An Outdoor Mass

On Sunday, a friend and I made plans to attend the ten thirty mass at the Lebanese church, St. Rafka, in Lakewood, Colorado. After mass we would enjoy the annual festival with Lebanese food.  I arrived early and as tried to enter the church, it was blocked by two priest dressed in red, altar boys holding candles, and a man holding a prayer book. They all smiled, probably at the look of surprise on my face, and pointed out into the yard. "Is this where mass will be held this morning," I asked. Again, the smiling faces pointed out to the yard and I realized that mass would be held outside and not in the church.

I headed out to where white folding chairs had been set up in front of an altar. My thought was that I had missed a great photo opportunity of the priests in the doorway! Mass was beginning at ten and not at ten-thirty as advertised. I knew my friend would be late so I saved her a chair. A few trees provided some shade for the forty some people waiting for mass to begin.

The priests entered, mass began, and the microphone kept going on and off or whistling making it difficult to hear what was being said. It didn't make any difference if we could hear or not because many of the readings were in Arabic! As mass progressed the only thing ruining the familiar rituals of the mass were the cars, motorcycles, and semi trucks whizzing by on Wadsworth Blvd.

The mass was basically the same as any other Catholic church with some differences. Communion was given by the priest on the tongue after dipping the host in a chalice of wine. There were no Eucharistic Ministers leaving the priests to distribute communion to everyone. There was  a ceremony of the large cross where blessings were prayed to in every direction; west, north, south and east. One of the priests gave a history of the early Christians and the many martyrs that have died because of being Christian. Consequently the mass lasted almost two hours.

After mass dwindled to an end, everyone dispersed to go to the different tents to buy tickets, food, desserts, artifacts or drinks. I was pleasantly surprised to see some friends from Spirit of Christ Catholic Community among the crowd.

I purchased a Falafel and water and so did my friend, only hers was with chicken and mine wasn't. For dessert I purchased small cone like honey maamoul and I gobbled four of them right away. I also eyed the lemon dessert and the baklava but my will power won out! I noticed that a lot of the food being sold reminded me of Greek food, especially the salads advertised as Mediterranean.

 

Some of the other areas had soap for sale or artifacts from Bethlehem and a coffee and lemonade booth. I got a lemonade and my friend got a coffee. The coffee area had unusual tiny copper mug like coffee cups and my friend purchased a Lebanese coffee served in a small ceramic cup. I wondered why the bronze cups were not used.  My friend  said she added a lot of sugar and that the coffee was good. We watched two women roll out dough (looked like a tortilla) and smear it with something sweet like Nutella.

Being curious we entered the church and looked around and saw a beautiful Icon of the Blessed Mother with Jesus and in a corner, two large statues of Mary and Joseph. At mass the priest had mentioned that the altar should always face east and that work would be done to move the altar because presently it faces north-west. I wondered if this was true of all Catholic churches or was it just the Maronite church.

Not knowing much of Lebanese culture I looked on the Internet and learned that it is a diverse culture in the Arab region that has been influenced by Phoenicians, Assyrians, Romans, Ottoman Turks, Greeks, Persians, Arabs and French. The two main religions are Islam and Christianity and it is bordered by Syria and Israel.

A wonderful morning experiencing a different culture