Easter Mass

Every year when we go away for Easter, my mother insists we go to mass on Sunday. Somehow, this is always more complicated than it should be.

Year one: Vegas. Step one: find a church that offers an actual service that is not a drive-thru (this was my mother's rule; the rest of us were willing to negotiate on this point). Step two: Hope they have a mass in English that does not interfere with our feeding schedule (again, my mother. All you can eat buffet........knowing when to sit and when to stand; is there really a choice here?) Step three: getting there on time ( my mother is the maverick in the crowd; she wants to get a good spot in church, everyone else wants to get a good spot at the Treasure Island pirate show).

With all of these big issues decided, we set out for the church, which, according to the guy at the hotel, is only few blocks away. Yeah, right. And the odds are really in your favor at the casinos. Add to this the fact that every five feet there is someone handing us flyers, complete with pictures, advertising strip clubs, and we are really in a spiritual kind of place when we finally arrive at the church.

Naturally, our journey has taken us so long that by the time we arrive, the little church is jam packed, and we end up standing in the entryway along with two hundred of our closest friends in eighty degree weather. So much for step three. Fortunately, most of them brought their small children who managed to out-talk and out-cry the speaker system. We could barely hear the trumpet player, let alone the priest. So much for step two. One out of three isn't bad.

Year two: San Diego. My mother was not about to do a repeat of the previous year. She got everyone up and moving early. She insisted we take the car. She carefully selected our seats. Everything was going according to plan until.....wait. There were two churches in the same building? Were we in the right one? Where were half of the people going? Should we follow those who were leaving, or those who were staying?

Luckily, we chose to remain and have people stand in front of us, blocking any view of the priest, the altar, the entire front of the church. We also lucked out by picking the high mass and got to spend the last half hour listening to the people from the other chapel stand outside and visit with each other right next to our open door. This year, they actually did manage to drown out the trumpet player completely.

Year three: Florida. Once again, we were there early. We got seats with an unobstructed view. We were not near any open doors or windows. We could hear every word that was spoken, every note that was sung. Unfortunately, these were not positive things.

To put it kindly, the singer was not an American Idol finalist. In fact, he seemed to be from the William Hueng school of voice. There was also, as it turned out, no chance of the congregation drowning him out since about ninety percent of us were clearly visitors and and had never heard the songs before.

We had never heard the prayers or readings before either since we were attending a Malkite Church. A fact they failed to put on their sign out front, thereby luring in unsuspecting out-of-towners who think all Catholic churches are the same.

Mass began. Half of the congregation sat, half stood. Then, half knelt, half sat. Some finally gave up and just planted themselves for the duration. Others got up and stood in the back, the better to make a quick getaway. People frantically thumbed through hymnals trying to find out where we were and what we should be doing. The sign of peace was near the beginning, not the end. There were two collections and two homilies. Prayers started out sounding the same, and then halfway through, changed into something else. Confusion reigned.

Forty-five minutes later, we were back outside wondering if we had fulfilled our Easter Sunday obligation or if we should stick around for the Spanish mass or Arabic mass and see if those groups had a clue.

Maybe next year, we should find a nice Temple or Mosque to visit. The whole Catholic thing does not seem to be working for us.