St Augustine´s Church,Washington DC

I Googled my nearest Roman Catholic Church from our hotel - the Washington Hilton - and found St Augustine´s. According to the information it was Washington´s first black Roman Catholic Church. I had been to a predominantly black Church once before in Virginia, but this was different; it was described as a black church and I was curious...but also concerned. I associate black churches with a very expressive form of religion; evangelical, pentocostalist and always Protestant. I was curious to see if this Roman Catholic Church had any of these features but I was also concerned as I loathe that kind of religion; not the faith, but anything that purports to get me on my feet, expressing my faith and generally interacting.

Well, it was everying I imagined! The Church was not all black, but predominatly so. I found the white Christian Saints and Martyrs displayed in the copious stained glass windows an amusing contrast. The Church was of a very classic design, nothing modern about it. The cantor was a young white woman, the servers were black and, when he finally arrived, the priest that day was white.

The priest was a larger than life character and equally loud and his opening lines of welcome were punctuated with ´halleluha!´ to which the congregation readily replied in kind. Likewise the sermon - ´halleluha!´ The singing was relatively restrained but I did note a drum kit at the front, presumably for a even livelier Mass later that day. I had gone to the early morning Mass as I had a flight to catch that day.

The Mass had its own unique features. As I could have predicted, hands were raised during the Our Father. This is an abomimable practice in which I had never participated...until this Mass! I had no choice. The people nearest me - one woman in front and another beside me - grabbed my hands and raised them up and I noted that the whole congregation was holding hands as one. At the end of the prayer, the affectionate squeeze on the hand I was given before we all disengaged was a friendly gesture. Of course, when it came to the sign of peace, this lasted a good five minutes or more as everyone in the Church had to shake hands with almost everyone else, including me. I did not take Communion, partly due to time but mainly as I did not want to get tied up in any post-Mass activities. I really like to enter and leave Mass anonymously.

Not my style of worship but I came away with a huge smile on my face. I was struck by the utter sincerity of what I had witnessed and on my next visit to DC, I may go back. Halleluha!

Engaging in the Mass

With lay readers, girls on the altar, the 'sign of peace' and all manner of music and activities at Mass, the Roman Catholic laity must feel more 'engaged'.  I'm sure they do; but why are the churches empty on Sunday mornings?  The continual reduction in the number of Masses available - specifically with fewer Vigil Masses - with the expressed aim of  concentrating those left into fewer Masses has worked to some extent.  But fewer people now attend Mass and if it were not for the Polish community in my own parish, I fear the church may be even emptier.

Of course, the old Mass - the Tridentine Mass - did not engage people as they could not understand what was going on and they were not ostensibly 'involved' in proceedings.  Then why, when I went to Sunday morning Mass recently in a large Roman Catholic Church in London was it packed?  The Mass was in Latin, the Priest faced the altar and only the sermon was in English.  Of course, you'd expect it would have been full of older people and those who wouldn't know any better; it wasn't.  There were smart young professional couples, many teenagers and other children and, of course, older people like me.

I had not attended a Tridentine Mass for decades; I was brought into the Catholic Church long after the desecrations of the Second Vatican Council, and Pope John Paul II's restrictions on issuing the celebre - which allowed very few priests to celebrate the Tridentine Mass - all but saw it eradicated from the Catholic landscape.  But it survived and John Paul II's less popularity conscious successor, the former Cardinal Ratzinger, relaxed the restrictions on celebrating the Tridentine Mass.  Looking back, what a cruel and appalling act of bullying the restriction was and how we now live in, ironically, more enlightened times.

From the bell preceding the Priest's entry I was as engaged as I had ever been in any Mass in which I had taken part.  Only the occasional 'oremus' (let us pray), as the Priest turned to face us before returning to face the altar, reminded me where we were in the Mass.  If I had had my Tridentine Missal with me I could have followed.  What many 'Tridentine-bashers' don't realise is that these had Latin on one page and English on the opposite page.  All but the illiterate could follow.  My eyes and thoughts hardly wandered during this profound and total act of worship.

Since then I have been back to my parish church.  The Priest is a very fine man and the congregation is devoted and full of people who give much time to the Church and dispense more charity in a morning than I have dispensed in my lifetime.  But Mass is not engaging, it is simply distracting.  The different forms of the Mass each week - often mercifully neglected by the Priest in favour of the shortest version - the standing, the sitting, the kneeling, the standing again...sitting...kneeling; the frequent exchange of personnel - lay and ordained - on the altar - the responses, the singing and the increasingly prolonged shaking of hands, barely allow you time to think why you are there.  I leave Mass wondering what we'll cook for Sunday dinner; I left the Mass in London wondering how to become a better person.

Dedicated to the memory of the late Anthony Fraser, Editor of Apropos magazine.