All the participants seemed to be actively engaged. At times during this 30-minute service, there
was kneeling, sitting, bowing, and standing.
The regular attenders had no problem with this, but for us visitors it
was awkward. Most of the service was in
English, but some was in Latin. At the
name of the “Father, Son and Holy Spirit” all would bow slightly at the waist. There were no hymns. The recitations and chants had to do with
protections through the night. This was
the last service of the day. There was a
brief scripture reading. There were no
musical instruments, only voices.
D. Did the
congregation greatly help you in your worship or were they more of an obstacle
or distraction? Explain.
The order of service was difficult
to follow. One of the brothers helped us
by flipping pages in two books. I am
told that daily use makes this process easier.
E. Other remarks about the congregation.
The chapel is set up for call and
response singing. There is a large
center aisle, with the pews on either side facing each other. The two sides would chant the lines of the
liturgy in turn.
II. The Leadership
A. Cite the persons and/or groups who shared in
the leading or worship. How much
leadership responsibility did each have?
This is a very set service. Every Sunday evening it is the same. There is first a service inside the
chapel. When this is done, everyone
sings together in Latin and leaves for the inner court garden walking
two-by-two. The two sides line either
side of a long walkway where the worshipers stand and are blessed by a priest
who walks the center of the sidewalk.
Then the procession continues a short distance to the statue of Saint
Dominic in the center of the garden. The
congregants circle this statue. More
words are spoken. This service ends as the Dominicans pay weekly tribute to
Saint Dominic the founder of their order.
This is a very hierarchical organization. The leader of the priory nods to the chanter
to begin the service exactly at 9PM. The same person closes the service around the
statue of St. Dominic. In between, each
leader knows by repetition and practice the order of the service. It was beautiful thing to watch and I noted
very few mis-cues.
B. Who brought the most effective and enabling
leadership to the worship service? How
did this take place?
This question is difficult to
answer since leadership seemed so distributed.
It is a paradox that the Catholic is so hierarchical, but the community
is so egalitarian. Everyone did his part by rote. All the brothers in St.
Albert’s Priory are required to participate in 2
services per day (morning and evening).
There is an optional service mid-day service. This practice makes perfect.
C. How well did the pastor help you to get to God
before the sermon? Did he model good
worship participation when not in the pulpit?
There was no sermon
D. As well as you can discern, what do you think
was the leadership's view of themselves?
Did they seem to function as enablers consciously seeking to help people
get to God? Or did they seem more like textbook functionaries going religiously
through all of the proper motions? Or did their leadership take on more the
appearance of a TV variety show complete with Master of Ceremonies, live
entertainment and a special offer for a limited time only? Explain.
This is difficult to judge.
Each of the brothers appeared solemn and involved. Their goal is to perform like “textbook
functionaries going religiously through all of the proper motions”. Since this is their intention, it is
difficult to call it a fault. It seemed
to me that most were genuinely trying to get close to God through the use of
Catholic ritual. It is certainly
different than a Southern Baptist service.
E. Did the service leadership make you feel more
like a participant or like an observer?
Explain.
The first part of the service, inside the chapel, did not
allow for much participation. After
exiting from the chapel and retiring to the garden, there was a sense of
participation. Maybe “brotherhood” is a
better word for it.
F. Was the pastoral leadership unobtrusive enough
to help you maintain a continual God-ward focus? Or did their leadership demand
a great deal of focus on themselves?
There was no focus on the leaders. The idea is to get lost in worship and in a
communal worship at that.
G. Which of the musical leaders (choir, organist,
pianist, soloist, choir director, cantor, etc.) were most helpful to your
worship? Explain.
There was a brother sitting next to us who helped us find
the appropriate pages to follow along with the service, but even then it was
difficult. The worship style is alien
and this made participation difficult.
III. The Service
A. As nearly as you can
tell, what pattern of service structure does this service represent? If it does not fit a category that you have
studied, attempt to describe the service structure.
This was certainly a liturgical service and 100% Roman
Catholic. There was no Bible-based
preaching and hymns like a traditional service.
It was not contemporary. Its
purpose is to give participants a sense of heritage with the past. “Communion
of the saints” is an emphasized part of the Catholic tradition. These saints go back through the millennia. This is the Dominican order and their roots
are important to them.
B. Did the service flow? Did elements relate forward and backward to
each other in a logical (not necessarily thematic) progression? From the beginning did the service appear to
be going somewhere? Did it have
direction?
Because this style of service is new to me, so it was hard
to judge
flow. The three parts made sense:
inside for chants, on the sidewalk for blessing, around the statue for
remembrance.
C. Did the service contain good, substantial
content? Significant amounts of
scripture? Contents theologically
sound? Intelligent and meaningful? Was there a balance of objective and subjective
material?
The content was not Protestant. The central aim is to draw people into a
spiritual heritage going back thousands of years. The sense becomes “this is
the church that Christ founded”. This
was not a mass, so there was no scripture reading or Eucharist.
D. In what ways did the music aid your
worship? In what ways did it
hinder? Discuss appropriateness,
spirituality, degree of excellence in the music ministry.
The music was all chanted.
I followed along when our side of the chapel chanted. In some ways the unfamiliarity made the
chanting difficult, but in other ways the novelty made me pay more attention to
the words. One of my seminary books says
not to expect “high art” in Protestant congregational singing. This music seemed nearly ready for the
concert hall. Most of the chants were
directly from Psalms, so they were biblically based and aesthetically pleasing.
E. Was there an effective blend of music,
silence, and speech in the service?
The order of service was well scripted. There were long pauses for silence between
the chants. Toward the end there was
just a little speech. It seemed
effective for its purpose.
F. Was
the service designed to give God's people a significant participatory role in
the service? What proportion of the
service acts were primarily congregational?
This chapel is really a private worship area for the
priory. It is not a parish church. Guests are allowed to worship with the
brothers, and in this service there were about 60 brothers in their habits and
about 10 lay people (including us). In
this instance, the clergy is the congregation.
One could say in this sense, the people did participate. In another sense however, the non-clergy only
chanted along as they knew the words.
There was no lay leadership.
G. How did the sermon fit into the service? Was it a logical next step in the progression
of the service? Was it the only high
point? Or was it an anti-climax?
There was no sermon.
H. Was the congregation given an adequate means of
responding - corporately or individually - to whatever God might be saying
through the sermon? How?
This was a communal event that was well scripted. There was no room for individual response. I am now just realizing how big a role
community plays in all of this.
I. Were
there any particular distractions in the service itself that made it difficult
for you to stay alive in your worship?
The only distraction was to follow the chanting as we
flipped from book to book and from page to page. It is kind of an inside joke about how hard
it is for an outsider to follow along with the prayer books.
J. Describe the dynamics of the service. Was it powerful? overwhelming? warm?
exciting? happy? awesome? celebrative? dull? sentimental? boring? And were there changes of mood? Did the service stimulate or call for a
variety of emotional responses. Was
there a balance of head and heart involved?
The service was powerful and awesome (in the original sense
of awe). I would not describe it at overwhelming, warm, exciting, happy
celebrative, dull, sentimental or boring.
This was a service by monks for monks.
It was contemplative and solemn.
I think this service has the aim of uniting the current batch of
Dominicans with their ancient brothers, a “communion of the saints”. There is a sense of antiquity, permanence,
and continuity that is definitely absent in Protestant circles. This dynamic of the service appealed me being
an antiquarian by nature. I could see
how it would “turn off” many people.
IV. The
Environment
1.
Was the room helpful to your worship?
Or was it an obstacle to be overcome? Or
neither? Explain.
This chapel was designed for what I experienced: the seats
facing each other, the chanting from left and right, the exit out the back to
the garden area. I have heard that this
space is not that great for celebrating mass, holding musical concerts or
conducting weddings. There is a balcony
that faces forward, but on the chapel floor, the wooden pews face sideways and
not to the front.
2. Were there any architectural features which by
themselves were an aid to worship?
This is a Roman Catholic space. The interior emphasizes the communion of the
saints. One feels surrounded by a “cloud
of witnesses” of both stone and wood.
3. How would you characterize the worship space -
sanctuary? auditorium? theater? temple? cathedral? gymnasium? chapel? other?
Why?
This was a chapel; a worship area designed for a specific group
of worshipers.
V. Other
A. Did the printed order of service help you in
your worship? Explain.
There was no printed order of service.
B. How many sense gates did the action of the
service involve?
Of course there was a beauty in the sights and sounds, but there
is also a burning of incense as the service began. One of the brothers swung a censer up and
down the center aisle. This olfactory sense
gate in not used in Baptist churches.
It’s too bad that John Calvin threw out the incense. Are not our prayers like incense rising to
heaven? I think that it is true that
most Protestants (including Baptists) are suspicious of making a church service
artistically beautiful. Is this Calvin
again?
C.
Did the service call for any body
language?
If I understand this question correctly, there was no body
language.
D. Was there any spontaneity evident?
Unfortunately, no.
This was a set piece. I enjoyed
it on this one occasion. I am not
sure how I would react if I received this same diet every evening.
E. Was there any dimension of creativity in the
plan and/or the actual experience, or the written program?
I am sure that there was much thought put into the original
creation of this service. It is very
appealing to the senses and has a kind of timelessness to it. The service has become fossilized, however. Again, I would probably enjoy this kind of
chanting liturgy as an annual experience, but as a daily diet, I would suffer.
II Summary
A. Summarize your overall impressions of the
service.
I brought a guest to this service; my wife’s niece. She
remarked about how “spiritual” the service was.
This is my overall impression as well.
There is a sense of a transcendent and timeless God as you worship Him
with chants and in an ancient language.
I could not see a personal God who could be called a friend.
B. All things considered, did you have a
relatively difficult or relatively easy time worshiping the Lord in this
service? Explain.
It was difficult for me to worship. Part of this was due to the alien experience,
but part was likely due to this assignment.
How can one lose himself in a service when one has to fill out a 6-page Worship Service Observation Form?
C. What have you learned through this experience?
I have learned that a liturgical based Christian service
does have an appeal to the aesthetic nature.
The chanting, the incense, the ritual are all attractive to me. I
believe this is what first attracted my son to Catholicism. People have a need
to be rooted and grounded. “Tradition”
is not a dirty word, as long as it is a vehicle and not an obstacle to
worshipping God. I believe that is why
some forms of ritual are finding their way back into Protestant services.
D. Would you recommend this church to a Christian
who wanted to attend a church where meaningful, even exciting worship takes
place? Explain.
No, I am not and could not be a Roman Catholic. I would
recommend attending a service like this only as a window into a different
branch of Christianity. The Roman
Catholic Church is a river that has traveled 2000 years down stream. Although its Apostolic source was fresh and
clean, it has accumulated debris through two millennia of history. The central Christology of Catholicism remains
in tact, but the accretion of ages muddies its waters. I prefer to return to the source of my faith
which is the New Testament church. I
prefer to drink from the fresh water.