The Mass that wasn't

For a bunch of reasons, this weekend a Saturday evening Mass would work much better for our family. Of course, since we are no longer in  Pittsburgh (where I think a Mass starts every half-hour on the half-hour from 4 pm Saturday until 8:30 Sunday night), this is not that easy.

We already knew that the parish in Yanzikou just north of us has a Saturday anticipated Mass, but we had never gone to it.

We arrived in time for what we thought was a 6:30 Mass. The church itself is in a converted courtyard home. When we entered into the courtyard an elderly woman greeted us and invited us into a sitting room.  She told us that at 6:30 they start their prayers before Mass, and then Mass itself didn't start until 7 pm.  It was much earlier than that, so Randy took the kids to an outdoor exercise area next to the church to play a bit.  I went into the church.

The woman who welcomed us rang the church bell and those in the church knelt and chanted.  I think they prayed the Chaplet of Divine Mercy (which I've heard in Chinese at least once before), followed by some litanies. I've blogged it before, but it is really something to hear Chinese Catholic communal prayers. The small church slowly filled.

Randy and the kids came into the church close to 7, and the prayers continued.  I didn't look at the time, but I knew that surely it was after 7.  The same woman came next to me and motioned for me to join her outside. She was very sorry, but they had no way of knowing.  The priest was not going to make it to Mass that night. She was very sorry.  She gave me her phone number so that next time I could call her to see if there would be a Mass for sure that night.  I thanked her for her help, gathered my family and left.

Randy's thoughtswere immediately suspicous, that somehow our presence caused that.  I was not so sure, especially since it is a regsitered parish in the Beijing Diocese. But if we were a problem, I hope that they still had Mass after we left. I'm not sure if I want to know, though.

I've mentioned to a few priests and seminarians who have been surprised that we come all the way from Changping to go to Mass at the Seminary. I tell them that the two closest parishes to us are the Seminary and Yanzikou, and maybe we could go to Yanzikou except their Mass is on Saturday night.  No one ever said that the more rural parish might be off-limits to us, just that they could understand why we came to the Seminary instead.

I don't know if we will go back or not. We just want to go to Mass, not be disruptive.

(And I'll repost the link to an old Washington Post article about then Senator Biden's visit to this same church)