3:00 Saturday afternoon mass, St. Vincent de Paul. When I asked My Husband the Heathen if he wanted to go to St. Vincent de Paul with me, his response was a look of confusion. "The store?" he asked. Honest mistake since I had never heard of St. Vincent de Paul, the church, either, but there it was, plain as day, on my list of churches in the St. Lawrence Deanery. Any church next to the river on a beautiful summer's day was tempting enough on its own, but St. Vincent de Paul's 3:00 Saturday afternoon mass cinched the deal.I took my time getting to SVDP - after all, if I didn't know about this church, surely not many others would either, right? As I turned onto River Road, however, I quickly realized my blatant faux pas when I spied a line of cars waiting to turn into the church's parking lot - still well ahead of the 3:00 starting time. I should have learned from my St. Louis experience - in a Catholic weekend filled with a plethora of masses, the earliest possible Saturday afternoon mass is always the place to be. Honestly. Why don't more churches do this? The people have spoken. Give us what we want, finish your day early, and as a bonus, (let's be honest here) recognize this time slot as the real moneymaker it has the potential to be. How hard can it be?
I snagged a parking spot, albeit an awkard one, parallel to the river but on a 45 degree slant. After a ridiculous struggle just to get out of the car without killing myself or taking out the car next to me, my daughter and I started in among the throngs of the faithful - just as one of her friends pulled in. She and I laughed over the hilarious coincidence of running into him at the most random of places while he frantically advised us to hurry in so we would get a seat. Oh great - this whole outing was turning into a three-ring circus at warp speed.
Thankfully, we did get a seat, but it was, in fact, one of the few remaining. Our seat was in a pew, there were the stations of the cross on the walls, and somewhere towards the front of the church, I could see a tabernacle, but beyond those few items, there was nothing churchlike here. The external appearance of SVDP was completely out of sync with what was on the inside. A dropped ceiling and fluorescent lights immediately left you with the feeling that you were in a meeting hall, not a church. In short, this was definitely the bargain basement of churches, and I have a sneaking suspicion that yelling "Bingo!" here would not be entirely out of line.
With pillars and people and the placement of every aspect of the church on the same level, neither my daughter nor myself, nor I assume most of the people there, could even see the altar. The presiding priest, who did not process in, was a mere voice coming through the sound system. I did manage to spot him once, but my daughter never caught a glimpse of him at all. One woman, two rows in front of us, was directly behind a pillar, and I mean, directly behind a pillar. When she knelt, the pillar was literally inches from her face. Speaking of kneeling, something was out of proportion at SVDP - either the backs of the pews were too tall or the kneelers were too low, but the possibility of resting your elbows/forearms on the pew in front of you while kneeling was, well, an impossibility. My arms were so far up in the air when trying to do so the blood started to drain from my hands. My shoulders were up around my ears. I thought that maybe it was just me, but then I caught a glimpse of a few others in the crowd who were noticeably in the same predicament. Just an observation. Anyhoo, at the distribution of communion, I finally got a chance to see what was up front only to realize that there was really nothing worth looking for - an altar, a lectern, and the requisite statues of Mary and Joseph. "Plain" would be an understatement.
And yet, there was something about SVDP that I liked. Missalettes in large print? Yes, that was something. The music was nice - two younger women, singing quite beautifully to their own keyboard accompaniment, and any 35 minute mass always gets brownie points in my book, but there was still something more. In retrospect, I truly think it was a certain cameraderie among the congregation. I felt like I had stumbled upon a west-side secret. Here was this little inconspicuous church . . . nothing fancy . . . nothing pretentious . . . doesn't even have a website, and yet it was . . . cool. I'm in on the secret . . . and I like it.
ATTENDANCE: Standing room only
DURATION: 35 minutes
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