Catholic Visit

Catholic Visit For my third religious visit, I decided to attend a Catholic Church, St. Mathews. I used to go to service with my friends when I was much younger, but never really had an understanding about it until my recent visit. Since It had been a while, I couldn’t remember what was appropriate attire for the service so I called the church before going to ask what I should wear. The lady on the phone said for women, they should wear something such as a nice dress, skirt or pants.
When I arrived at the church it looked nice but not fancy; just the way I remembered it from my younger years. It had a brownish colored brick with a huge cross emblem in the front. There were a lot of flowers, as well as candles lit. When I walked inside, the halls were a little dark. They had a lot of different rooms for bible study, etc. When you walk in the main worship area, there was a small fountain and everyone was touching it and doing cross like movements on their chest. Even though I was going for observation, I decided to follow along with what they were doing. Come to find out, it was holy water that is blessed during Easter celebrations and is also used through out the year for baptisms, for blessing themselves when entering and exiting church. They made a cross symbol on their chest and said “in the name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit, Amen.” As I was looking around, I noticed there were little fold down benches on the back of the pews. During some prayers and after songs, people would kneel down on them and pray.
The service started off by music being played which consisted of a piano, and choir. The songs were about praising God and thanking him and glorifying him. After the music, pastor Luis V. Evardoni walked up. The pastor had one of those collars around his neck that had that white square in the middle which is called a clerical collar. It symbolizes a sign of a person’s holy calling. The pastor then made all of the announcements about some events that were going on later that afternoon and for the rest of the week. Everyone at the service seemed to be close in relation to the rest of the church members. Everyone knew each other and they were all talking about the events coming up. When the pastor started he would say certain things like “in the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit,” everyone would say “amen.’’ I found that pretty interesting. There was some sort of routine where you would sit, stand, kneel and recite prayers out loud at various times through out the entire service. It was really hard for me to keep up with what was going on so I was constantly looking around so that I could follow along. I noticed someone using a book while they were doing this and so I kindly asked them if that book helped describe what was going on. I grabbed one of the books from the back of the pew and started reading. Thankfully, a lady knew I was a guest so she helped me with the book and guided me well. In the book, “The World Religions Today” it mentions the Catholic claimed that apostolic succession proved that it alone was the one true church and that its task was to confer Gods guiding and protecting grace upon all believers through the sacraments. The pastor talked about how God tries to guide us in the right direction and that he protects us from evil, or harm. Pastor Luis V. Evardoni also talked about how there was only one God, and we must praise him for what he has blessed us with.
So after the service as I was walking out I was able to touch the Holy water and do it the right way. As I was leaving some of the members greeted me and thanked me for coming to the service. Going to these services of different religions has greatly helped me to be more open about each service and helps me have more of an understanding of their rituals.