I attended the 10 am Mass at St. John which is in Imperial. The Church building is slightly over a year old. I think the windows are from the old church. (Update: I have been informed that the windows are from a church that closed in the city. I was told Holy Infant...but there is no Holy Infant. Maybe Holy Family?) The building itself is square and sparse.
The choir is in the front on the right as well as the organ.
Music:
Entrance: Jesus, the Bread of Life
Offertory: Seek Ye First
Communion: One Love Released; Seed, Scattered and Sown
Recessional: Now Thank We All Our God
Father wore a green chasuble trimmed in Kente cloth. Let's just say that it was unexpected given the demographic makeup of the people in the pews.
Father was a big fan of mini homilies. There was one before the Penitential Rite about the Readings. There was one at the petitions, asking God to touch the hearts of those who thought coming to Mass today was a great burden and those that are thinking next week will be a burden. The Liturgy of Announcements was long.
The Mass featured a Children's Liturgy of the Word, complete with special blessing for the kids. Then at the end of Mass there was another special blessing for God's littlest workers.
Homily:
Father went on a vacation with his priest friends last week. Naturally, when priests get together they talk about the food they had in the seminary. Father remembered one worker who told them that if they didn't eat it for dinner they would have it for breakfast. The two inch hot dogs. Those could have been breakfast sausages. All the grumbling we did reminds me of the First Reading. The Israelites were grumbling. They asked God to free them from slavery. He did that. The Israelites wanted to go back to slavery because they at least had food. God was like Why don't you trust Me? We all have a complaining spirit inside. We need a spirit of gratitude like Jesus. Grumbling begets more grumbling. Stewardship is coming up. We need your time, talent and treasure. It is less than God does for us. People who want things but don't volunteer to make those things happen. Those who have a grumble with the Church need to look at the beginning of today's Gospel. Judas distributed the loaves and fishes. Peter, who suffered from foot in mouth disease, and John and James, who were so full of themselves and the rest of the clowns all distributed food. The Church hasn't changed since then. We come up to work. We are in training. Manna is a joke. The joke is on the Israelites. (Refers to his mini homily about manna meaning: What is this stuff?) Lord what is Your Food. What is Your Bread of Life? What do you want me to gather from life's desert. You can't give zero. Doesn't the Bread of Life make you hungry to give more? Once you do this little work, God will do work in you. That is the message of this table. The Lord is showering us with gifts. Next week the financial reports will be announced. Please don't skip Mass. (He went on about this at various points, even going so far as to pray for it. I'm guessing it is bad news.)
Father used one of these Eucharistic Prayers I think. There were bells at the Consecration.
Pictures:
Link:
Website of St. John Imperial
Hello and thanks for visiting our "new" year old Church this morning. I have been following your blog for quite some time and was going to invite you to come see our Church but you beat me to it. The other week I noticed you were at St. Paul in Fenton and I thought you might see us soon. I maintain the parish website (thanks for the link), manage the Scrip program, serve on Finance Council (yes, the news next week will be bad; please pray for our parish) and do various other duties for the parish.
ReplyDeleteYou have a good read on the parish and our building. I was curious as to what your opinion was of our music today at the Mass? Thank you for visiting us.
The music was ok. It seemed to be at the right tempo. I thought the opening song was odd though. It's a song geared toward Communion so it seemed odd to be in a place where the song is supposed to focus on gathering/coming together/orienting us towards worship. The Offertory song was short, especially since there was a second collection.
ReplyDeleteIt was hard to tell if the people in the pews were actually singing because the cantor was miked. I know the people in the pews can sing, I heard them before Mass during the Rosary.
I wish I could have gone to the Church Consecration/Dedication. That is something I'd love to see...I bet it is neat!
Those windows are indeed from Holy Family Parish in South St. Louis. I'm so happy to see them! As a former parishioner of that parish I knew the windows were supposed to be reused, but I didn't know where.
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