Sunday Church Exploration #1

5/9/2010

St Mary’s Cathedral

            Walking to the cathedral was an adventure. The church Google pointed to was a different church then the one we had decided to go to. So we kept walking a little farther down the road and turned the corner on a whim, little did I know that God was leading us to the correct church! We found it less than 3 minutes later and the picture connected to this post is the front of the church we attended. The inside of the cathedral was beautiful, murals everywhere, the walls were intricately carved, the ceiling was beautiful. The pipe organ was as huge as the front of the church and the angels on the sides all had really cool crests that they were holding.

            I went to a Roman Catholic church service and some of the things that occurred during the service were all knew to me. There was an incense guy, he went a little crazy with the incense and the entirety of the church was in a fog for the entire time. The procession was cool, but they walked really slowly. This service also had a baptism that we were able to witness. Most of the baptism was in Spanish because the parents were originally from Mexico. The songs that we were to sing was unrecognizable because of the pipe organ. The song book just had words, no notes, which made it difficult to sing along with the congregation.

            Even though I have never been to a Catholic service, Emily who claims that she went all the time when she was little “didn’t know what was going on half the time.” There was a lot of mumbling, which made me a little overwhelmed. Usually in my church there are people that organize the people going up for communion. This service, the Father announced communion and everyone got up like it was a free for all. I was surprised an elderly person wasn’t trampled. I was also surprised that the incense guy was still standing at the end. Overall, it was a great experience, and we ended the day watching fireworks that were set off at the city centre’s castle on top of the Mound. They were a great show, and we met lots of people in the streets that were talkative about awesome things to do in Edinburgh!