Week Seventy-Eight - Saint James of the Valley (Wyoming)
4:30 Saturday afternoon mass, St. James of the Valley. Have you seen the movie, Napoleon Dynamite? Napoleon's older brother, Kip? He plays the organ and sings at St. James of the Valley - and that was just one of the things that threw me this week.
It started early on when I entered the always-charming village of Wyoming. My buffer travel time to St. James was nearly wiped out when I ended up behind a man on a motorcycle. This gentleman, decked out in his finest Bengals regalia, was, how shall we say, not small, while ironically, the motorcycle was. This man didn't so much ride on his bike as he enveloped it. I don't know if he was simply enjoying a nice drive - the weather being beautiful - or if his scooter was actually hitting maximum speed as it struggled along, but he never exceeded twenty miles per hour. It was a virtual circus act until we finally, mercifully, parted ways at St. James.
Deja vu. It's Christ the King all over again, and with a quick bit of internet research, it all made sense. The same architect who designed Christ and King designed St. James of the Valley. Yup, there's that weird overhang thingy on the left side, hovering over half the pews (I still don't get that) and the disproportionately small sanctuary. Oh, there were minor variations. While stained glass windows dominated the right side of Christ the King, St. James placed the majority of their windows on the left. There were a lot of them, although they depicted no actual pictures.
By and large, St. James was predominantly stucco, at least, I think that's what you would call it. Stucco. Gray stucco . . . everywhere, most notably on the very tall - very tall - blank wall behind the altar. Okay, it had a few swooshy lines and stars etched into it, but that was it. A large crucifix was hung on a side wall. Why would you do that? In addition, there were no statues to be found anywhere. Instead, fairly contemporary pictures of Mary and Joseph hung on posts on either side of the church. Where do brides leave their flowers for Mary? Tucked behind the frame?
Possibly the most unusual part of the church was a small rectangle, a "window," cut into the wall on the left side of the sanctuary, close to the servers' chairs. On that same wall, a door opened to a room, a room clearly visible through "the window." A ledge rested on the bottom edge of the window, and on that ledge, prior to mass, waited the chalice, the water, the wine, etc. You know what's coming. After the distribution of communion, the servers placed the "dirty dishes" on the ledge where the hands of one of the eucharistic ministers appeared from within the room to whisk them away. It was, in effect, a concession stand, a drive-thru, a cafeteria window. And it wasn't even a nice cafeteria window. It looked like someone had taken a hacksaw to the stucco and had at it. There was no frame, no effort to conceal what someone had apparently decided was a quick and efficient solution to cleaning up after the party. From my vantage point, it didn't even look level. It did look . . . well . . . tacky. Sorry.
Many of those in attendance came in after mass had started. What made this particularly awkard at St. James was that most of these people came in through the doors located slightly behind and on either side of the altar, doors that conveniently led to the parking lot. Because they were entering from the front of the church, there was no hiding a late entrance, but what made this even more awkward was the presence of motion-sensitive lights located above the interior passageways leading from these doors, so even if you tried to slip in unnoticed, it wasn't going to happen when the floodlights hit you. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. In retrospect, maybe the lights were intentional, a deterrent to late arrival. If so, they didn't work.
The celebrating priest at this mass was a detached, unemotional man, who honestly seemed to be just going through the motions. He seemed tired, often rubbing his eyes. He read his homily which lasted all of five minutes. After the elevation of the bread and wine, I noticed that he didn't genuflect. Can he not do that? I briefly researched it - the "rules" seemed a bit confusing, so I don't know. I was surprised that I noticed it at all, so it must have been unusual. Then again, everything this week was a little unusual.
ATTENDANCE: Slightly less than half fullDeja vu. It's Christ the King all over again, and with a quick bit of internet research, it all made sense. The same architect who designed Christ and King designed St. James of the Valley. Yup, there's that weird overhang thingy on the left side, hovering over half the pews (I still don't get that) and the disproportionately small sanctuary. Oh, there were minor variations. While stained glass windows dominated the right side of Christ the King, St. James placed the majority of their windows on the left. There were a lot of them, although they depicted no actual pictures.
By and large, St. James was predominantly stucco, at least, I think that's what you would call it. Stucco. Gray stucco . . . everywhere, most notably on the very tall - very tall - blank wall behind the altar. Okay, it had a few swooshy lines and stars etched into it, but that was it. A large crucifix was hung on a side wall. Why would you do that? In addition, there were no statues to be found anywhere. Instead, fairly contemporary pictures of Mary and Joseph hung on posts on either side of the church. Where do brides leave their flowers for Mary? Tucked behind the frame?
Possibly the most unusual part of the church was a small rectangle, a "window," cut into the wall on the left side of the sanctuary, close to the servers' chairs. On that same wall, a door opened to a room, a room clearly visible through "the window." A ledge rested on the bottom edge of the window, and on that ledge, prior to mass, waited the chalice, the water, the wine, etc. You know what's coming. After the distribution of communion, the servers placed the "dirty dishes" on the ledge where the hands of one of the eucharistic ministers appeared from within the room to whisk them away. It was, in effect, a concession stand, a drive-thru, a cafeteria window. And it wasn't even a nice cafeteria window. It looked like someone had taken a hacksaw to the stucco and had at it. There was no frame, no effort to conceal what someone had apparently decided was a quick and efficient solution to cleaning up after the party. From my vantage point, it didn't even look level. It did look . . . well . . . tacky. Sorry.
Many of those in attendance came in after mass had started. What made this particularly awkard at St. James was that most of these people came in through the doors located slightly behind and on either side of the altar, doors that conveniently led to the parking lot. Because they were entering from the front of the church, there was no hiding a late entrance, but what made this even more awkward was the presence of motion-sensitive lights located above the interior passageways leading from these doors, so even if you tried to slip in unnoticed, it wasn't going to happen when the floodlights hit you. On. Off. On. Off. On. Off. In retrospect, maybe the lights were intentional, a deterrent to late arrival. If so, they didn't work.
The celebrating priest at this mass was a detached, unemotional man, who honestly seemed to be just going through the motions. He seemed tired, often rubbing his eyes. He read his homily which lasted all of five minutes. After the elevation of the bread and wine, I noticed that he didn't genuflect. Can he not do that? I briefly researched it - the "rules" seemed a bit confusing, so I don't know. I was surprised that I noticed it at all, so it must have been unusual. Then again, everything this week was a little unusual.
DURATION: 50 minutes
No comments:
Post a Comment