Today was the first Sunday of Advent. Though I haven't been going to Mass as often as I should here, the Catholic school girl in me still felt the need to drag herself out of bed and go witness the lighting of the first purple candle. Of course I should mention that though I did have to drag myself out of bed, it was not at a terribly early hour. The church I've been attending here has three Mass times, the earliest of which is 11:00 a.m. That's Ireland for you. And what's more, the 11:00 Mass is the equivalent of the 7:00 a.m. at my parish: there's hardly any singing, it's over in about 40 minutes, and the congregation looks more asleep than awake.
Catholic Mass in Ireland is pretty much identical to Catholic Masses I have experienced in America. Minor differences/peculiarities include: the congregation speaks very quickly so that even when I know the prayers they are saying I can hardly keep up, the Eucharistic ministers wear medals around their necks during Eucharist and take them off afterward, and there is a little pillow on the altar, but I have no idea what it's for. It's just a little white pillow leaning up against the chalice, in case the priest wants to take a little snooze during the consecration?
Also, all the little children of the parish run away during the readings and hang out in their Sunday school room, allegedly hearing the Good News kid-style. Today when they came back, they had a short presentation in which they hung paper ornaments on the Jesse tree and explained the significance of each. Even with said presentation, Mass was over by 11:45 and the priest had invited us all to the back room for tea and coffee. It's a shame I only have a few weeks left now that I know about this free coffee...
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