A little Catholic schooling goes a long way, particularly when the time spent there was during early, formative years. I spent first through third grade at the Convent of the Sacred Heart Catholic School in Halifax, Nova Scotia. I can still recall the smell of the place, a smell of wet wool mittens drying on radiators combined with musky incense that inexplicitly wafted from the chapel all the way to the elementary school. I was not Catholic (hence, no wafer or cup for me in grade two), but the school was a good one and close to the hospital where my mother worked and the graduate school my dad attended. So off I went in itchy tights and an itchier navy jumper for three years.
Much of the experience was memorable, but one thing remains indelible: Mass. Mass days were the days the ugly jumper was jettisoned for the white dress, the one my grandmother had sewn for me — simple, but with a beautiful blue ribbon dotted with pink flowers running from top to bottom down the front. The dress began the day’s distinction, but far from ended it. There was the long walk from the school to the building that housed the nuns and the chapel. We trekked upstairs and down hallways, and in my childhood imagination it kept getting darker and darker, the smell of the Holy Spirit getting stronger and stronger, until we came to the double doors that led to the sanctuary. There the light came through the stained glass windows and the Catholic kids dipped their fingers in the small glass bowl of holy water and made the sign of the cross.
The blues and reds, yellows and purples contrasted completely the shiny linoleum, fluorescent-lit hallways where we spent most of our days. There was that smell and the touch of water if I dared run my fingers through it. There was the sound of sung psalms and the rustle of little girls’ white dresses as we filed in and out of the pews. I have no memory of a priest speaking. I assume there must have been one and it should have stood out given that this was a school for girls taught by women — some sisters, some not. If a male infiltrated the convent I do not remember it. Surrounded by sound and sight and smell, feeling special in my beautiful dress, the person up front must not have captured my attention.
Mass fascinated me because it was markedly different than worship in the United Church of Canada where my family attended on Sundays. I may be misremembering this but as I recall it, we met in a space akin to a fellowship hall: folding chairs, no stained glass, no holy water, smells and bells. Communion, which I couldn’t partake of there either, was occasional and, despite the rarity, not nearly so momentous an occasion. Now I would say that it didn’t feel as set apart as worship at school. In good Protestant fashion, the connections to life outside those walls was easy to make, but was at the expense of expecting anything noteworthy to take place within them.
Like I said, a little Catholic school goes a long way; hence, my longing for multisensory worship that is also Reformed. I could not value more the gifts of the church in which I have been nurtured and I am deeply grateful for the liturgical renewal that has been at work for many years now.
However, I still believe we could do a better job of engaging all of our senses in worship, recognizing the variety of ways in which people learn, the varied developmental stages represented in our pews and the multitude of saints for whom words are a barrier rather than a gateway to the holy.
Music is a staple in our congregations, but how about art or dance or drama? Our growing fascination with screens and projectors may be a result of our longing to engage more than our minds, but I would argue they are a poor substitute for rich artistic expressions of the divine that have been missing for far too long. Is there a way we might capture the mystery and be awed by God through the arts?
Grace and peace,
Jill
