We went to Mass a while ago and wanted to share it again. We could not understand a word during Mass since it was all in French.
We are celebrating Mass with a church FULL of French-speaking Africans with a white French bishop with an Italian parish priest in a church built by Italians in the heart of Istanbul which is 99.9% Muslim. We are all loyal to the Pope on the Chair of Jewish Peter in Rome.
Yet, we had the same Mass and the same readings as everyone else back home! We followed along with the iMissal on our iPhones. We were home. This was OUR church! The Lord is present in the Eucharist. This is our universal Catholic Church.
We have celebrated Mass around the world in many foreign languages with many nationalities and cultures. But it is the same Mass! We love being Catholic!
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Love your work Steve. May God continue to bless you.
AMEN to that!!!
You know I didn’t fully grasp the universality of the Catholic Church until I attended a weekday evening service in New Zealand. It was in South Auckland where all present were Samoan. The only one that I believe would have been born in New Zealand would have been thw priest. When he prayed the ‘Kyrie’ everyone instinctively followed. This was on the feast day of the Japanese martyrs. This made me so emotional.
I’m in New Zealand celebrating the eucharist with Polynesian migrants, wr all together proclain our need for mercy in Greek and we celebrate the sacrifice of our older siblings in the faith who happen to be Japanese and are also praying for us. Im so proud to be Catholic
I was in Istanbul just before Christmas and was fortunate to locate St Antony’s Church at a walking distance from our stay. Rebuilt in 1912 the present Church was really beautiful and had daily Mass in English which I was able to attend. The attendence was about 10-15 mostly people from Africa and couple of ladies from Philipines. 🙂
Beautiful. I totally get what you are saying. Knowing me, I would be in tears.
Thank you so much for what you are doing. Can’t wait for your new show about Abraham.
God bless you both!
Well, some rue the day the Vatican Council allowed non-Latin liturgy. We could still understand mass all around the globe that way …
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