[Gocamino] [saintjames] Ship of Fools

[blaroli at aol.com]

Whether to kneel, or to stand, when a church celebration calls for reverence, is pretty much a personal decision. Catholics in all countries where I have attended Mass will either kneel or stand.  In my own parish in New York City some of us kneel and some of us stand.
As long as the proper respect for the moment is shown, and the reverence on the part of the faithful, it really doesn't matter. Also, there may be some people who cannot kneel for physical reasons.
The same divergence occurs during communion: some of us take the host directly from the priest, or the dispenser at the altar, and some of us take it in our hands first.
There is only one church I know of where the host is never put in the hands of those taking communion: Saint Giorgio in Venice.
Other costumes also differ:  In Austria people go to kneel at the railing in front of the altar to receive communion; in Saint Giorgio in Venice they stand in a single file to do so. In the Santiago Cathedral, particularly in a Holy Year, getting to a priest to receive communion takes fortitude, determination and grit, and not everyone makes it.... the crowds are such that it is almost impossible to move. During the last Holy Year the priests dispensing communion were accompanied by attendants who held huge blue and white umbrellas to indicate where they were and to make it easier to get to them.  (It really didn't work). At Saint Peters in the Vatican on special occasions  one may be receiving communion one half an hour after Mass ended! The same happens ordinarily in Mega churches such as the Basilica of Our Lady of Guadalupe in Mexico City and the church of Nossa Senhora Aparecida in Brasil (even although this church is away from the cities, way up in the mountains and difficult to get to).
In Vienna there is a Royal chapel in the Hofburg where the Vienna Boys Choir sing on Sundays. The church is fairly small and, of course, everyone wants to go there. The Chapel has several levels and the last time I was there I just couldn't make it  down in time to receive communion.  Of course, one may hear  exquisite music, and extraordinary choirs,  in many churches in Vienna; I was blown right out of my mind by the choir and music at the  Jesuit church, close to St. Stephens, and the one at the Gothic Church.  But in Vienna they are all fantastic.  Vienna is, after all, the world's capital of music.
-If you are fortunate enough to visit that exquisitely lovely city you can get the  various churches Mass music programs in the tourist information offices.-
At any rate, considering that there are more than twelve hundred million Catholics around, I guess that it would be impossible for all of us to observe the same ways of following Mass.  What it is extraordinary, for me, is that it is the same Mass... in whatever language, and in whatever church,  and despite some differences. In Austria the Mass is very solemn and very beautiful, and even although one may not understand a word of German, the spiritual emotions hug the heart.  In Brasil, with its  lively and exuberant  people, when the time comes to wish each other Peace I find myself looking for the protection of a pillar to avoid the hugs and kisses of dozens and dozens of people: they get out of their pews and walk up and down the aisles heartily hugging one and all. 
And so it goes.
In my chapel in New York City, Our Lady of Pompeii in Greenwich Village, on Sundays we have two Masses in English, at 7:00 and 9:00 a.m., one in Italian, at ll:00; another one in English at 12:15 p.m., then one in Portuguese at 1:30 p.m. and one in Tagalo at 2:30 p.m.  The last one, in English, is at 6:00 p.m.
The ambience differences between one another are striking: the Italian Mass with organ music is endearingly traditiuonal, the noon-time English Mass has  a lovely (professional) singer; the Brasilian Mass has guitars and tambourins and several singers; the Filipino Mass has large screens up front pointing out the texts, and so on.
The only one that offers coffe, and all sorts of food, prepared by the parishioners is the Brasilian one.  Sometimes the thought of the home-made food is so inviting that it is worth braving the hugs and kisses.
My chapel is located at the corner of Bleeker and Carmine streets (where they converge with Sixth Avenue); it was founded by Italian Dominican monks a long time ago.
Now that the new Pope has approved the celebration of the old Latin Mass at will I suppose that we will have even more ways to be dissimilar.

Hugs!

Rosina

-----Original Message-----
From: gabolga at aol.com
To: saintjames at yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 10:35 am
Subject: Re: [saintjames] Ship of Fools







Thank you for the link to "The Ship of Fool".
?As I went through the description of the Mass at Roncesvalles, it reminded me of a question that has puzzled me even since I finished the Camino in May. During the Consecration , some people kneel while other people stand. The writer said that it depended on their nationalities, and that the Spanish all kneel. That was not my experience as I walked the Camino - at every Mass most people stood, and some people knelt.
? I found it very distracting, at the most important moment of the service, that the community of the faithful were not acting as one people. That is after all why we all stand, or sit, or kneel at various times - to show our unity as a community.
? Does anyone know why there is such a divergence in Spain?

-----Original Message-----
From: Sil <sillydoll at gmail.com>
To: saintjames at yahoogroups.com; gocamino at oakapple.net
Sent: Wed, 6 Jun 2007 1:00 am
Subject: [saintjames] Ship of Fools

I pay occasional visits to a website called "Ship of Fools" where people

record their experiences attending mass in different places around the

world. Yesterday there was one on the mass at Roncesvalles. You can visit

it here:

http://www.shipoffools.com/Mystery/camino/841.html

-- 

Sil

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