My worst Mass ever?

Picture this……….a parish with an “undressed” altar – no altar cloths.  No statuary of any kind.  Not an image of the Blessed Virgin in the house.  No STATIONS.   NO crucifix.  No TABERNACLE!  Instead, you get this:

Zombie Brick Jesus angry!  Zombie Brick Jesus SMASH!

This was at St. Mark parish in San Antonio.  My first impression was bad – I went over to the parish, because it is literally next to my aging father-in-law’s house, around 5pm on Wed last week, only to find it locked up tight as a drum.  That always disconcerts me, but seems very common in San Antonio.  At the Mass the next day, I’d never seen a bare, undressed altar used for Mass outside of Good Friday.  They had lay people women carry up the altar cloths, then the chalice and ciboria and then the gifts – the bread and wine.  The did it in this weird kind of rythmic procession that took a good 5 minutes and was darned close to liturgical dance.  Oh, they didn’t hand the gifts to the priest or deacon – they put them on the altar themselves.   It’s been so long since I’ve been to a Novus Ordo Sunday Mass, I forgot about this procession.

How do you like the hot tub baptismal font with artificial “creek” up there blocking access to the altar? – this seems common in the San Antonio Diocese, every parish I’ve been at there (except Atonement) has one of these obstructing monstrosities at the front of the nave, occluding access to the sanctuary. 

16 EMHCs for a Mass with perhaps 300 souls assisting.  Yet, distribution of Communion took a very long time because of the very elaborate way in which the EMHCs received – it was really a sight to see.

Alot of ad libbing with the Order of the Mass, especially the Propers, as you’d expect.  The consecration was valid, but abusive.

The tabernacle was in the chapel, way off over your left shoulder behind some heavily smoked glass.  You could barely make out its shape. 

There was just so  much wrong – only two candles around the altar (there should be 6 ON the altar, or at least around, with a minimum of 4 typically allowed).  I had no place to put my eyes!  I’m accustomed to stare at the tabernacle or crucifix while I pray the Mass, and especially during the consecration when I am trying to focus on this awesome once for all time ongoing Sacrifice.  This church was definitely all about the horizontal, the closed circle vision of the Mass – of the petitionary prayers the priest offered, they were all concerned with earthly affairs – none with a focus on the worship due God.  The penultimate prayer was that we may love each other perfectly.  Kumbayah. Yes, the priest was of that age. 

I  could go on and on.  You get the picture.  If you’re travelling to San Antonio, the only parish I can recommend you assist at is Our Lady of the Atonement – the liturgy is grand (Anglican-use English and Latin), the church beautiful, the pastor, pretty orthodox.   But I have to wonder – how come the Diocese of San Antonio has so many terrible, awful, just horrid parishes?  I mean, this St. Mark place, I had to ask if I was in a Christian church, let alone a Catholic one.  And it’s hardly alone.   There is a parish in Boerne that is worse in some respects, but at least it has a tabernacle and crucifix.  Many of the more recent churches in San Antonio have a similar layout to this St. Mark, with a massive hot tub baptistry taking up huge amounts of space and creating a sense of no division between the nave and the sanctuary.  Many of these churches were built or renovated during Archbishop Gomez’ time as Archbishop of San Antonio.  Now, it is true that Gomez inherited a disastrous situation from the previous bishop, Flores, who tolerated and encouraged all kinds of novel interpretations of the last Council.  But Gomez has this wonderful reputation for orthodoxy. It does not seem that orthodoxy, to the extent it exists, had much impact on the parish design or Sacred Liturgy in this Diocese.  Gomez did support Atonement parish strongly – that’s good.  But Atonement is sadly a rare exception.  Lex orandi, lex credendi – we believe as we pray.  If we pray and offer the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in a modernist, indifferentist way with a focus on temporal or secular interests, that will have a profound impact on the beliefs of all involved – from the pastor or even bishop to the laity.  I find it stunning that the new Archbishop of San Antonio would have chosen to be consecrated in this parish, rather than in the Cathedral.  That may be very revealing, I don’t know.

Oh, one more thing.  It was Thanksgiving Day.  This parish had a program for people to bring canned goods and other food to donate.  That’s great.  I laud that effort.  The execution, however, was, ahhhh……interesting.  Instead of having people bring the canned goods and put them in a box in the narthex, or in a truck in the parking lot, they had the people bring in all these noisy paper bags, dozens of them, and then, after the Offertory, bring them up and place them around the altar en masse.  It was quite a scene.

All that from one Mass!  Sometimes, it takes travel to another locale to make one realize how good things are back home, or, perhaps, how much worse they could be.