4:30 Saturday afternoon mass, St. Margaret Mary. I wasn't particularly looking forward to attending mass at St. Margaret Mary. I had already been there several times, both for weekend masses and for a wedding, although all of the above were several years ago. Still, I knew what was coming, and it wasn't something I could get very excited about. I envisioned St. Margaret Mary's church not only unchanged from when I had last been there, but unchanged from when it had been built in the late 1950's/early 1960's . . . and I was right. Present-day St. Margaret Mary brings back memories of my childhood - way back when, sitting in a church that looked very similar. Yes, it's that dated. Something of a large cavernous arena, I'm sure it was a beautiful church upon completion, one to be proud of at the time, and there's still nothing really wrong with it - except for the aesthetics. Everything is liturgical retro, circa 1960. If you put a positive spin on it, I suppose you could call it "contemporary." Lots of plain wood in minimalist designs. The requisite stained glass windows are there, several of them, in fact, but they depict nothing more than misshapen squares and rectangles. The stations of the cross are pretty cool, each individually lit by a lamp that might be found only in the most trendy of home decor shops today. Maybe at St. Margaret Mary, they're just going on the adage that "if you keep anything long enough, it will come back in style."
Dominating the church is the crucifix behind the altar. This baby is HUGE. Jesus is beyond life-size. Seriously. He must be ten feet tall. I came into the church via a door at the front of the sanctuary (awkward - all eyes on me), so the first thing I saw was this mammoth cross. Sweet Jesus, that is one. big. crucifix.
I was amused by the placement of the hymnals in the book racks on the backs of the pews. Glancing across the sea of pews (there were a lot of them), I noticed a definite pattern that was never broken - the "Gather" hymnal was always placed horizontally in the rack, the "Breaking Bread" hymnal was always placed vertically. Whoa. Was this some sort of St. Margaret Mary secret code? A clue as to which hymnal was which without ever having to read the title on the spine? Hmmm, pretty shrewd bunch, those North College Hillians. Even craftier was singing the closing song before the closing prayers, a sly move on St. Margaret Mary's part that kept the serial early-leavers in church just a few minutes longer than normal.
It was mostly the senior set in attendance. I spotted only one child, and oddly, I believe I may have gone to high school with his mother, but of course, after some 30+ years, one never can be sure about these things. There was a nice older couple directly in front of me. She sang every word to every song and prayed every word of every prayer. She followed along with the mass via her own little black prayer book. When it was time for the Our Father, she took her husband's hand in one of hers and turned back to me to take my hand as well. I wasn't sure if she did so because there was no one else in her pew to reach to or if she felt sorry for me, seeing that I was by myself. I didn't have a problem with her gesture, but I have a feeling that, given her firm grasp on my hand, there would have been no room for discussion on the matter even if I had.
ATTENDANCE: More empty than full. About one-third full.
DURATION: 55 minutes
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