Every day on my way to school, I pass a big Roman Catholic church called Christ the King. I’ve been very curious about it, so yesterday I decided to attend worship services there. The sanctuary was packed! There must have been more than 400 people there. I was glad an usher helped me find an empty seat. I usually feel pretty comfortable with RC services because they tend to be liturgical. This one had some extra choreography though. And some songs in what I think was Tagalog.
I was under-dressed for the first time since coming to Maui. I wore shorts, because that’s what everybody wears at my church. But at this church, all the men wore long pants. D’oh!
The sermon was brilliant! The priest brought out a radio-controlled pickup truck and talked about how living life without God’s word was like pushing the truck with your foot – you get nowhere. Then he put a little Bible in the back of the truck. He compared the controller to the Holy Spirit, and used it to drive the truck around. His point was easy to understand.
At the end of the service, they had visitors stand. Ack! I’m not a big fan of that, but because of my outfit, I was pretty obviously not from there. I stood. The priest asked each visitor where they were from: Philippines, California, Philippines… then he got to me. I said: “Kihei?”. Everybody laughed. But it was a nice laugh. Then they gave me a lei.
I didn’t get a picture of the church because I came in just before the service and because after church there was a great crowd of people there. Instead, here’s a picture of my lei:
It’s made of yarn. I should find out how to make these.
What a great experience! That lei is super-cool. How funny that you found the one place where your teacher clothes would have fit in just right. 😉
I had to look up Tagalog because I thought you had mistyped ‘tag-along’ and were teasing about the music. But it’s a language! “Ako ay Amerikano.”
Dana Carvey had something when he once described Lutherans as “Catholic Lite”. It is indeed easy to follow RC worship – and I always chuckle at Lutherans who are so amazed at how similar their worship is to ours (“now let’s think – what did Martin Luther do for a living again?”). What was particularly encouraging was to read how a priest’s message directed the listener to Scripture and the Spirit – feels like an overdue 180 for this Christian body, if this congregation can be considered a fair representative. Nicely done, Father!
…and yes – please do bring back the “recipe” for knitted leis. Thank you.
I Love Object Lesson Sermons….(^_^)