it doesn't feel like home there either
Going to the 2 PM Spanish Mass at Blessed Sacrament was a big mistake. I left early, during Communion, and I never do that.
It's not that I didn't understand what was going on. The Liturgy in Spanish is close enough to the English that I could follow it most of the time, in the same way that I can follow baseball games on Spanish radio stations: the gist is clear but occasional words go right by me. What bothered me was that I didn't know the responses in Spanish, which aren't always literal translations of the English. Not even the Our Father. It shouldn't bother me so much that I don't know these things, I guess, but it does. It hurts to be this ignorant, in this place, to know that while I can function in restaurants and the pages of the Military Review Hispanoamerica, I can't say the prayers correctly. I wasn't this bad off when I was going to the Ukrainian Mass at St. Constantine's. It's something I can fix, but for now it makes me feel really sick at heart, like I've failed badly at a basic obligation somehow.
All the more so because about twenty years ago I went to a Latin Mass with Mom at the National Shrine, and I understood. I've never had any courses in Latin, never lived anywhere where they speak it on a daily basis, but on that Sunday, it all clicked and I understood every word that came out of the priest's mouth. I gave the correct responses. It all flowed. I thought at the time I might have gotten a Sign, but I didn't and still don't understand what it meant. It hasn't happened again, obviously.
So as for today...I suppose technically it fulfills my Sunday obligation, but it doesn't feel that way to me.
Usual Sunday icon not used; it would be wrong.
It's not that I didn't understand what was going on. The Liturgy in Spanish is close enough to the English that I could follow it most of the time, in the same way that I can follow baseball games on Spanish radio stations: the gist is clear but occasional words go right by me. What bothered me was that I didn't know the responses in Spanish, which aren't always literal translations of the English. Not even the Our Father. It shouldn't bother me so much that I don't know these things, I guess, but it does. It hurts to be this ignorant, in this place, to know that while I can function in restaurants and the pages of the Military Review Hispanoamerica, I can't say the prayers correctly. I wasn't this bad off when I was going to the Ukrainian Mass at St. Constantine's. It's something I can fix, but for now it makes me feel really sick at heart, like I've failed badly at a basic obligation somehow.
All the more so because about twenty years ago I went to a Latin Mass with Mom at the National Shrine, and I understood. I've never had any courses in Latin, never lived anywhere where they speak it on a daily basis, but on that Sunday, it all clicked and I understood every word that came out of the priest's mouth. I gave the correct responses. It all flowed. I thought at the time I might have gotten a Sign, but I didn't and still don't understand what it meant. It hasn't happened again, obviously.
So as for today...I suppose technically it fulfills my Sunday obligation, but it doesn't feel that way to me.
Usual Sunday icon not used; it would be wrong.