The Bishop
Today we went to the 11:00 service at the Catholic church in Astana. Except it wasn't just a Catholic church. It turned out it was a cathedral, even though it was a tiny church that only held 100 people or so. The Bishop said Mass. Owen asked why he had a big hat and was carrying a stick. Two altar boys held his hat and staff, but they weren't allowed to touch them. They had to cover their hands with spotless white cloths before they touched the hat and staff.
Speaking of altar boys, they were all boys. No girls. I guess the “altar girl” revolution hasn't made it to Kazakhstan.
Mass in Russian was a hoot. Luckily, the priest who gave the sermon was visiting from another country and didn't speak very good Russian, so he spoke slowly and simply enough that Michael was able to understand lots of what he said.
We were also lucky that the Catholic Mass is so structured that we were able to speak along in English as everyone else spoke Russian. The Russian songs we didn't get to sing much of, but the Latin ones were easy. We all knew “Gloria in excelcis Deo” from Christmas time. At the end of Mass all the children came up to be blessed by the Bishop, then all the mothers. Owen was too scared to go up, but Eileen went up with the women.
At least we *hope* she got blessed by the Bishop. He could have been saying anything, really. We couldn't understand him.
(This entry was written by Michael).
Speaking of altar boys, they were all boys. No girls. I guess the “altar girl” revolution hasn't made it to Kazakhstan.
Mass in Russian was a hoot. Luckily, the priest who gave the sermon was visiting from another country and didn't speak very good Russian, so he spoke slowly and simply enough that Michael was able to understand lots of what he said.
We were also lucky that the Catholic Mass is so structured that we were able to speak along in English as everyone else spoke Russian. The Russian songs we didn't get to sing much of, but the Latin ones were easy. We all knew “Gloria in excelcis Deo” from Christmas time. At the end of Mass all the children came up to be blessed by the Bishop, then all the mothers. Owen was too scared to go up, but Eileen went up with the women.
At least we *hope* she got blessed by the Bishop. He could have been saying anything, really. We couldn't understand him.
(This entry was written by Michael).
posted by The Bradys @ 8:26 PM
1 Comments:
At 7:58 AM,
Anonymous said…
We had a similar experience going to mass in Paris. Most of the way through the mass we started singing a song of which I could pronounce a lot of words. Halfway though the song I realized we were singing in Latin. I still didn't know what we were singing, but I could pronounce a lot more of it. :)
Thanks so much for the photos! Now I keep spotting the cranes in all the photos like a construction version of Where's Waldo.
Sorry for the Almaty mixup - It was late - of course you are in Astana.
Oh, and the boy who holds the bishops hat - that was me at Michael's confirmation. I never leared why I shouldn't touch the hat.
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