"Where You Go to Chooch?"

That would be Henry, my little inquisitor. Guaranteed that whenever he encounters a new person, he will ask where they attend church. Many of the people that I know are Catholics or otherwise devout Christians, so they happily tell him, and he's fascinated every time. There is the inevitable squirming that comes about when Henry asks this question of someone who does not regularly attend church, but I like to think that it plants an important seed :) He always goes on to inform everyone, "I go to St. Paul's" so that they will have this vital piece of information. It's very, very cute. He's a great little Catholic. And he has wonderful cheeks, to boot. I could kiss them forever.

In other news, I picked up the fledgling baby blanket I'm making for my neighbor's new baby last night. I'm really enjoying making it. I have to be honest and admit that I love having a deadline - it keeps me motivated. It's the Type A personality, I can't help it. I worked on a row last night with puff stitiches, and for whatever reason, it gave me a heck of a time. Not the puff stitches themselves. Once I loosened my stitches, that is. I think it's the personality again, but my stitiches are often wound pretty tightly. So, after that remedy, I puffed away with much success. However, the pattern calls for a chain or two between each puff stitch, and I kept getting distracted talking to my husband and losing count. So, once I moved to the next row, my single crochet stitch count was quickly falling to the brink of disaster. I ended up having to pull out a bunch of puffs and chains and re-do them. So, I did get the row done, but not much more then that, sigh. With the baby due October 28th, I really need to get my crochet needle in gear.

I have to work a short evening reference shift tonight. I plan to race home, grab a quick shower, and be crocheting by 8 pm. Excited.

Back from long weekend...

and totally overwhelmed by my to-do list. So I will post more lengthily tomorrow. But I had a pleasant weekend visit to Pittsburgh. It was me, so naturally I was able to scope out multiple churches and see some birds. Wherever I go, I manage to frequent churches.

Ugly churches, take two

So, continuing on my central Florida theme, this is a great opportunity to delve back into the arena of modern church architecture. This is found in abundance on each of my trips to this region. The church that my mother-in-law attends, St. Ann's, definitely falls into this category. Each time I go, I scratch my head at what new things about it bother me. Now, I need to clarify that of course attending Mass is the most important thing, regarless of the beauty (or lack thereof) in the church building itself. That being said, I find modern churches harder for me to enjoy worshipping in. It's just a personal preference.

So anyway, what I dislike about St. Ann's is manyfold. Is that a word? Anyway, it's large and pointy and sort of vacuous. Here's a particular pet peeve: it has *abstract* stained glass. Isn't the point of stained glass to tell the Gospel story? Sigh. Not sure what is up with this, but bulletins aren't left out in the open so that just any Catholic librarian can snap one up while coming into Mass for perusual during the collection. They're squirreled away and then doled out after Mass by the ushers. Why? Don't they trust us to not read them during the homily? But the thing that bothers me the most about this church layout is that the tabernacle isn't at the front. It's in the back, in the daily Mass chapel. This bothers me quite a bit. The Eucharist is a central part of our faith, and it should be central in our worship spaces.

Those are the constants. Each time I go to Mass there, I notice something else. Like this time, when I went to Mass for the feast of Mary, Mother of God. We go in, sit down, attempt to pray. Suddenly, we're interrupted by the music director, guitar in hand:

"ok everybody, the opening hymn is going to be 'God is With Us,' Number 553 in your hymnals. Let's practice the opening verse together."

I won't relay what went through my head, because it was most uncharitable. I don't want to practice hymns before Mass unless I'm in the choir, particularly not when they're being led by a guitar. Guitars in other contexts are fine, but I loathe them in Mass. And I really don't want to be coaxed to sing by a bossy music director.

The following Saturday evening, Mike and I were going to dinner in another town, so chose to find a church nearer the restaurant where we could attend the vigil. Well holy smokes. We pull up, and Mike says "oh look, there it is." I look up, and swear to God, I averted my eyes. This church was so ugly, it was like I had seen something disturbing. I may have actually shuddered. The inside was even worse. Abstract stained glass abounded, and the entire shebang looked like a convention center. I couldn't find the holy water fonts, and then realized I was supposed to have used the immersion baptismal pool for these purposes. And this isn't architecture-related, but Florida-related: it was so bloody cold from the a/c, the pages of my Missal were blowing in the artificially forced breeze. It was 70 degrees outside; why on *earth* would we need air conditioning? We're not polar bears.

Anyway, the liturgy was actually quite nice, I was pleasantly surprised. No bossy music director in sight. Just a simple organist with a trio of excellent singers. Given that it was the Epiphany, there was a holographic star up above the altar, which I rolled my eyes at. The priest made a really good joke though about the star, saying he feared he was having a vision when he first saw it. "You do also see this star, don't you?!"

So, ugly church #2 in fact turned out better than I would have anticipated. I just don't understand why "new" always has to be translated into "modern." I go by the "if it isn't broke, don't fix it" mentality.

Church with a toddler...

On Sunday, I went to the early 8 am Mass instead of the 10 am family Mass, since we had afternoon plans to go apple picking. What I liked is that the 8 am Mass lacked the contemporary worship music and instruments and just had an organist. Nothing wrong with guitars and flutes, I'm just more of a silence person in Mass. So, that was good. What was bad, you ask? Well, the 8 am Mass attracted, let's just say, a non-child crowd. Hank was the only child there. And he was bad. *Real* bad. Here's a sampling of dialogue:

Hank: "MOMMY. I want my Sponge Bob fruit snack."
CL: "Honey, remember, shhhh. You have to whisper in church."
Hank: "MOMMY. I *ARE* whispering." In a voice loud enough to be heard by half the congregation.
CL: "Honey, no you're not. You have to be quieter."
Hank: "I NO WANT to be quieter."

Later, he threw his jacket into the next pew, and then refused to put it on. I had to force his arms in. And then drag him out of the church. And across the busy road in front, where he deliberately *went limp* in the middle of the road. I had to scrape him up and carry him, arms and legs flailing, across the street while people stared from their stopped cars.

In the car, I threw and *locked* him into his car seat, and in no uncertain terms told him that (a) he embarrassed me, (b) I was *very* disappointed in him, and (c) he was never coming to church with mommy again. This led to Hank bursting into tears and screaming for the whole ride home.

Who can't wait to have kids?

Is this Church ugly?

Well, I guess the key question to me is - does it look like a church? I understand that nowadays, with the rise of megachurches, churches don't necessarily look traditional anymore. Which is fine. But Catholic churches, in my opinion, should cherish their tradition and look, well, traditional. The specimen in question is the new (multi-million dollar) Oakland Cathedral of Christ the Light (don't even get me started on the name - they wanted to avoid choosing a saint so that it wouldn't be "ethnically divisive." *sigh*)

Check out the new cathedral's website. Interesting, it's just not my style.