Weak in the Knees

Week Twenty-Eight - Sacred Heart (Fairfield)

4:30 Saturday afternoon mass, Sacred Heart. In perusing my church inventory, it became glaringly obvious that, after having traveled east, west, and south, I hadn't yet ventured north, so with no one else home except for yours truly, I pointed the mighty Honda Odyssey that very direction and headed off to Fairfield. Ah, Fairfield. Home to countless small businesses, including, most notably on my journey, an inordinately large number of dentists and pet hospitals. I also passed a florist with a large neon sign in the window that read, "FUNERALS" - disturbing - and a dog boarding kennel that also advertised Christmas trees but which looked more like a mobile home park to me. Good to see the folks of Fairfield can multi-task.

My drive took a good 25 minutes, and I was in territory I had never been to before. I would have completely passed the church except that I decided the line of Buicks and Chryslers turning in at a particular location had to be the right place, and it was. Sacred Heart not only sits low to the ground, it seems to sit in a hole. The parking lot was clearly higher than the church which, in my defense, was barely visible from the street. Lying low in Fairfield.

Since I was now following the Saturday afternoon crowd, I followed them straight into the "Senior Parking Lot." Fail. Fortunately, I easily found a more age-appropriate spot to park, but again I had to play lemming just to find where to enter the Sacred Heart pagoda.

The worshipping space of Sacred Heart Church is a large square room, but the seating is set on the diagonal, facing the altar which is situated in a corner. Everything here is fairly plain. The plain wooden altar was surrounded by plain off-white walls, a plain wooden lectern, a crucifix, and two potted palms. I know for a fact that the roof/ceiling was featured as a problem in my son's geometry textbook - four slanted isosceles triangles. I didn't see any statues anywhere.

Clearly, it's all about comfort at Sacred Heart. Wall-to-wall carpeting, padded seats on the pews, padded backs on the pews, padded backs on the backs of the pews. And, yes, an absence of kneelers. Again, Mr. Wonderful misses it. I got so comfortable at Sacred Heart that I could have sworn I was sitting in someone's living room. The presiding priest reminded me of my husband's uncle, both in appearance and voice. That kept me amused for a while, unlike a recording from the archbishop that served as the homily.

Once again, I had to do a double-take when I recognized the gentleman providing the music for the mass and again when I later spotted one of my son's friends. It kills me everytime when I feel so foreign and out-of-place but still find something familiar. Maybe that's what religion's all about, Charlie Brown.

ATTENDANCE: Full

DURATION: 55 minutes

Priorities

Week Twenty-Seven - A Swing and a Miss

So I had my church all picked out, got up early Sunday morning, got ready to go . . . and then decided that I would set aside what I wanted to do for that which my family wanted - and needed - me to do . . . which wasn't going to church.

Six Months Later

Week Twenty-Six - Saint Saviour

4:00 Saturday afternoon mass, St. Saviour. My apologies for the glare in the photo. From my angle, there was no avoiding it, but truthfully, given the cold and snow over the past week, the warmth and beauty of sunshine was more of a positive than a negative.

Sooo. "Saint Saviour." I don't get it, the name, that is. Was there someone with the actual name of "Saviour" who became a saint? Why the extra "u"? Time to hit the internet. "Saint," taken from the Latin "sanctus," means "holy." So apparently, "Saint Saviour" translates to "Our Holy Savior." Whatever. The etymological scenic route was lovely, but wouldn't it have been easier to just say "Holy Savior"?

St. Savior might be located in Rossmoyne (as if anyone in Cincinnati even knows where Rossmoyne is); it might be located in Blue Ash; it might even be located in Dillonvale. Guess it depends on who you ask. No matter, I found the church without any problems. Kudos for a nice, big parking lot. First impression? Ah. Another member of the "We-Needed-To-Expand-The-Church-So-We-Rotated-It-Ninety-Degrees" Club. Yes, it was that obvious. I was surprised at the size of the church though - it's big, and apparently, at one time, the parish was just as big. According to the parish history, in 1963, a whopping 1500 children were enrolled in the parish school. However, in 2002, the school was forced to close due to low enrollment. I wonder where the parish census stands now. The bulletin indicated a meager weekly collection, but still, there was definitely no shortage of people at this mass. Hmmm.

Not an unattractive church, St. Saviour's church is, nonetheless, (as my son put it) an arena, and an arena with quite a hodge-podge of seating options. Cue the Dr. Seuss: Pews here, pews there, pews, pews everywhere. Oh, look! There's chairs and a set of stairs and a balcony up in the air! Seats up high, seats down low, so many seats I don't know where to go!

Anyways . . .

Padded seats? Yes. An absence of kneelers? Blasphemy. My Husband the Heathen should have been there. He would have loved it. I heard a water fountain but never did see one. The female vocalist? Amazing. Possibly the best I've heard in quite a while. The bells striking on the hour were nice until the recording of said bells hit a glitch more than once. That's embarrassing.

This weekend included World Marriage Day, celebrated appropriately enough on Valentine's Day. After the presiding priest blessed two and a half couples celebrating milestone wedding anniversaries (one husband had fallen, hurting his back, and was unable to attend; hence, the "two and a half" couples), I thought we had been spared a homily, but alas, the resident deacon stepped up and proceeded to read an incredibly boring sermon of unnecessarily long duration. I spent most of that time trying to decipher the seven stained glass windows behind the altar . . . and failing miserably. I was finally able to make out a single white lily in one, but as for the rest? I put them into a category I like to call, "sacramental amoeba."

Saint Saviour strikes me as one of those "touchy-feely" parishes. Before mass began, everyone was at ease, talking and laughing with each other. Not a bad thing, but this mass was clearly a very relaxed, social gathering. There was an introductory instruction by the lector to "take a moment to greet those around you." I introduced myself to my son. I have to give the parish of St. Saviour credit though. The people at this mass seemed genuinely happy to be there, families, individuals, and seniors alike. They must be doing something right out there in Rossmoyne. Maybe it was the bulletin. St. Saviour takes the award for longest weekly bulletin which even went so far as to include an arts and crafts project. Yeah, that was probably it.

ATTENDANCE: Comfortably full

DURATION: 55 minutes

Son of Dagnabit

Week Twenty-Five - The White Death

Six inches of snow. Super Bowl. Toothache. 'Nuff said.