Sunday, September 11, 2011

Holy Family

It's nice to be free on Sunday mornings...
Finally got a chance to go to Holy Family in Greektown this morning! It did not appear to me that they do ANYthing illicit. It is basically just a Latin, Novus Ordo, ad orientem, (very sparsely attended) Mass.
The claim to fame, being that it is likely that they are the only Catholic church in the US that has NEVER had an English, versus populum Mass!
(The rumor is, since they are the Sicilian church in the diocese, apparently back when VII happened, the grandmothers there were just like, "no, we're not doing that...") I would like to now dispel the rumor that it is much of a "mixture" of EF/OF.
There was nothing illicit, especially that the priest did as far as I could tell... the only "crossovers" that I noticed were in what the people did:
-knelt at beginning of Mass
-didn't sing pretty much anything (the tiny choir did.)
-servers lifted chasuble
-didn't say "Amen" at communion, the server did. (at the rail)
-knelt for final blessing

A little gem of a church, housed away downtown! I think it seems smaller than it is, being surrounded by those big buildings. But when I was inside and thought about it, I'm sure it's actually larger than St. P! (It just doesnt have as high a ceiling. maybe thats why it seems smaller.) Very gorgeous. If you want to sort through some pictures, you can get an idea of what it looks like from AF- http://picasaweb.google.com/115178373895033328671/DetroitChurchBlog or his whole experience (similar to mine) http://detroitchurchblog.blogspot.com/2010/12/holy-family-greektown.html

2 comments:

AlexB said...

Interesting to hear that they no longer do the hybrid EF (Prayers at the Foot of the Altar/dual Confiteor)/OF (everything after ascending the altar) Mass. It's not a rumor, it's what they did until not that long ago; I've witnessed it many times. Perhaps when their last resident pastor passed away, the visiting priests who took over saying their Masses wouldn't play along.

This was one of the few instances of liturgical abuse in the opposite direction.

Mara Joy said...

Ah, I see. That would make sense.