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
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