSDAY EVENING MASS! (This is not a small church either for the record). I'm thoroughly bewildered at this point and while I had planned on going to the grocery store right after mass, I had to figure out what this was about before I could leave.
Finally, right before the homily, I had to ask the little old Italian lady next to me (in really poor Italian, which she was luckily able to understand) what the heck was going on. She replied that it was a mass for the group Comunione e Leberazione (Communion and Liberation) for the feastday of St. Benedict, the patron of Europe. Wild! Now I still don't know much about the group. The word Liberation in the name always kind of brings to mind Liberation Theology, which had some issues in the post-Vatican II era, but I don't think they're closely related. From what I saw tonight though and the fact that Pope-emeritus Benedict is a fan I think its safe to say that the Holy Spirit is definitely at work through them in Torino. I was so enthralled by what was going on that despite having just been to mass I couldn't bring myself to leave. Let me list off for you the many marvels of this mass:
1. A packed church for a Thursday evening mass, literally hundreds of Italians.
2. The vast majority were young adults, people my age, and young men were NOT a small minority!
3. Beautiful, reverent, well done Liturgy. This is rare outside of papal masses. I think its partly due to the rather loose cultural take Italians have on laws, civil or ecclesial. What's more the congregation was reverent too. At this mass everyone knelt (that could), everyone stood, they sang together, they prayed in unison. This is not quite the typical, more laisses faire approach to participation at Italian masses.
4. A polyphonic chant choir. When I graduated from UD and Collegium was more or less disbanded I thought I might have heard the last of what had been a great and new-found blessing in my college days, that of masses accompanied by a beautiful, classical, a capella choir. So I was almost startled when the choir lit into Gregorian chant for the first time at offertory. They were good too, really good.
5. A communion line. Context again: in case you haven't been to a mass here it would be good to point out that trying to get to communion in Italy might be comparable to trying to get on the freeway in Italy. You just have to go for it. Forget the concept of a line, because it is something that has probably never occurred to your neighboring Italians. You normally end up feeling like you've cut someone off, which isn't such a big deal because they were expecting you to and they did it to someone else to get into the aisle themselves but still it feels kind of like a jostle to get to the front. This evening though perhaps one of the most marvelous sights was when it came time for communion a line qued up from the back of the church to the front. The line qued up pew by pew just like in the states but instead of from the front to the back, each waited for the pew behind it to go. While it may seem insignificant, this small communal act of charity ("the last shall be first and the first shall be last") was awesome in a culture where communion is often anything but calm and orderly.
--
What an unexpected blessing in the first week in Torino. The Church is alive and young! And not just in America or Latin America but in Europe where it is supposedly dead and dying. It was such a blessing to be reminded so vividly and powerfully that I'm not alone, but am a very small part of something very big, something setting fire to even inhospitable places like modern Europe. I have no idea where this adventure is heading but am excited to keep discovering. Quo vadis? Where are you going?
Nice phrase hunh? Ok so now that I've proved that I've learned something in my language classes in Torino (Turin) thus far, on to the story of the aforementioned marvel.
I was at the 6:30 mass this evening at my parish church of Santa Giulia. It was nice. There was adoration and benediction for the hour before hand, which I was excited about. I stumbled through the rosary in Italian with the old ladies before mass. I'm starting to be able to partially understand readings and homilies. Tutto bene (All good). Before I go any further I should mention that this is a beautiful church. If I had to guess I think its a newer construction, a neo-gothic (aka, built in the last 150 years but imitation of the gothic style (which was much older)). This means its tall, has large windows, and beautiful stained glass behind the altar. In Italian churches you can often tell if they're being used for something more than just a museum, there are shrines of recent saints like JPII or Padre Pio, etc. You can tell this church is cared for and prayed in. (I would just upload pictures but while I remembered to bring my camera to Torino, I forgot the cord to connect it to the computer. So those will have to wait two more weeks.)
Anyhow, so mass finished and I stayed to pray a bit as the meager congregation trickled out. After a little while I went to look at a lectionary that was in the main isle in the middle of the church. As I'm standing there trying to piece together what I thought I heard during the readings with what I was seeing on the page people started walking by me up to the front pews of the church. These people were followed by even more people. I was confused. By the time I finished trying to decipher the lectionary there were more people in the church than there had been for the whole mass and they were all in about the first quarter of the pews. This was strange, so before leaving I sat down at the back to see what was going on. As I watched more and more people poured in. Even stranger still was that they weren't all old (which is the vast majority of who you see in Italian churches. For context its not unusual if I'm the only male at a daily mass and probably the only one under 60.) In fact many of them were young, like my age, but there was the whole gamete from parents with young children to senior citizens. I was speculating to myself what could be going on, maybe a concert or a lecture or something certainly not a mass because we'd just finished mass and as I mentioned this was not the demographic you get at an Italian mass. Plus there were so many people. Within about 10 minutes the church had almost completely filled from the front back, to the point that several people joined me in my pew which was second to the last in the church. People were literally rushing in now and I was almost bewildered because it definitely looked like the altar was being set for mass. I thought maybe it was for a different Chrisitan denomination, or different Catholic rite or congregation, because it was unlike anything I'd ever seen in Italy - or in the US for that matter. As the Liturgy started it was clear that it was definitely Catholic and as the priest began the opening prayer it was apparent that it was in Italian. By this time the church was literally standing room only, and there were plenty of people standing, FOR A THURSDAY EVENING MASS! (This is not a small church either for the record). I'm thoroughly bewildered at this point and while I had planned on going to the grocery store right after mass, I had to figure out what this was about before I could leave.
Finally, right before the homily, I had to ask the little old Italian lady next to me (in really poor Italian, which she was luckily able to understand) what the heck was going on. She replied that it was a mass for the group Comunione e Leberazione (Communion and Liberation) for the feastday of St. Benedict, the patron of Europe. Wild! Now I still don't know much about the group. The word Liberation in the name always kind of brings to mind Liberation Theology, which had some issues in the post-Vatican II era, but I don't think they're closely related. From what I saw tonight though and the fact that Pope-emeritus Benedict is a fan I think its safe to say that the Holy Spirit is definitely at work through them in Torino. I was so enthralled by what was going on that despite having just been to mass I couldn't bring myself to leave. Let me list off for you the many marvels of this mass:
1. A packed church for a Thursday evening mass, literally hundreds of Italians.
2. The vast majority were young adults, people my age, and young men were NOT a small minority!
3. Beautiful, reverent, well done Liturgy. This is rare outside of papal masses. I think its partly due to the rather loose cultural take Italians have on laws, civil or ecclesial. What's more the congregation was reverent too. At this mass everyone knelt (that could), everyone stood, they sang together, they prayed in unison. This is not quite the typical, more laisses faire approach to participation at Italian masses.
4. A polyphonic chant choir. When I graduated from UD and Collegium was more or less disbanded I thought I might have heard the last of what had been a great and new-found blessing in my college days, that of masses accompanied by a beautiful, classical, a capella choir. So I was almost startled when the choir lit into Gregorian chant for the first time at offertory. They were good too, really good.
5. A communion line. Context again: in case you haven't been to a mass here it would be good to point out that trying to get to communion in Italy might be comparable to trying to get on the freeway in Italy. You just have to go for it. Forget the concept of a line, because it is something that has probably never occurred to your neighboring Italians. You normally end up feeling like you've cut someone off, which isn't such a big deal because they were expecting you to and they did it to someone else to get into the aisle themselves but still it feels kind of like a jostle to get to the front. This evening though perhaps one of the most marvelous sights was when it came time for communion a line qued up from the back of the church to the front. The line qued up pew by pew just like in the states but instead of from the front to the back, each waited for the pew behind it to go. While it may seem insignificant, this small communal act of charity ("the last shall be first and the first shall be last") was awesome in a culture where communion is often anything but calm and orderly.
--
What an unexpected blessing in the first week in Torino. The Church is alive and young! And not just in America or Latin America but in Europe where it is supposedly dead and dying. It was such a blessing to be reminded so vividly and powerfully that I'm not alone, but am a very small part of something very big, something setting fire to even inhospitable places like modern Europe. I have no idea where this adventure is heading but am excited to keep discovering. Quo vadis? Where are you going?
Hahaha! Sorry, I laugh at your comparison of Communion and Liberation (CL) to Liberation Theology. My friends in CL would probably smack you. Nowhere close. CL was started by a man named Fr. Luigi Guissani in Italy a number of decades ago. JPII was a fan as well. CL's mission is to look for Christ in your every day life, and to see how He is communication His love to you today. What you've described is pretty typical of CL. They are very serious about their Catholicism. In the States, they're kind of hipster Catholic kids, but really solid. You'd probably like them.
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