Is Mass is for the birds?

Everyone ought to experience the Mass or a worship service in a language other than their own. Somehow I think that it helps one appreciate community prayer in their native language a little bit more (some may disagree). So, today is Sunday and this Sunday the Church is celebrating the Solemnity of Corpus Christi. In Antigua, this means that the weekend celebrating is of an elevated status. The Churches around town actually celebrate by forming large processions with the Eucharist in a Monstrance held by the priest. Each weekend for about three or four weeks, there will be a big procession in each part of town and the Church's will take turns hosting 24 hour Adoration for about a week each.

For Mass today, David, Chris, John and I went to La Merced where a youth orchestra was assisting in the celebration of the Mass. These kids really do a nice job. The Mass was nice. I'm understanding more of it in Spanish, but still not all - especially when it comes to the homily. The Mass is not without its minor distractions (some of which are a little humorous). La Merced is large enough inside (and high enough) that on occassion a bird or two will fly in. That happened again today. The dynamic that I found a little amuzing happened during the homily. The bird flew from on high straight down behind the priest and landed where all the altar servers where sitting (all 9 of them). Their attention was immediately drawn to the bird, and I think so was much of the assembly's. The kids were leaning forward in their seats and standing slightly to see the bird. Simultaneously, the priest was getting more excited in his preaching and seemed to become even more inspired the more the assembly's attention focused on him (even though their attention was really drawn to the servers watching the bird behind him). Smiles and soft chuckling occurred all the while the priest thought everyone was responding to his preaching.

Now, I don't include that story to make light of the priest's preaching despite the humor of it. But, it does tell us something about priests as signs. Part of the roll of a priest is for people to be able to look through him to someone greater than him. Like any real sign, the sign itself is the vehicle through which what it signifies is made present. In a unique way the priest makes Christ present through his person as a real sign. Christ is the someone greater whom we look too beyond the immediate appearance of the priest. We can always pray that when people see Christ beyond the person of the priest that they may delight in an even greater way than our assembly did today when our attention was captured by a little bird.

To answer the title question on whether Mass is for the birds, my short answer is, "no, it's for human beings." But, on occassion, a bird may certainly help us to see some of the deeper things that happen in the life of the Church.

After the Mass today at La Merced, David, Chris, John and I went to observe the Eucharistic procession occuring in the Southern part of the town. It was quite a neat thing to observe. At various points along the procession route, the people place large patches of green grasses (like palm fronds) in the center of the street and then put all sorts of flowers on the grace. As the procession comes, the crowd moves along the sides of these decorations until the priest comes with the Eucharist. He walks straight over this patch of flowers in the road. The image to me really reminds me of the biblical passages of Jesus arriving in Jerusalem before he suffered and died. All the people are in their Sunday best and the crowd both before and after the priest was large (probably 500-1000 people).

We marched along with the procession for a block, but then, due to the late hour in the morning, decided to go to a restaurant where we knew we could get brunch if we started before noon. The Hotel Santo Domingo has one of the best Sunday brunches anywhere and it is set in the ruins of a Domincan monastery. A beautiful place, good food, good friends...a great way to celebrate the start of a new trip.