Troy de Freitas - Church Visit #2

Church Name: Holy Name of Jesus
Church Address: 1200 Valparaiso Blvd, Niceville, FL 32578
Date Attended: March 14
Church Category: More liturgical.

Describe the worship service you attended. How was it similar to or different from you regular context?
Attending Holy Name of Jesus was similar in that where I attend church, we also participate in call-and-response scriptural readings and prayers, and we read as a congregation. However, it was mostly different in all the rest: the singing was all done a capella. There was no music director and the parts that were sung, were done without anyone conducting. The priest directed the whole service by himself, with the guiding aid of the liturgical text that was handed to us a the beginning of the evening.

What did you find most interesting or appealing about the worship service?
What I found most appealing was the rhythmic quality of the liturgy. The repetition and congregational participation was very meditative and comforting, and provided a context for contemplating on Christ. I really enjoyed how all of us seemed to be unified together in our practice of observing the stations of the cross, and I found that it was interesting to see how the theology of the texts was illuminated by Christ's passion in the Stations.

What did you find most disorienting or challenging about the worship service?
For one, I didn't know how to cross myself (circumflex) and the congregation did it often. I felt really lost during the those parts, as I didn't want to try to do it and end up doing wrong and appear sacrilegious. There was a lot of standing and kneeling throughout, and I had to get used to the constant motion, while also trying to keep track with the text.

What aspects of Scripture or theology did the worship service illuminate for you that you had not perceived as clearly in you regular context?
The worship service showed me how practicing a tradition of the church can help you to feel in communion with Christians across space and time. The fact that Christians before me practiced the stations of the Cross enabled me to contemplate how others even outside my immediate tradition worship and cherish Christ's work. The Stations of the Cross also displayed how Scripture and theology work together in a liturgical context, where the reading of Scripture is accompanied with a theological prayer.