Spent the weekend with family in Nashville, Tennessee. Two parishes are near their home (when I say near, I mean within a 20 minute drive.) Option 1 is St. Joseph, Option 2 is Our Lady of the Lake.

We were looking at Mass times and looked at the websites of each parish. The opening statement on each website tells you a lot about the parish.

OLOL’s website has this as the opening statement: My vision of a parish is one in which everyone is glad to belong, seeks to know others, reaches out to them and sees our communal worship as a necessary part of our lives. It is a community where no one is isolated or alientated; where all try to follow the example of Christ and accept His command: “Love others as I have loved you”.- Father William Bevington

St. Joseph’s website says: One Body. One Baptism. One Faith. These are the things which define the people of Saint Joseph Parish. Our large crucifix (27 feet) reminds us continually that we are to die to Jesus Christ. The large, opening shroud around it reminds us of the Resurrection and the joy that service to each other and the community brings to us.

Isn’t it interesting how these two statements are in such stark contrast to each other? OLOL’s sounds good, but it could be said of any organization where people hang out together. The attitude of the statement at St. Joseph’s is so much stronger about what defines us. Unless I am reading it wrong, the OLOL statement is more about what the church can do for “me” as opposed to St. Joseph’s is more about what “I” assent to as a member of the church. One speaks to the permanence of Holy Mother Church while the other speaks to the acceptance and belonging aspects (both of which are a part of the Church, but in their proper places.)

I have been to both parishes. It’s been a couple of years since I have been to OLOL. But, I observe that at OLOL, there is contemporary music by a choir that sites to the audience left side of the altar, up front for all to see. The architecture is Vosko-esque, thought I do not know that Vosko was the perpetrator of said architecture. There is no high altar, rather just a plain very nice hardwood wall with the shape of a cross subliminally visible in the gaps between the large wood sections. A “flying Jesus” hangs out over the altar. In other words, no crucifix. The tabernacle is hidden in a tiny chapel off to the side of one of the entrances. My wife and I found it the third time we were there, because we happened to notice the red candle. Eucharist “leftovers” are carted to the tabernacle after the Mass has ended. The whole place has that huge feel of a church almost “in the round” but not quite. No one sits directly behind the altar. The Stations of the Cross on the walls are the “new” sola-scriptura stations. That means Jesus only falls once, and Veronica doesn’t wipe Jesus’ face, and Christs’ body is not placed in Mary’s arms. Why a Catholic Church needs a sola scriptura set of stations I don’t know.

Contrast this with St. Joseph’s – I have never heard so much Latin in a Mass. The Kyrie, Gloria, the Angus Dei, and the Sanctus were were all in Latin. I would have appreciated a song sheet so I could follow along. The crucifix is 27 feet tall, and is arguably “too gory.” I like it. The traditional stations are where they belong. There’s a brand new amazing pipe organ in place, and it resides at the rear, where the choir loft is. The altar sets up a few steps from everything else. Statuary is ubiquitous by today’s standards. The tabernacle is front and center (behind the altar table, of course).

Now, I give you these descriptions simply to wonder aloud, is there any coincidence between any of the observations mentioned here?