Second Tuesday of Lent Memorial Mass - Cathedral of the Madeleine - Salt Lake City, UT - March 18th, 2014

        My turning up at the Cathedral of Madeleine was not planned. I'd originally only planned to explore around Temple Street, but soon found that the time I arrived at the Cathedral was right when Mass was supposed to start. Little did I know that I would be attending a memorial mass.

     One thing I noticed on the way is that the Catholic Diocese headquarters in Utah are right next to the Cathedral, as well as the Samaritan society. Like the other Catholic Churches I visited they like the Episocopals are active helping and feeding the homeless in their areas and Salt Lake City. 

    The mass this time was quite and reflective. There was no music and everything was said or chanted. On one side of the isle were family members of the departed, and on the other side visitors. I realized it was a memorial mass when the prayers were being said before communion. One of the prayers expressed, "To honor this individual with this Mass."

     Like any memorial, there was that quite sadness and passion...one had only to pay attention to see where people were in their thoughts. It was during this time that as a stranger, the most I could give was my silence and honoring the person in the mass.

    After communion a few of the people stayed after to reflect in the silence. As I made my way out I thought of the person who had touched the lives present here today and their relationship to this place and congregation.

Tuesday of the First Week of Lent Mass - Cathedral of the Madeleine - Salt Lake City, UT - March 11th, 2014

       My experience at the Cathedral of the Madeleine was troubling in some of the best and worst ways possible...it kind of encapsulated everything I like and dislike about religion which made of a fascinating experience. For a bit of context there is currently a Western Conference on Canon Law being hosted in Salt Lake City so there were tons of Priests and Bishops at the Cathedral...most were from the west coast but one had come over from Lebanon. Because of this there was almost a conference and concert feel about it at the beginning, mostly because the Bishop who looked like Richard Dawkins thanked people at the beginning and the end, and pointed out how great the music was. This was one of the things that took me out, it made something that was supposed to be transcendent and greater than self like any other public event where there are a lot of important people present. 

      To the Bishops credit though, his sermon was wonderful, and the reading was the one where Jesus first tells his followers to say the Lord's Prayer. This prayer is a call that our words don't matter that God already knows everything anyway, so it is about how we choose to live...what we do with the time that given to us. This sermon nailed the theme of service and sacrifice of Lent and was great.

      The sad thing was during the service people were taking pictures...yep, it strikes me as the kind of thing you don't do...I mean a Church service is supposed to be more important than a concert or a movie right? Folks were taking a picture of him during the service. I took pictures, but I waited to before and after...if I were up there speaking I wouldn't what lights blinking in my face or people taking pictures of the place I'm preaching...isn't the content of the words more important than the beauty of the place?

     For positives that brought me into it...the music...the choir was angelic, and that would not be an understatement. They were all ages and all the songs were sung in latin, giving it an even greater feeling to it. The psalms also were beautifully sung and focused on important things like justice.

      The most important thing that took me out of it were two things - one was how people aren't welcome to camp outside the Church (there are a fair amount of homeless in Salt Lake City) and the other was the homeless man behind me. Here was where he'd come for rest and to be safe...I hope when he eventually got kicked out that he had somewhere to go...the church provided a place for him during the service and with the Samaritan Society next store...but the church itself was not a permanent sanctuary. Shouldn't a house of God be that? What can we do to help? What can I do to serve?

Canyons Church - Cottonwood Heights, UT - March 2nd, 2014

      After my visit to Mountain Springs Community Church, I made my way down the street to Canyons Church. Canyons is a Southern Baptist Church. Baptist Churches are the Churches I usually end up seeing besides Mormon Churches in the suburbs of Utah, so they are pretty widespread here.

     My experience at Canyons Church was mixed. First, I want to describe what the interior was like. The Church is very polished and fancy versus the Zen simplicity of Mountain Creek Community Church. The windows are stained glass and once your inside it is like crossing into a place where a concert venue meets a seminar. The music is also very much like a concert, the plus being that there is a lot of passion.

    When I arrived my first thought was the Gospel of Wealth - Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace was being discussed and to buy the book and DVDs...when I think the problems of religion I think selfishness and money...so that wasn't the best impression coming in, seeing that a decent amount of time had been put apart for that seminar.

    After the invitation for the congregation to take part in Financial Peace - Surprise! Time for collections. Need I say more.

   You're probably thinking it was negative experience from here on, but it wasn't. The actual sermon itself had merit to it. It was about working out spiritual muscles which ended up being live how God wants you to live by serving others. Your saved, now live it! That was something I could get behind and was a contrast to the focus on the self that had been talked about before. The sermon used many props - a cleaner the preacher had bought from a traveling salesman, a golf club, and water weights...and that were used to illustrate different points during the sermon on the lead up of the point to have a relationship to God by serving others.

    After there was the call to accept to be "Saved," and the last song. It was a mixed experience overall, revealing both the positive (service) and negative (Gospel of Wealth) that religion so often brings. I don't see myself coming here again but it was an interesting experience nonetheless.

Mountain Springs Community Church - Cottonwood Heights, UT - March 2nd, 2014

 

  Mountain Springs Community Church was an amazing experience, and a good reminder of how to live in general and virtue behind what I admire about Christianity when it is at its best. The service began with an early fellowship where there was coffee and I met a few of the people there. The church is small and made up of about 5 to 7 families that I could see. They were kind and open when I said I was just exploring communities in the area.

   Next the service began with opening music. The music was christian rock meets jazz, since one of the musicians was playing the Clarinet which added a calm organic feel to the songs and gave them a slightly different feel than most churches where I have heard Christian Rock played.

     Mountain Springs Community Church is a Reformed Christian Church, which arose out of John Calvin and strictly following the Bible. This in my opinion is mixed when meeting some old Testament passages and New Testament passages which aren't based in virtue or love (see people being condemned to Hell, tribes being annihilated in the name of God, etc.) but today I saw the good that is in the Bible (as their is in most religious texts).

     The sermon was about Isaiah 58:6-9, which is about how God calls us to do more than just follow the rules, that there is no point. That God calls us to justice and to serve the poor and save the oppressed. It was powerful and outside of God being a factor of why it should it be done, something I believe is just and virtuous. The pastor described the work the youth are doing with IMPACT in South Dakota serving the poor and how it is so easy for Christians and people to follow in to checklisting all they need to be good:

1. Go to church.
2. Serve my church.
3. Accept God into my life.
4. Give to the church.

    The pastor described how that misses the point though, that Isaiah was calling people out on doing that but that God wants more. He than tied it into Jesus's words of "What you did for the least of these, you did for me." (Matthew 25: 31-46).

    It is these words and action that are religion at its best. It is so easy for us in general to be unable to see beyond ourselves and ourselves can include our friends, family, partner and even community we consider ourselves a part of. Religion and in this instance, Christianity at its best is the call to be more, the call to see that who we are is a part of everyone else and it is in that action that we become our best.

   Afterword I discussed the sermon a little bit with the pastor and one of the middle aged guys there, it was a great experience and I plan to visit again and bring that action that was described in the sermon in to my life.